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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

#531

Post by memefrog »

mullingitover wrote: post #477
dumbfounder wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proof is not objective. There are levels of proof, different ones for civil and criminal in the US. So, maybe this doesn't prove it to you, but it will prove it to others. Argue for what level of proof you think is right here, but there is no absolute in proof for anything like this, ever.

You're not wrong. My take is this: the context of this debate is, for many, "China caused the Covid pandemic intentionally and conspired to hide their culpability." It's a big claim, literally a conspiracy theory, so I'd put it at the standards of a criminal trial. This is circumstantial evidence and, while it's certainly evidence that could be used to prosecute that claim, it isn't a case of China being caught in fl…

Nobody is saying that China caused the pandemic intentionally.

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

#533

Post by claytongulick »

retrac wrote: post #441
claytongulick wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like you found a racist dude in one of the over 128 million people that live in the south. I'm sure you could find some more if you look. It's over 38% of the county's population, and by far the most populous region of the U.S. [1]. You can find racism anywhere. Mostly in very small percentages, mostly in uneducated populations, and not restricted to any particular ethnicity. [1] https://www.census.gov/popclock…

Alabama had a ban on interracial marriage in its state constitution. Struck down in the 60s by SCOTUS but still on the books after that. When they put it to a referendum to repeal it from the text of the law - the vote was surprisingly close: > The amendment was approved with 59.5% voting yes, a 19 percentage point margin, though 25 of Alabama's 67 counties voted against it. That was in 2000.

And Oregon didn't repeal its black exclusion laws until 2002.

And just over 20 years before that there were riots in Boston over desegregation of schools.

It's so funny, this romantic notion that many from the north have of how supposedly enlightened they are, while the south is a bunch of backwater hicks. I know, I used to have it too, as did my wife then, who was Canadian. People thought we were crazy when we moved to Texas.

I really had my eyes opened. I encountered far more tolerance in Texas than anything I'd ever experienced up north.

Try being black in some communities in Vermont. See how well you do. Compare it with New Orleans.

Of course you can find racism and racist enclaves anywhere, but this asinine idea that "the south" is some sort of backwater racist hole while the north is a pristine liberal utopia is nonsense.

Also, I hate to disabuse you further, but I should also point out that the population of the capital of Alabama, Montgomery, is 60% black and 30% white. Whites are firmly a minority in the capital.

Atlanta: 50% black, 40% white. New Orleans: 60% black, 30% white.

I could go on, but it's boring. I'm not even listing any of the several large southern cities that are majority Hispanic.

The south has an incredibly diverse population. And sure, it had a dark history of racism (so does the north) but FFS it's not 1860 anymore.

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

#534

Post by dools »

mullingitover wrote: post #184

Unless someone has specimen samples from the sick WIV scientists, this doesn't really prove anything. Nasty respiratory viruses with Covid-like symptoms aren't actually that rare, and there's a lot of overlap between a bad respiratory infection and a mild Covid infection. I've talked to numerous people in the US who swore they had the full checklist of Covid symptoms well before the November 2019 date they're talking…

Yeah it seems that they could have been sick with anything. They could even have been sick because of what they were working on. There's no mention of how often people get sick in the lab. Like maybe people were sick in September and May and February with "covid like symptoms" because they do research on covid-like viruses.

It's a pretty specious line of reasoning to say that the fact some people were sick with "covid like symtpoms" (which are basically "flu like symptoms" for many) points to them being "patients zero".

Also the State Department release they link to is complaining about China's secrecy but leads by saying they don't know.

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

#535

Post by mullingitover »

memefrog wrote: post #531
mullingitover wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong. My take is this: the context of this debate is, for many, "China caused the Covid pandemic intentionally and conspired to hide their culpability." It's a big claim, literally a conspiracy theory, so I'd put it at the standards of a criminal trial. This is circumstantial evidence and, while it's certainly evidence that could be used to prosecute that claim, it isn't a case of China being caught in fl…

Nobody is saying that China caused the pandemic intentionally.

You'd think nobody would be enough of a wacko to say this. You'd be wrong, there was at least one wacko saying it.[1]

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2020/06/18/trump-su...

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

#536

Post by JeremyNT »

luuurker wrote: post #494
geuis wrote: post #225

I don't trust this article at all . > Sources within the US government say that three of the earliest people to become infected with SARS-CoV-2 were Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu. All were members of the Wuhan lab suspected to have leaked the pandemic virus. > It is unclear who in the U.S. government had access to the intelligence about the sick WIV workers, how long they had it, and why it was not shared with the pub…

> I don't trust this article at all. That's my reaction every time I see `substack.com` in the URL.

I've come to the same conclusion. I wish HN would just ban the whole domain.

The signal to noise ratio on substack is abysmal, with these pundits cum journalists fuelling the confirmation biases of their patrons with clickbait.

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

#537

Post by userbinator »

klabb3 wrote: post #391
fragmede wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're referring to the CoCom Limits on GPS receives, which limits functionality when the device is moving faster than 1,900 km/h aka 1,200 mph) and/or at an altitude higher than 18,000 m (59,000 ft), so you can't build a home made ICBM with it. Technically it's supposed to be and and not or , and high altitude amateur aerial ballonists tend to hit that flight ceiling, and so have a list of chipsets they can use in t…

I never understood how this works, at least effectively. Isn’t this just a device DRM? If you can build an ICBM you can probably hack a gps receiver, or build an unlocked one, no? If that encryption key is in every gps device, surely it must be available on eg darknet. And thus you could use existing gps infrastructure (ie avoid the expensive part of launching your own satellites). What am I missing?

There's no encryption, it's just a limit in the firmware.

What am I missing?

The collective intelligence --- or lack thereof --- of the bureaucracies that come up with these laws.

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

#539

Post by [deleted] »

hedora wrote: post #527
letmevoteplease wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't have to wait long for confirmation. The Director of National Intelligence will be required by law to declassify information about the infected researchers on June 18th, including their names, symptoms, date of onset and role at WIV.[1] [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/619...

Regardless of that, we already know they were doing related biological weapons research, as part of a cooperative program with the US. Funny how congress isn’t focusing on the stuff they have direct jurisdiction over, like refusing to fund similar programs in the future unless there is additional oversight.

[deleted]

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

#540

Post by throwaway4good »

nevi-me wrote: post #353
geuis wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey that's a cool link. I'm kinda embarrassed to say I didn't know you could track bills like this going through Congress. Thanks for the lead.

I discounted the article, especially the below part because anyone can say they're "100%" certain about something while they're not. > When a source was asked how certain they were that these were the identities of the three WIV scientists who developed symptoms consistent with COVID-19 in the fall of 2019, we were told, “100%” ... That's until I saw that Act on Congress' website. It'll be interesting to see what inf…

Maybe it will be used as an excuse to cancel the forth-coming Blinken visit to China:

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/14/politics/blinken-china-an...

Blinken to travel to China this weekend as US looks to reset relations after spy balloon incident

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