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US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

reuters.com

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Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#141

Post by mhh__ »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #117
mgamache wrote: post #4

Related: China refused to provide WHO team with raw data on early COVID cases, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who-ch...

But we did have data from cruise ships early in 2020 which showed that deaths were heavily age-specific, and that the death and hospitalization forecasts from organisations like Oxford were highly inaccurate. Yet for some reason the West seemed intent on pursuing lockdowns, demonising countries like Sweden and Belarus which didn't. Hospitals have never been overloaded (apart from places like New York where symptomati…

Yes, (((they))) made up the election votes so Biden would win.

Absolutely. It definitely cannot be that Trump never polled more than 50% nationwide and lost his initial vote by nearly 3 million.

You've cracked the code!

Downvoters: Facts don't care about your feelings, any evidence of wrongdoing?

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#142

Post by RegnisGnaw »

getpolarized wrote: post #136
ttz wrote: post #53

First gen Chinese, grew up in NA. Have contact with relatives "on the ground". My own experience: Don't ever trust the Chinese government on issues that could potentially involve the reputation of the party. Note that I'm not saying don't trust what CCP says, ever (sometimes they actually do good things) - just not on issues that involve anything to do with how the world might perceive them. Which is exactly what thi…

Do we / did we even have the tech co be able to build this in a lab? I don't think we do. It MIGHT have been possible but Occam's Razor says it's more plausible it evolved naturally and just jumped species. FAR FAR FAR more plausible.

In the the more common lab theory is that it was a natural virus being studies in the lab. It escaped by accident.

China has had multiple SARS escape accidents.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#143

Post by the8472 »

kergonath wrote: post #127
the8472 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If the Western world would have done what the WHO advised at the time, we all more or less would have a COVID stuation like the Chinese have for some time. > Mask early Are we living in the same timeline? https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1243972193169616898 https://twitter.com/UNGeneva/status/1244661916535930886 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1234095938555260929 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1234871709091667969 htt…

Right, yes, that was early March. The guidelines evolved as more information became available and they released new advice in early April, which is far from ideal but better than a lot of governments reactions. Their official stance before that was rigorous test, isolate, and trace, which was not done seriously anywhere outside China.

Well, mask early may not have been the best choice of words then. Taiwan's reaction would qualify as early. And Taiwan is the thing that the WHO has been very conspicuously be silent about even when asked explicitly.

https://twitter.com/fu7371/status/1262786140777545728

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#144

Post by bcrosby95 »

getpolarized wrote: post #136
ttz wrote: post #53

First gen Chinese, grew up in NA. Have contact with relatives "on the ground". My own experience: Don't ever trust the Chinese government on issues that could potentially involve the reputation of the party. Note that I'm not saying don't trust what CCP says, ever (sometimes they actually do good things) - just not on issues that involve anything to do with how the world might perceive them. Which is exactly what thi…

Do we / did we even have the tech co be able to build this in a lab? I don't think we do. It MIGHT have been possible but Occam's Razor says it's more plausible it evolved naturally and just jumped species. FAR FAR FAR more plausible.

"Building" it in a lab might be too scifi. But it's possible they were experimenting with things.

E.g. "killer bees" are a product of human scientists trying to engineer a better bee - the release was accidental. It's not like we have the ability to genetically engineer a bee from the ground up. But as a species humans have been purposefully manipulating the traits of living things for thousands of years.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#145

Post by tripletao »

I don't know whether SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab. But if it did, then not only is it probably not the first lab-origin pandemic, but it's also not the first time the WHO initially excluded that possibility.

The 1977 Russian Flu pandemic was genetically near-identical to a strain from 1950, without the expected mutations that should have appeared after 27 years of undetected circulation among humans or animals. It's been widely suspected in mainstream literature to have escaped from a research or vaccine manufacturing accident, to the point that the NEJM casually wrote:

> The reemergence was probably an accidental release from a laboratory source in the setting of waning population immunity to H1 and N1 antigens

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra0904322

But at the time, the WHO said:

> Laboratory contamination can be excluded because the laboratories concerned either had never kept H1N1 virus or had not worked with it for a long time.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2395678/pdf/bul...

And it's absolutely bizarre to me that people are asking why the origin even matters. After thousands of people died in Bhopal, did it matter whether better chemical safety standards could have prevented that? So with millions dead now, how could you possibly not wonder whether our current standards for the sampling and manipulation of poorly-understood pandemic-candidate viruses are adequate?

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#146

Post by loveistheanswer »

rossdavidh wrote: post #14

So, perhaps there is a valid reason for China to refuse to give the raw data on early COVID-19 victims to the WHO, but I have to say, as a reader who's never been particularly impressed by the possibility of it being lab-created, I have to say this is not a good look for China.

>as a reader who's never been particularly impressed by the possibility of it being lab-created

It need not be "lab-created". Most samples are taken from the wild, and then has its evolution stimulated for research.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#147

Post by kergonath »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #93
kergonath wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no winning with you... Of course it cannot be too powerful, because then nationalists would scream bloody murder and refuse to have anything to do with it. The WHO is a forum to coordinate strategy and exchange information. Obviously, this requires a minimum of good faith, which seems to be difficult for some countries (yes, particularly dictatorships). But even then, it is better to have them within, collab…

The WHO has shown itself to be practically useless. The premise that sovereign nations need the WHO to cooperate is false. Diplomacy and cooperation between nations was the norm for many years prior to the WHO and will be the norm for many years after the WHO’s inevitable abandonment and demise.

Do you have a concrete example of public health cooperation amongst more than 2 nations before WWII? As far as I remember, every country just covered its metaphorical arse during the Spanish Flu pandemic, for example.

Of course, cooperation is always possible, but what would be the extent of cooperation between say China, Russia, and the US if a new treaty were signed today?

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#148

Post by ourlordcaffeine »

the-dude wrote: post #37
renewiltord wrote: post #5

The WHO is a useless organization. For political reasons, it will be necessary to engage, but hopefully US authorities will not treat it as an information source. The US should use its own primary sources in future to evaluate disease spread. China will lie to the WHO and the WHO will protect it. But to know the truth, we should use our modern equivalents of Key Hole. There is no truth but that which you have examine…

I watched the WHO press briefings in about the first month. If the Western world would have done what the WHO advised at the time, we all more or less would have a COVID stuation like the Chinese have for some time.

Taiwan, the country that arguably handled the virus best of all, did so well because they ignored the WHO and quickly closed their border, at the time when the WHO was insisting that countries do not restrict travel to/from China.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#149

Post by zepto »

foolmeonce wrote: post #137
zepto wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US motive for proving China is at fault is largely political diversion from the US' mishandling, which would be mishandling no matter what origin. Whether this is motivation is true or not has nothing to do with whether the WHO report reflects reality.

The WHO disclosed they were blocked. You can infer a bayesian for a lab release of this specific virus. Now what does that change about the next pandemic?

The lab leak is not the only hypothesis the CCP may be seeking to avoid.

What they knew and how early they knew it is at least as significant.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#150

Post by loveistheanswer »

jchook wrote: post #77
sjg007 wrote: post #47

If it was lab created independent scientists would be able to figure it out and there would be evidence that it was. But it looks like there is not: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 Now maybe the virus mutated from those initial 174 cases but that's unlikely. China does have a narrative that covid19 reinfections are coming from imported frozen foods though so I'm not sure why they are pushing that an…

I don't feel convinced by the argument. Maybe someone can help me understand better. - Virus infects human ACE2 suboptimally, therefore it's not lab grown. Why? Because a virus engineer is always going for maximizing spread rate? Seems plausible that less-than-ideal infection rates of humans could be a feature rather than a bug. - A polybasic clevage site was not seen in SARS-CoV... but it's function is not known. Ok…

>Why? Because a virus engineer is always going for maximizing spread rate? Seems plausible that less-than-ideal infection rates of humans could be a feature rather than a bug.

You are correct. There is both gain of function and loss of function happening in these types of experiments.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK285579/

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