Live data from Hacker News

Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

thetimes.co.uk

721–730 of 1001 posts

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#721
post #431

I'd like for someone to throughly research and write about how it became taboo to discuss the virus leak theory. How researchers who discussed it were shunned, tagged as racists, and in some cases had their posts banned from Social Media. About how almost the entire scientific community discarded the idea as impossible. How during the early pandemic years, no mainstream news media dared talk about the possibility. Te…

In the beginning of the pandemic, I fell for Fauci's lies. I saw him as a pillar of truth and science against the backdrop of Trump's idiocracy. So, I can empathize with those who still think he's a good person, they have not been exposed to all the evidence of how he orchestrated lies and smears to cover up the lab leak theory, and how he funded the gain of function research that likely lead to the pandemic (even though gain of function was outlawed in the US). He even lied about it under oath. And why has nothing happened? Because big pharma is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic and they are the biggest advertisers on corporate mainstream media. The whole thing is sick and twisted. And I know this sound like a conspiracy nut to those who have not looked into this deeply, but it is what it is.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#722

It's going to take a long time before the mainstream is ready to think critically about the COVID narratives, but it's good to see first steps toward the recovery of rationality. But there's still a lot to cover: - Lockdowns did little to prevent the spread of COVID and lead to increased deaths by other causes, egregious violation of people's fundamental rights, massively destruction of the economy, and many people's…

I'm hoping that in a decade or so, people will stop using "vaccines never prevented transmission" as an argument since it has been said at least a billion of times since the beginning, VACCINES PREVENTED SERIOUS ILLNESS. Same thing about the imaginary widespread side-effects or the mask being useless. Depressing. Personally I'm more worried about the people that went full retard about covid alternative views and cons…

> I'm hoping that in a decade or so, people will stop using "vaccines never prevented transmission" as an argument since it has been said at least a billion of times since the beginning, VACCINES PREVENTED SERIOUS ILLNESS.

No. They said vaccines prevent transmission. Over and over.

You may have forgotten what was said at the time, but we won't:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1665770269418614784

It's the reason I was prevented from entering the US until just a couple of weeks ago. It's the reason why my mother-in-law lost her job as a nurse. People who refused this medical treatment, were treated as dangerous because officials claimed that we presented a transmission hazard.

This was a lie, which you are further compounding with more lies.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#723
post #684
post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your own link "hate-crime-complaints-by-motivation-annual" 2020 vs 2021: +Anti-Asian 2019: 1 Anti-Asian 2020: 27 Anti-Asian 2021: 131 *+ Edit: Added 2019 as suggested below

You should be comparing 2019 to 2020. 2019 is the pre-covid default state. 2020 is when covid rhetoric was hot. 2021 is Vaccines and Biden is president 2019 stats are in the archive at the bottom of the page. I’d pull them but on a phone.

How long does it take from pent-up anger and rhetoric to action?

2021 values could be the result of 2020's rhetoric.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you overstate how much the lab leak and the bioweapon stories were being conflated. I recall that most people were able to distinguish between them, and that the most prominent figures raising red flags about a potential leak weren't talking about bioweapons. In any case, the most alarming aspect of the lab leak hypothesis is that gain-of-function research is STILL being done, and that the same thing could ha…

> the most alarming aspect of the lab leak hypothesis is that gain-of-function research is STILL being done, and that the same thing could happen AGAIN. This right here is an example of why we can’t have reasoned discussion around the topic. You can explain one of the many reasons why gain of function research is necessary: anticipating next year’s version of the flu, designing drugs and vaccines such that resistance…

It's really arrogant to think that any argument for a moratorium must be based in lack of information.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#725
post #55

After a quick read of the article, it presents no new data, and is replete with innuendo pointing at the Wuhan lab, rather than any direct evidence. Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an indication of any i…

Actually, the closest natural viruses to covid were sent to Wuhan for study. I mean, that is what the Wuhan institute of coronaviruses was built to do right? The indirect evidence of a lab leak theory is overwhelming frankly. And it doesn't require any malice. No one credible is saying china intentionally released the virus or built it with the intention of building a weapon. Gain of function research is real, scient…

> No one credible is saying china intentionally released the virus

Half this very thread. "you couldn't mention the lab without being called a racist" and then they proceed to talk about china bioengineering weapons instead of an accidental lab leak.

The constant "the news suppresed this because of trump" is also a pretty loud dogwhistle.

The idea that a lab could have a leak was studied, there were multiple papers on it. The evidence did not add up to much, other than the circumstancial. The zootropic evidence had a bit more weight but still came up with "we might not have enough data to come up with a conclusive answer".

Because scientists said they leaned on that evidence the popular science outlets explained it as "origin is a bat not a lab leak" which should have had more nuance in the headlines but popular science outlets try to summarise hard science into easy to understand articles and they are fairly guilty of clickbait (how many times have we cured cancer, or some physics experiment done something close to a black hole). And between that and a number of bad actors starting conspiracy theories about the lab being a hidden bioweapon lab and China releasing it intentionally the discourse got all sorts of distorted.

The problem is Bioweapon dudes hid behind lab leak concerns and the lack of evidence from a scientific prespeective gave the wet market Patient 0 more visibility. To this day, half this thread is people with conspiracy theories hidding behind the lab leak. Makes a conversation about it almost entirely useless when you engage with someone and a few messages in they say the media is jewish and wanted to destroy the economy with lockdowns to make trump lose (this is a comment on this very thread further up, although i think they have been shadowbanned already)

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A scientific consensus is significantly different than media opinion. Second, there is no "debate" regarding efficacy of masks and limiting exposure via quarantining. Masking reduces the likelihood of contracting SARS from others, and staying home reduces the spread to others and strain on hospitals. Unsurprisingly, the people attempting to debate this typically had no medical background whatsoever. Millions died in…

Oppositions to lockdowns were never about whether they would reduce deaths or not in the short term. Anyone with a brain could understand that if people weren't in a position to breath on each other, the virus wouldnt spread as quickly. Oppositions to lockdowns were always about tradeoffs and whether they were worth it. Its just such a boring critique. My main question still remains, what would your plan have been if…

> Oppositions to lockdowns were always about tradeoffs and whether they were worth it. Its just such a boring critique.

Fully agreed; saving lives / community responsibility is the noble choice. Unfortunately, many folks in states with poor education (e.g., Texas), would make remarks questioning the actual existence of the virus - even after Trump contracted it and was treated at Walter Reed.

But, work on a vaccine began almost immediately, no? I trusted that shifting the focused lens of US policy toward medical research would produce some incredible results, especially with the private sector pharmaceutical behemoths battling it out, so to speak.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was never a consensus for or against lockdowns. So when was the last lockdown before covid?

Please don't try and have other people do your research for easily answered questions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3559034/

Quarantining people who may have been exposed is a whole universe away from the lockdowns being discussed here, where whole cities, states and countries proactively prevented the free movement of their people who they had no reason to suspect had been exposed. Don't conflate these two.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#728
post #431

I'd like for someone to throughly research and write about how it became taboo to discuss the virus leak theory. How researchers who discussed it were shunned, tagged as racists, and in some cases had their posts banned from Social Media. About how almost the entire scientific community discarded the idea as impossible. How during the early pandemic years, no mainstream news media dared talk about the possibility. Te…

> I'd like for someone to throughly research and write about how it became taboo to discuss the virus leak theory.

I think the story is pretty much documented in Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EcoHealth_Alliance#COVID-19_pa...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Daszak#COVID-19_pandemic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_letter_(COVID-19)#Criti...

Unless you mean to ask, why was their PR stunt so very successful? For that I don't have an answer.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#729
post #431

I'd like for someone to throughly research and write about how it became taboo to discuss the virus leak theory. How researchers who discussed it were shunned, tagged as racists, and in some cases had their posts banned from Social Media. About how almost the entire scientific community discarded the idea as impossible. How during the early pandemic years, no mainstream news media dared talk about the possibility. Te…

That's because China finances a lot of western institutions and research labs which where afraid that speaking publicly would harm their grants.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#730
post #448
post #431

I'd like for someone to throughly research and write about how it became taboo to discuss the virus leak theory. How researchers who discussed it were shunned, tagged as racists, and in some cases had their posts banned from Social Media. About how almost the entire scientific community discarded the idea as impossible. How during the early pandemic years, no mainstream news media dared talk about the possibility. Te…

At a high level, it's pretty simple. There was a very well coordinated and intentional conflation of the term "lab leak" with the conspiracy theories around China and the WHO intentionally developing and deploying bio-weapons as a means of global population control. These conspiracy theories lead to a marked rise in violent attacks on anyone of Asian descent in the US, and generally fed into the wet dream fantasies o…

I find it deeply disturbing that excuses as flimsy as "hate" or "possible hate crime reaction" would be used as justification to suppress the truth, especially with a situation as grave as COVID-19. Who is to say whether the uptick with Asians is causation and not just correlation? Meanwhile, thousands of Americans were dying daily during the peak of the pandemic. Everyone was scared, needed to know what was going on.

The average person was much more worried about the potential harm to millions of citizens than a much smaller uptick in one particular sector. It's of paramount importance that we don't repeat the mistakes that led to the pandemic in the first place. The only way we can do that is getting to the bottom of what happened.

If "possible Asian hate crimes" was the best excuse that the censorship industrial complex could come up with, then it is clear to me that any excuse would have done, and the conclusions I draw is that the suppression was 100% politically motivated. I want to know who was involved in making the decision to suppress, and to what ends they were trying to shape public opinion. At the minimum I want to know who I should be working to vote out of office.

How can I know who to vote for when we're normalizing lying as a justifiable policy up and down the chain of government communication and mass media?

Post reply on HN