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Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#441

Post by zarzavat »

cm2187 wrote: post #346
enriquto wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for anything at all they decide to? For me it was the masks. The masks were my tipping point. At some point at the beginning of the pandemic they said that the disease was totally not airborne and that masks were useless. I remember vividly president Macron (a person that I respected before that)…

Even before the masks, they were presenting "case fatility rates" as "infection fatility rates" (by just calling them "death rate", which everyone understands as risk of death when infected), when there was hardly any test. Of course if you only test people who show up at the ICU, you will get a very high death rate. That was obvious from the outset and I think deliberate disinformation as a scare tactic. It is not b…

A great number of politicians still don't understand the difference between cases and infections. So you see for instance travel from rich countries in Europe being banned, and rich European countries banning each other, purely because they do enough testing to quantify the number of infections. And when Omicron arrived it was the countries with the highest sequencing capacities that were in the firing line.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#442

Post by irthomasthomas »

oblio wrote: post #267
vasco wrote: post #241

You know this effect, when you've been reading the news for years, and finally your favorite source has a story about something you studied or worked on, and you realize how low quality or outright wrong it is? The spell is broken and you realize how little they know about anything they write. Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for a…

Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13624175

Except that according to the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect the spell is never broken for most people. They turn the page and resume reading as if the source was still trust worthy.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#443

Post by loup-vaillant »

Fiahil wrote: post #389
enriquto wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for anything at all they decide to? For me it was the masks. The masks were my tipping point. At some point at the beginning of the pandemic they said that the disease was totally not airborne and that masks were useless. I remember vividly president Macron (a person that I respected before that)…

> I remember vividly president Macron (a person that I respected before that) very serious in TV explaining to all the citizens of the republic that we should not buy nor wear masks. Ah! This one is actually a story of "the lesser of two evils". You can't really tell people to buy masks where there is none available, and you can't really tell there is nothing to do unless you want to put every one in panic mode. You…

> If you think of it, the only reason why getting vaccinated is not yet mandatory

The vaccine is close to mandatory since June 2021, and is now becoming even more so, that with the negative tests not even counting any more.

I don't really by the election arguments: people who aren't vaccinated already don't vote Macron for the most part, they're already alienated. I'm pretty sure Macron doesn't want their vote, he wants scapegoats.

I also heard there are constitutional hurdles in making the vaccine mandatory (because it's not officially out of test phase yet), as well as that pesky thing about not compensating people who suffer side effects (aside from having regular health care like everyone else).

Your predictions still make sense, though. I'm not sure they're probable, but they're definitely plausible.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#444

Post by axiosgunnar »

Fiahil wrote: post #432
enriquto wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess it was easier to take a slight (...) reputation hit, Not a reputation hit. A credibility hit. Essentially 100% of what they say now is lies to my ears. If their policy is to lie to me "for the global good", this is the most rational position. I'd have preferred if they had told the truth as they knew it (the disease is airborne, masks help you to avoid infect people, please leave all masks to health personn…

> I'd have preferred if they had told the truth as they knew it This is perfectly understandable, however, in this situation, the truth or any version of it weren't available. If you tell everyone that masks are the best way to avoid getting infected, but there is none available, then you are creating and invoking the worst case scenario immediately: No masks available for anyone, No idea when you will get shipments,…

Still better than living in a post-truth society.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#445

Post by throw8932894 »

scotty79 wrote: post #402

I wonder if having additional two years worth of data changed their mind. We see how easily this virus mutates. Recent research indicates that Omicron evolved for some time in mice without breaking out back into human population. Natural origin is way more playsible than ww thought in February of 2020.

This "natural" origin theories kind of sound like conspiracy. Bats, mice, lemurs.. Somehow wildly different DNA parts combine, and virus perfectly adapted for human population emerges from cave with zero prior human contact...

If Omicron evolved in mice, we should be able to find it in wild mice population. Or maybe partially replicate its evolution in lab on mice population.

We know virus synthesis is possible, it is accessible even to small national governments, universities and research centers. But mainstream agrees there is ZERO chance of that happening. Nobody would invest couple of million dollars, to end pandemic once for all.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#446

Post by roenxi »

cortic wrote: post #398
enriquto wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for anything at all they decide to? For me it was the masks. The masks were my tipping point. At some point at the beginning of the pandemic they said that the disease was totally not airborne and that masks were useless. I remember vividly president Macron (a person that I respected before that)…

Happened in the UK as well, Boris (and to be fair the WHO) told us masks were counter productive. That they might get you to stand closer to people and touch your face more, increasing your chances of getting Covid.. All presumably to save a mask shortage; But we know, and they should have known, that the public doesn't buy the same kind of masks that our NHS buys and there never was going to be any shortage. This en…

> It lead to some number of deaths, probably 10s of thousands in the UK

Is there solid evidence anywhere that masks are important one way or the other? While it is plausible that a mask could prevent an infection in an encounter, I've not yet seen anyone waving something conclusive around that masks prevent infections over the course of a pandemic.

I've managed to avoid the coronavirus for 2 years now and as far as I can tell the future still has me getting COVID in it. I'm still not clear what role the mask is meant to play in that forecast.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#447

Post by pvaldes »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #288
zx85wes wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the people who told us not to wear masks? I trust science, but that doesn't mean I trust every scientist.

If you really trusted science, you would trust that information and knowledge is dynamic and they don’t always have the right answer at the beginning, just an answer that gets changed over time as more knowledge pours in. I’m guessing you prefer your scientists to be absolutely right at the beginning right?

The problem often is that some people assume that scientists are priests in a religion called science.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#448

Post by loup-vaillant »

Fiahil wrote: post #432
enriquto wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess it was easier to take a slight (...) reputation hit, Not a reputation hit. A credibility hit. Essentially 100% of what they say now is lies to my ears. If their policy is to lie to me "for the global good", this is the most rational position. I'd have preferred if they had told the truth as they knew it (the disease is airborne, masks help you to avoid infect people, please leave all masks to health personn…

> I'd have preferred if they had told the truth as they knew it This is perfectly understandable, however, in this situation, the truth or any version of it weren't available. If you tell everyone that masks are the best way to avoid getting infected, but there is none available, then you are creating and invoking the worst case scenario immediately: No masks available for anyone, No idea when you will get shipments,…

Still, they could have explicitly said two weeks later that they lied for our own good because of the shortage. We know they lied, so they could at least admit it and rebuild some good will.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#450

Post by loup-vaillant »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #428
iqanq wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly did Macron ever do to earn your respect?

He picked up his english teacher. I'm sure all his mates went crazy when he told them.

French teacher. Not that it makes any difference, though.
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