261–270 of 792 posts
When the first sentence is factually incorrect, it's tough to read on. The UK doesn't have 200k cases a day, it's less than a tenth of that.
The figure is based on this study, which currently puts it at 241K cases per day: https://health-study.joinzoe.com/data
I assume it's based on the official surveys:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...
Two years and I have yet to read an explanation of what this hypothesis is. Were they careless with a natural virus? Did they modify viruses? Did they release a nature virus on purpose? Did they accidentally release a modified virus? What's modified even mean here, studying random mutation? Engineering things? It's Schrodinger's Argument. It's all of them and none of them and it always shifts depending on who you're…
> an accident in a laboratory or during a research field trip
Which, yes, is incredibly vague. I give them credit for at least ruling out the "Evil Chinese Scientists intentionally create and release deadly virus!" bullsh*t.
One plausible "lab" scenario: A baggage-hauling laborer caught the proto-COVID-19 virus in a bat-filled cave during a routine "collect samples of germs from bats" expedition, then unknowingly spread it back in Wuhan.
My opinion: For useful-fact-oriented folks, the Lab Hypothesis is mostly a tedious waste of time. For those motivated by hot-button emotions, attention-seeking, etc., the most lurid and cartoonish versions of the Lab Hypothesis are by far the best. If they can conjure such images in the minds of their audience - withOUT having to spell them out, for reality-checkers to attack - then all the better. Hence the remarkable scarcity of Lab Hypothesis explanations.
It’s because there was a series of scientific papers that pointed very strongly to a zoonotic origin: https://mobile.twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1499406148...
I think understanding the origin is important, but I also understand why it wasn't a media fixation during the pandemic itself. 1) Understanding the origin doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic 2) Unlike the nuclear analogy in the article, pandemic virus outbreaks happen naturally, and fairly frequently. Combined with the huge increase in global travel, when one does happen it can be around the…
I guess I'm more cynical, maybe even conspiratorial. My theory is that NIH was possibly, even if indirectly, contributing funding to the research that caused the outbreak, and that the major corporate media networks are there to shill for the establishment forces in the government and hushed this story as not to humiliate Fauci and the NIH. I've seen Rand Paul credibly grilling Fauci on this issue a number of times a…
I think understanding the origin is important, but I also understand why it wasn't a media fixation during the pandemic itself. 1) Understanding the origin doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic 2) Unlike the nuclear analogy in the article, pandemic virus outbreaks happen naturally, and fairly frequently. Combined with the huge increase in global travel, when one does happen it can be around the…
> 1) Understanding the origin doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic I have the opposite opinion. If there was a lab leak and a coverup, this meant that the Chinese government likely knew earlier and had more information about the nature of the virus and how it spread. That could have saved millions of lives. We spent the first several months of the pandemic under the belief that it wasn't airbor…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny then how for the first few months of the pandemic the emphasis and public guidance was on desinfecting hands and surfaces and endless debates about how if masks actually help.
That was deliberate disinformation in order to save masks for the "frontline workers". Fauci has stated that in one of the hearings.
> Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be clear - during 2014-2019 NIH actually paid $3.6M to EcoHealth Alliance under the grants clearly specifying the coronavirus GoF experiments in Wuhan with the "Human subjects included" checked. EcoHealth naturally kept about 75% of it as "commission/management fee/whatever" because conducting those experiments at BSL2 in Wuhan was much cheaper than the original experiments in US at BSL3+ (in those original experi…
Aside from he rest of the weird conspiracy insinuation I've come to expect - you should probably know that horseshoe bats are endemic to the caves around Wuhan and were studied by virologists in the hills above the biggest animal trade in Hubei.. So it's probably best if you stop making the silly claim about them being 1,000km away if you want to bolster your case. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7824899…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Brought what to the market? Themselves or animals from a lab?
> Infected worker To be honest, I hadn't even encountered the idea that lab employees were what, selling infected animals at the market? Is this a real thing people are arguing? Who even comes up with this stuff.
I think the important point is not whether this outbreak was in fact a lab leak, but that it is entirely plausible due to gain-of-function research. Even if this one wasn’t a lab leak, the next one very well could be. The risk/reward profile of that sort of research is insanely unfavorable.
Whatever toy gain of function research someone is doing in a lab vastly pales in comparison to the enormous gain of function 'experiment' we are right now performing worldwide with the continued high transmission rate of COVID-19. Look at what variants like Omicron BA.5 and BA.4 have evolved into, they are quite possibly the most infectious and dangerous air spread pathogens known to man. These didn't come from a lab…
It's not that the origin story is not important, it's not that people don't care, it's that it is a distraction. It doesn't help solve the crisis. The article makes the comparison with a nuclear bomb. This is a bad comparison. If we were attacked by a sentient creature, we could reason with it and mitigate further damage or escalation. In the case of a virus, it's good to know to prevent future pandemics maybe, and t…
The origin story is paramount to preventing future outbreaks and to the loss of, and disruption to, our way of life. The US took the same position on combating terrorism when it rooted out Al-Qaeda. To stop future loss of life, the root cause needs to be identified and dealt with. I vehemently disagree with the assessment that the origin is not instrumental to the defense of future outbreaks.