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Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

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Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#501

Post by oyebenny »

refenestrator wrote: post #418
voidfunc wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youd support your government too if it massively raised yours and your neighbors standard of living within a 30-40 year period. The Nazis did that too and were wildly popular. But evil is evil. And theres a really bad and consistent track record.

The Nazis were not wildly popular, they were a minority government, and they definitely did not improve material conditions for their people. World War II fucking sucked. They barely held on by being at war, stirring things up against foreign enemies, and getting lucky against assassination attempts. Peace would have ruined them. The Chinese government is not at war. They are vastly less at-war than the US is. They h…

You're on crack.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#502

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

temp8964 wrote: post #370
jeduehr wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay they at least need to stay quiet, sit in their warehouse of cages, and no journalists need to find out about it. And there can't be any leaks from anyone involved suddenly gaining a deathbed conscience. The conspiracy becomes so immense it's absurd the many thousands of people who would have to keep quiet.

> The conspiracy becomes so immense it's absurd the many thousands of people who would have to keep quiet. This really indicates you have idea about China. The CCP can easily make millions and tens of millions not only quiet, but enthusiastically deny what happened to them.

The existence of the outbreak in Wuhan leaked within 72 hours of the first suspicious patient test results coming back. China is not the black box many Americans and Europeans think it is.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#503

Post by jashmatthews »

nyokodo wrote: post #481
spondyl wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I hate the stupid racism and hate around it. COVID-19 attacked every country. With the exception of, like, New Zealand (but it affected them as well... had to shut down their borders, etc). As someone who lives in New Zealand, we were still "attacked" by covid all the same. The only difference arguably is the coordinated response from our government compared to others. Some of that is presumably culture too (we…

There was a lot of luck too. Not being a major travel hub meant the virus hadn’t become widespread. The New Zealand government dragged its feet at first and clamped down just in time to prevent a much worse outbreak. If they had waited a few more days the cases likely would have gone exponentially vertical, possibly made it into more vulnerable populations and the death toll would have then increased considerably. I’…

NZ has extremely high international air traffic. With 11M international passengers per year Auckland airport is comparable with the big US airports like SFO with 13.8M international. Even kiwis often don’t realize just how busy Auckland airport is!

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#504

Post by bertjk »

Stevvo wrote: post #462
BurningFrog wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it looks like a coverup, Occam says it is a coverup. The Chinese authorities are not stupid. They know how bad it looks to not allow investigation. Which means they think the result of a free investigation would look even worse.

I disagree. The CCP's modus operandi is self preservation through suppression of information. To those perpetrating the cover up what actually happened is irrelevant. The CCP is never transparent in matters that could make them look bad. From their perspective allowing an open international investigation would make them appear guilty regardless of the results because it would be unprecedented.

While I agree with you, I'm thinking that this is a response common to sensitive government institutions in general. If this lab leak happened in the US, would we suddenly invite CCP (or Russian/N.Korean/Iranian) agents into Fort Detrick to conduct their "investigations"? Which country would actually allow such a thing?

Consider for a moment the propaganda value of being able to say, "we visited their labs and witnessed first-hand their failure to {do some sanitization procedure} correctly! Oh how they clearly don't value human lives!"

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#505

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

temp8964 wrote: post #377
jeduehr wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is citing the evidence of the SARS-CoV-1 leak as reason to believe that viruses escape labs. But you know what's interesting about that? We know about the CoV-1 leak because /the chinese scientists told us about it./ They owned up to it and told the world and the biosafety community (the people with degrees in these things) helped china become more standard and respectable and safe. And now 15 years later, w…

This is the most naive take of the real world. Yes. The Chinese government can easily make Chinese scientists lie when needed. "with zero evidence"? The Chinese government told their labs destroy lab samples at the beginning of the pandemic. The Chinese government refuse to give raw data of early patients to the WHO investigation team. Not matter what the origin of the virus is, the "covering up" is strongly supporte…

> The Chinese government told their labs destroy lab samples at the beginning of the pandemic.

I know the news reports you're referring to, but they're a good example of sensationalist reporting on China.

Very early on, when several patients in Wuhan had pneumonia of unknown cause, doctors sent samples from the patients across the country for testing. When it turned out that they had a novel coronavirus, that triggered rules about dealing with dangerous pathogens. You can't just have something like SARS-CoV-2 sitting around in any diagnostic lab. Labs with lower standards of biosecurity were required to either transfer their samples to labs with better biosecurity or to destroy them.

These sorts of rules are not unique to China. The US has very similar rules. However, in the hands of the news media, this story has been misrepresented.

> The Chinese government refuse to give raw data of early patients to the WHO investigation team.

Good luck getting any government to allow you to take 75000 de-anonymized patient records out of the country.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#506

Post by phyalow »

drran wrote: post #499
phyalow wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably only one. There is strong tertiary evidence that patient zero was a Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher named Huang YanLing 黃燕玲, this has all been scrubbed from public memory. The wayback archive links still hold up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU (links are at the bottom of the video description).

Russia says no danger after blast in smallpox lab A gas cylinder exploded and prompted a fire in a Siberian research facility which houses samples of smallpox, SARS, Ebola and other potentially deadly viruses. Russian officials said there was no threat of contamination. https://www.dw.com/en/russia-says-no-danger-after-blast-in-s...

Ah very interesting, I had no idea about that. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#507

Post by fighterpilot »

tripletao wrote: post #487
fighterpilot wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that it's a separate question. I just don't think the anti-CCP sentiment is unjustified, though. Whether it was a lab leak is important but a misdirection. Their cover-up of the true scale of the problem (lab leak or not) made it hard for politicians in other countries to lock down quickly. It helped it spread intentionally to multiple countries and by then it was too late. If they were blasting their sirens e…

I don't think we disagree? There's plenty of reason to dislike the CCP, in relation to their handling of SARS-CoV-2 and otherwise. I just don't think SARS-CoV-2 originating in a WIV lab accident would add to that.

It would add to it, because it would significantly increase the number of lies they told the rest of the world, given that they've been maintaining that it isn't a lab leak.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#508

Post by phyalow »

moritonal wrote: post #500
phyalow wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly it is "Dunning-Kruger". Secondly you are engaging in an argument from "authority" without evidence which is often fallacious and always disingenuous.

Pointing out spelling mistakes is a fallacy in the sense of attacking the person rather than the argument (as in, you know what they meant to say, but wanted to make them look silly), and they did post a literal megathread of evidence which (because it wasn't summarised for you) you decided to discount.

I am sure you are familiar with the concept involved with Dunning-Kruger, misspelling it when trying to make a point, makes said point somewhat hard to take seriously.

I have pursued most of what OP posted on reddit, I am not qualified to judge the finer points, but it doesn't mesh up with what I have seen presented by other independent expert sources or common sense. So I discounted it for that reason not the one you gave.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#509

Post by FriendlyNormie »

nyokodo wrote: post #484
Robotbeat wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assign non-negligible probability to each of them. I don't know. But I hate the stupid racism and hate around it. COVID-19 attacked every country. With the exception of, like, New Zealand (but it affected them as well... had to shut down their borders, etc). These viruses are a threat to all humanity. I just want us to fight them better and help everyone. I think it's super important that we both simultaneously hol…

> But I hate the stupid racism and hate around it. What is most astonishingly stupid about this particular racism is that while the CCP doesn’t come off looking great in significant ways, Taiwan comes away looking spectacular! Japan, Korea and Vietnam also have a lot to be commended for major aspects of their responses! Asians in the United States have on average done an excellent job of staying safe and therefore ke…

No post body was provided.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#510

Post by sigg3 »

Robotbeat wrote: post #401
Bukhmanizer wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal feelings are that all 3 are possible, but approximately 0.0001% of people will actually consider the likelihood of each one, but rather, most will choose whichever one is most convenient and comfortable to believe in. Of course as an Asian person, whatever people believe in will have a direct impact on me. I remember after 9/11, the amount of awful things that were said and done to the Sikh population in…

I assign non-negligible probability to each of them. I don't know. But I hate the stupid racism and hate around it. COVID-19 attacked every country. With the exception of, like, New Zealand (but it affected them as well... had to shut down their borders, etc). These viruses are a threat to all humanity. I just want us to fight them better and help everyone. I think it's super important that we both simultaneously hol…

> must not start up a new Cold Way

At least for now, the powers at be seem content just continuing the existing one.

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