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NIH restarts bat virus grant

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Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#121

Post by pfannkuchen »

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_...

Florida is also a magnet for old people, and old people are a magnet for dying from COVID. I wonder how they did if we control for age?

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#122

Post by runsWphotons »

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 doesn't sound like you really know what you are talking about, but are just here to try to flame war. Plenty of credible people in biomedical fields believe it is possible the virus was engineered and have published about why...it isnt really worth responding to that claim, you can just look it up. As for the other claim, yes the binding affinity to ACE2 is lower in original SARS and this probably limited it as well as other attributes of that virus:

"Although the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV S proteins are similar, the binding affinity of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein to the ACE2 receptor is much higher as compared to SARS-CoV, which may account for its increased transmissibility."

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#123

Post by ethanbond »

runsWphotons wrote: post #108
ethanbond wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 civ…

And now we're to the next rung of "lab-leak hypothesis is utterly useless to talk about," which is when people start mixing in the deliberate lab-leak hypothesis.

Good god.

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#124

Post by peteradio »

jMyles wrote: post #38
peteradio wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conspiracy and fact are orthogonal descriptors.

I don't understand this concept. I see it all over the internet. But I don't get it. At what point did we stop believing it was possible for people to conspire to commit crimes? Nobody disputes, for example, that the convictions of the Watergate conspirators - for the charge of conspiracy - was based in fact. So how is it that we can now say that fact and conspiracy can't be part of the same pattern? It's true that a…

1) the rabbit jumped: (not conspiracy, fact could be true or false)

2) jfk was assassinated by the CIA: (conspiracy, fact could be true or false)

What concept are you referring to when you say you don't understand it?

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#125

Post by jeremyjh »

rngname22 wrote: post #22
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #13

What would it even mean if we created covid 19 in a lab and it was accidentally released? Would it change anything? Would anyone be held responsible?

In an ideal world, we'd realize through cost benefit analysis that seeking out novel strains of animal viruses and bringing samples of them back to labs, especially in an era where lab leaks are common ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity... ), and then further doing gain of function research on those viruses to enhance them for further testing, might not be the best idea. At least until we…

I think the arrogance of thinking its possible to do this research safely with any containment procedures is ridiculous. Yes, you can make the chances of a leak extremely minimal, but you can't rule it out when humans are involved and the consequences are so extraordinary that there just isn't an acceptable trade-off.

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#126

Post by ifyoubuildit »

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.

> there is no credible person or source that makes this claim.

The issue here is that for many people taking your position, making the claim makes you not credible. By definition, there can be no credible source making that claim, because to make that claim revokes your credibility.

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#127

Post by jeremyjh »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #55

EcoHealth should not be allowed to participate in Federal grants. If there is a reason we don't have confidence as a society where Covid came from, it's because of efforts taken by Ecohealth to short-circuit reasonable scientific inquiry. EcoHealth doesn't do science and should be banned.

Every "scientist" associated with that fact-free cover-up should have already ended their career in disgrace.

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#128

Post by criticalmass2 »

shon wrote: post #118
criticalmass2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with bioweapons. The reality is that throughout all of human history, viruses have evolved organically in the environment in such a way that they are infectious to humans. Viruses will continue to evolve and future pandemics will happen. This research is attempting to study how viruses might evolve in a way that is particularly concerning to humans so that we can be more prepared in terms of cr…

[flagged]

The downside would be no vaccines for any diseases, as all vaccines are derived from "gain of function" research. There is also not conclusive evidence that this latest pandemic was the result of a laboratory accident. Every other catastrophic pandemic in human history emerged "naturally", and many more will continue to do so.

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#129

Post by defen »

criticalmass2 wrote: post #87
shon wrote: post #39

First, nice name OP. ;) Second, are there any bio people here who can weigh-in on why this is a good idea and how the potential benefits outweigh the risks? Bioweapons seem like a terrible idea in general. The worst case scenario of any weapon system is that it’s used against its creators and we humans aren’t that good at controlling biology. So what’s the benefit?

This has nothing to do with bioweapons. The reality is that throughout all of human history, viruses have evolved organically in the environment in such a way that they are infectious to humans. Viruses will continue to evolve and future pandemics will happen. This research is attempting to study how viruses might evolve in a way that is particularly concerning to humans so that we can be more prepared in terms of cr…

> so that we can be more prepared in terms of creating vaccines and understanding the preventive measures that can be taken in future pandemics.

Did the existing decades of research help with that when COVID-19 organically and naturally spontaneously jumped to human hosts?

Re: NIH restarts bat virus grant

#130

Post by somenameforme »

jeremyjh wrote: post #112
ZoomerCretin wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

1. They were trying to create this virus in Wuhan 2. It emerged in Wuhan 3. The Chinese government made it impossible for independent parties to examine the origin. > no evidence I am not certain this was a man-made disaster, but you simply have no credibility making the statements you are making.

Another rather important point #4 is no animal has been found as a viable transmission source. The closest relative to COVID, though still not a viable source, was found in bats located some 1000 miles away from Wuhan. Incidentally this has all been true from day one as well, which made the censorship and propaganda as dystopic as usual.
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