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US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

reuters.com

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Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#181

Post by Amezarak »

btilly wrote: post #163
getpolarized wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we / did we even have the tech co be able to build this in a lab? I don't think we do. It MIGHT have been possible but Occam's Razor says it's more plausible it evolved naturally and just jumped species. FAR FAR FAR more plausible.

Do we / did we even have the tech co be able to build this in a lab? I don't think we do. A random virus, no. This one, we do. We can't build a virus from scratch. But we can combine pieces of different viruses to build a new one. The same thing also happens naturally when an animal is sick with 2 viruses at once. If both get into the same cell, you get various mixes created and sometimes a mixture will turn out to b…

I think what makes the Wuhan lab particularly suspicious is that the lab was specifically doing work on the closest known ancestor to the COVID-19 virus, which as far as we know was only found naturally in bat caves more than a thousand miles away.

I would discount the possibility that this was bioweapons research - the US was funding serial passage and gain-of-function research at this lab, of which the express purpose is to make viruses more infectious in different species, including humans.

At any rate, I don't think we can expect anything to be definitively proven. It is absolutely possible that this came out of the wild. But as the NY Magazine "Lab Leak" article illustrates, we should probably be open to the idea it came out of a lab. I also think we should reconsider whether or not serial-passage and gain-of-function research is something that can be ethically conducted. Anywhere.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#182

Post by OminousWeapons »

xxpor wrote: post #178
OminousWeapons wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are working with what they have, which comes from governments and governmental health agencies. Their problem is not that their data is bad. Their problem is that they are acting like a political entity when they are supposed to be an impartial, data driven, scientific organization. For example, the WHO railed against common sense risk mitigation strategies such as travel restrictions (i.e. isolate China) earl…

Maybe the US shouldn't have abandoned our leadership position then. Ofc China would fill that vacuum given the opportunity.

Changing the political entity the WHO is beholden to doesn't solve the problem.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#183

Post by SllX »

Udik wrote: post #98
ttz wrote: post #53

First gen Chinese, grew up in NA. Have contact with relatives "on the ground". My own experience: Don't ever trust the Chinese government on issues that could potentially involve the reputation of the party. Note that I'm not saying don't trust what CCP says, ever (sometimes they actually do good things) - just not on issues that involve anything to do with how the world might perceive them. Which is exactly what thi…

> Don't ever trust the Chinese government on issues that could potentially involve the reputation of the party Seems this holds true for every government and party.

Most governments and political parties are not capable of or willing to exercise the same information controls that the CCP does. That doesn’t make them trustworthy, but it does make it easier to 1. Check their bullshit 2. Discuss their bullshit freely and 3. Call them out on their bullshit without being disappeared, only to turn up later and sign false confessions/apologies/whatever the Party tells you to.

Having separate and distinct parties and competitive elections also puts parties in the position of doing this to each other using the levers of power available to them.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#184

Post by ern »

jeswin wrote: post #39
endisneigh wrote: post #21

Forgive my ignorance but even if it was lab created, so what? I don’t really understand why it matters or not. Didn’t the entire world basically have a nearly 3 month heads up on this either way?

That depends. Most countries have ratified the biological weapons treaty. If proven to be lab created, the onus will be on them/whoever to prove that this was not part of a weaponization effort. Not to mention, instant loss of goodwill across the world. Personally, I think the idea of this being lab created by China is far fetched.

I suspect that it’s simpler than that. Having it accidentally leak out of a lab facility where it was being studied for legitimate scientific reasons would still be humiliating, and devastating to Chin’s soft-power.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#185

Post by christkv »

Frost1x wrote: post #92
endisneigh wrote: post #21

Forgive my ignorance but even if it was lab created, so what? I don’t really understand why it matters or not. Didn’t the entire world basically have a nearly 3 month heads up on this either way?

If it was lab created then you know some group intentionally or through their negligence caused millions and millions of people to die. They won't be held accountable unless China itself would decide to do so (assuming in this hypothetical that it was created by China of course). If it was being developed as a biological weapon you would tend to assume there's likely progress on how to defend against it by those who…

I would think that if you wanted to create a bio weapon then this virus is perfect. Not super lethal but crates a high level of chaos and economic damage. An economical warfare big

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#186

Post by SurfingToad »

kergonath wrote: post #59
renewiltord wrote: post #5

The WHO is a useless organization. For political reasons, it will be necessary to engage, but hopefully US authorities will not treat it as an information source. The US should use its own primary sources in future to evaluate disease spread. China will lie to the WHO and the WHO will protect it. But to know the truth, we should use our modern equivalents of Key Hole. There is no truth but that which you have examine…

There is no winning with you... Of course it cannot be too powerful, because then nationalists would scream bloody murder and refuse to have anything to do with it. The WHO is a forum to coordinate strategy and exchange information. Obviously, this requires a minimum of good faith, which seems to be difficult for some countries (yes, particularly dictatorships). But even then, it is better to have them within, collab…

WHO does seem like a bureaucratic mess, though. I read their situation reports from the beginning of the pandemic, and was surprised by how often they messed up. Links were wrong, random files went down, and they were released at seemingly random time points. Their press conferences were often hours late. And Tedros Adhanom praised China to an honestly embarrassing extent.

Before the pandemic, I thought the WHO was a relatively capable organization. But from what I witnessed they just seem like a prestige farm used as a stepping stone to more lucrative careers.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#187

Post by MrYellowP »

renewiltord wrote: post #112
the8472 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If the Western world would have done what the WHO advised at the time, we all more or less would have a COVID stuation like the Chinese have for some time. > Mask early Are we living in the same timeline? https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1243972193169616898 https://twitter.com/UNGeneva/status/1244661916535930886 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1234095938555260929 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1234871709091667969 htt…

Thank you for putting this stuff together. In the past, I did the same when people asked for "source?" for things like "Fauci and the HHS recommended against masking". After I go through the painful process of reacquiring each of the sources, these people disappear. "Source?" is now the dual of the Gish Gallop strategy. It is a meta-rhetorical strategy to amplify work done by some perceived "opponent". After all, for…

> they disappear

https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360001513491-Save...

:)

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#188

Post by powerapple »

ttz wrote: post #53

First gen Chinese, grew up in NA. Have contact with relatives "on the ground". My own experience: Don't ever trust the Chinese government on issues that could potentially involve the reputation of the party. Note that I'm not saying don't trust what CCP says, ever (sometimes they actually do good things) - just not on issues that involve anything to do with how the world might perceive them. Which is exactly what thi…

CCP has 90 million members. They have more opportunities because government jobs would favor CCP members. They also have responsibilities, when they are called when incidents, such as flood, and covid 19 incidents. Dr. Li Wenliang is a CCP member as well.

If you ask people from any developing countries, they would express the same attitude (as you do for CCP) towards their own government. The reason is that the officials and way of work is stuck behind current standard, and that's why it is called developing country.

Personally I don't care too much about if it was a lab virus or something else, it becomes all political. Could it be better? I don't think so. If it was developed in a bio-weapon lab, China would have handled it well because it would be prepared.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#189

Post by alisonatwork »

elif wrote: post #140
alisonatwork wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this a really fascinating instance of micro-propaganda. CCP could evoke associations with "CCCP", but CPC might remind Americans of the Congressional Progressive Caucus or Canadians of the Conservative Party of Canada. It could be that neither acronym is especially neutral, not after surfacing the accusation that using one is implicitly biased. I have to admit to having used both acronyms in the past, but it w…

It is not "my choice" of a three letter acronym. It is the party's choice for its English language representation. I'm not making any political statements here. I am suggesting that we use common nomenclature while pointing out a hazard of a specific instance of dated terminology.

I think you misunderstood my usage of "your choice". I was using it as an indefinite pronoun, i.e. "one's choice".

My point was that turning one's choice of synonymous terminology into a marker of political bias is itself an interesting comment on how difficult it is for people to engage in curious discussion about China. Given that at HN we are expected to assume good faith, I think it's fair to assume that most people who use CCP (or CPC) are not deliberately trying to take a side, they are just using a convenient acronym.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#190

Post by IIAOPSW »

ttz wrote: post #53

First gen Chinese, grew up in NA. Have contact with relatives "on the ground". My own experience: Don't ever trust the Chinese government on issues that could potentially involve the reputation of the party. Note that I'm not saying don't trust what CCP says, ever (sometimes they actually do good things) - just not on issues that involve anything to do with how the world might perceive them. Which is exactly what thi…

I just assume the ccp default mode is to cover up, even when there is nothing to cover up. When legitimacy derives from competence rather than from election, you better never have any high profile incompetence.
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