🇷🇺 The Russia plague story is serious, but the internet may be getting way ahead of the evidence. Robert Malone has looked closely at reports of a possible pneumonic plague incident near Irkutsk. And his first conclusion is important: “Calling it an outbreak at this point is a

🇷🇺 The Russia plague story is serious, but the internet may be getting way ahead of the evidence. Robert Malone has looked closely at reports of a possible pneumonic plague incident near Irkutsk. And his first conclusion is important: “Calling it an outbreak at this point is a little premature.” According to the information Malone reviewed, a laboratory worker in her twenties appears to have been accidentally infected while working with Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague. She later died after several days in medical care, potentially exposing others. Malone says roughly 200 hospital workers have reportedly been quarantined. That sounds terrifying. But he thinks the evidence currently points much more strongly toward a laboratory accident than a biological weapons event. There are still things he wants explained. Was the researcher vaccinated? Why did someone known to work with plague not receive appropriate antibiotics sooner? And most importantly, what does sequencing show about the strain? “The honest truth is, no, we don't” know whether it was natural or engineered, Malone says. He says the U.S. State Department is seeking more information from Russia and has not yet received a response. But Malone also sees something reassuring. So far, he says Russia appears to be doing what should happen after a suspected exposure: contact tracing, quarantine and containment. He sees no evidence yet of coordinated suppression or disinformation that would make him substantially more suspicious. Plague is also treatable with antibiotics and considerably harder to transmit than the word itself tends to suggest. So Malone’s message is basically the opposite of the internet’s instinct whenever Russia, laboratory and plague appear in the same sentence: Watch it carefully. But don’t manufacture the apocalypse before the evidence arrives. “The biggest thing you have to fear is fear itself at this moment. It's not pneumonic plague.” @RWMaloneMD