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Covid-19 miscellany

DrZoidberg said:
We don't have the technology yet to create an artificial virus to look exactly like a bat virus. Every technology we have to artificially manipulate viruses would give traces easy enough for any geneticist to identify. We have none of that.

China's lack of transparency isn't any more evidence of a lab escape than our inability to see God is evidence of that God works in mysterious ways.

It could have been in circulation outside of bats for hundreds of years in a variety of species before it came to pangolins and then humans. The source bat population could have gone extinct long ago.

I call complete bullshit on this story. It's the weaving of a narrative based on pure speculation.

It's click bait IMHO.
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The issue is not whether it was deliberately made. There is no question that it isn't.

The question is whether they were studying it and weren't careful enough.

I think that's unlikely, though--we have 6 cases of a deadly Covid-like illness in 2012 in the area but no onward transmission. We have suspicion of something Covid-like spreading in Wuhan in Sept/Oct 2019.

The scenario that makes the most sense is that there's something that lives in bats and doesn't infect humans. A variant happened that could infect humans but didn't transmit very well. 2012 was the result. Remember, the dose plays a big factor in how dangerous Covid is and the victims in 2012 likely got a high dose. Most encounters would be with a minimal dose (how much time do people usually spend near bats?) and could easily fly under the radar. Then a variant happens in Wuhan that made it somewhat transmissible but the R0 wasn't too far above 1. Talk of a new pneumonia but not enough cases for any given doctor to see a pattern. Then another variant that was more transmissible--and now individual doctors see enough patients to see a pattern and the alarm gets sounded. The local government does what they usually do--tries to hush it up, but Beijing realizes the truth. They act and the rest of the world sticks their fingers in their ears.
 
I wonder if he toughed it out in a macho way when he first got sick and then got a doctor who was not on top of effective treatment.
 
Article

Here's an article on that guy. He was a deputy at a prison where they've had an outbreak for over a year. Over 1200 got covid. They refuse to mandate vaccines.
 
Interesting;

An explosive new study claims that Chinese scientists created COVID-19 in a Wuhan lab, then tried to cover their tracks by reverse-engineering versions of the virus to make it look like it evolved naturally from bats. The paper's authors, British Professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sørensen, wrote that they have had 'prima facie evidence of retro-engineering in China' for a year - but were ignored by academics and major journals.
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DailyMail
 
That is all fine.

But when the virus hit the US we had a president who deliberately lied and downplayed the danger. He is on tape admitting it and not understanding the problem with downplaying a real danger.

Killing people by making a bad situation worse by lying about the danger is still murder.

We can do something about Trump.

Doing something about the Chinese is trickier.
 
TSwizzle said:
Interesting;

An explosive new study claims that Chinese scientists created COVID-19 in a Wuhan lab, then tried to cover their tracks by reverse-engineering versions of the virus to make it look like it evolved naturally from bats. The paper's authors, British Professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sørensen, wrote that they have had 'prima facie evidence of retro-engineering in China' for a year - but were ignored by academics and major journals.
Click to expand...

DailyMail
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Why would you believe any of that? Don't be a sap.
 
blastula said:
TSwizzle said:
Interesting;

An explosive new study claims that Chinese scientists created COVID-19 in a Wuhan lab, then tried to cover their tracks by reverse-engineering versions of the virus to make it look like it evolved naturally from bats. The paper's authors, British Professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sørensen, wrote that they have had 'prima facie evidence of retro-engineering in China' for a year - but were ignored by academics and major journals.
Click to expand...

DailyMail
Click to expand...

Why would you believe any of that? Don't be a sap.
Click to expand...

The words 'DailyMail' are all you need to know that it's likely to be pure bullshit.
 
blastula said:
TSwizzle said:
Interesting;

An explosive new study claims that Chinese scientists created COVID-19 in a Wuhan lab, then tried to cover their tracks by reverse-engineering versions of the virus to make it look like it evolved naturally from bats. The paper's authors, British Professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sørensen, wrote that they have had 'prima facie evidence of retro-engineering in China' for a year - but were ignored by academics and major journals.
Click to expand...

DailyMail
Click to expand...

Why would you believe any of that? Don't be a sap.
Click to expand...

I never said I believed it. But why should I disbelieve it, just because you don’t like the DM ?
 
Those guys own [stock in] a company that is manufacturing a vaccine. IMO, in order to break through the market barrier, they are making claims that their vaccine specializes in working against a manufactured virus. This will allow them to tap into the manufactured-virus crowd that is more likely to have not received the vaccine and more likely to trust them than their competitors.

The last paper from these guys was made into a press release a year ago at Immunor AS. This makes me wonder if the press releases correspond to internal corporate milestones.
 
There is no contradiction between the bat theory and the lab theory. The virologists at that lab could have been working with some bat virus.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
DrZoidberg said:
We don't have the technology yet to create an artificial virus to look exactly like a bat virus. Every technology we have to artificially manipulate viruses would give traces easy enough for any geneticist to identify. We have none of that.

China's lack of transparency isn't any more evidence of a lab escape than our inability to see God is evidence of that God works in mysterious ways.

It could have been in circulation outside of bats for hundreds of years in a variety of species before it came to pangolins and then humans. The source bat population could have gone extinct long ago.

I call complete bullshit on this story. It's the weaving of a narrative based on pure speculation.

It's click bait IMHO.
Click to expand...

The issue is not whether it was deliberately made. There is no question that it isn't.

The question is whether they were studying it and weren't careful enough.

I think that's unlikely, though--we have 6 cases of a deadly Covid-like illness in 2012 in the area but no onward transmission. We have suspicion of something Covid-like spreading in Wuhan in Sept/Oct 2019.

The scenario that makes the most sense is that there's something that lives in bats and doesn't infect humans. A variant happened that could infect humans but didn't transmit very well. 2012 was the result. Remember, the dose plays a big factor in how dangerous Covid is and the victims in 2012 likely got a high dose. Most encounters would be with a minimal dose (how much time do people usually spend near bats?) and could easily fly under the radar. Then a variant happens in Wuhan that made it somewhat transmissible but the R0 wasn't too far above 1. Talk of a new pneumonia but not enough cases for any given doctor to see a pattern. Then another variant that was more transmissible--and now individual doctors see enough patients to see a pattern and the alarm gets sounded. The local government does what they usually do--tries to hush it up, but Beijing realizes the truth. They act and the rest of the world sticks their fingers in their ears.
Click to expand...

OK, fine. But then what's the story? If that's the drama then it's not a problem. They wouldn't have known what they had until after it went wild anyway
 
Didn’t Fauci and others say a year ago that there was strong evidence that the virus couldn’t have been a lab virus? What happened to that evidence?
 
Shadowy Man said:
Didn’t Fauci and others say a year ago that there was strong evidence that the virus couldn’t have been a lab virus? What happened to that evidence?
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That evidence was about virus purposefully edited using known gene manipulation techniques.
Chinese could have had natural evolution in the lab, or simply kept some rare shit they found in the wild which nobody else managed to find.
 
repoman said:
I wonder if he toughed it out in a macho way when he first got sick and then got a doctor who was not on top of effective treatment.
Click to expand...

You're making the assumption there was effective treatment. The level of exposure makes a big difference in how bad a case you get. Get exposed heavily enough and you're probably going to die, period.

TSwizzle said:
Interesting;

An explosive new study claims that Chinese scientists created COVID-19 in a Wuhan lab, then tried to cover their tracks by reverse-engineering versions of the virus to make it look like it evolved naturally from bats. The paper's authors, British Professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sørensen, wrote that they have had 'prima facie evidence of retro-engineering in China' for a year - but were ignored by academics and major journals.
Click to expand...

DailyMail
Click to expand...

Daily Fail. It doesn't need rebutting.

Shadowy Man said:
Didn’t Fauci and others say a year ago that there was strong evidence that the virus couldn’t have been a lab virus? What happened to that evidence?
Click to expand...

The problem here is what "lab virus" means.

What he was saying then is that it's not something engineered by a lab. This is not some bioweapon.

That does not address whether it was a natural virus being studied and somebody got careless. China is all about cutting corners and you don't want cut corners in a level 4 lab! This scenario is basically impossible to disprove, but it's also almost certain that if it did happen it can't be proven, either.

Given the time frame between the first signs of exposure and Beijing going "Oh, shit!" I find it unlikely, though.

Furthermore, those first signs of exposure didn't blow up--it must have been a different version with a lower R0. What blew up Wuhan looks to be a variant--by the time China was in a position to look in earnest the true base version was probably gone. (Like the Wuhan version is now gone--the common ancestor of what's rampaging around the world is the European variant of Covid.)
 
TV and credit cards said:
"Protesting against a virus is not going to work." -Health Minister Martin Foley

Australia has struggled with a slow vaccine roll out and rising vaccine hesitancy because of the country's success in virtually eliminating the virus.
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Y'all were such good little soldiers when it came to preventing the spread of the virus but now when it's time to get your shot you're kicking and screaming about it.
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Not so much. While there are pockets of anti-vax idiots (such as the Northern Rivers region of NSW), the majority of Australians are not opposed to getting vaccinated. But the federal government has done an utterly woeful job of the rollout, and nobody knows who's eligible, where to go to get their shots, or when they can and/or should go to get them.

The federal government here couldn't organise a chook raffle, in stark contrast to the state governments that have done so well in preventing widespread outbreaks of Covid. Melbourne has been particularly hard hit, and has had to lockdown repeatedly; Victorians are understandably pissed off that yet another lockdown has been necessary, particularly as by now the vaccination program should have rendered it unnecessary.

The complete absence of urgency from Canberra on this seems to be due in large part to our Prime Minister being a fucking moron. Though it's also possible that he just doesn't give a crap, or it may be a combination of both of these factors.
 
Huge anti vaccine passport/lockdown protest in London yesterday. Barely covered by the legacy media of course. The New York Times stating there were “hundreds” of protesters when in actual fact there were many thousands.
 
TSwizzle said:
Huge anti vaccine passport/lockdown protest in London yesterday. Barely covered by the legacy media of course. The New York Times stating there were “hundreds” of protesters when in actual fact there were many thousands.
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"Huge".

In February 2003, around a million people marched in London to protest against the invasion of Iraq. A million. Just in London - with far more in other cities around the UK.

A few thousand people in London is a non-event. It's the sort of crowd you get for a fourth-rank soccer game mid-season.
 
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