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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

#821

Post by marcosdumay »

dalmo3 wrote: post #798
marcosdumay wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, what are the chances of this being coincidental? Enormous. The odds are heavily on the side of this being a coincidence. What are the odds of, if this was a leak, the leak coming from that single research line? It's basically 1 divided by the number of experiments running on the lab. And that's assuming it was a leak, if you estimate the odds of it being a leak, you will at a minimum halve that number.

> 1 divided by the number of experiments running on the lab That would only make sense if you knew there was a leak but didn't know which virus was leaked. Since we already have the knowledge of what virus (supposedly) leaked, the odds are (1/number of labs experimenting with that virus).

Yes, but isn't that lab the place to go for researching coronavirus? Dividing the odds through all experiments may underestimate it, but it's not very far.

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

#822

Post by hunterb123 »

tunesmith wrote: post #276

I feel like it was impossible to really deal with this debate responsibly, what with the current state of society and social media where everyone has figured out how to weaponize false information, before we as a society have figured out how to really deal with it. Even now it seems like everyone wants to elide the massive differences between "accidental lab leak" and "deliberate lab leak". Even now the common phrase…

No they put people in a prison of two ideas because they didn't want to talk about it, for reasons.

Crying racism isn't an excuse for covering up and banning talk either. Nothing to do with Asians, just the CCP. It's racist to not talk about a lab leak because "they are asian".

It all starts with a hyperbole attributed to all peoples then the restrictions because that hyperbole you created could be true, even though there was no proof to such, and the effects are counterproductive.

Yes "lab leak" was the common and is the common phrase because we don't know if it was natural or a bio-attack. We were robbed of that national discussion by private companies coordinating with gov officials.

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

#824

Post by rasz »

dehrmann wrote: post #744
cudgy wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people had the hindsight in 2020 that the lab leak theory was not only plausible but likely; it’s disingenuous to call this “hindsight is 20/20”.

I meant that gain for function research looks like a really bad idea right now, even if that wasn't the origin of covid, and some of the public policy experts making recommendations right now were people who had no problems with game of function research 3 years ago.

It was never a good idea, thats why it was officially rejected and performed in secret, and why Fauci keeps lying.

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

#825

Post by rasz »

alevskaya wrote: post #608
brigandish wrote: post #388

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…

I was a genetic engineer for two decades: - Clear signs of molecular manipulation in the sars-cov-2 sequence. There are none. Almost all of the alleged manipulations would have left unmistakeable, damning evidence in a recognizable vector. The only remotely interesting thing at all in the sequence is the furin site, but plenty of coronaviruses have those, and it just likely indicates selection/propagation in a second…

> Any epidemiological connections to WIV? There aren't any, just the original fact that the outbreak happened in Wuhan

other than multiple published papers and NIH reluctantly admitting WIV did THOSE EXACT genetic modifications https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/10/nih-admits-funding-r...

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

#826

Post by rasz »

jacquesm wrote: post #767
deviantbit wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know something about probabilities. What is more likely, a virus occurs naturally blocks away from a Virology Institute that researches the very type of virus we're dealing with, or the virus was released from that Institute, either intentionally or unintentionally? I think people are divided. There are those that are vaccinated, like me, and those that are not. I, for one, am done getting the vaccine. I've been ja…

Make sure you tell everybody that sites Virology institutes to put them as far away from areas where the scientists would like to work as possible.

Dont forget to tell people "research" amounted to engineering human transmittable viruses https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra...

>The proposal, rejected by U.S. military research agency DARPA, describes the insertion of human-specific cleavage sites into SARS-related bat coronaviruses.

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

#827

Post by tim333 »

jacquesm wrote: post #817
tim333 wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm arguing mostly that scientists should be open with the relevant data. I don't see what should be controversial about that. It's like there's an air crash and the authorities say we must not investigate and keep all documents confidential in case it upsets the plane manufacturer. It's not a good idea to do that. Specifically EcoHealth Alliance who were the main US funders of WIV and main enthusiasts for gain of fu…

Imagine for a moment that everything is reversed and read 'USA' for 'China' and 'China' for 'USA'. Now what do you think are the chances that an American research facility will open its books to the world after a political war of words all but blaming the USA for a pandemic? Because - in my opinion rightly - such a mission is bound to generate a lot of data that will then be mis-interpreted by people with an agenda s…

Yeah which is why I think the US should start by going after the US institutions involved.

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

#828

Post by theskypirate »

eloisius wrote: post #257
baq wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're approaching this with a western democratic frame of mind, yes. This is not suspicious behavior in China, as the GP said - it is standard operating procedure.

I don't expect it to be suspicious or odd _in China_. What I am saying is that internationally we should not just shrug it off as "aww, it just China, they're always so sneaky and secretive even when it's nothing!" We should treat the situation as if they are indeed hiding something important every time, because otherwise, constantly acting suspiciously about everything is an effective strategy for them conceal anyth…

So should we just pretend to think that it's suspicious even though it doesn't seem suspicious, or do we really need to soak our minds in the void until we actually believe that it is? How many IQ points do I need to lose before I am no longer normalizing totalitarianism?

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

#829

Post by T-A »

awb wrote: post #702
T-A wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s a Level 2 facility, not studying bats or coronavirus. It is indeed a level 2 facility, and it was being used to perform the bat coronavirus research outsourced to the WIV [1]: The NIH decided the risk was worth it. In a potentially fateful decision, it funded work similar to Baric’s at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which soon used its own reverse-genetics technology to make numerous coronavirus chimeras. Un…

This article talks about WIV (est. 2018), which is across the city from the market, not 2 blocks away and about 2016 research that was also not located near the wet market in 2016. The Level 2 lab only moved near the wet market in 2019, at which point the Level 4 lab was the one conducting the research. Also from the article: > The genetic code of SARS-CoV-2 does not resemble that of any virus the WIV was known to be…

> This article talks about WIV (est. 2018), which is across the city from the market, not 2 blocks away

It moved just before the outbreak [1]:

The lab, where Chinese scientists research mild human diseases with bats, was moved near the seafood market where the first COVID-19 cases were found just days before the outbreak, WHO investigators said.

Classified with a “Biosafety Level of 2,” the lab also has ventilation controls that aren’t as strict as other more secure facilities, according to the report.

I find it surprising how little attention this tidbit got; a move of lab equipment and animals probably involved external personnel not used to bio-safety procedures. Perfect opportunity for a virus to escape.

> The genetic code of SARS-CoV-2 does not resemble that of any virus the WIV was known to be culturing in its lab

The key words here being "was known", since the WIV notoriously took its database offline and even requested the deletion of sequences stored on US servers [2][3].

[1] https://nypost.com/2021/08/13/who-scientist-eyes-on-wuhan-la...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-24/u-s-confi...

[3] https://www.science.org/content/article/claim-chinese-team-h...

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

#830

Post by JamisonM »

systemvoltage wrote: post #76
JamisonM wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK, seemed like it was pretty important to clarify that a quote was used very deceptively! Seems important to point out that Chan's co-author is a climate-change sceptic that is a hereditary peer in the British House of Lords after chairing the bank Northern Rock - famous for failing spectacularly in 2007. Very credible!

I think there is some sort of a misunderstanding. I am saying that the source of a person who is not a virologist, has never worked in a lab environment and the general credibility of a tabloid (Telegraph.co.uk) does not give a good impression of the lab leak theory. I am trying to steering people away from the article .

And in so doing you advocate that people read a book written by a British Hereditary Lord climate change denier and a Molecular biologist? I don't think there is a misunderstanding.
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