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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

#301

Post by Terr_ »

nickysielicki wrote: post #241
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…

To me, both the official explanation and the conspiracy theory are both embarrassing for China and the CCP. SARS was supposed to have originated the same way -- in these disgusting third-world wet markets. The CCP shut them down after SARS for the sake of optics, but was too inept to "up" their health standards, and they conceded to pressure and reopened the disgusting third-world wet markets again. If this was some…

Note that "wet markets" are common around the world.

The (theorized) problem was that wild-caught land-animals happened to be part of the selection.

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

#302

Post by tripletao »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #293
tripletao wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alina Chan's WSJ article is a decent popular summary, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-world-needs-a-real-investig... https://archive.is/R6kwN There's also been a string of academic preprints and articles, like https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2102/2102.03910.pdf The authors tend to be kind of fringe, not surprisingly given the reputational cost (and given that if a lab origin is ever confirmed, many of the techniq…

The simple fact is that until you find the reservoir you can't say anything about where it came from, and they haven't found it yet. And as your first article details, the "lab accident" theory rests on some lab doing secret virus experiments. Even if you find a whole sea of the virus in some cave, someone will argue they could have gotten there after the first "accident". Good luck disproving that without letting US…

I think we've effectively ruled out lab origin of the original SARS and of MERS-CoV, because we've found proximal animal hosts. In other words, we've found animals that we believe first transmitted those viruses to humans, because (a) those animals are infected with a variant of the virus, and (b) that variant's genetic sequence implies it's an ancestor (or at least not a descendant) of known human variants. Condition (b) is why we believe that the animals first infected humans and not the reverse.

If we ever find the same for SARS-CoV-2, then I believe that pretty confidently excludes origin from lab manipulation (e.g., serial passaging). It would still be possible that the first human infected was on a WIV sampling trip, and not even all that unlikely (since an expert deliberately looking for novel viruses is far more likely to find them than e.g. a merely reckless wildlife trafficker).

If we see evidence in the phylogenetic tree of multiple animal-to-human spillover events--as we do for MERS--then that would pretty clearly exclude any scientific activity as the origin. At the very least, it would imply that even if some hapless grad student did accidentally start the pandemic, if they hadn't then someone else would have soon after. But as you say, so far we have neither.

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

#303

Post by adolph »

btilly wrote: post #217
enchiridion wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that point it's just a theory, not a conspiracy theory

It is. But then you descend down the rabbit hole to a government coverup of a release from a secret bioweapons research lab that was intended to target US military members at the 2019 Military World Games in late October in Wuhan. And now it becomes pretty clearly a conspiracy theory.

No, the theory is that the US service members brought it with them and infected Wuhan.

Earlier in March, Zhao Lijian, an outspoken Chinese diplomat, raised a suspicion on his personal Twitter account that it might have been the US army representatives to the Military World Games who brought the novel coronavirus to Wuhan in October 2019, after a top US health official admitted detecting coronavirus infections on some deceased flu patients. Zhao urged the US to disclose further information, exercise transparency on coronavirus cases and provide an explanation to the public.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1183658.shtml

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

#304

Post by cratermoon »

bluepizza wrote: post #231
Udik wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes? Shall we trust the US government in a good investigation on their motives to finance the bloody disaster that is the civil war in Syria? How about we send a Chinese delegation to check the documents inside the Pentagon or the CIA?

Yes, you are absolutely right. Look at all the political interference in Puerto Rico, not to mention the prison camps in Ohio.

You mean private prisons? Or did you mean "prison camps in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona"?

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

#305

Post by sebmellen »

cratermoon wrote: post #297
turdnagel wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that is inevitable if the Chinese government continues to obfuscate?

Epidemiology. History. The Spanish Flu was called that because at the time everyone (for xenophobic reasons... sound familiar?) blamed Spain. Today we can say with reasonable confidence that the source of the 1918 influenza epidemic was.... wait for it..... Kansas

People did not blame Spain for xenophobic reasons, just because the Spanish press was the first to report on it.

And, as pertains to the virus's origin, COVID-19 did come from China, and we know that. We have epidemiology to guide us here, and the situation is altogether different from 1918 w/r/t speed of communication and the state of science.

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

#306

Post by maxerickson »

nickysielicki wrote: post #241
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…

To me, both the official explanation and the conspiracy theory are both embarrassing for China and the CCP. SARS was supposed to have originated the same way -- in these disgusting third-world wet markets. The CCP shut them down after SARS for the sake of optics, but was too inept to "up" their health standards, and they conceded to pressure and reopened the disgusting third-world wet markets again. If this was some…

China was 2nd world country.

Of course you are making some other argument, but I doubt it's the poor people in Wuhan that are eating pangolins.

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

#307

Post by fspeech »

yurlungur wrote: post #291
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…

No need for you to preach to the choir about not trusting the Chinese government. As can be seen in the thread, people would much prefer to trust conspiracy theorists and fringe scientists before they put any trust in the Chinese government. To me, the only constructive discussion that can be had at this point needs to be around actual evidence, and not the absence of it. The first documented cases, first traces of p…

Comments by experts who went on the WHO mission https://mobile.twitter.com/TheaKFischer/status/1360590441817...

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

#308

Post by sumedh »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #124
ZoomerCretin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>China will lie to the WHO and the WHO will protect it. Do you have any reason to believe that this is true?

Remember that time a high up WHO representative was asked about COVID in Taiwan and he faked the video call freezing and disconnected? Then remember when they got him back he was again asked about Taiwan and said they had already discussed China? I remember thinking that the WHO wasn’t what it seemed. Just one small example of course.

Not sure why you are getting downvoted for telling a fact.

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

#309

Post by vimy »

duxup wrote: post #192
IIAOPSW wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's been a problem even internally in China where local government hides things from those up the chain and then things get out of hand.

That’s exactly what happened with covid-19. By the time Beijing knew about it things were already out of control.

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

#310

Post by XorNot »

cratermoon wrote: post #298
fiftyfifty wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny thing in this case is there was no reason for the CCP to cover this up. If they had just responded to the outbreak instead of trying to cover it up initially and been a little more open with the international community they would have been lauded for their handling of the situation.

> If they had just responded to the outbreak instead of trying to cover it up initially and been a little more open with the international community they would have been lauded for their handling of the situation Are we talking about China or the Trump administration?

Seriously. The amount of concern over what China, at the time regarded as a belligerent untrustworthy power, fails to explain why western governments took so long to take any mitigating measures and then some continued to actively oppose mitigating measures while still insisting this is somehow something China is going to actually fix on their end.

The tone and tenor of the investigation has always been to find a way to absolve local politicians of responsibility for their incompetence in managing this issue by blaming China.

All for the punchline of "so you're then going to do what to China in response?" Of which the answer is nothing. The genocide of the Uyigur people certainly hasn't motivated any strong international action.

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