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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]

#121

Post by zarzavat »

Glyptodon wrote: post #115
baumy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 memory was that it was being called a "genetically engineered" virus in a way that made it sound like the focus wasn't a lab leak (accident) but an intentional weaponization.

There’s indeed a spectrum of four possibilities:

1) wild virus, no lab involvement

2) wild virus, accidentally released from a lab

3) modified virus, accidentally released from lab

4) modified virus, intentional release

At the start of the pandemic, the conspiracy nuts embraced option 4, and the left by reflex embraced option 1 and accused anybody who believe in 2 or 3 of believing in 4. Only later did options 2 and 3 gain more acceptance

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

#122

Post by rich_sasha »

As a non-American, I find it frustrating how American partisanship hijacked this discussion.

Forget Republicans and Democrats. A priori, a lab leak, at least accidental,.is a totally plausible hypothesis. Evidence is hard to find either way so who knows.

But then these became shibboleths for American polarisation and you can't say "lab leak" without being labelled a white supremacist.

I'm not saying it did or did not happen, only that there is no substantive evidence for any one hypothesis so it's ok to consider other ones.

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

#123

Post by Klinky »

booleandilemma wrote: post #103
baumy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're right, and it's not even hard to verify it, just look at this comment from December 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25587409 In the US, it's because this claim, or rejection of it, is strongly tied to political identity. Because the US is highly polarized right now, once political identity comes into play, you've left the realm of rationality and entered the realm of tribalism.

Your cited comment doesn't back what the commenter you're replying to is saying. It's just making a generic political statement. It does not have an opinion on the claims they're making.

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

#124

Post by rcme »

metamet wrote: post #64
_-____-_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even understand why it became political. What incentive do people on the left have to deny the obvious conclusion that it came from the lab?

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…

I’m not on the left or the right, but I am an avid NYT reader and the paper was definitely equating lab leak with crazy conspiracy theory at the time.

Here is an example from 2020: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/business/media/coronaviru...

The title is “Senator Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory of Coronavirus Origins”

It opens with:

> The rumor appeared shortly after the new coronavirus struck China and spread almost as quickly: that the outbreak now afflicting people around the world had been manufactured by the Chinese government.

> The conspiracy theory lacks evidence and has been dismissed by scientists. But it has gained an audience with the help of well-connected critics of the Chinese government such as Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist. And on Sunday, it got its biggest public boost yet.

It’s worth noting that the conspiracy they mention is that the virus was manufactured by the Chinese government. However, the only direct quote they provide from Cotton is this:

> “We don’t have evidence that this disease originated there,” the senator said, “but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says, and China right now is not giving evidence on that question at all.”

This was just the first result from a quick Google search: “nyt 2020 lab leak conspiracy”. There were definitely many other examples.

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

#125

Post by dang »

civilitty wrote: post #14
shusaku wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s amazing that we’re literally talking about a major geopolitical rival’s negligence leading to the deaths of millions of people, but the right wing talking point continues to be “how can we pin this on Fauci?” Americans have been taught to hate each other more than anyone else.

[flagged]

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. You've posted good comments in the past, so this should be easy to fix.

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

#126

Post by ikekkdcjkfke »

k_roy wrote: post #88
baumy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cul…

The "wet market" theory that was pushed oddly hard at the start is probably the most racist theory. If you strive to be the least racist you would have to go with "engineered in collaboration with west lab leak".

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

#127

Post by civilitty »

dang wrote: post #125
civilitty wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. You've posted good comments in the past, so this should be easy to fix.

beep boop I will tweak the RLHF. d(dang)/dt++

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

#128

Post by lamontcg »

baja_blast wrote: post #83
lamontcg wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715

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

#129

Post by jeezfrk »

_-____-_ wrote: post #50
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #37

It’s sad this became so political with people. Total brain rot.

I don't even understand why it became political. What incentive do people on the left have to deny the obvious conclusion that it came from the lab?

because bats deliver viruses all the time. Chinese people eat many animals bitten by bats all the time.

nothing is obvious-true because someone likes how simple it is. nothing becomes obvious-false because someone thinks it's not simple enough.

any other thinking is pre-chewed lies faking as news.

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

#130

Post by EMM_386 »

stevenAthompson wrote: post #84
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…

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…

They are not common, and "10 minutes of googling" isn't going to get you anywhere.

Read my link to the FOIA documents. There are many redacted, for "national security".

Why would they be redacted for US national security if this came from a natural animal origin? It should at least give you pause to think. Possibly because the US was funding it via NIH grants to EcoHealth Alliance, which puts everyone in quite the bind? 6+ million dead and finger pointing between global superpowers probably isn't the outcome they had in mind.

"In April 2020 correspondence with EcoHealth Alliance, NIH wrote that it "received reports that the Wuhan Institute of Virology ... has been conducting research at its facilities in China that pose serious bio-safety concerns."

Page 54.

Or this, where the NIH is requesting the location of a scientist who disappeared?

Page 235.

"The Wuhan institute sequenced the genome of the new virus in January after receiving patient samples. In addition to requiring EcoHealth Alliance provide a sample of the sequenced coronavirus, the NIH said in its letter that EcoHealth Alliance must “explain the apparent disappearance” of a scientist who worked in the Wuhan lab."

There are too many other pages (between all the pages of redactions) worth reading to mention them all.

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