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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

#201

Post by mgamache »

justnotworthit wrote: post #198
loveistheanswer wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also noteworthy is Dr. Fauci has been a long time proponent and sponsor of gain of function experiments as head of the NIAID, the infectious diseases arm of the NIH.[1] After a few different US lab leaks involving anthrax, smallpox, and avian flu in 2014 the Obama administration put a ban on the fuding of gain of function research.[2] The ban was eventually overturned in 2018.[3] [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/op…

I don't get why supporters of GoF experiments with CoV in Wuhan aren't shouting from the rooftops that (1) They were right to predict the danger of a CoV originating from that area of the world and that (2) their research, years in the making, is thankfully (despite opposition's cries of danger) here to protect us. Instead, I can't find anything about the latest years of their research.

good point. the silence is deafening. They should be lobbying for more money...

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

#202

Post by [deleted] »

edmundsauto wrote: post #87
mamon wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about [1]? Corrupt organizaiton's loyalties typically lie with those who sponsor it. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-pled...

This is a particularly generic bit of evidence, based on cynicism with a bit of directional truth about incentives. Do you have anything that draws this connection more directly?

[deleted]

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

#203

Post by elif »

alisonatwork wrote: post #189
elif wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peo…

Consider that the scope of discussion here is that a WHO scientist received a summary of 174 covid cases rather than a full version of the data, and himself "couldn't comment. Whether it's political or time or it's difficult... But whether there are any other reasons why the data isn't available, I don't know. One would only speculate."

Yet the comment I sacrificed Karma to inform of "potentially unconscious bias of language" was willing to offer nothing more than postulation that a political party is responsible for "hiding the data", and the repetition of the CCP identification.

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

#204

Post by cbnotfromthere »

Supermancho wrote: post #46
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?

You are correct. It makes no difference. This has been an exercise in "bad things will happen" used to reform political views and stoke sabre rattling. China is a bad actor in many arenas, just as the US is a bad actor in many arenas. The idea that any country releases some lab-grown bug will never be politically admitted, so the theory is irrelevant. I tend to think China is a danger to humanity at-large, but I coul…

"China is a bad actor in many arenas, just as the US is a bad actor in many arenas. "

Equating the US with China is nothing but a form of whataboutism. It's like equating USSR with USA. Or flu with ebola.

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

#205

Post by buran77 »

katbyte wrote: post #60
buran77 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Chinese authorities may very well be to blame for this, your reasoning is flawed. Governments hide a lot of things for a lot of reasons, whether nefarious or not, especially when it comes to sharing with foreign powers. The "argument" that "if you've got nothing to hide then you have nothing to worry about" is is just as worthless when promoting encryption backdoors as it is now.

I’m not sure you can compare the two, “why are you encrypting your data/communication” is very different then “why are you not sharing the early virus samples”

I looked at the principle of claiming that "if you're innocent why hide things". And that's exactly like saying that if you're not breaking the law then you have no reason to hide your communication from authorities because "they'll only look when they suspect something and that would just prove your innocence". If anything, accusing someone and asking them to prove their innocence opens the door to false accusations meant only to force the other side to leak some information. A principle you wouldn't want applied to you isn't a very good one.

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

#206

Post by fsflover »

buran77 wrote: post #205
katbyte wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure you can compare the two, “why are you encrypting your data/communication” is very different then “why are you not sharing the early virus samples”

I looked at the principle of claiming that "if you're innocent why hide things". And that's exactly like saying that if you're not breaking the law then you have no reason to hide your communication from authorities because "they'll only look when they suspect something and that would just prove your innocence". If anything, accusing someone and asking them to prove their innocence opens the door to false accusations…

This principle applies to individuals, not to the governments. The latter are created by people to serve people and must be open and transparent. The alternative is being corrupt.

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

#207

Post by btilly »

highstep wrote: post #170
btilly wrote: post #163

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. 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…

You really should cite those paper if you're going to offer such significant information. your comment is worthless otherwise.

A good starting point is https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/the-case-is-bu....

See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4797993/ for one of their previous lines of research that look similar to the actual COVID-19 virus.

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

#208

Post by Fricken »

What's weird is that a number of WHO investigation team members a week ago said China was very transparent, cooperative and helpful. Some have tweeted against the NYT who spun the WHO team's accounts into anti-China propaganda.

https://mobile.twitter.com/PeterDaszak/status/13605511085659...

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheaKFischer/status/1360590441817...

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

#209

Post by tripletao »

pgodzin wrote: post #197
esja wrote: post #31

I am yet to see a single piece of evidence which rules out the lab leak hypothesis. Meanwhile the circumstantial evidence in favour of that hypothesis (including China’s behaviour) continues to pile up. We may never discover the truth, but I really hope we do.

What evidence could ever rule it out?

Identification of an animal host? For MERS-CoV, that host (camels) was identified in a little more than a year, and genetic analysis shows multiple spillovers:

https://elifesciences.org/articles/31257

For the original SARS, it's palm civets, identified in less than a year. (The link to bats wasn't discovered until much later, by Shi Zhengli; but the intermediate host is enough to feel pretty confident it's natural-origin.)

For SARS-CoV-2, we're still waiting for that intermediate host. That's the significance of the early pangolin papers; but as Alina Chan and many others have noted, those papers have significant data quality issues, and even the Chinese have pretty much abandoned the pangolins.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.07.184374v1

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

#210

Post by xxpor »

OminousWeapons wrote: post #182
xxpor wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Depends on your perspective, doesn't it?
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