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

telegraph.co.uk

591–600 of 833 posts

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

#591
post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If an article is headlined "Firefighters rescue cat from tree" Is your assumption that all firefighters were involved in the rescue?

It’s not reasonable to assume all firefighters were involved in a cat rescue. But if one says “Firefighters think cats are cute”, it certainly appears that it implies most firefighters share this opinion.

I do agree with you we should require specificity as a pillar to integrity but it seems like a long way to there.

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

#592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. But we had a pandemic during the Obama/Biden admin, but no stockpile of appropriate PPE, masks, etc. This was, we were told, the pro-science administration. Pandemics are such a common trope that Hollywood has made multiple (bad) movies revolving around them. Yet it appears we were unprepared for the basics. What Fauci said or why isn't important. The question we should be asking is: Why were in that positio…

This is wrong. The Obama administration did quite a bit to prevent future pandemics and the Trump administration dismantled it all pretty much immediately. Three things come to mind: the pandemic playbook, the pandemic response office, and the public health observers in China that were all recalled under Trump.

I love the reaction you get when you tell people there was literally something created & called “Pandemic Playbook” which was devised because they were expecting a pandemic in the next decade or two.

& what happened to the Pandemic Playbook created by the 44th presidential administration? It was completely discarded by the 45th presidential administration.

What proceeded to happen during the 45th presidential administration? A somewhat predicted pandemic. It’s too bad they didn’t have a playbook that told them step by step how to properly handle it…

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

#593
post #300

It’s hard to believe how bad this is. Not the lab leak theory itself, but the fact that scientists found it plausible that a scientific mistake released an epidemic which killed 20m people – and decided they should cover this up because “talking about it might harm science“. This is truly scandalous, and I don’t see how those people can remain in their post.

I find that behaviour more dangerous than any other anti-science or anti-vax movements. That behaviour degrades the public trust in institutions, in science and in scientists. It will breed even more anti-science and anti-vax people for years to come.

Can we stop with the anti-vax crap?

I haven't met a single person who is hesitant of traditional vaccines.

The anti-vaxxer crowd is still as small as it once was, loonies in Oregon and other places that cause an occasional Measles outbreak.

Being hesitant of unknown longterm effects of mRNA vaccines is reasonable and is not "anti-science" or "anti-vax".

But yes, lying about what you think caused millions of deaths because you're scared of the support the CCP has is pretty high up there on the fucked up meter.

Maybe Facebook and Twitter will let us talk about it now.

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

#594
post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Italian and the events in February and March 2020 made it very clear to me how the anglo press largely just ignores foreign sources. The "debate" about lockdown in the UK mirrored the Italian one almost day by day, with a delay of 3 weeks between here and Italy. Italian sources and discoveries were either ignored or discounted. It was like watching a child "discover" on their own how to start a fire. If they do t…

In Spain, up until the 8th of march the government was inviting people to go to women's marchs and saying everything was under control. A guy in charge of the job safety for national police was demoted because he decided to buy and give masks to policeman. Media affiliated with the government was actively trying to ridicule everyone, calling people alarmists, fascists or whatever insult they came up with. That includ…

IMO, this is a problem inherent to electoralism. The types of leaders that are best at winning elections tend not to be very good at actually leading. That is why we need to start gradually moving away from this outmodded version of pseudo-democracy. I believe the future of democracy lies in the combination of of deliberative citizens assemblies (such as those that have been taking place in Ireland) and deliberative, consensus-seeking online platforms (such as the vTaiwan project). Elections still have their place, but they should not be the primary mechanism by which we conduct democracy.

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

#595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidence that would convince an independent panel of people trained in the field that it confirms a lab leak. Given the odds against that evidence would likely have to be fairly hard.

Evidence does not need to be able to convince on its own, you seem to be picking an arbitrarily high bar that would dismiss all evidence until such time as it would confirm a leak. That's not even the bar used in law to begin a prosecution, when they know that reasonable doubt will need to be overcome. Regardless, this is evidence of a conspiracy of silence, not evidence that there was a lab leak. The two should not…

There is no evidence of anything remotely like "a conspiracy of silence". The Telegraph article quotes parts of emails between people discussing the possibility of a lab leak and the possible outcomes of a public discussion of the possibility of a lab leak. At no point is anyone saying "we must keep this under wrap" or something along those lines. You have to squint very hard to find an insinuation that the discussion of a lab origin has to be silenced.

As indeed it was not. The few people who thought a lab leak was likely have been very public about their opinion and nobody has attempted to stop them. We've all heard the one about the furin cleavage cite (even if about 0.005% of those who repeat it know what the hell a furin cleavage cite is). Hence why the internet bursts at the seams with discussions about lab leaks and conspiracies to cover them up.

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

#596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would that evidence look like? The House Committee on Oversight and Reform have a press release with more detail[1], which the Telegraph mentions - it's how I found it - and you can download a pdf which contains the partially redacted emails. It doesn't seem to me that the Telegraph has misled anyone regarding this news at all. Perhaps you could read it and be more precise as to where you think they're providing…

Evidence that would convince an independent panel of people trained in the field that it confirms a lab leak. Given the odds against that evidence would likely have to be fairly hard.

This is incorrect. The article is asserting that a group of important scientists (arguably) advocated for the public rejection of an important hypothesis not on the basis of evidence. Evidence proving or disproving a lab leak would be irrelevant to the article's claim.

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

#597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus" - Surgeon General, Feb 29, 2020 Please stop spreading misinformation.

I am not spreading misinformation. Please don't throw accusations around. Previous Surgeon General Jerome Adams is not the same person as Fauci. I'm not in the USA, but looks like your surgeon general in Feb 2020 was not an ideal choice for the post. He sounds like a political Trump appointee. Even so, the full tweet read: "Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from…

The original point you argued against is if he lied, not if he lied for a good reason.

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

#598
post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Canada our leaders said the same things, no masks required… as they shipped our stockpiles of PPE to China

No, this didn’t happen.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-ottawa-face...

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

#599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There seemed to be genuine uncertainty early on in the pandemic Among the civilian population, perhaps. Not among politicians and health officials. At least Fauci, WHO, and Finnish health authorities HAVE come out afterwards and admitted that they lied about masks to conserve them for health personnel.

> At least Fauci, WHO, and Finnish health authorities HAVE come out afterwards and admitted that they lied about masks This is not true. I think Fauci etc. admitted that a reason masks weren't recommended early on was partly to conserve masks. That's quite different from the claim that they actively lied about them.

> This is not true. I think Fauci etc. admitted that a reason masks weren't recommended early on was partly to conserve masks. That's quite different from the claim that they actively lied about them.

You state that masks "weren't recommended" which indeed would be different from "recommending not to wear masks". However, Fauci didn't merely abstain from recommending masks, he actively recommended people not to wear masks. Yes, he actively lied about it, and he has openly admitted that he has lied about it. Now please stop spreading misinformation.

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

#600
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…

> 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)…

Isn't this more a failure of the scientific advisors? Surely they would be able to deliver a clear verdict on this (eg. definitely transmitted by aerosol, definitely not transmitted by aerosol, or possibly transmitted by aerosol so urge caution).
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