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US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

reuters.com

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Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#291

Post by yurlungur »

ttz wrote: post #53

First gen Chinese, grew up in NA. Have contact with relatives "on the ground". My own experience: Don't ever trust the Chinese government on issues that could potentially involve the reputation of the party. Note that I'm not saying don't trust what CCP says, ever (sometimes they actually do good things) - just not on issues that involve anything to do with how the world might perceive them. Which is exactly what thi…

No need for you to preach to the choir about not trusting the Chinese government. As can be seen in the thread, people would much prefer to trust conspiracy theorists and fringe scientists before they put any trust in the Chinese government.

To me, the only constructive discussion that can be had at this point needs to be around actual evidence, and not the absence of it. The first documented cases, first traces of positive samples etc etc. It's clearly still in the early stages of discoveries so all theories are just theories. That said I don't expect this to remain a mystery forever. It will just take time, because eventually the natural origins will be pinned down and reasonable chain of events of first spread will be identified.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#293

Post by SiempreViernes »

tripletao wrote: post #196
kjakm wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Meanwhile the circumstantial evidence in favour of that hypothesis (including China’s behaviour) continues to pile up. What circumstantial evidence?

Alina Chan's WSJ article is a decent popular summary, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-world-needs-a-real-investig... https://archive.is/R6kwN There's also been a string of academic preprints and articles, like https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2102/2102.03910.pdf The authors tend to be kind of fringe, not surprisingly given the reputational cost (and given that if a lab origin is ever confirmed, many of the techniq…

The simple fact is that until you find the reservoir you can't say anything about where it came from, and they haven't found it yet.

And as your first article details, the "lab accident" theory rests on some lab doing secret virus experiments. Even if you find a whole sea of the virus in some cave, someone will argue they could have gotten there after the first "accident". Good luck disproving that without letting US virologists snoop in every lab in China.

To me "open to the possibility" is a very strong reading of "can't rule it out".

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#294

Post by turdnagel »

yurlungur wrote: post #291
ttz wrote: post #53

First gen Chinese, grew up in NA. Have contact with relatives "on the ground". My own experience: Don't ever trust the Chinese government on issues that could potentially involve the reputation of the party. Note that I'm not saying don't trust what CCP says, ever (sometimes they actually do good things) - just not on issues that involve anything to do with how the world might perceive them. Which is exactly what thi…

No need for you to preach to the choir about not trusting the Chinese government. As can be seen in the thread, people would much prefer to trust conspiracy theorists and fringe scientists before they put any trust in the Chinese government. To me, the only constructive discussion that can be had at this point needs to be around actual evidence, and not the absence of it. The first documented cases, first traces of p…

Why do you think that is inevitable if the Chinese government continues to obfuscate?

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#295

Post by GauntletWizard »

AshWolfy wrote: post #287
throwaway54095 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy that at this point we still keep with this delusion. Of course this is a lab virus. This info is getting old: https://project-evidence.github.io/ https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-origins-genome-analy... Who was really behind this, and the whole history of it, is something surely we won't know for know. "When war is declared, truth is the first casualty"

a lot of this is just really bad, like just off the top of my head 96 percent related genetics is not very much, thats the same similarity between humans and monkeys

96% of human vs monkey DNA similarly is not a lot, because most of that DNA is shared throughout all of the animal kingdom. Since human DNA is close to a billion codons long, the remaining 4% is still tens of millions of codons.

COVID-19 is ~30,000 base pairs long (10,000) codons. The 4% difference is 400 codons. That's not a lot. There are many singular proteins longer than that.

Is that proof? No, the same way gravity is just a theory.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#296

Post by option »

mr_toad wrote: post #254
tripletao wrote: post #145

I don't know whether SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab. But if it did, then not only is it probably not the first lab-origin pandemic, but it's also not the first time the WHO initially excluded that possibility. The 1977 Russian Flu pandemic was genetically near-identical to a strain from 1950, without the expected mutations that should have appeared after 27 years of undetected circulation among humans or animals. It's…

> how could you possibly not wonder whether our current standards for the sampling and manipulation of poorly-understood pandemic-candidate viruses are adequate? Wait are we looking to improve and make sure that this doesn’t happen again, or do we just want someone to blame so we can continue to do nothing?

Both. We need to improve and, if anyone identified by investigation, held them responsible.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#297

Post by cratermoon »

turdnagel wrote: post #294
yurlungur wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need for you to preach to the choir about not trusting the Chinese government. As can be seen in the thread, people would much prefer to trust conspiracy theorists and fringe scientists before they put any trust in the Chinese government. To me, the only constructive discussion that can be had at this point needs to be around actual evidence, and not the absence of it. The first documented cases, first traces of p…

Why do you think that is inevitable if the Chinese government continues to obfuscate?

Epidemiology. History. The Spanish Flu was called that because at the time everyone (for xenophobic reasons... sound familiar?) blamed Spain. Today we can say with reasonable confidence that the source of the 1918 influenza epidemic was.... wait for it.....

Kansas

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#298

Post by cratermoon »

fiftyfifty wrote: post #243
ttz wrote: post #53

First gen Chinese, grew up in NA. Have contact with relatives "on the ground". My own experience: Don't ever trust the Chinese government on issues that could potentially involve the reputation of the party. Note that I'm not saying don't trust what CCP says, ever (sometimes they actually do good things) - just not on issues that involve anything to do with how the world might perceive them. Which is exactly what thi…

The funny thing in this case is there was no reason for the CCP to cover this up. If they had just responded to the outbreak instead of trying to cover it up initially and been a little more open with the international community they would have been lauded for their handling of the situation.

> If they had just responded to the outbreak instead of trying to cover it up initially and been a little more open with the international community they would have been lauded for their handling of the situation

Are we talking about China or the Trump administration?

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#299

Post by cratermoon »

ashtonkem wrote: post #289
fiftyfifty wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny thing in this case is there was no reason for the CCP to cover this up. If they had just responded to the outbreak instead of trying to cover it up initially and been a little more open with the international community they would have been lauded for their handling of the situation.

Authoritarian regimes develop a knee jerk response to anything that might reflect negatively on them, even if it ends up actually harming their long term interests.

As evidenced by the fate of a certain former occupant of the Oval Office.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#300

Post by aksss »

Aunche wrote: post #109
aksss wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure the federal government has the plenary power to enforce such things in the United States. So it was never an option. Authoritarian governments or single-state nations are better able to mandate behavior. The lockdowns, even as implemented, extracted an enormous toll on small businesses and mental health.

I think it's more of a cultural difference rather than government one. Korea and Taiwan are democracies and managed to control the pandemic as well. The US government has the authority to declare martial law, but doing so would completely undermine people's faith in the government.

There is certainly a cultural element, but it is literally a legal difference as well. The federal government in the US does not have the same broad powers as the federal government in Korea. Remember the US is a collection of states that consented to let the feds take on certain powers while retaining many, whereas South Korea is “just” South Korea. Provincial autonomy in SK is not anything like the “state’s rights” issue in the US.
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