Live data from Hacker News

Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

dni.gov

81–90 of 186 posts

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#81
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your link proves your point like you think it does. It's a correlation, not causation. The question is, what other variables may impact conservatives. One of the main factors in if you die from getting covid is age. And conservatives tend to be older. I would love to see an age normalized version of that data. I'd bet it would be about a wash.

The only people in my circle of friends and family who died from COVID were middle age or older obese men who were ideologically opposed to taking a vaccine. I do have a number of conservative friends & family who did vaccinate, none of them got more than the sniffles.

Huh, the vaccine uptake where I live was aberrantly low. Highly conservative. I know lots of older people, including many retired, of retirement age. I don't know anyone who has suffered a fatality from the disease - and many of those I do know who contracted would have contracted the alpha variant prior to vaccine deployment.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#82
post #34

The Wuhan Institute of Virology was working on adding a unique furin cleavage site to a bat coronoavirus strain to make it bind to human ACE-2 receptors. This is factual, because the grant proposals are out there and DARPA in the US turned them down: https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra... Suddenly, we have a global pandemic featuring a bat coronavirus with a unique furin cleavage site that bi…

Can you point to a non-biased source that explains this in more detail? I'm not a biologist, I don't have the slightest idea what the heck a furin cleavage site is, and so whether this is a red herring or a smoking gun. But if you think this is such a smoking gun, can you point to somebody who explains in detail for a general audience what it means, why it's true, and how statistically unlikely it would be for it to…

The furin cleavage theory is fairly controversial: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2211107119

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "All Intelligence Community agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not developed as a biological weapon." This strawman is getting old. A tiny portion of people believe or assert it's a bioweapon. That is relatively unlikely and even less likely to be proven true, even if it is. Many people suspect it leaked from the lab. That's relatively likely. But let's just completely ignore that and focus on debunking a crazier…

I think a biological weapon deliberately released makes more sense than an accidental release from a lab that happens to look exactly like it spilled over at a wet market. SARS-CoV-1 had an accidental "lab leak" and instead of infecting a market it killed the mother of the researcher who was infected with it.

But it does not appear to have spilled over at the wet market. The Chinese CDC published a paper stating it was just a super spreader event. Plus the samples were taken way too long after the virus has been spreading. The market just reflects sampling bias.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#84
post #34

The Wuhan Institute of Virology was working on adding a unique furin cleavage site to a bat coronoavirus strain to make it bind to human ACE-2 receptors. This is factual, because the grant proposals are out there and DARPA in the US turned them down: https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra... Suddenly, we have a global pandemic featuring a bat coronavirus with a unique furin cleavage site that bi…

Unique furin cleavage sites are very common in coronaviruses (see below paper). In fact, one of the papers linked from the intercept article you posted even mentions HCoV-HKU1 which also has a unique furin cleavage site at s1/s2.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187350612...

I found all of this in about 10 minutes of googling and 15 minutes of reading. Which means I’m as qualified to weigh in on the subject as anyone else here now.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#85
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's some confusion and rewriting of history going on here. The left wasn't denying the possibility that it leaked from the Wuhan lab. This was a theory very early on and it wasn't "denied" more that it wasn't substantiated. It became political when it was asserted by people on the right, without any actual research or investigation, that was an intentional release from China. Majority of that blame falls…

Man you are rewriting history for sure. Twitter was banning Wuhan lab theories as misinformation and Fauci's leaked emails show him asking the NIH to further "put down" the lab leak theories.

At the time, it was absolutely misinformation. That it may actually be true doesn’t make it less so.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#86
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point to a non-biased source that explains this in more detail? I'm not a biologist, I don't have the slightest idea what the heck a furin cleavage site is, and so whether this is a red herring or a smoking gun. But if you think this is such a smoking gun, can you point to somebody who explains in detail for a general audience what it means, why it's true, and how statistically unlikely it would be for it to…

The furin cleavage theory is fairly controversial: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2211107119

If it were fairly controversial, why are you citing a paper in PNAS, the Journal Of Last Refuge for shitty science?

The only benefit of being a member of the academy of sciences is that you can dump into PNAS whatever hot trash you couldn't sell to any other journal, because they almost never reject papers from members.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#87
post #67
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's some confusion and rewriting of history going on here. The left wasn't denying the possibility that it leaked from the Wuhan lab. This was a theory very early on and it wasn't "denied" more that it wasn't substantiated. It became political when it was asserted by people on the right, without any actual research or investigation, that was an intentional release from China. Majority of that blame falls…

Candidly, I think that this comment is actually the one rewriting history. There absolutely, 100% was complete denial, all originating on the political left, that a leak from a lab in China was a possibility. No confusion about intentional vs accidental - total denial of the possibility in any way shape or form. Suggesting it was possible, much less plausible or even likely, was labeled racist. Attempts were made (wi…

My recollection is closer to GP's than to yours, fwiw. Not exactly the same, but I do recall that a lot of the pushback from the left was because every publication on the right was busy hitching the "it originated as a lab-modified virus" motte to the "it was intentionally released/it was a bioweapon" bailey.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#88
post #67
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's some confusion and rewriting of history going on here. The left wasn't denying the possibility that it leaked from the Wuhan lab. This was a theory very early on and it wasn't "denied" more that it wasn't substantiated. It became political when it was asserted by people on the right, without any actual research or investigation, that was an intentional release from China. Majority of that blame falls…

Candidly, I think that this comment is actually the one rewriting history. There absolutely, 100% was complete denial, all originating on the political left, that a leak from a lab in China was a possibility. No confusion about intentional vs accidental - total denial of the possibility in any way shape or form. Suggesting it was possible, much less plausible or even likely, was labeled racist. Attempts were made (wi…

> There absolutely, 100% was complete denial, all originating on the political left, that a leak from a lab in China was a possibility. No confusion about intentional vs accidental - total denial of the possibility in any way shape or form. Suggesting it was possible, much less plausible or even likely, was labeled racist.

You are ignoring a few simple facts here.

1. The left doesn't congregate and worship at the cult of personality like the right does.

2. The first cases were in Wuhan. The right/Trumpets immediately blamed China. And this blame had exactly zero to do with any facts at the time. And in blaming China, hate crimes against all Asians increased dramatically, not even just Chinese.

3. It wasn't being called racist just saying it. It was racist being racists. Most people admitted it was a possibility, but definitely not confirmed in any way

The fact of the matter is it was turned into a political talking point.

The right says "IT IS THIS WAY BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT I BELIEVE AND IF YOU DON'T AGREE YOU ARE RADICAL LEFT"

The left says "We can't say that yet"

Learn the definition of gaslighting

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#89
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's some confusion and rewriting of history going on here. The left wasn't denying the possibility that it leaked from the Wuhan lab. This was a theory very early on and it wasn't "denied" more that it wasn't substantiated. It became political when it was asserted by people on the right, without any actual research or investigation, that was an intentional release from China. Majority of that blame falls…

Man you are rewriting history for sure. Twitter was banning Wuhan lab theories as misinformation and Fauci's leaked emails show him asking the NIH to further "put down" the lab leak theories.

While Twitter, a private company, censored posts, Biden's White House said that they wouldn't rule out any possibility, including the virus being leaked on purpose.

He also ordered US spy agencies to do an investigation into the lab leak hypothesis.

"The left" wasn't denying anything. It just wasn't willing to jump to conclusions prematurely. Trying to rebrand it as "The China Virus" was a transparent attempt to focus blame and hate in a particular direction.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people in my circle of friends and family who died from COVID were middle age or older obese men who were ideologically opposed to taking a vaccine. I do have a number of conservative friends & family who did vaccinate, none of them got more than the sniffles.

Huh, the vaccine uptake where I live was aberrantly low. Highly conservative. I know lots of older people, including many retired, of retirement age. I don't know anyone who has suffered a fatality from the disease - and many of those I do know who contracted would have contracted the alpha variant prior to vaccine deployment.

The largest group of fatalities in my friend/family group were late in the delta wave, right before it faded out and got replaced by omicron.
Post reply on HN