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Ensuring a transparent, thorough investigation of Covid-19’s origin

state.gov

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Re: Ensuring a transparent, thorough investigation of Covid-19’s origin

#31

Post by rllearneratwork »

SlipperySlope wrote: post #4

The new part is the assertion that lab researchers got sick in the fall of 2019. This is consistent with evidence of the virus in Italy in the same time period. Due to the large number of Chinese working in Italy, there was a direct flight between Italy and Wuhan at the time. The new Biden administration has no reason to cover this up further, due to the obvious danger that another pandemic results from a lab acciden…

"leaked from lab" claim absolutely does not imply "designer". The virus could have been natural, collected for study (possibly in animal) by a lab which studies such viruses and still leaked via an accident (unexpected human transmission).

To prove that it is "designer virus", additional, different kind of evidence is needed.

Re: Ensuring a transparent, thorough investigation of Covid-19’s origin

#32

Post by geofft »

SlipperySlope wrote: post #4

The new part is the assertion that lab researchers got sick in the fall of 2019. This is consistent with evidence of the virus in Italy in the same time period. Due to the large number of Chinese working in Italy, there was a direct flight between Italy and Wuhan at the time. The new Biden administration has no reason to cover this up further, due to the obvious danger that another pandemic results from a lab acciden…

> The new Biden administration has no reason to cover this up further, due to the obvious danger that another pandemic results from a lab accident involving designer lethal virus.

This is true - but the implication, then, is that if they don't follow through with it, it is most likely to be because they don't feel the evidence is strong enough for it, as opposed to that they do believe it and are inexplicably covering it up.

Re: Ensuring a transparent, thorough investigation of Covid-19’s origin

#33

Post by mhh__ »

themark wrote: post #30

People should consider this claim with the same scrutiny as the claim that Russia was behind SolarWinds.

I do find it slightly bizarre that on HN, a website run by ycombinator i.e. Americana, seemingly the Russians always get the benefit of the doubt. Similarly with the President actually. The politics here is quite hard to characterise.

Re: Ensuring a transparent, thorough investigation of Covid-19’s origin

#34

Post by geofft »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #13
bredren wrote: post #2

The State Department does not have the credibility to make statements like this right now.

I know how fashionable it is to shit on the USA, at least for another week. But you are implying the CCP does have credibility in their claims this is not true? What advantage do you think the state dept has to put this out if it is not true? The new admin can walk it back in 1/2 a second if that’s the case.

Note that Pompeo is also alleging a link between Iran and al-Qaeda (see the https://www.state.gov home page, for instance), which is another "extraordinary claim" - nobody has been seriously worried about al-Qaeda in a long while, and Iran has not been historically aligned with them.

If Pompeo is running for president in 2024, a war with Iran will benefit him in much the same way the war with Iraq (which was based on untrue claims) benefited Bush. It's in his interest (both in the sense of a personal interest and in the sense of consistent with his neoconservative / hawkish beliefs, which are much stronger than Trump's) to sour the relationship with Iran and also to prepare the American people for the idea that we should be going to war with them.

Re: Ensuring a transparent, thorough investigation of Covid-19’s origin

#35

Post by inakarmacoma »

dudeinjapan wrote: post #25
fasteddie31003 wrote: post #9

Great claims require great evidence

Absolutely. The great claim that SARS-Cov-2 has a zoonotic origin requires evidence of an animal with a virus similar to SARS-Cov-2. Unlike SARS-1 and MERS, we have not yet found such an animal.

Wouldn't minks fit your requirement here?

Re: Ensuring a transparent, thorough investigation of Covid-19’s origin

#36

Post by mhh__ »

bredren wrote: post #2

The State Department does not have the credibility to make statements like this right now.

This one obviously has a result in mind (i.e. Trump almost definitely believes his own rhetoric if Tillerson's statements are anything to by), but if they end up publishing a properly weighty document like the Mueller report I will take it seriously.

Re: Ensuring a transparent, thorough investigation of Covid-19’s origin

#37

Post by et-al »

raphlinus wrote: post #20

I like Carl Bergstrom's take on this: I have reason to believe that if the outgoing administration claims to have reason to believe something but refuses to provide the evidence behind it, they are lying. https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1350292056782954498 Here's a very serious, legitimate review of the possible origins of SARS-CoV-2: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01205-5 Unfortunately, from my e…

And keep in mind last week Mike Pompous of the State Department released a memo on forming a closer relationship with Taiwan [0].

The Trump administration is stoking the flames against the mainland China on their way out.

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25706155

Re: Ensuring a transparent, thorough investigation of Covid-19’s origin

#38

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

At the end of December 2019, A friend had a layover in the business lounge in Seattle on a return flight from Europe to San Francisco. At the same time, a direct flight from Wuhan came in. He spent 3 hours in the lounge waiting for the flight to SFO, ate at the buffet.

A few days later, he said he became deathly sick. Fever, coughing, and said he felt like he was going to die. His wife became very sick shortly after his illness began, and his 8 year old son as well. His symptoms did not completely clear up for him for a month. His wife was seeing one specialist after another for months with after-effects. His son got through it in 3 days.

All of this was before the first cases was officially reported by the CDC as diagnosed in Seattle on January 20th.

My friend's doctors did not know what they were dealing with at the time and did not test for COVID. After COVID became known, he looked into anti body tests. They were expensive ($700+ at that time) and he did not have one.

Re: Ensuring a transparent, thorough investigation of Covid-19’s origin

#39

Post by saagarjha »

mhh__ wrote: post #33
themark wrote: post #30

People should consider this claim with the same scrutiny as the claim that Russia was behind SolarWinds.

I do find it slightly bizarre that on HN, a website run by ycombinator i.e. Americana, seemingly the Russians always get the benefit of the doubt. Similarly with the President actually. The politics here is quite hard to characterise.

Hacker News is a diverse website. It’s more than people who just go “China bad” and “Russia bad”.

Re: Ensuring a transparent, thorough investigation of Covid-19’s origin

#40

Post by throwarayes »

I’m trying to piece together how any of this makes sense.

The implication is that Covid was a biological weapon accidentally released? Wouldn’t this be a pretty idiotic biological weapon? An especially bad one for a heavily urbanized country to release? Not to mention the main outcome of this “weapon” would be hurt China’s top importers?

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