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NIH restarts bat virus grant

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Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#101

Post by ZoomerCretin »

roenxi wrote: post #60
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like (at least in my country) all the lockdowns were part of an experiment; try something else, see if it works. At some point they tried a curfew for a few weeks, it had an effect but people didn't like it and enforcement was a huge issue (naturally). The other thing is that every time a measure was effective, they would stop doing it so that the cases would go back up again. That said, as China proved, a t…

> China got back to productivity faster though, and gave their population time for a vaccine to be developed and distributed. Wasn't China famously locked down long past the point where the rest of the world was back up and getting on with life? By the time we got to Omicron the vaccine appeared to be doing next to nothing and China was still locked down.

China was not locked down for two years, no. A lockdown is not "Any pandemic restrictions at all", it's "You are not allowed to leave your house except for food and testing." They did not have the latter for two straight years.

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#102

Post by runsWphotons »

ZoomerCretin wrote: post #85
jeremyjh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were trying to create SARS-Cov-2 to study methods of treating or managing it, and quite likely they succeeded only in creating it. We may never know for sure, but if you read the original grant proposal its clear they were trying to engineer a variant of bat coronviruses that could cross into humans.

>they were trying to engineer a variant of bat coronviruses that could cross into humans. Right, because bat coronaviruses very famously have never crossed into humans. Google "SARS-CoV-1".

SARS cov 1 never caused a global pandemic. There were less than 10,000 cases and less than 1000 deaths. It wasn't specifically engineered to easily bind to human receptors, so this probably limited its reach.

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#103

Post by TrainedMonkey »

ZoomerCretin wrote: post #77
lvass wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There is no evidence that the pandemic was a man-made disaster.

What do you define as evidence and man-made here? From what I understand there was a large amount of circumstantial evidence (next to a lab researching similar viruses with a history of poor sample handling) as well as enormous amount of pressure on scientific community to say whatever avoids escalating geo political tensions...

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#104

Post by internat333 »

jjoonathan wrote: post #64
sergiotapia wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever happens, I don't think people will tolerate another lockdown ever again for at least two generations. I know in florida there could be literally airborn aids and people will still go out and live life, myself included. COVID lockdowns were a test of how much the government could push without backlash. I feel so badly for the kids that lost their last two years of high school for what?

Are you forgetting that the lockdowns had to happen because authorities (Trump, not CDC) pissed away a month of exponential growth doubling, tripling, and quadrupling down on "ignore it and it will go away" instead of jumping on measures to reduce Rt? They only blinked when faced with the imminent prospect of having hospitals spill out into parking lots full of people slowly dying for want of a respirator. The pandem…

It would have grown around the world anyway...

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#105

Post by dfadsadsf »

jjoonathan wrote: post #64
sergiotapia wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever happens, I don't think people will tolerate another lockdown ever again for at least two generations. I know in florida there could be literally airborn aids and people will still go out and live life, myself included. COVID lockdowns were a test of how much the government could push without backlash. I feel so badly for the kids that lost their last two years of high school for what?

Are you forgetting that the lockdowns had to happen because authorities (Trump, not CDC) pissed away a month of exponential growth doubling, tripling, and quadrupling down on "ignore it and it will go away" instead of jumping on measures to reduce Rt? They only blinked when faced with the imminent prospect of having hospitals spill out into parking lots full of people slowly dying for want of a respirator. The pandem…

If anything lack of respirators saved lives. With hindsight we now know that putting people on respirator was actually the thing that killed them - not COVID. All this hospital heroic in New York and around the country was huge mistake and most people who were in hospital at the time should have stayed home.

On lockdowns - you have to do them 100% (China, Australia, New Zealand) or just give up. Half measures just do not make sense - you get a lot of pain with very little to show for it. For US specifically 100% lockdown was never an option - building wall with machine gun encampment to stop movement on both Canadian and Mexican border was not feasible, definitely not on timeline of days or at most weeks.

In the end Fauci, NIH, and medical establishment etc just made zero difference to COVID or COVID deaths. Missed school and ballooned debt are the only legacy of their efforts.

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#106

Post by ZoomerCretin »

runsWphotons wrote: post #102
ZoomerCretin wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they were trying to engineer a variant of bat coronviruses that could cross into humans. Right, because bat coronaviruses very famously have never crossed into humans. Google "SARS-CoV-1".

SARS cov 1 never caused a global pandemic. There were less than 10,000 cases and less than 1000 deaths. It wasn't specifically engineered to easily bind to human receptors, so this probably limited its reach.

The reason it never caused a global pandemic had nothing to do with how transmissible it was, and everything to do with early detection and limited Draconian measures to contain it.

SARS-CoV-2 was not only not engineered to bind to human receptors, it was not engineered at all and there is no credible person or source that makes this claim.

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#107

Post by criticalmass2 »

galangalalgol wrote: post #74
sillypuddy wrote: post #43

We should warn these agencies that gain of function research is like playing Russian Roulette, but it would go in one ear and out the other.

Whatvare the arguments for gain of function research? Is there any reason to think the mutations gained as a virus adapts to mice with human lung tissue will resemble the ones it makes when it crosses in the wild? Or is it kind of like the old giant nuke plants, a way to peace-wash war tech? Edit: Vouching for the reply wasn't enough to resurrect it. It was a claim with no support other than an appeal to authority, b…

The term “gain of function” is used by different people in different ways. It is a broad category of research and the misguided attempts to categorize it as dangerous in one broad stroke are not helpful. To quote Dr. Fauci:

"If all gain-of-function stops, you will have no vaccines for flu. You will have no vaccines for any of the other diseases, because all of that manipulates a virus or a pathogen to gain a certain function to be able to make a vaccine."

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#108

Post by runsWphotons »

ethanbond wrote: post #92
IIAOPSW wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets also not forget the danger of pinning the blame rather than finding the facts. Its like watching people leave in the bottom of the third cause they're just that cocky about their pet theory winning

Yeah I've encountered people like, "hey well if we find out it was China then there should be consequences." Uhh like what? Are we going to invade a nuclear adversary who the whole world is 100% dependent on and with a population of 1.4 billion people to shut down their labs that maybe produced a virus? The best payback for millions of accidental deaths: a billion purposeful ones all over the globe and very possibly…

It is possible the reorganisation of supply chains post covid will be punishment enough in the long run. But a government that would unleash a biological attack on the world (not claiming they actually did, idk more than anyone else) is an existential threat itself. So an international effort of sanctions and pressure for regime change even at great risk might make sense, yes. A war would probably not risk ending civilisation more than a government which releases deadly bioweapons.

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#109

Post by jeremyjh »

ZoomerCretin wrote: post #106
runsWphotons wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SARS cov 1 never caused a global pandemic. There were less than 10,000 cases and less than 1000 deaths. It wasn't specifically engineered to easily bind to human receptors, so this probably limited its reach.

The reason it never caused a global pandemic had nothing to do with how transmissible it was, and everything to do with early detection and limited Draconian measures to contain it. SARS-CoV-2 was not only not engineered to bind to human receptors, it was not engineered at all and there is no credible person or source that makes this claim.

It was more transmissible and critically people were infectious for 2-3 days before experiencing symptoms, whereas that period was less than a day with SARS-Cov-1, that was a critical difference.

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#110

Post by [deleted] »

bfung wrote: post #98
arcbyte wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida did lockdowns right. They flattened the curve and then managed limited social resources. Many other states just went into irrational and indefinite Long term lockdowns. Illinois for instance was locked down for months and months despite having enourmous hospital capacity - the lack of which was the whole reason for entering the lockdown in the first place. It just didn't make sense after a while except as a p…

The death rate per capita seems to suggest Florida probably could’ve done better. 20th highest death per capita out of the 50 states. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/covid19_mortality_...

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