Vanessa Dillon's new documentary, COVID Collateral, takes a look at some of the voices that we ve heard from in the past, including those that we've heard from experts like Dr. Jay Batra and Dr. Michael Fauci.
00:01:16.420These are some of the questions that we've asked and answered in the past.
00:01:19.000Vanessa Dillon, in her new documentary, COVID Collateral, examines them again, including speaking to some voices that we've heard from in the past, like Dr. Jay Batra.
00:05:01.420And suddenly this became a conspiracy theory.
00:05:06.820And that to me was the beginning of, wow, this is incredibly political.
00:05:11.120Because the president mentioned something that the New York Times and CNN and medical doctors around the world have been discussing in academic papers and journals.
00:05:21.680Because he mentions it, we suddenly have to discredit it.
00:07:32.360What had happened at the Wuhan lab was that the FBI and medical officials knew that the Wuhan Institute was classified as a level 4 biohazard lab.
00:07:48.560That is the highest level of, let's say, danger in the world.
00:07:55.640But they were functioning, as China will do, because they are rather careless about human beings and human health.
00:08:07.340They were functioning at a level 2, which is like your local dental office.
00:08:12.780Now, the Americans had become so concerned about this, a scientist called Peter Daszak,
00:08:20.840who was responsible for, in a sense, for parceling out the funding to the,
00:08:27.120to the, parceling out the American funding to the different departments at the Wuhan lab.
00:08:34.820He had become so concerned that as early as 2018, he asked for lab leak insurance from the NIH.
00:11:06.940So what they didn't take into account, and he was very honest about this finally, what, what that public health
00:11:14.260mentality did not take into account was the fact that damage from lockdowns can take many, many forms.
00:11:24.660There's the, the, the, the, the, uh, social impacts, uh, drug overdoses, mental health issues.
00:11:32.140We all know that, we all know about all of the bankruptcies, all of the, we know how this, how the lockdowns affected, uh, lower income people to a disproportionate level.
00:11:47.140It, it, the, not just the small business owners who, who, who, who went thanks to, who, who, who lost their livelihood, but there was a whole low income group of people who didn't get paid unless they showed up somewhere to, to, to work.
00:12:14.000Putting limits on them that made them economically unfeasible.
00:12:18.440And, you know, who's working in a restaurant serving you your meal?
00:12:22.360They're not exactly high net worth individuals normally.
00:12:27.060They're, they're, they're people who are younger students on the economic margins and not to localize it too much, but I remember the, uh, public health, uh, officer for the city of Toronto arguing that restaurants needed to be closed.
00:13:20.280And, and, you know, these, the, and, and we had all of the small business owners being, being driven bankrupt while the big box store stayed open.
00:13:29.140So apparently you could catch COVID buying a box of nails at your small local hardware store, but not at Best Buy.
00:13:35.740And we all know that they kept the, the liquor stores open while shutting down churches, shutting down AA meetings, shutting down gyms, everything that kept people healthy.
00:13:46.720And so the, the, the, the big box stores were open, but children were being kept out of school for long periods of time.
00:13:56.560And, you know, I know of a, of a group of parents who were trying to find these underground secret in-person classes for their children, who obviously couldn't learn on, on, online.
00:14:10.160So it, it, it, it, it, it's, it's, it's, it's the catastrophic effects on, on, on, on, on working people.
00:14:19.160I mean, the, the, the, the laptop class, the, the professional class who could work at home with minimal upheaval.
00:14:27.460I mean, they were, you know, I'm not trying to minimize the way it ended people's lives,
00:14:35.160but compared to people who actually had to show up somewhere at a, at a warehouse or, or, or, or stocking shelves, that laptop class got away quite well.
00:14:47.900I'm, I'm, look, I'm in the laptop class and I could work from anywhere and I did.
00:14:54.760I didn't have to show up in an office, but I'd been in that frontline worker class before.
00:15:01.400And having your life twisted up and down, sometimes with minimal notice, just because, uh, I, I would say that there was a huge spike in fear during the pandemic.
00:15:15.880Um, I, I just, I never thought that that was, was fair.
00:15:21.000It just spoke to people like Scott Atlas and, and Jay and, and Roman Baber and others who you interviewed in the documentary.
00:15:28.000Did you learn something new or, or, or were you bringing together things that you already knew, but that you hoped others needed to hear and understand?
00:15:38.360What really shocked me was the statement from some of them that basically the expert class is not to be trusted.
00:15:48.900That, that was kind of, you know, that was a shock for me.
00:15:53.100I am one of those compliant, uh, uh, Canadians who, when they're told, you know, they should be vaccinated, et cetera, et cetera, I lined up like everyone else.
00:16:03.940And I, obviously I shut down like everyone else.
00:16:06.920But what I learned during the course of making this film was that scientists are just as political as anyone else.
00:16:18.440And that, uh, scientists will, um, will sometimes twist information for political reasons.
00:16:29.560And that, um, and, and, and I, I, I, I, I, I, I also learned that, that in my own industry, um, certain films were not being made.
00:16:42.440Certain films about big pharma were never going to see the, the, the light of day simply because a lot of the big broadcasters have got, have got, um, are, are, uh, sponsored by, by, by big, big, uh,
00:17:08.080This is a bit of a departure for you, isn't it?
00:17:10.680Well, in terms of, in, in terms of this being a rather hot and controversial topic, yes.
00:17:18.160I mean, I've made, I've made other films.
00:17:20.340I've made films about, uh, terrorism, uh, you know, brain science films, uh, that, that, that offered up new, new ideas, but nothing this polarizing, certainly.
00:17:36.520Uh, when we come back though, I, I want to talk about the fear that drove so much of this and whether that fear is still there, uh, will people hear the message of your documentary?
00:18:01.140And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection, and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web?