Ghosts of Covid Past: Kristian Andersen to U of Oslo?

Behold the news from Norway: with the lab leak theory gaining traction, experts™ are now divided, thus returning a modicum of debate into public health

As a brief follow-up about the navel-gazing currently ongoing in Norwegian academia and legacy media, here’s more about the possible move of Kristian Andersen, PhD, of the Scripps Institute to Norway.

In case you’re wondering, yes, that’s the very same co-author of the infamous Proximal Origins of Sars-CoV-2 paper from 2020.

Translation, emphases, and [snark] mine.

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Working to Bring Top Danish Scientist to Norway from the US

The Danish scientist made a name for himself when he concluded that the pandemic had its origins in the animal kingdom.

By Espen Halvorsen Bjørgan and Mats Arnesen, Khrono.no, 18 June 2025 [source; archived]

An early uncertainty about whether the coronavirus came from a laboratory or an animal ended with Kristian Andersen having to appear at a hearing before the American Corona Committee in 2023. Now the centre he works for is losing support, and the doctor himself may end up in Norway. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/NTB scanpix

‘I would like to see him come to the University of Oslo, and he is also interested in coming here. I know that he is considering at least two major universities in Norway, and we are one of them’, says Nils Chr. Stenseth, Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Oslo [Andersen is doing so because his workplace has lost funding; the reason he’s ‘considering at least two’ places here is—wages are comparatively low, hence the need to ‘negotiate’ a good deal].

The person Stenseth is referring to is Kristian Andersen, originally from Denmark, now employed as a professor at the Scripps Research Institute in the USA, where he has researched the coronavirus, among other things [faculty profile; lab website].

The reason why the move may be relevant is the cuts in the US research council NIH (National Institutes of Health), which in turn funds Andersen’s research [Prof. Andersen would be hard-pressed to integrate in Norway: the differences to US institutions are quite big].

Andersen Must be Held Accountable in the US

However, not everyone is as enthusiastic about the fact that the recognised researcher is now being recruited to Norway [that means whatever university/institution is doing so, they are considering giving Andersen a much better deal than everybody else got—which is a bad thing in a more equity-driven society, such as Norway].

Nettavisen recently wrote about a lecture Andersen gave in Oslo in the autumn, where a lot of time was spent on the statements of Sigrid Bratlie, who sat in the audience during the lecture [that is an ongoing, quite fun, if totally fake, debate™: basically, Ms. Bratlie wrote a book (Mysteriet i Wuhan, trans. ‘Mystery in Wuhan’) last year, offered an apology, and sided with what legacy media here calls ‘the Trump theory’, i.e., the lab leak proposition; she was treated accordingly by many experts™, although the Institute of Public Health’s Preben Aavitsland called a lab leak ‘plausible’],

Bratlie, who is a senior advisor at the think tank Langsikt [trans. ‘long-term’], had at the time on several occasions criticised Andersen’s research and argued that the virus did not come from a market, but from a leak from a laboratory.

‘It was a facilitated personal attack. I was both labelled an anti-science conspiracy theorist and almost accused of contributing to death threats against him’, Bratlie told the newspaper [that’s from the above-linked piece, which is quite wild; what’s also very wild is that the entire debate™ is fake as Bratlie is quite beloved by legacy media, is showered with media attention, and—all of a sudden, no-one is talking about anything else but the false binary of zoonotic vs. man-made origins while the modRNA poison/death juices are nowhere to be seen or heard of…quelle surprise].

While she had gone from denying to advocating the leakage theory, Andersen is known for being the first to reject the lab leak theory at the start of the pandemic.

That notwithstanding: leaked communications between Andersen and his colleagues showed that at an early stage he didn’t feel completely confident that they could dismiss the idea that a lab leak had occurred, giving credence to those who believe in the theory that the virus comes from human hands and not a bat [this is so old-school, it’s so absurd as these emails between Fauci, Andersen, Drosten, Farrar et al. first appeared in 2022, if memory serves: none of the media pieces here is new; instead, we note that there’s no more room for literally anything else].

[Bratlie] Thinks [Andersen] Covered Up the Origin

Bratlie tells Khrono that she thinks it would be problematic if someone accused of misinforming US intelligence were allowed to seek refuge in Norway [this is the give-away, both in terms of stupidity on part of Ms. Bratlie—who else has ‘misinformed’ US intel services (and, let’s not mince words here, Ms. Bratlie would, logically, be fine with Andersen if the intel was correct)—and the absolute obedience to the narrative on part of both Andersen and Bratlie]:

I’m critical of how science is used for political reasons [that’s actually true; once Trump got into office again, the White House changed the website—and now Ms. Bratlie, among others, are sure the US gov’t is telling the truth: gimme a break], and I think it would be stupid if Norwegian academia were used in the same spirit by protecting someone who should be held accountable [this is actually a really bad idea: science is about figuring out if your hypothesis is correct (or not), and if you’re no longer permitted to do that scientifically, there’s little in terms of political or other control that will be off the books].

If it’s true that Andersen, among other things, has misinformed US intelligence, then it should be handled according to democratic principles [nope; the judiciary would have to figure out if Andersen broke the law; and then there’s the seemingly inevitable, virtue-signalling stupidity of calling Mr. Trump names (whatever one thinks of his style)]. And the basic democratic principles apply, even if there are some challenges in the US right now.

Bratlie also believes that Andersen has helped to cover up the origins of the pandemic [now, that would be the main aspect, provided anyone is actually interested in any kind of accountability].

Khrono has been unable to make contact with the protagonist himself, Kristian Andersen [lol, why would he answer them?].

When asked what he thinks of Bratlie’s criticism of Andersen, Stenseth, the professor who is trying to get Andersen to the capital, responds as follows:

I don't have any comment on it other than that what she writes and says about Andersen and the pandemic is full of errors. The facts here are that Kristian Andersen has an excellent track record with a solid understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic [note the Science™ closing ranks: professors among themselves are telling non-professors (Ms. Bratlie has a PhD in microbiology but doesn’t work at a university) that they don’t know shit].

Informal Discussions

Stenseth describes Andersen as an excellent researcher at the very top of his field internationally, and says that there are discussions both at the faculty and elsewhere about how to create a position for him [that will surely piss off quite a few Norwegians who are trying to get such a position]:

These are informal discussions at the moment, but they are real and concrete.

[Khrono] Can you say anything about their content?

No, I’m just an ordinary researcher who wants to help establish good academic environments, including at UiO. Our pandemic centre could be a place where he would fit in brilliantly.

Rector of the University of Oslo, Svein Stølen, says he is aware of Andersen, but that there are no plans to employ him:

In that case, it would basically be an ordinary process where we advertise a position that he applies for [basically, high-riding US-based Andersen would have to do like everybody else: care to guess what are the odds he’s doing that? It also shows that if Andersen goes to Norway, it would be due to quite telling shenanigans, whatever his merits (or not)].

Khrono has not been able to get a comment from either the dean or vice-dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at UiO.

Give it Six Months

Stenseth explains that they are working with a time horizon of about six months to find out what kind of offer the university might make to Andersen, and that they will not be applying for any of the NOK 100 million the minister allocated for this purpose through the Research Council of Norway.

‘He [Andersen] doesn’t fit into that programme. What we will be able to work towards is an ERC application, but this must include some guarantees of a permanent job and support from, for example, some postdocs,’ explains the UiO professor.

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Bottom Lines: Public Health Turn-Around?

What a buffoonery, isn’t it?

Setting aside the quite bad level of (mis)information, we do get a few insights: legacy media and the gatekeepers in academia are, once more, closing ranks.

While the appearance of a kind of debate™ might trick (fool) some of those who became a tad suspicious of official policies, a different view (which I hold) is this: in late 2024/25, parts of the establishment’s lackeys give a bit of credence to the lab leak theory (first proposed formally two years ago, as per his testimony to the US Congress).

In so doing, there’s little, if any new insights to be gained. It’s all politicised kabuki theatre, with all the accoutrements reeking of stupidity, even though some of the nonsense is clearly quite…telling.

Andersen came to Oslo earlier this spring and gave a talk, Bratlie was there—and there was a bit of a back-and-forth between these two; while the latter claimed that Andersen mainly attacked her during his talk, here’s what pro-vaxx expert™ Gunnveig Grødeland told Nettavisen:

There wasn't a single person in the audience who didn't realise what Andersen meant about Bratlie. I was put off, because it wasn’t a normal way of presenting research material.

A bit further down, here’s a bit more from Andersen re the lab leak stuff:

The theory is that Dr Anthony Fauci had a preferred narrative—that the virus had a natural origin. And that he then got a group of internationally recognised scientists to write an article to destroy the lab leak theory. ‘This is not true,’ Andersen said in October last year…

[Andersen] ‘It’s actually completely absurd. To be accused of being part of some kind of obscure cover-up with the US authorities. As if they have power over international researchers from the UK, France, Australia…But there it is, in one of the most widely read newspapers in Norway. As if it were a fact. It’s quite interesting.’.

Initially, he thought that the virus had been deliberately manipulated in the laboratory, he says, but that he quickly dismissed this. For a while, however, he continued to believe that the virus could have been cultivated in the laboratory.

More word games, yet, there’s someone else who’s saying stuff—Preben Aavitsland, Norway’s chief epidemiologist (in terms of public policy):

He praises Bratlie for bringing the debate about the origin of the coronavirus to Norway.

‘It was unfortunate that a small group of researchers felt justified in publishing something that appeared to be conclusive as early as 2020, while there was still a great deal of uncertainty about the origin of the virus. At the time, I chose to trust these reputable researchers, but I regret that’, he tells Nettavisen [that, dear readers, is what I consider the big story here].

[Nettavisen] Do you consider the latent leakage theory to be a plausible theory for the origin of the coronavirus?

[Aavitsland] Yes, in my view it’s at least as plausible as the virus having a natural origin [let that sink in].

Grødeland, on the other hand, thinks it will take time before the truth about the origin of the coronavirus is known.

‘I’m on the fence and sitting comfortably here. There are too many strange coincidences and questions for me to think we can ignore them. At the same time, most publications are clear that there may be, or most likely is, a natural origin’, she explains to Nettavisen.

Of course Grødeland does so, and I think it’s because she’s working on new vaccines…

So, basically, Covid split the expert™ community, which is the best thing that could’ve happened: now we get at least two high-brow, quasi-official positions where there was but one before.

If there’s anything somewhat at least not negative to come out of Covid, it might be just that.