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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

#701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people with influence confidently label and laugh at conspiracy theories, and one or more turn out to be true, it becomes easier for some to trust the people who find conspiracies everywhere.

Even better: one can now know not to trust mainstream authorities, but ithat does not require one to trust conspiracy theorists.

One can, but in practice it seems like more people just won't believe the "official story" anymore. That's the behavior that I've seen manifesting lately.

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

#702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the moment I’m skeptical of how revelatory the report and documents will be. The act specifically mentions the possibility of redactions to protect sources and methods. We’ll have to wait and see what size of bus the DNI attempts to drive through that hole.

This is not going to be revelatory. This is just a stamp on various anonymous "sources" on what we have heard already.

Yeah, that was the wrong word. At the moment I’m skeptical of how much value it will have as far as confirming or refuting this article for the aforementioned reason.

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

#703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SARS-like CoronaViruses != COVID19. All cows are animals. Not all animals are cows.

The coronaviruses being studied at WIV included RaTG13, one of the closest relatives (96.1% genomic match) to SARS-CoV-2 ever found in the wild. But a key difference between SARS-CoV-2 and it's wild relatives is the spike protein with affinity for the ACE2 receptor, so it would have had to have evolved through an intermediate host with a human-like ACE2 receptor. For example, ACE2-transgenic lab mice. This does not i…

96.1 genomic match is less than the match between a male chimpanzee and a male human.

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

#704
post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Lol. Yes and Noam Chomsky too. All fascists. /s

Chomsky isn't a fascist. He's just stuck in the mid-late 20th century anti-Vietnam-era paradigm and thinks everything that happens in the world is always America's fault. He hasn't updated his view of the world since the 1980s at best.

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

#705
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> What's the point of having a real virus if you aren't using it to generate real data?

I think you're conflating the data existing vs the data being public. My wife has a PhD in psychology. She did research at a state school using US gov't grants. The only "data" available is the papers they wrote and presented. I don't expect a virology lab to be any less protective - in fact I expect them to be more.

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

#706
post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How many former spooks signed a letter claiming it had all the hallmarks of a russian information operation to influence an election? 50? This was then promoted to "russian disinformation" and treated as fact far and wide across the media. The Hunter Biden laptop did reek of a Russian operation. It was clearly an attempt to hurt Biden in the 11th hour. Even if the content is genuine, which everything I've seen appe…

sibling comment is flagged and really should not be.

FWIW I agree.

Anyways, I think it's wrong that the White House attempted to discredit and aggressively remove the content under false pretenses.

At the same time, I think it's important to recognize that the content can be real AND a foreign intelligence campaign at the same time. Russia tried to interfere with the 2017 French election by dumping hacked information[0]; in my opinion, they learned from that failure and realized they needed to launder future leaks so they werent transparently hostile foreign interference. Enter the Hunter Biden laptop.

[0] https://www.csis.org/analysis/successfully-countering-russia...

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

#707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird how many smart people still haven't realized they are being lied to by the legacy media and establishment figures. Even after repeatedly discrediting themselves. Taibbi and Shellenberger aren't perfect either, but they are more reliable and honest. Taibbi is still the investigative journalist he's always been.

They say it is always easier to con intelligent people, because they don't think they are capable of being fooled.

Hmm... but intelligent people don't think they're that intelligent (Dunning–Kruger effect) :-)

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

#708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The coronaviruses being studied at WIV included RaTG13, one of the closest relatives (96.1% genomic match) to SARS-CoV-2 ever found in the wild. But a key difference between SARS-CoV-2 and it's wild relatives is the spike protein with affinity for the ACE2 receptor, so it would have had to have evolved through an intermediate host with a human-like ACE2 receptor. For example, ACE2-transgenic lab mice. This does not i…

96.1 genomic match is less than the match between a male chimpanzee and a male human.

[deleted]

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

#709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The coronaviruses being studied at WIV included RaTG13, one of the closest relatives (96.1% genomic match) to SARS-CoV-2 ever found in the wild. But a key difference between SARS-CoV-2 and it's wild relatives is the spike protein with affinity for the ACE2 receptor, so it would have had to have evolved through an intermediate host with a human-like ACE2 receptor. For example, ACE2-transgenic lab mice. This does not i…

96.1 genomic match is less than the match between a male chimpanzee and a male human.

There is no closer match to SARS-CoV-2 found in the wild. Pangolins were floated for awhile but I believe the samples were 91%~

If there was GoF being done on the sample (adding of the spike protein to infect humans), that could be the remaining percentage.

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

#710
post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ridiculed because trust was immediately violated, and trust is not what science is built on. However just being an everything skeptic without any scientific education is not good either. The problem was the politicization, the dishonesty, the corruption. Both camps were wrong plenty of times, none would admit to it, and public discourse suffered because neither side was willing to cede ground to actual science.

> The problem was the politicization, the dishonesty, the corruption. This one part is correct. For example, when they admitted to being wrong about masks after they had better information, lunatics claimed they were lying and corrupt. And they have been spreading wild-eyed propaganda to this day.

It wasn't just about waiting for better information, though. The restaurant infection in Washington, where the spread of the virus matched convection currents from the air conditioning, along with the super spreader events from singing, etc. should have immediately made them suspect aerosol transmission. There were numerous, obvious clues about it from the beginning, but it took until late 2020 for them to acknowledge - far after independent virologists had raised alarms.

The argument, as far as I can tell, was just that the effect of different kinds of masks on covid transmission hadn't yet been studied. Which means that data was a priority, sure, but recommending masks as an initial precaution against an extremely contagious novel respiratory virus just seems sensible.

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