Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm annoyed with the connection between SARS-CoV-2 and bioweapon. This is such a garbage bioweapon for two reasons: This doesn't kill military aged men and it cannot be readily shut off. American scientists have nailed down when the cross over event occurred and how it happened. The world's top virologists also have said multiple times that this is not a bioweapon, people who have studied viruses for decades. But peo…
To play devil's advocate here: something doesn't need to kill to be an effective Bioweapon. "The line between disorder and order lies in logistics." -Sun Tzu COVID has been a logistical nightmare. For everyone. For the record, no--I don't believe anybody 'engineered' it [or has used it]* as a bioweapon. *Edit for clarity
China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest
151–160 of 385 posts
Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
So...evidence? Stating it's compelling isn't evidence, just that it is an explanation that appeals to large populations of our species who are hold certain suspicions. There is, however, a long history of animal to human transmission of diseases. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I have yet to see anyone provide evidence, only twitter rumors, and twitter rumors aren't even regular evidence.
Why is China reopening the wet markets if they know the virus came from there? I will let you ponder on that.
Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think "coronavirus escapes from a lab, in the exact area where the outbreak started, that was studying coronaviruses" is exactly an 'extraordinary claim'. If anything it's the elephant in the room. Are we just supposed to casually ignore that or what…. I think the problem is that when people think of "lab" they think of some sort of devious genetic engineering bioweapons program, and not something considerabl…
Umm, they were also combining viruses to create "chimeras". Now, this combinational process could be genetic engineering (which has been ruled out I think) or just combining in a petri dish, which I find compelling.
If this were one of those, as has been claimed on the basis of the frequently mis-cited October 2019 WIV paper, anyone in the world would be able to see that by comparing the SARS-CoV-2 sequence accessioned in NCBI's database with one of the many HIV sequences also available there. I've done the alignment myself, against several HIV sequences. So can you; you don't even need a local toolchain, you can pick them and BLAST them right on NCBI's site.
When you do, you'll find the same thing I did: there is no significant similarity between any HIV strain and SARS-CoV-2. So the "escaped chimera" theory is not only implausible on its face given the nature of pseudoviruses, but disproven by genomic evidence, besides.
Please don't spread disinformation.
Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest
#154The the American leadership constantly calling it by the region name you can understand why an authoritarian regime would want to control discussion of the origins by experts. The risk is of their research being weaponized by said demagogues.
Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What? That's not how evidence works. The onus is on the person making the claim to provide positive evidence. You might have had a point if the Chinese regime wasn't putting it's propaganda machine into overdrive spewing conspiracy theories on how covid19 was created by the US to attack China.
Right now US propaganda is in overdrive mode trying to lay the blame onto China ; there are no other views in mainstream media , and if anyone tries to doubt that, asking for evidence and reminding the world about presumption of innocence, they are instantly labeled chinese bots. So much for freedom of speech and thought
How exactly is the Chinese regime not to blame for this mess? Between the blatant cover-up and falsified reports and underreporting deaths by a couple of orders of magnitude and knowingly stating that the virus didn't spread when they knew full well it spread like wildfire and intentionally leaving out demostratedly infected but asymptomatic cases out of the statistics while simultaneously blaming new cases on infected foreigners, how is China's regime not to blame for this whole mess?
And should we now just forget that the Chinese regime has been trying to pin the blame on their covid19 mess on Italy of all places?
Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm annoyed with the connection between SARS-CoV-2 and bioweapon. This is such a garbage bioweapon for two reasons: This doesn't kill military aged men and it cannot be readily shut off. American scientists have nailed down when the cross over event occurred and how it happened. The world's top virologists also have said multiple times that this is not a bioweapon, people who have studied viruses for decades. But peo…
It probably walked out of a Wuhan lab, with a lab tech or equivalent as the unaware infected carrier; which doesn't make it a bioweapon at all. It may have been sampled by China's large effort to search their territory for viruses, and then it was studied in Wuhan. It's most likely a mistake of incompetence. There is precedence in that it has happened multiple times in China with SARS since the original outbreak in 2…
Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
So I'm definitely not advocating the lab theory overall, and even if it did come from a lab it could have escaped rather than been deliberately released...but to answer your question, China does/did have problems with A) an aging population, B) a male heavy population, and C) Hong Kong streets full of protesters. This virus "helps" with all of those.
Bioweapons are crappy precisely because of what's happening now. A good weapon discriminates, and lets you kill exactly who you want. By that measure, a virus is about as hamfisted as you can get. Besides, why unleash a pandemic on the whole world when you can just do what China normally does and use conventional military power instead? It's cheaper and easier to get some men in boots with guns to stop a protest than…
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/17/chinas-corporate-debt-is-big...
Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest
#158Tinfoil hat: I'm not keeping active track, but I passively perceived a sheer drop in mentions of the fact that Wuhan has China's first "biosafety level 4" laboratory, coinciding with an increased lambasting of the US's handling of their infections in the general media (" The Wuhan virus is now the American virus "), along with a streak of random US-critical posts (" What is the worst thing the US government has done?…
Wow. It's incredible that it doesn't even take supporting the outgroup to be accused of shilling -- these days even failing to laser focus on condemning the outgroup is enough. Reddit is having a lot more posts about America just because there's a lot going on in the country right now. In late February there were tons of posts about Italy. In early February there were tons of posts about China. The posts about China…
Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the researchers at that lab was also effectively dissapeared. I don't believe the conspiracy crowd saying this was some kind of weapon, but there's reasonable evidence to suggest that this is a case of embarrassing government incompetence (which the CCP loaths) followed by attempts to cover up said incompetence while a solution was persued.
> One of the researchers at that lab was also effectively dissapeared. Source?
He believes this scientist was the first person infected, who it spread from.
Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm annoyed with the connection between SARS-CoV-2 and bioweapon. This is such a garbage bioweapon for two reasons: This doesn't kill military aged men and it cannot be readily shut off. American scientists have nailed down when the cross over event occurred and how it happened. The world's top virologists also have said multiple times that this is not a bioweapon, people who have studied viruses for decades. But peo…
It probably walked out of a Wuhan lab, with a lab tech or equivalent as the unaware infected carrier; which doesn't make it a bioweapon at all. It may have been sampled by China's large effort to search their territory for viruses, and then it was studied in Wuhan. It's most likely a mistake of incompetence. There is precedence in that it has happened multiple times in China with SARS since the original outbreak in 2…