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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

#571

Post by infamouscow »

bonadrag wrote: post #519
rnk wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't buy the international conspiracy to block ivermectin. I've considered it and discussed it with my poor father who became convinced by Fox News and endless Facebook forwarded postings. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of drugs and substances that have an antiviral effect. Ivermectin was one that was tested and there were some early results that were positive but then later with more thorough testing…

> I just don't buy the international conspiracy to block ivermectin. I agree, there is no conspiracy. It is just that when scientists, journalists and public servants are usually on the same side of the political spectrum, there is no need to central coordination (conspiracy). Society seems more polarized than recent times which leads to greater uniformity of ideas on each side. Regarding Ivermectin, though the evide…

> It is just that when scientists, journalists and public servants are usually on the same side of the political spectrum, there is no need to central coordination (conspiracy).

The last time this happened we created the Nuremberg Code.

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

#572

Post by toomim »

LanceH wrote: post #446
GolfPopper wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, among the "mistakes" Taibbi recently "owned up to" is falsifying information in his Twtter Files reporting. Among other things, he deliberately misrepresented mentions of the non-profit Center for Internet Security (CIS) as the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). It's clear that was not a mistake, but a choice he made in order to further a specific narrative - one that he only admitte…

I watched him before congress. He was not the problem. It was absolutely painful to watch the assault on the first amendment.

Video of his key testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEeaVOzqwAY

Video of the full hearing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMDjfP1gk60

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

#573

Post by anon291 »

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #530
baja_blast wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The WIV has BSL-4, BSL-3 and BSL-2 labs. But the research involving insertion of human specific furin cleavage sites into coronaviruses sampled in the wild was done in BSL2 which just means a thin medical mask and gloves. https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra...

Wow. The past 3 years I thought they had a lot more PPE than that. Not sure why anyone would be surprised about a leak when that's all they wore.

Realistically, many people's bayesian priors are severely skewed against the lab leak hypothesis because it is associated with Donald Trump, and even intelligent people find it difficult to separate the message from the messenger.

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

#574

Post by eftychis »

Instead of replying in spirit the same message to various comments here, I generalized the skepticism in one. To people commenting that "experts had repeatedly suggested that it is unlikely to be a leak."

Experts, that is people studying in biochemistry/biology/virology labs were and will always be saying that it is likely. Working in such a lab without accidents would be a historical miracle.

That is one of the reasons working actively with and producing bioweapons was "ditched" effectively by a lot of countries including the U.S. (Or at least I hope.)

I suggest starting with the wikipedia rabbithole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_warfare

Let us be clear: Political announcers were saying it is unlikely for diplomatic/cover-our/their-asses reasons.

Recall/research the USSR/Russian anthrax in Yekaterinburg of 1979. To this day it is a closed off area.

No person that has worked in a lab would say "unlikely..."

And to top it off in a summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity...

Check the 2004-04 event.

P.S. Literally, we had a known leak in Taiwan in 2021 while they were trying to study the SARS-COV-2 virus.

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

#575

Post by seattle_spring »

baja_blast wrote: post #431
wk_end wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW my understanding is that the labs were only BSL-2.

The WIV has BSL-4, BSL-3 and BSL-2 labs. But the research involving insertion of human specific furin cleavage sites into coronaviruses sampled in the wild was done in BSL2 which just means a thin medical mask and gloves. https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra...

It's not at all just a "thin mask and gloves." Just because Joe Rogan said this nonsense doesn't make it the truth.

Here are the actual BSL2 requirements: https://uwm.edu/ibc/bsl2_requirements/

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

#576

Post by areoform »

manicdee wrote: post #434
ethbr0 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need to start thinking of politically-impactful truths in terms of probability distributions and outcome possibility spaces, rather than absolutely. If it were a lab leak, there are probably a handful of eyewitnesses. Any information (not leak; was leak) would have serious ramifications to the political systems of the two largest economies in the world (the US and China). What are the chances that we'll ever h…

> If it were a lab leak, there are probably a handful of eyewitnesses. Not at all. The chances are that if it was a lab leak the people involved had no idea the leak happened at all. That's how lab leaks work: people make mistakes and inadvertently leak stuff from the lab. eg: Karen Wetterhahn vs lead What you're talking about is a deliberate release from a lab, which would have eyewitnesses because they know what is…

In Dr. Wetterhahn's case, it wasn't a leak and it wasn't lead. It was a spill that was contained properly and she followed all known procedures at the time. But it wasn't known at the time that dimethylmercury could penetrate through the gloves in less than 15 seconds. The estimated amount she absorbed through her gloves was roughly 0.089 teaspoons or 0.44ml (less than a drop) of dimethylmercury.

That was enough to kill her. No one else was exposed.

If she had prioritized herself over cleaning up, she may have survived.

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

#578

Post by bavell »

api wrote: post #462
kcplate wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taibbi is clearly a partisan hack that only attacks one side, ever. You should probably expand your reading to his articles in Rolling Stone, particularly those from 4-5 years ago. You would not say “ever” if you did that. But…for a writer that admittedly leans left in his politics, he is willing to call out that side when a story leads there. He is much like Glenn Greenwald in that respect. Both he and Glenn get a…

[flagged]

What is your definition of fascism?

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

#579

Post by shmoe »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #502
rnk wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that we would have done anything differently if we knew that China was responsible. It wouldn't have changed our treatments or vaccination strategies or anything. Could it have made some people who are crazy against China feel differently? Maybe. I don't think it would have made the doofuses who took ivermectin act differently though.

By us, I mean the govt. The ivermectin stuff is irrelevant. We also had doofuses claim masks won’t help and they flip flopped. They aren’t relevant either in a response for future containment and policy. The doofuses directly and indirectly funded WIV and if shown that was harmful can act to stop that. https://www.bbc.com/news/57932699.amp Truth is always better even if no action is taken.

I mean, to be fair -- they said we needed to conserve all the masks we had for medical staff because they had no idea what was coming.

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

#580

Post by carlmr »

avereveard wrote: post #490
sterlind wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like being lied or condescended to, just because most people can't handle the information. Also, it often backfires. Like, in early 2020, when the CDC said masks were unnecessary, then that N95s were unnecessary, it was glaringly obvious that this was propaganda to keep the public from panic-buying PPE and causing shortages. Some people believed them, took inadequate protections, got sick or died. It led to i…

This. The many little white lies killed trust in institutions. People knew things were not adding up. The mistrust drive them to search and search for answers, and if you search long enough on internet, something will turn up because search engine don't have discernment. That created the breeding ground for conspiracy theorist to gain unprecedented audience.

>if you search long enough on internet, something will turn up

Next crisis like this with chatGPT will be way more of this, imagine all the hallucinations.

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