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I'm mystified why this hasn't already happened. I mean, his career depends on government largesse so it shouldn't even require coercion. Full cooperation or no cash.
There is a live stream right now by Dr. Kevin McCairn (neuroscientist) commenting on this paper, a grant application from EcoHealth Alliance (Peter Daszak) detailing what they were going to do in Wuhan: https://youtu.be/ayNMSFp7pOE
if you called someone crazy at some point for suggesting this as a possibility, it is time to pause and reflect
"Suggesting this as a possibility" is a pretty weak statement. But it's actually good to criticize someone for claiming that it happened without having any evidence, even if there happens to later be evidence that it happened.
if you called someone crazy at some point for suggesting this as a possibility, it is time to pause and reflect
"Suggesting this as a possibility" is a pretty weak statement. But it's actually good to criticize someone for claiming that it happened without having any evidence, even if there happens to later be evidence that it happened.
But we’ve known since the COVID outbreak that there was experiments making novel corona viruses infect humanized mice in Wuhan just before two of the WIV researchers got sick and a nearby military event also got sick. We’ve further known that COVID-19 has a DNA structure unlike natural viruses — matching a bat virus except for a single protein that appears to be from a pangolin virus.
It was always clear the preponderance of evidence pointed towards a lab leak — and that claims of a natural virus were special pleading by interested parties or a political stunt by media parties.
You were always irrational and acting based on propaganda to question a lab leak — it was the only reasonable and supported-by-evidence hypothesis the entire time.
I could be missing something but this isn't exactly the smoking gun the title makes it seem. I'm sure there are proposals, plans and applications for all types of things. What I'm waiting for, perhaps naively, is strong evidence, revelated an independent investigation, that there was some foul business going on here. Until I see that, I'm more inclined to rely on the word of experts who have no connection to any of t…
Coincidence 1.) Wuhan is roughly 1800 KM away from the caves in Yunnan province where previous bat-borne coronaviruses jumped to humans harvesting bat guano in earlier SARS outbreaks. It is a massive metropolitan area, and far more cosmopolitan than many westerners believe. They don't eat bats in Wuhan, and bats were never present at wet markets. Possible for a virus to jump from bats to humans here, but unlikely based on priors and the realities of horseshoe bats being highly unlikely to come into contact with urbanized humans at a level to transmit a virus that isn't adapted to human lung receptors.
Coincidence 2.) Wuhan has 2 different facilities where bat-borne coronavirus research took place. There are only a few of these labs in the entire world, and none others in all of China.
Coincidence 3. ) Unlike both SARS-1 and MERS, where animal reservoirs for both were found within months, almost 2 years later, no animal reservoir has been identified for SARS-2. Unlike both MERS and SARS-1, SARS-2 has never been particularly infectious to other animal species. SARS-1 in its early stages was still highly transmissible between bats. SARS-2 never exhibited this characteristic.
Coincidence 4. ) The evidence that would have easily exonerated the labs was deliberately destroyed by the CCP early in the pandemic, with extensive blocking of access to any and all foreign investigators.
Coincidence 5.) The same city where this outbreak occurred was a known location, based on other grants to EcoHealth Alliance, of researching bat coronavirus experiments involving the use of "humanized mice". No, "humanized" isn't some novel, sci-fi or conspiracy theory idea. They are genetically modified mice which are routinely used in research. The variety used in the lab were engineered to have human ACE-2 receptors lining their respiratory tissue. Sounds crazy, I know, but here's the grant summary (it was awarded) for the research, and notice the "humanized mice" at the very end of the text: https://reporter.nih.gov/search/xQW6UJmWfUuOV01ntGvLwQ/proje...
All of this evidence is circumstantial, but every day that goes by where no zoonotic reservoir is identified (the CCP isn't looking at all, because they know the answer) increasingly points to this being a lab accident and a subsequent coverup by a paranoid authoritarian regime, along with a scientific community desperate to prevent virology from being impacted the way nuclear energy research was by Chernobyl.
Daszak should be compelled to reveal everything he knows and all relevant evidence --- all proposals, all emails, all files, any other documentation. I'm mystified why this hasn't already happened. I mean, his career depends on government largesse so it shouldn't even require coercion. Full cooperation or no cash.
I could be missing something but this isn't exactly the smoking gun the title makes it seem. I'm sure there are proposals, plans and applications for all types of things. What I'm waiting for, perhaps naively, is strong evidence, revelated an independent investigation, that there was some foul business going on here. Until I see that, I'm more inclined to rely on the word of experts who have no connection to any of t…
I think the chain of evidence is suspicious to say the least. 1. In 2018 EcoHealth Alliance(Peter Dazsak and team) apply to a grant to darpa for viral modification research and highlight a change in "furin cleavage site" at the same location as covid-19's change, this change has never been seen before in nature. 2. In the darpa proposal is listed "Wuhan institute of virology" as a team member, this was a year before…
I could be missing something but this isn't exactly the smoking gun the title makes it seem. I'm sure there are proposals, plans and applications for all types of things. What I'm waiting for, perhaps naively, is strong evidence, revelated an independent investigation, that there was some foul business going on here. Until I see that, I'm more inclined to rely on the word of experts who have no connection to any of t…
The submitted title ("New Leaked Documents Point to Engineered Lab Origin for SARS‑CoV‑2") broke the site guidelines badly by editorializing. Submitters: please don't do that—it will eventually cause you to lose submission privileges on HN. Instead, follow the site guidelines, which include: " Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsgu…
Not the first time I've seen you say this. Would it be worthwhile to fetch articles when they're submitted, if only for your own sanity?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is reasonable & responsible to downplay theories that get constructed in absence of sufficient and meaningfully qualified evidence.
Such as the theory, presented often without evidence, that Sars-Cov-2 came from an imaginary population of bats in Wuhan?
My hypothesis on this whole mess. China was going to do bioweapon research and there was nothing we or anyone else could do about it. Quietly funding research in Wuhan was a way for the US IC to keep an eye on what China was doing. Something from that lab escaped. It's not clear or particularly relevant to me whether what escaped was directly involved in the particular experiments we funded. In my mind if the US fund…