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

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

#91

Post by slowturtle »

unethical_ban wrote: post #36
brigadier132 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They refused to believe in masks, As someone that believed in masks from the very beginning. The CDC and Fauci himself said masks were useless at the start of the pandemic. Stop being a pawn.

My understanding is that they said that as a path to avoid hoarding of N95 supplies which they knew were in short supply for those who most needed it at the time, medical professionals. That doesn't aren't right, precisely because it validates conspiracy minded people.

The point is that Fauci and the CDC lied to the public about the efficacy of masks, even if they lied with "good" intentions. They simply could've explained that supplies were low and asked people not to hoard them. Instead they lied (one of many times) and acted surprised when people started distrusting them.

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

#92

Post by BryantD »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #86
BryantD wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry, not going to do the “your cite doesn’t count because I don’t like some ineffable thing about it” game.

There’s a scientific claim in there; I will freely admit that I don’t know enough about viral genetics to have a valid opinion about it. What I do know is that people disagree about the implication of the furin cleavage site and it’s poor form not to acknowledge that.

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

#93

Post by rootusrootus »

jhugo wrote: post #71
rootusrootus wrote: post #44

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.

Anecdotally, there are plenty of people with obesity or other risk factors who died despite being fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, I had a confirmed COVID infection early on, before vaccines were available, and had nothing more than the sniffles. I then had two more confirmed infections after having three vaccine doses, and had the same sniffles. These anecdotes, like yours, are not very useful since they only confirm wh…

Agreed, anecdotes don't have too much meaning. But we do have pretty good statistics to back up the effectiveness of the vaccines.

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

#94

Post by Klinky »

baumy wrote: post #67
metamet wrote: 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…

Trump did use the terms "Kung Flu" & "China Virus". That kinda sums up his capacity to handle the crisis. It felt very much like the initial solution was to just blame China so much it'd magically go away by Easter. This rhetoric did have a negative impact on Asian communities.

Reality is there is still no definitive evidence of a lab leak and China is never going to admit to it. Trump's racist finger pointing didn't actually tangibly help US citizens. Even if he did prove it was China's fault, what was he going to do? Go to war with China? Cutoff trade our economy is inextricably tied to? It felt very much like a dog chasing a car. The dog has no clue what it'd do if it actually caught the car.

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

#95

Post by [deleted] »

Sebguer wrote: post #77
asynchronous wrote: post #63

Off topic, does anyone else remember the videos from December/January 2020 coming from China that showed young healthy adults dropping dead in the streets like it was a zombie plague? Going off of China’s own numbers, none of that was reality, so what the heck was that? Some ridiculous psyop? For what purpose? To what end?

Are you sure you didn't just watch Contagion and get confused? I do not recall anything of this sort, in fact until March 2020, no one thought Covid was anything serious as far as I can really remember. I recall most people believing my employer over-reacted when they shut down the offices. I don't think people would have felt this way if what you were describing had been a thing.

[deleted]

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

#96

Post by colinsane »

MilnerRoute wrote: post #9

I think the problem is that America's Director of National Intelligence just isn't saying what people had hoped to hear. "We continue to have no indication that the Wuhan Institute of Virology's pre-pandemic research holdings included SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID…

the first quote is claiming an absence of evidence, not evidence of absence.

we don’t really know which information actually was gathered here (it could literally be zero and that sentence would still be true), so there’s no way to turn that sentence into evidence of anything. it’s fairly meaningless.

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

#97

Post by BryantD »

Sebguer wrote: post #77
asynchronous wrote: post #63

Off topic, does anyone else remember the videos from December/January 2020 coming from China that showed young healthy adults dropping dead in the streets like it was a zombie plague? Going off of China’s own numbers, none of that was reality, so what the heck was that? Some ridiculous psyop? For what purpose? To what end?

Are you sure you didn't just watch Contagion and get confused? I do not recall anything of this sort, in fact until March 2020, no one thought Covid was anything serious as far as I can really remember. I recall most people believing my employer over-reacted when they shut down the offices. I don't think people would have felt this way if what you were describing had been a thing.

Eric Raymond was spreading rumors about these videos in February 2020: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8587

(Note that there were some people advancing the bioweapon theory, although I won’t argue with anyone who says esr’s comment section was populated by fringe conspiracy theorists by 2020.)

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

#98

Post by smitty1110 »

gurchik wrote: post #59
userbinator wrote: post #3

In case anyone else is wondering: I instinctively checked the redacted areas, and there is indeed nothing there but a black rectangle.

The last bullet on page 3 (page 4 of the pdf) seems to have a character that was forgotten to be redacted? The same thing happens a few pages later

The 'U' in question stands for "Unclassified" in this case. It's left unredacted on purpose in this case.

edit - Still, makes me curious about the redacted parts of those lines.

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

#99

Post by kcplate »

Klinky wrote: post #40
EMM_386 wrote: 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…

Neither of those are definitive sources of evidence. Grant proposals that were denied and statements that the furin site could've evolved naturally or been lab manipulated, aren't really evidence that COVID-19 leaked from a lab.

Ok, so? This is inference from a bunch of connected but circumstantial evidence.

Can someone explain to me what the harm is in this practice?

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

#100

Post by ESTheComposer »

metamet wrote: post #89
ESTheComposer wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 focu…

Interesting you just ignored the direct quote I gave of Fauci asking the NIH to put it down.

I'm pretty sure Twitter had pressure from the Virality Project which worked with Stanford and federal agencies so I think it's disingenuous to act as if they weren't denying anything or trying to play it down.

The China Virus thing has nothing to do with what I said

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