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Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

thetimes.co.uk

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Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#241

Post by bostonsre »

revelio wrote: post #187
prepend wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> indication of any ill-intent I don’t think ill-intent is the accusation, I think the argument is that the lab has poor safety protocols and made errors. I haven’t studied the “lab leak theory” extensively, but everything I read seems to be about lab failures resulting in a leak, not anything purposeful or ill-intentioned.

Unfortunately, the article states explicitly that there was ill intent and extensive PLA involvement with the lab. The military was also given positions of responsibility in the Wuhan institute, according to a US Senate report. A book published in 2015 by the military academy discusses how Sars viruses represent a “new era of genetic weapons” that can be “artificially manipulated into an emerging human disease virus,…

If true, it's probably good that they were incompetent in leaking the virus and incompetent in making a vaccine to front run the virus. Wonder if that would have started world war 3 of they successfully vaccinated their population then either accidentally or on purpose released the virus.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#242

Post by bostonsre »

ajross wrote: post #238
kevinmchugh wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't an oppressive regime change the math here? The ability to suppress potential whistleblowers means the absence of whistleblowers isn't all that convincing. Compared to moon landing conspiracy theories, where this argument is very convincing imo

Again, these are scientists. You really don't think one of them could move to a post at Stanford or wherever and spill the tea? No one has an old copy of an incriminating memo they can forward to a friend in Taipei? And regardless, the PRC does not in fact have a great record in the opsec department even within its military and espionage arms. How many "Chinese spies" get arrested every year? Part of any conspiracy t…

If the military was indeed involved, then it seems highly plausible that they would have been able to keep communications under control and that they would be able to repress a few dozen workers. Threats against them and their families would probably work pretty well.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#243

Post by DangitBobby »

dendriti wrote: post #137
yyyk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gene sequencing is table stakes with modern tech, and many countries did that during the pandemic. We don't need a BSL-4 level lab in the middle of a large city to do a gene sequence. It happened that they published early what many other labs would have done (and did do). On the other hand, the vaccines and effective cures had nothing to do with their work. The benefit/risk ratio seems very poor here.

So you're not going to admit you were ignorant or just lying?

What was gained that would not have been gained without the existence of the lab?

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#244

Post by toomim »

ajross wrote: post #175
pcrh wrote: post #55

After a quick read of the article, it presents no new data, and is replete with innuendo pointing at the Wuhan lab, rather than any direct evidence. Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an indication of any i…

My position hasn't changed for years: if covid was really a lab creation we'd know, because someone would have told us. An email dump, a memo, a document, an interview. Something would have leaked out. The incentives are just too high and the access is too pervasive[1] to believe otherwise. Is it possible? Sure! Is it likewise possible that some of the circumstantial claims about WIV are true? Sure! But if someone ma…

We still don't know what happened to JFK, 60 years later.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#245

Post by jakear »

andsoitis wrote: post #227
jakear wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really happened, as stated in the very source you gave, was that if you had a heart attack at home an ambulance would come to “deal with you” (because of course they would), but if they attempted to resuscitate you for 20 minutes and you still didn’t recover they wouldn’t then take you to the hospital. You should know the survival rate of a heart attack is far far lower than most expect, especially after 20 minu…

> What really happened.... an ambulance would come to “deal with you” At one point, LA had to resort to Fire Trucks because ambulances were unavailable. If you don't think health care services were severely stretched, in some cases beyond breaking point (incl. staff unavailability because they themselves were sick), I really don't know what to say. This happened in New York as well. Of course there are also other pla…

Fire trucks and ambulances both feature staff trained as EMT’s. The provisioning of the vehicles might be slightly different, but the medical training is the same. And I’m sure the provisioning could be adjusted based on the circumstances.

Staff being unavailable because they’re sick is quite literally “normal day to day operations” that every company must be able to account for, not “beyond the breaking point”.

But if you “don’t know what to say” beyond vague emotional appeals unsupported by the very sources you claim to cite, I’m glad we agree on that at least.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#246

Post by willyt »

pcrh wrote: post #55

After a quick read of the article, it presents no new data, and is replete with innuendo pointing at the Wuhan lab, rather than any direct evidence. Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an indication of any i…

The Times is not a great source. It’s just tabloid style journalism targeted at a higher ‘reading age’. Can’t remember the exact figures but something like 16 compared to ‘The Sun’ which targets 10. A better source would be The Telegraph, if you like your opinion pieces right leaning. The Economist, The Financial Time and The Guardian are also good sources if we’re talking about British newspapers here.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#247

Post by toomim »

LeonB wrote: post #11

Early on the article makes a conjecture that others also make which I think is part of why the topic is so hot: “Whether the virus emerged as a result of a leak from a laboratory or from nature has become one the most controversial problems in science.” The words “in science” are my problem here: people thinking this is a “scientific” question. It’s a history question, a political question, and could be made into a f…

Is the big bang theory science or history, by that logic?

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#248

Post by kevinmchugh »

ajross wrote: post #238
kevinmchugh wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't an oppressive regime change the math here? The ability to suppress potential whistleblowers means the absence of whistleblowers isn't all that convincing. Compared to moon landing conspiracy theories, where this argument is very convincing imo

Again, these are scientists. You really don't think one of them could move to a post at Stanford or wherever and spill the tea? No one has an old copy of an incriminating memo they can forward to a friend in Taipei? And regardless, the PRC does not in fact have a great record in the opsec department even within its military and espionage arms. How many "Chinese spies" get arrested every year? Part of any conspiracy t…

> You really don't think one of them could move to a post at Stanford or wherever and spill the tea?

When? There's a pretty short window where a WIV scientist might have known the subject they were studying had escaped the lab before the PRC did. Certainly by January 2020 the PRC could've clamped down on those scientists.

Spies caught outside the country don't tell me much about internal operations.

ETA: I think my thinking here is pretty colored by Tank Man, whose name is unknown. The CCP claims they don't know anything about him. Even if that's true, presumably he had friends, family, and fellow protestors who have decided it would be a very bad idea to even give his name.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#249

Post by Amezarak »

pcrh wrote: post #55

After a quick read of the article, it presents no new data, and is replete with innuendo pointing at the Wuhan lab, rather than any direct evidence. Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an indication of any i…

> Additionally, the closest relative to SARSCov2 that has been identified (RaTG13) was found in a cave in Mojiang county in Yunnan, over 1,000 km away, with no evidence that it was ever studied in the Wuhan lab.

Maybe I'm deeply confused, but the Wuhan lab was reported by NYMag to be the one that discovered RaTG13.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca...

> How Did It Get Out? 1. The Tongguan Mine Shaft in Mojiang, Yunnan, where, in 2013, fragments of RaTG13, the closest known relative of SARSCoV-2, were recovered and transported to the Wuhan Institute of Virology; 2. The Wuhan Institute of Virology, where Shi Zhengli’s team brought the RaTG13 sample, sequenced its genome, then took it out of the freezer several times in recent years;

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#250

Post by th0ma5 »

khazhoux wrote: post #147
th0ma5 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The limit is five why's and often you can't even get that. Planes still crash. Perhaps we've pulled on this thread as much as we can. Especially with long ass articles like this that say nothing new. Seriously, what are we expecting to learn. This is like a plane at the bottom of the ocean never to be found. We'll never know what happened to this plane, and we don't have to. We know that situation was probably poor p…

> We'll never know what happened to this plane, You've decided the truth is unknowable, no good would come from knowing the truth, and searching for the truth is itself causing harm.

Well we stopped looking for it though
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