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First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

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Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#161

Post by defen »

predictabl3 wrote: post #118
UberFly wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct. I guess people can't handle that. This is from the article, it tracks with your sentiment: Said Metzl, “Had US government officials including Dr. Fauci stated from day one that a COVID-19 research-related origin was a very real possibility, and made clear that we had little idea what viruses were being held at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, what work was being done there, and who was doing that wor…

Are we actually claiming that "Virus leak from scary china" would've gotten people to wear masks more or isolate more, versus "Virus killing people keeps spreading?" Or am I missing the point?

I think it would have. A huge portion of early deniers (generally people of a conservative disposition) were in the "it's just a flu" camp. I think "scary virus from China" would have made those people stop and think "there's no telling WHAT this thing could do!"

Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#162

Post by ozr »

this_user wrote: post #129
ozr wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was developed in lab, presumably there would be a substantial amount of information available on it. Lab notes, testing results, transmission rates, all sorts of things we had to discover in the wild. We could have used that data to make progress on a vaccine (and adjust our overall response) much, much faster.

How and why would they have that kind of data available if the virus only existed in the lab? At most they could have had computer simulations, but no real data. The only information they would have had is the DNA sequence, but that was rapidly sequenced anyway, and design of the original vaccines followed in short order. What took time was testing and manufacturing the vaccines, but none of this would have been acce…

> How and why would they have that kind of data available if the virus only existed in the lab? At most they could have had computer simulations, but no real data.

I'm not a virologist, but this doesn't make sense to me. If we work under the assumption that this was a lab-made virus that leaked, then they plainly must have actually created it. What's the point of having a real virus if you aren't using it to generate real data?

Even in the unlikely scenario where they made it, stuck it on a shelf, and did nothing: they could share information about how it was created, which would give insight into it's potential current and future behavior.

> The only information they would have had is the DNA sequence, but that was rapidly sequenced anyway, and design of the original vaccines followed in short order.

This isn't true. They would have information on how it was created, any work that they had done to devise a vaccine for it, and any other data they had accumulated on it.

> This whole discussion is ultimately useless, and the people pushing for it were never interested in finding solution, but only in finding someone to blame, which has no impact on the outcome.

It's not useless at all. If it turns out to be true, there are plenty of meaningful ramifications:

1. In the pursuit of stopping fake news and propaganda, real information from whistleblowers and researchers was suppressed and careers were ended. It would be a useful lesson in free speech and the open exchange of ideas.

2. It shows there are clearly deficiencies in these labs. Inspections could be more frequent, standards could be raised, all sorts of changes could be made to prevent it from happening again.

3. And, yes, if there is someone or some entity worthy of blame, they should be blamed. Why should their fault be hand-waved?

Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#163

Post by red-iron-pine »

MarkMarine wrote: post #81
onethought wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which still doesn’t really draw the line of how an outbreak occurred at the wet market. Also common seasonal illness isn’t exactly a smoking gun

not really typical for healthy researchers in their 30s to end up in the hospital with seasonal illness symptoms though.

Perfectly normal for regular, healthy folks to occasionally come down with seasonal flu. Sometimes people get sick, it happens.

The issue was that a whole bunch of them did, rapidly, and in non-trivial numbers.

Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#164

Post by hwillis »

mike_hearn wrote: post #134
onethought wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which still doesn’t really draw the line of how an outbreak occurred at the wet market. Also common seasonal illness isn’t exactly a smoking gun

Supposedly there was a problem for a long time with researchers selling used lab animals on the street to make a bit of extra cash.

That's ridiculous. The animals are transgenic mice.

Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#165

Post by fzeroracer »

jchw wrote: post #69
scoofy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also... I mean, unless I've created a false memory, I specifically remember that the discussion at the time was about a the virus literally being a bio-weapon, and not actually the entirely plausible, accidental escape of a virus. I've always had a completely open mind about it, even if experts have repeatedly suggested that it's plausible, but unlikely. Those prattling on about how "people called us crazy" that it w…

I knew this would happen, so much so I'm pretty sure I even called it ahead of time. This happens so frequently that there ought to be a word for it. Yes, some conservative personalities early on had pushed some dumb conspiracies about COVID-19 being a bioweapon. No, that was not the crux of the argument that the many scientists, journalists and internet commenters had when they argued in favor of the lab leak hypoth…

It's not 'some conservative personalities' and it's amazing to see people here so blatantly try to gaslight others. It was the president of the United States pushing the lab leak hard before any evidence fell down and then republican officials following up with the argument that it was a bioweapon. The reason why they did it was because they wanted to give people a reason to distrust authority. That was part of the M.O even though the person pushing this stuff held the highest authority office in the land!

I'm skeptical of the lab leak theory regardless if it's Trump or Biden pushing it because ultimately the US government is going to use whatever it can as a political weapon against other countries. This doesn't mean it's not potentially true, nor does it make China right, but it means people should be inherently skeptical of any positions the US takes on stuff like this.

Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#166

Post by connicpu »

CommitSyn wrote: post #99
inetknght wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fairly well-known [0] that China messes with maps data and forces Google to do so. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...

Is this similar to how the US used to mandate that civilian use of GPS was off by a certain amount?

Sort of. It uses a pre-defined transformation that doesn't interfere with street navigation. If you're on a street it will precisely reflect that value as well as any other GPS. But it makes it difficult to perform purely GPS-based instrument navigation, which in theory makes it harder to conduct eg missile strikes.

Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#167

Post by pessimizer »

phpisthebest wrote: post #41
scoofy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also... I mean, unless I've created a false memory, I specifically remember that the discussion at the time was about a the virus literally being a bio-weapon, and not actually the entirely plausible, accidental escape of a virus. I've always had a completely open mind about it, even if experts have repeatedly suggested that it's plausible, but unlikely. Those prattling on about how "people called us crazy" that it w…

People were being banned from twitter, youtube, facebook ext for mentioning lab leak... Now you want to gas light everyone saying "it was perfectly ok to talk about in 2020 That is not accurate at all...

> Facebook made a quiet but dramatic reversal last week: It no longer forbids users from touting the theory that COVID-19 came from a laboratory.

> "In light of ongoing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and in consultation with public health experts, we will no longer remove the claim that COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps," the social media platform declared in a statement.

> [...]

> Consider that Facebook's new declaration sits atop its About page, just above the site's previous policy on coronavirus-related misinformation—dated February 8, 2021—which was to vigorously purge so-called "false claims," including the notion that the disease "is man-made or manufactured." The mainstream media had deemed this notion not merely wrong but dangerously absurd, and tech companies followed suit, suppressing it to the best of their abilities.

https://reason.com/2021/06/04/lab-leak-misinformation-media-...

Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources

#168

Post by notjulianjaynes »

inetknght wrote: post #91
notjulianjaynes wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly off topic, but thanks to your first link I was just doing some satellite image sightseeing of Wuhan and noticed that on Google maps the streets are offset about 3 blocks east of where they should be. It's fairly obvious here [1] where the curved road extends out into a lake. Not saying this means anything, just found it amusing. 1. https://maps.app.goo.gl/reVDkMAhfMRbv1uJ8

It's fairly well-known [0] that China messes with maps data and forces Google to do so. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...

Huh, I guess I wasn't aware of this previously. Figured it was a bug or something.

Considering the satellite imagery exists this seems silly. Glad I didn't drive into a lake!

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