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Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

nytimes.com

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Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#151

Post by mullingitover »

ziddoap wrote: post #94
mullingitover wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent comment was a pretty clumsy dog whistle to paranoid folks who believe Gates to be a sinister puppetmaster who is unleashing pandemic disease on the world. The Infowars audience is very receptive to this unfounded notion. Since the commenter is concerned about the popularity of his posts, I proposed a suitable audience that would be more receptive and would provide the desired positive response.

Did you just see the words "Bill Gates" and jump to your own conclusions, then call out the parent poster based on your jumped-to conclusions? The article is posted on a mainstream site and describes how Bill wants additional funding to research preventative measures against future pandemics. What is the dog whistle? Where is the sinister puppetmaster references? Where does it say Bill Gates is unleashing a pandemic?

> What is the dog whistle?

The original article has nothing to do with Bill Gates, but the commenter in this thread posted this wholly unrelated article, pronouncing it "Related", without any other comment to explain the context of the linked article or how it relates to the original story. You need look no further than the other (also heavily downvoted) commenters in this thread to see who heard the dog whistle loud and clear.

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#152

Post by bluGill »

paxys wrote: post #93
IAmWorried wrote: post #33

A smallpox pandemic would be orders of magnitude more deadly than COVID. COVID has a very low death rate and is comparable to the flu, whereas Smallpox kills 30% of people it infects and disfigures an even higher percentage. And my understanding is that it is just as contagious (may be wrong on this). Read up on Operation Dark Winter (2001 era wargame of a US smallpox outbreak) for details on how this might play out.…

We know what smallpox is, how it spreads, how to slow it down/prevent it, and most importantly we will have a vaccine for it in every pharmacy well before it breaks out the way covid did. The two are not at all comparable.

I don't think we can grow our smallpox vaccine stockpile that fast. We know how to make them and have the ability, but getting production to scale will take a fair amount of time.

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#153

Post by 14 »

programmarchy wrote: post #115
14 wrote: post #73

As I mentioned this years ago here I once found microscope slides in my grandpa basement labeled small pox. He was a doctor/ scientist. Everyone said that the slides would contain inactive virus that were of no threat. I’ve long gotten rid of them because I haven’t owned a microscope in ages and with the internet can always look up small pox there.

You can see smallpox with a microscope? I thought viruses were too small to be seen except by electron microscopes.

Good question. I never tried to look at them under the microscope so I have no clue what they showed. But I have no doubt there was a slide of small pox since after my grandpa died we found all sorts of weird shit in his basement. Big jar of mercury, giant moths, frogs, strange bugs in jars of formaldehyde and some even weirder shit.

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#155

Post by topkai22 »

IAmWorried wrote: post #33

A smallpox pandemic would be orders of magnitude more deadly than COVID. COVID has a very low death rate and is comparable to the flu, whereas Smallpox kills 30% of people it infects and disfigures an even higher percentage. And my understanding is that it is just as contagious (may be wrong on this). Read up on Operation Dark Winter (2001 era wargame of a US smallpox outbreak) for details on how this might play out.…

Smallpox is roughly as contagious as SARS-Cov2 Delta and therefore more transmossible than the original variant. However those numbers are the unmitigated numbers.

Public health and other authority figures have some advantages in fighting smallpox versus SARS-Cov2. IIRC, smallpox is not infectious until the "pox" are visible on the body, greatly improving ability to screen for the disease and the vaccine traditional used creates a small but visible scar, again aiding screening.

The world also maintains a significant (300M doses vaccine stockpile in the US as well as other countries) with already approved vaccines that can begin manufacturering immediately.

Finally, smallpox is so deadly and obviously horrific that it "should" help public health officials get past vaccine and other mitigation "hesitantcy".

A smallpox pandemic would truly be devastating and much worse then Covid19, but thankful there is reason to believe outbreaks could be controlled before pandemic status was reached.

One of my biggest worries coming out of Covid19 is how epidemiological public health has become tied up in political identity and that the next pandemic will see significant portions of the population actively resisting outbreak control measures.

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#156

Post by throwaway0a5e »

bastardoperator wrote: post #149
gfodor wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 5x difference largely skewed towards the elderly and obese fits the definition of “comparable”, but ofc this is assumed to be a downplaying tactic.

It is when you look at the flu data. You think the flu kills more people on average? It doesn't, and most people that die from the flu are also elderly or have pre-existing conditions.

Your comment is going to age like skim milk.

Covid killed so many people because it was novel. It'll likely decline year over year as the population either develops antibodies or dies (of covid or natural causes).

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#157

Post by jjk166 »

bastardoperator wrote: post #86
IAmWorried wrote: post #33

A smallpox pandemic would be orders of magnitude more deadly than COVID. COVID has a very low death rate and is comparable to the flu, whereas Smallpox kills 30% of people it infects and disfigures an even higher percentage. And my understanding is that it is just as contagious (may be wrong on this). Read up on Operation Dark Winter (2001 era wargame of a US smallpox outbreak) for details on how this might play out.…

This is certifably false when it comes to covid and the flu: according to Johns Hopkins University, about 3.1 million people around the world had died of COVID-19 as of April 26, 2021. The flu, meanwhile, kills between 290,000 to 650,000 people every year worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

That's comparing covid without vaccine or widespread natural immunity to flu with vaccine and widespread natural immunity.

Consider the 1918 flu pandemic where people were unprotected against a new strain and 1-3% of the world's population died.

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#158

Post by 323 »

The sequence of the smallpox virus is publicly available:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/9627521

What sort of labs have the skills to reverse genetics it into a cowpox backbone?

Are we talking 2-3 labs in the world, or basically any decent lab? Could a PhD in virology/microbiology do it?

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#159

Post by dekhn »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #98
dekhn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even correctly labelled bottles can be dangerous. THere was an explosion in my lab when somebody touched a bottle of ether. Please don't make it any harder...

You have to do a little more than touch ether to set it off.

are you a chemist? 5 year old bottles of ether have to be treated exceptionally carefully to to free radicals.

Re: Vials labeled ‘smallpox’ are found in Pennsylvania laboratory

#160

Post by mindcrime »

lostlogin wrote: post #107
mindcrime wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could always put a vial labeled "smallpox" in the break-room fridge. But I have a feeling you will end up jobless, if not incarcerated, as a result. YMMV.

Outside of a lab, I seriously doubt anyone would get more than a laugh. Maybe my workplaces aren’t serious enough.

I want to believe that you are correct. But it seems like everybody is so damned hyper-sensitive and over reactive to everything these days... sigh
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