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China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

theguardian.com

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Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#251

Post by Klinky »

jotakami wrote: post #214
godtoldmetodoit wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't mean it didn't come from a lab though. "Coming from a lab" does not = man made. If they were doing research on the bats in this lab, looking to identify potential scary viruses to be ready, it is entirely possible the virus jumped from bat to researcher there and that was our patient 0.

How many times do we need to repeat this... everyone assumes that “came from a lab” means “engineered bioweapon”. No! Also, people quickly forget that humans have been selectively evolving plants and animals for thousands of years without touching the actual genomes.

How did it come from a lab? I've heard "workers got sprayed with blood and infected", "someone screwed up"(vague), "mishandled lab waste".

Just saying it "came from a lab", makes it sound man made. If you don't want misunderstandings, you need spell it out and make it absolutely clear. It doesn't even sound like there is a clear narrative about how it "escaped from the lab", just a lot of rumors. Rumors about a rumor, certainly doesn't sound more credible than China's official stance, and their credibility is already very low.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#252

Post by abc-xyz »

dependenttypes wrote: post #179
abc-xyz wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a lot of value in paying/blackmailing the moderators. You can clearly certain subreddits, such as r/worldnews, becoming increasingly pro-China. The mod team played a huge role in this, as they have been perma banning people who post a lot of anti-China comments. I’ve for instance had several accounts banned (one simply for sarcastically saying “Thanks China”) - there were also a thread on r/China where plenty…

I can't see anything in that image.

I don’t know about you but I find it very concerning that mods of major subreddits like r/worldnews and r/coronavirus are censoring comments like:

> “Yeah but you can’t trust any of those numbers coming out of China. It’s gotta be way worse than they’re letting on”

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#253

Post by legolas2412 »

throwanem wrote: post #232
legolas2412 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the info. I'm clearly not an expert. But I do still have questions. 1) where did hiv sequences come from? Are they the human immuno deficiency virus sequences? 2) you are suggesting that chimeras are created impotent, and that hybrid viruses cannot be created to be effective otherwise. My question is that whatever combination of pangolin and bat viruses is said to have happened naturally in a host, could i…

These are great questions, and thank you for asking them! 1. Yes. The claim based on the misreading of the 2019 paper is that SARS-CoV-2 is actually a lab-created combination of another coronavirus and the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. If that were true, the genome of SARS-CoV-2 would incorporate large parts of the HIV genome verbatim. It does not; comparing these genomes for identical or nearly identical sub…

Thanks for your answer. I'll like to point out that 3 is slightly eased off if the two viruses are already able to jump to humans. In this case, it could be the SARS coronavirus and the pangolin virus whose receptor proteins are similar to ncov19. Then all that is required is for the two viruses to jump over and then recombine. Definitely a possibility.

I find the wet market theory full of such improbabilities too. How is ncov19 relatively close to two known viruses, 1) the sars like bat virus it was 96% similar to, and 2) the pangolin virus with which it has resembling receptor proteins. Seems a lot of coincidence for these two to combine, both of which can jump to humans, and 300 meters from a leading Coronavirus research lab.

I know I'm just repeating the conspiracy theory, but just explaining my position. The virus was found initially at the wet market, and there is no proof of its origin being there. Plus it seems perfectly feasible for it come out of the lab and not be a deliberately engineered virus, atleast not one using the 2019 paper's chimera virus techniques.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#254

Post by [deleted] »

taiwanboy wrote: post #216
knzhou wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those international flights were allowed to let countries evacuate their own citizens out. If they were banned, you would be making the exact same complaint but reversed: "China held other countries' citizens hostage in Wuhan." Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Misinformation. There were still Wuhan tourists as late as 1/28 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7937943/amp/Air-pas...

[deleted]

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#255

Post by idjeudbdh »

ferest wrote: post #201

Because academic research can't be rushed. One of the requirements for an advanced degree is publishing papers, and if coronavirus related can easily bring attention and get the paper published, students would try taking the fast track. This is not good for research in general. There was a huge debate back in late Jan. early Feb. on Chinese social network about a paper didn't get peer-reviewed spreading all over plac…

Oh really? There was a huge debate on Chinese social media about peer review and academic research? LOL okay and on the 4th of June 1989 Chinese students had tea at Tiananmen square. Its not even that people like you are ignorant, you're just a piece of shit asshole who's happy to be pimped out.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#256

Post by nsoonhui »

ferest wrote: post #201

Because academic research can't be rushed. One of the requirements for an advanced degree is publishing papers, and if coronavirus related can easily bring attention and get the paper published, students would try taking the fast track. This is not good for research in general. There was a huge debate back in late Jan. early Feb. on Chinese social network about a paper didn't get peer-reviewed spreading all over plac…

You don't "tighten the publish review" by submitting the research papers to government body for approval.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#257

Post by Klinky »

rpiguy wrote: post #78
meowface wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bat coronaviruses caused SARS 1 and have been a well-known vector for decades. How is this researcher specifically related to the current situation?

She was researching bat Corona viruses? The outbreak started at a market on the doorstep of her lab? Her name is on several papers on bat Corona virus. Just pointing out that Wuhan was studying viruses exactly like the one tearing through the world right now, lol.

This kind of witch-hunt logic belongs in the dark ages. Persecuting potential experts on the situation based on vague assumptions and rumors. Awful.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#258

Post by Medicalidiot »

surge wrote: post #247
Medicalidiot wrote: post #123

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…

No one is saying its a bioweapon, merely shoddy containment in a facility that did viral research, the research could have been entirely altruistic, its still their fault for letting it out of the lab and then hiding the fact, arresting doctors and journalists and letting it spread. When they could have been letting other countries take precautions to prepare for it and shut down travel out of the country sooner inst…

>Even if this isn't a bio-weapon, it actually would be pretty effective as one assuming you already had the vaccine, which no one does.

Not even close, not even a little close. With proper containment COVID-19 is easily contained. This isn't that great, especially when you look at countries who are handling this well: Taiwan. Bioweapons are notorious for being quick and lethal. As per the CDC on bioterrorism:

>When the potential agents are reviewed for these characteristics, anthrax and smallpox are the two with greatest potential for mass casualties and civil disruption

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/5/4/99-0411_article#r6

If you give me a normal amount of resources and competent public health professionals COVID-19 does not scare me. It's CFR is below 1% with adequate protocols (Standard, honestly).

China is so interconnected to the rest of the world, especially the US, the worst thing for them is to shut down both their and the US economy. Why would they test a weapon that disrupts the entire globe when you could have a weapon that has a narrow focus of a small region?

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#259

Post by Noumenon72 »

abecedarius wrote: post #102
Noumenon72 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you find your source for the market being a couple hundred meters away? This tweet has a map showing it's twenty miles away, but the source is the Daily Mail: https://twitter.com/dystopia992/status/1220735100192620546

Different lab. I bookmarked https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-china-tra... but it's offline for me right now. (Can't say if any of it is right, but the claim of the ~180m-away lab was the most interesting bit.)

Thank you very much!

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#260

Post by Klinky »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #238
meowface wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just pointing out that Wuhan was studying viruses exactly like the one tearing through the world right now, lol. Yes, and this is important, but this is also already publicly known. It's not providing any new or interesting information. There're still a lot of other variables and factors to take into account here. Statistics aren't so simple. For example, Wuhan is a huge city, larger than NYC, and an important econo…

I see you making a lot of comments in this thread and I think you make some good points. I’m curious, could you think of an example of “strong evidence” that would support the theory that it was accidentally released from a lab?

The lab needs to admit there was an accident, or an independent group of inspectors need to visit the lab to collect samples, review evidence, and make such a judgement.

Neither of these are actually going to happen. The conspiracy nuts probably prefer it that way.

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