The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins • Hacker News Board

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#201

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 2:00 AM UTC

actuator wrote: post #151

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how I remember the narrative. It was split in two. 1. Calling it "the china virus", as the former president was wont to do, was labelled racist/bigoted/nationalistic by those who did not simply agree with anything he said. 2. The claim that it originated in the Wuhan lab was viewed as unlikely, and there was (is) an alternative biological origin story which at the time seemed credible and more likely.

> Calling it "the china virus", as the former president was wont to do, was labelled racist/bigoted/nationalistic While the racist violence that happened was deplorable, it is entirely amusing to me that we are fine with calling it UK/Brazil/South African/Indian variant but not call it the China virus/flu. The same publications like Guardian which did not use the term China virus/flu because it was considered racist…

Trump's use of the term "the China virus" was clearly, absolutely, unambiguously to blame China for the virus/pandemic.

By the time the variants started to emerge, the virus' biological structure and mechanism was sufficiently well understood that seeking to blame any particular locale for the emergence of a variant was seen to be pointless.

About pointless as blaming China for the virus itself appeared to be at the time, even if that may no longer be the case.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#202

Post by Throwawayaerlei » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 2:01 AM UTC

lamontcg wrote: post #185

> Wade devoted a full section to the “furin cleavage site,” a distinctive segment of SARS-CoV-2’s genetic code that makes the virus more infectious by allowing it to efficiently enter human cells. > Within the scientific community, one thing leapt off the page. Wade quoted one of the world’s most famous microbiologists, Dr. David Baltimore, saying that he believed the furin cleavage site “was the smoking gun for the…

The A gravamen of the SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site claim is that it's not aligned like others in the coronaviruses you cite.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#203

Post by briefcomment » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 2:01 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #168

briefcomment wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craziest excuse I've ever heard: "I couldn't be bothered to act rationally and morally because someone else was being too annoying".

What do you think the moral of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is? Is it a lesson for the villagers, or a lesson for a (potential) liar?

It's a story. Mature people can act smartly and morally even when they are annoyed

If I had to pick a "moral" of that fable, it's to never let your guard down, no matter what.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#204

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 2:01 AM UTC

swader999 wrote: post #178

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how I remember the narrative. It was split in two. 1. Calling it "the china virus", as the former president was wont to do, was labelled racist/bigoted/nationalistic by those who did not simply agree with anything he said. 2. The claim that it originated in the Wuhan lab was viewed as unlikely, and there was (is) an alternative biological origin story which at the time seemed credible and more likely.

It's been practice for centuries to initially name it after where it was first originated. Spanish flu ring a bell? But yeah Trump's racist for saying China flu.

Uh, it didn't originate in Spain. From Wikipedia:

> "The pandemic is conventionally marked as having begun on 4 March 1918 with the recording of the case of Albert Gitchell, an army cook at Camp Funston in Kansas, United States"

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#205

Post by jcrawfordor » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 2:01 AM UTC

harryf wrote: post #77

arrosenberg wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are getting downvoted because it's muckraking. There is nothing shady about NIAID giving a (verrrry small for this type of research) grant to a foreign research lab, which is doing research about a topic of interest. That's how you ensure the U.S. government gets a copy of the results.

I'm not saying it's shady to provide that funding. What I'm saying is it demonstrates conflict of interest. Last year in May 5 2020 Fauci dismissed the idea that the virus came from a lab that his own organisation was providing funds to - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-fauci-wuhan-lab-coronav... Whether or not anything shady was happening, the conflict of interest is clear.

Would Fauci have even known? Budget numbers say NIAID clears around $5 billion in grant funding per year and this grant was more at the $100k per year level. Another source shows that NIAID receives around 3,000 grant applications per year and that's just in two of their multiple grant types. It seems most likely to me that the grant was approved and funded by a subject-area committee without Fauci being involved at all. I would guess that when he "admitted to it" was probably the first time he knew.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#206

Post by tehwebguy » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #76

ctoth wrote: post #7

Another pretty good article, certainly higher quality than you'd consider given the source[0]. What switch flipped to make all these come out right now? [0]: https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-how-amateur-sleuths-broke...

The reason it's coming out now is because Trump is gone. During the election, most of the media decided to ignore anything they were afraid would help Trump or hurt Biden. Whether an activist media is good or bad is left as an exercise for the reader.

Comments like this bring up so many questions in my mind -- do you prefer conservative news media? If so, are you struggling to find news media to consume?

Are you aware of the top cable news network, the newer smaller ones, the media holding companies that dominate local news affiliates and dictate conservative talking points through their hosts, the massively popular hard-right conservative influencers, Facebook, etc?

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#207

Post by actuator » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #174

actuator wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell it to our politically correct liberal friends at Guardian, they are still using the country name. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/03/india-covid-va...

Maybe not every copy editor there has gotten the news?[1] 1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/01/covid-19-varia...

The article content mentions the new name Delta, unlike the headline so I am guessing the copy editor is aware. Anyway, I guess my view is not as charitable as you as it is coloured by their coverage of events in the past.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#208

Post by generalizations » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

fma wrote: post #198

generalizations wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a statement of consequences; just "the way the world works." Trust the experts if you've no time for more, but this is the likely result. Put time into your own research, and maybe you won't be caught off guard.

Nah what happens is then people start trusting people who say "don't trust the experts, here's my theory though" and says whatever it takes to get clicks to their YouTube channel.

It's as straightforward a statement as it can get. I don't watch YouTube much, but when I read threads on this kind of stuff, that's the mantra: here's what I found, here's what I think, go do your own research.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#209

Post by redis_mlc » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

henearkr wrote: post #158

JPKab wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but the CCP hid this from the beginning. It's not Asian culture, it's authoritarian governments always needing to appear infallible. Same as Chernobyl. They were arresting doctors in December 2019, internally, for raising the alarm. The greatest enemy of the Chinese people is the regime running their country, the one that 91 percent of them have zero say in.

Once the situation was out they did everything properly to fix it at home, and then even contributed to the science work on the virus (just not on the lab origin hypothesis, but all other work on the virus structure, illness mechanisms, potential vaccines or medications, yes). All the geopolitical tensions around China, both Koreas, and Japan, are just about losing or not losing face. Most of the time they would larg…

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Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#210

Post by basilgohar » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

swader999 wrote: post #178

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how I remember the narrative. It was split in two. 1. Calling it "the china virus", as the former president was wont to do, was labelled racist/bigoted/nationalistic by those who did not simply agree with anything he said. 2. The claim that it originated in the Wuhan lab was viewed as unlikely, and there was (is) an alternative biological origin story which at the time seemed credible and more likely.

It's been practice for centuries to initially name it after where it was first originated. Spanish flu ring a bell? But yeah Trump's racist for saying China flu.

The first observations of illness and mortality of the Spanish Flu were actually in the US. The origin of the name of the Spanish Flu is due to it being reported in the news most freely and widely in Spain as many other nations were limiting reporting due to being embroiled in WWI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu