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Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

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Re: Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

#51
Here's a thought experiment.

Let's pretend that the virus did origin in the wild. No lab leak, no gain of function.

Why would the Chinese authorities try to conceal information about it's origin, apply pressure on the WHO and silence researchers in Wuhan?

China is trying really hard to gain a good international reputation right now through "vaccine diplomacy". Giving all available data to international organizations from day one would have given China an excellent reputation. After all, if it did originate in the wild there's nothing to hide; they simply stumbled upon it first.

Why is it not the behavior we're seeing from the country's leadership?

Re: Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

#52

Ecohealth Alliance with another "peer-reviewed" published paper attempting to quell the lab-leak hypothesis. Peter Daszak being one of the authors of this paper basically removes any shred of credibility for what is effectively an opinion piece.

Christian Drosten is a big name in Germany’s covid efforts. His name on this statement with Peter Daszak is quite a message.

Re: Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

#53

Awhile back there was an article on the front page of HN which seemed to support the lab leak hypothesis. This was before that hypothesis gained traction. I checked back shortly thereafter and it was gone. I went through the history (scrolled through pages) and couldn't find it. Maybe it was a BS / questionable article. I don't know. But it seems we were eager to squash that line of thinking early on, whereas now it'…

Was it linked to this one? https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-...

No idea

Re: Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

#54
Let's grok these carefully constructed statements.

"SARS-CoV-2 most likely originated in nature and not in a laboratory... We believe the strongest clue from new, credible, and peer-reviewed evidence in the scientific literature, is that the virus evolved in nature..."

This can be completely accurate, yet does not exclude the possibility that the virus, originally from nature, was then imported into a lab that studies Coronaviruses and accidentally leaked from there. They are trying to obscure the latter by focusing on the original origin. This appears to be intentional misdirection and conflation.

Re: Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

#55

Ecohealth Alliance with another "peer-reviewed" published paper attempting to quell the lab-leak hypothesis. Peter Daszak being one of the authors of this paper basically removes any shred of credibility for what is effectively an opinion piece.

> Ecohealth Alliance with another "peer-reviewed" published paper attempting to quell the lab-leak hypothesis. It would be interesting to look at who's funding these organizations and individuals. Is some of the funding tied to entities that are under the control of the CCP?

> Is some of the funding tied to entities that are under the control of the CCP?

Per Sam Husseni's reporting[0]:

"""

Meticulous investigation of U.S. government databases reveals that Pentagon funding for the EcoHealth Alliance from 2013 to 2020, including contracts, grants and subcontracts, was just under $39 million. Most, $34.6 million, was from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which is a branch of the DOD which states it is tasked to “counter and deter weapons of mass destruction and improvised threat networks.”

Most of the remaining money to EHA was from USAID (State Dept.), comprising at least $64,700,000 (1). These two sources thus total over $103 million. (See Fig).

Another $20 million came from Health and Human Services ($13 million, which includes National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control), National Science Foundation ($2.6 million), Department of Homeland Security ($2.3 million), Department of Commerce ($1.2 million), Department of Agriculture ($0.6 million), and Department of Interior ($0.3 million). So, total U.S. government funding for EHA to-date stands at $123 million, approximately one third of which comes from the Pentagon directly. The full funding breakdown is available here and is summarized by year, source, and type, in a spreadsheet format.

"""

If this was a lab leak, it's an international issue caused by the hubris of at least two countries working together on a footgun (e.g. at Wuhan lab, and Ralph Baric's previous gain of function research on bat coronaviruses [1])

[0] https://www.independentsciencenews.org/news/peter-daszaks-ec...

[1] https://twitter.com/gumby4christ/status/1361175723407527939

Re: Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

#56

Awhile back there was an article on the front page of HN which seemed to support the lab leak hypothesis. This was before that hypothesis gained traction. I checked back shortly thereafter and it was gone. I went through the history (scrolled through pages) and couldn't find it. Maybe it was a BS / questionable article. I don't know. But it seems we were eager to squash that line of thinking early on, whereas now it'…

There are about a dozen[1] HN submissions from February 2020 alone about a potential lab leak.

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=4&prefix=true&que...

Re: Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

#57
post #16

Can someone substantiate this idea that it's improbable for a virus to surmount these two evolutionary obstacles highlighted below? I'll copy the quote for the idea I've seen circulating, the bold part is the idea I'd like to hear challenged and would like to learn more about what its foundation is predicated upon. For ultimately, in order to create a human pandemic, an animal virus has to accomplish **two very diffi…

It's rare in the global sense, but really nasty infections are sort of known for jumping from another mammalian species. AIDS, original SARS, Ebola, etc. all fit that pattern.

[deleted]

Re: Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

#58
post #16

Can someone substantiate this idea that it's improbable for a virus to surmount these two evolutionary obstacles highlighted below? I'll copy the quote for the idea I've seen circulating, the bold part is the idea I'd like to hear challenged and would like to learn more about what its foundation is predicated upon. For ultimately, in order to create a human pandemic, an animal virus has to accomplish **two very diffi…

60% of infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic[1], meaning they originated in animals.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/zoonotic-diseases.html

Re: Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

#59

Ecohealth Alliance with another "peer-reviewed" published paper attempting to quell the lab-leak hypothesis. Peter Daszak being one of the authors of this paper basically removes any shred of credibility for what is effectively an opinion piece.

Chris Martensen's analysis of the dump of Fauci's emails is pretty damning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNxoVFZwMYw The coordinated lying and censorship from leading institutions and media over the last 18 months does not make me hopeful that this time it will be different.

Wow, super transparent with all the primary sources walkthrough and the links to everything in the description. Nice find.

Re: Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

#60
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chris Martensen's analysis of the dump of Fauci's emails is pretty damning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNxoVFZwMYw The coordinated lying and censorship from leading institutions and media over the last 18 months does not make me hopeful that this time it will be different.

Wow, super transparent with all the primary sources walkthrough and the links to everything in the description. Nice find.

Martensen called the pandemic on Jan 26, 2020. The WHO called it March 11.

For the next 6 months he produced videos every weekday analyzing the covid news of the day and relevant published papers, always citing the primary sources. Since then his covid videos have been less frequent, but always data and science oriented.

YouTube immediately demonitized his videos, and may have banned a couple. He uses made-up names for 2 notable off-patent drugs because he claims YT will censor him if he mentions them by name. He has a PhD in pathology from Duke University and has published in Nature. You would think he is qualified to discuss this stuff.

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