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The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

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Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#271

Post by colechristensen »

bostonsre wrote: post #184
arrosenberg wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a conflict of interest because Dr. Fauci wasn't gaining anything. The agency he is head of is specifically interested in infectious disease and has a large budget for grants. $120K per year pays for a couple plate of genetic samples and tech time to run them. Maybe in China you can run a few more for that cost, I don't know. As head of that agency, it's also his job to share his professional opinion with the…

Just playing devil's advocate, not convinced fauci had any malicious intentions, but he has one of the most highly public jobs in America, he gets to keep his job/power and maintain a future in politics. But he definitely does not seem like some power hungry egomaniacal player to me. His beliefs before and after and actions after the outbreak seemed to be consistent with someone that was trying to do the right thing…

I don't know about malice, but covering up or downplaying the possibility of a global pandemic being caused by activities he was involved in or encouraged... shit can be corrupt even if a person is not trying to take advantage of a situation.

Placing blame isn't really all that important. Making sure none of this happens again for the same reasons is.

If I was placing a bet, I'd say Wuhan researchers regularly got a handle on patents zero for cross species infection. In the course of the research a virus infected workers because of lax, sloppy, or otherwise inadequate controls; then despite the threat in order to save face government did everything they could to hide the mistake until it was far too late for anything to really be done about it.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#272

Post by dboreham »

mc32 wrote: post #43
peter422 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was every other emerging virus also created in a lab? SARS? MERS? Influenza? Polio? The highest probability is this virus originated like every other virus in history.

So when we find Anthrax outside its normal "range" but close to a lab we can just say, yeah, no, while it's not endemic to this location it is 1000 miles away, so nothing to worry about? Oh, and never mind the lab.

We found Novichok very close to Porton Down. However it actually came from Russia.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#273

Post by themacguffinman »

henearkr wrote: post #158
JPKab wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but the CCP hid this from the beginning. It's not Asian culture, it's authoritarian governments always needing to appear infallible. Same as Chernobyl. They were arresting doctors in December 2019, internally, for raising the alarm. The greatest enemy of the Chinese people is the regime running their country, the one that 91 percent of them have zero say in.

Once the situation was out they did everything properly to fix it at home, and then even contributed to the science work on the virus (just not on the lab origin hypothesis, but all other work on the virus structure, illness mechanisms, potential vaccines or medications, yes). All the geopolitical tensions around China, both Koreas, and Japan, are just about losing or not losing face. Most of the time they would larg…

I find this to be a shallow "just-so" take on geopolitics. Many of the disputed islands have strategic economic & military value in their territory. There's a lot of googlable analysis on how these islands are valued but it honestly seems a little laughable to suggest that China or the other Asian countries will just accept losing some "useless islands". Given the secretive nature of CCP behavior I don't think I can prove that their dispute isn't driven by "keeping the face" playground psychology, but more practical & sensible motivations are apparent and I can meta-comment that it seems very unlikely that this dispute would confound experienced diplomats for this long if it was as simple as keeping face.

If you look for critical analysis of many high-stakes geopolitical disputes you can usually find a very practical and utilitarian motivation behind it. An explanation that relies on popular stereotypes is basically the opposite of that.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#274

Post by Jarwain »

BrissyCoder wrote: post #257
tmp404 wrote: post #155

While this article is quite illuminating on the political side of the lab leak theory, on the evidence side it's mostly a rehash of some long-standing speculations. The only recent evidence it contains is the fact that 3 researchers from WIV sought hospital care back in autumn of 2019 with symptoms similar to COVID. However, this piece of evidence is hardly consequential without further details: - First, most common…

> First, most common symptoms of COVID are indistinguishable from common cold. I was under the impression that the symptoms were quite different to the common cold and more inline with influenza (fever, dry-cough, aches, no mucus production – symptoms that are rarely caused by the cold).

Also, mid winter/flu season

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#275

Post by chrischen »

lmm wrote: post #259
triceratops wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "do your own research" How? I barely have enough time to do my day job. You think I have the time or expertise to research the origins of a virus? Where does it end? Do I grow my own food? Make my own clothes? Build my own car after mining ore, smelting it and doing a million other things?

The more important takeaway is don't shout down those who are skeptical if you haven't actually investigated the authorities' credibility yourself. Get comfortable with not knowing, with being agnostic on a lot of issues, because it's often the only reasonable position. (The most important takeaway is to ignore Twitter - not "social media", but specifically Twitter).

So I give every quack the same attention, legitimacy, as say, an expert I trust? That's almost as bad advice as trust no one and do my own research for everything.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#276

Post by mc32 »

dboreham wrote: post #272
mc32 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So when we find Anthrax outside its normal "range" but close to a lab we can just say, yeah, no, while it's not endemic to this location it is 1000 miles away, so nothing to worry about? Oh, and never mind the lab.

We found Novichok very close to Porton Down. However it actually came from Russia.

This is not remotely comparable. Russia uses Novichok as a signature "we did it, don't F around".

This one was, yeah, this is a virology institute, we study corona viruses, we were hiring for corona virus experts, we do GoF work, but trust us, just because it first appeared blocks from our facility, it did not come from us. Also, don't believe our former virologists who skipped town.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#277

Post by chrischen »

generalizations wrote: post #173
triceratops wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "do your own research" How? I barely have enough time to do my day job. You think I have the time or expertise to research the origins of a virus? Where does it end? Do I grow my own food? Make my own clothes? Build my own car after mining ore, smelting it and doing a million other things?

It's a statement of consequences; just "the way the world works." Trust the experts if you've no time for more, but this is the likely result. Put time into your own research, and maybe you won't be caught off guard.

I'm still trusting the experts, and the experts are changing their minds. Nothing is going wrong here...

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#278

Post by saalweachter »

wuwuno wrote: post #191

In early December of 2019 with absolutely no indication that a new virus was being spread, the Chinese figured out that they had a) a new virus and b) they were able to identify the virus. In this case the Chinese knew, in early December, they had a problem when they only had a handful of cases. HOW???? COVID presents like the flu, so there isn't a novel symptom to help them identify that something new is in play. Th…

Ground glass lung X-rays?

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#279

Post by flatline »

bartart wrote: post #2

This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life. I'd ask everyone to please read it because it is incredible. One thing I did not realize is that US researchers who conducted gain of function research tried to downplay and discredit the possibility of the virus originating from the wuhan lab. There was an anti-lab theory Lancet statement signed by scientists, and "Daszak had not only signed but organize…

The WaPo article where I first read about the theory said most of this stuff. I didn’t understand then why people were so quick to dismiss it - it is eerily plausible, and we just don’t have much other data to go on. But it’s like having an opinion one way or the other is a political dog whistle that puts you into one of two bins, neither of which I fit into comfortably. This article makes a decent point of that: now that Trump’s racism is out of the way, maybe we can more critically examine the facts. I still think the lab leak theory is less likely than evolution, but it’s at least a bit compelling.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#280

Post by tootie »

calsy wrote: post #226
tootie wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think lab workers getting sick is really a useful data point. People get sick all the time. Could have very easily been seasonal flu or whatever. It also seems The Lancet letter doesn't actual address the question of lab leak. Only that it wasn't engineered. That was a pretty hot conspiracy theory at the time and one that remains far fetched. They didn't positively say it couldn't be a naturally occurring vir…

It's so far fetched to think a lab with known safety issues could be responsible for leaking a virus. We all know that humans are infallible and never make mistakes and accidents rarely occur in place with poor safety standards. Its just so crazy....

I'm not saying it's far-fetched. It's definitely possible. I'm debating whether or not this is any kind of smoking gun. It's circumstantial evidence.
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