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Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#521

Post by chiefalchemist »

chimprich wrote: post #474
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There seemed to be genuine uncertainty early on in the pandemic Among the civilian population, perhaps. Not among politicians and health officials. At least Fauci, WHO, and Finnish health authorities HAVE come out afterwards and admitted that they lied about masks to conserve them for health personnel.

> At least Fauci, WHO, and Finnish health authorities HAVE come out afterwards and admitted that they lied about masks This is not true. I think Fauci etc. admitted that a reason masks weren't recommended early on was partly to conserve masks. That's quite different from the claim that they actively lied about them.

Perhaps. But we had a pandemic during the Obama/Biden admin, but no stockpile of appropriate PPE, masks, etc. This was, we were told, the pro-science administration.

Pandemics are such a common trope that Hollywood has made multiple (bad) movies revolving around them. Yet it appears we were unprepared for the basics.

What Fauci said or why isn't important. The question we should be asking is: Why were in that position to begin with? We were warned - time and again - and each time that warning was ignored.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#522

Post by sol_invictus »

hkt wrote: post #478
hoseja wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hints at where the support for that ideology originates from.

That "ideology" originates in the US, namely in black communities that have been marginalised since slavery. No need for conspiracy theories about China somehow causing wokeness and antiracism.

It most certainly does not originate from the black community, but leftist liberal white academics. Blacks have certainly adopted the cause but they are not the ones stirring most of the ridiculousness we are seeing.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#523

Post by himinlomax »

mike_d wrote: post #238
partiallypro wrote: post #157

What really raises the most suspicion of the lab leak theory in my mind was how the Chinese government acted towards the rest of the scientific community...well before it was a theory at all. Not allowing foreign scientists in, destroying evidence, arresting journalists, etc. That just screams cover-up, even if there was none (in terms of a lab leak.) Then Western scientists that rely on grants with Chinese ties, etc…

> Not allowing foreign scientists in, destroying evidence, arresting journalists, etc. That is par for the course. The Chinese government would have acted this way regardless of if it was a lab leak, natural event, or space aliens.

No kidding: the best (and only?) argument against the lab leak theory is that the communist dictatorship is just acting like a dictatorship.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#524

Post by beowulfey »

iqanq wrote: post #461
enriquto wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody has my respect by default, until they make a major fuck-up like Macron did there. Maybe he fucked up sooner than that, thus not being worthy of respect at that point. But I'm not interested in politics at all so I missed it.

>Everybody has my respect by default That's terrible, and doubly so when you apply it to politicians.

So if a stranger comes up to you on the street to ask you the time, do you immediately insult them for being an inferior human not deserving of your respect?

In my opinion, not giving respect to fellow humans by default is the terrible choice.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#525

Post by timeon »

enriquto wrote: post #431
ricardobayes wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politicians will never or very rarely correct their statements. It is for the same reason as football referees. I took up refereeing as a hobby and we were taught very firmly by the ref coach that no matter what decision we take, we stick to it and never change it. Because that is a sign of weakness and will degrade the quality of the game even more than that individual decision.

I'd hope that our elected representatives did not treat us as adversarial football players, but maybe I'm asking to much.

Well people are rooting for the parties as if they were football teams. Especially if there are only few political parties.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#526

Post by neuronic »

_benedict wrote: post #493
enriquto wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for anything at all they decide to? For me it was the masks. The masks were my tipping point. At some point at the beginning of the pandemic they said that the disease was totally not airborne and that masks were useless. I remember vividly president Macron (a person that I respected before that)…

I think in the case of masks, it is highly plausible there was no deliberate attempt to mislead. While at the time it seemed pretty clear to me that masks had a high probability of being helpful, there was a dearth of research that would support this conclusion - indeed the very limited research conducted on public mask usage did not seem to support it. On top of this, I believe a major contributing factor was that m…

Another point on top of yours, at least in the EU, was that there was a plain shortage of masks and every single functioning FFP2+ mask was needed for hospitals and ICUs.

I have often observed discussion on how this might have been a convenient political move in the beginning when the EU had no way to get masks except for waiting on Chinese orders. But that's the realm of conspiracy again.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#527

Post by pedroaraujo »

geraneum wrote: post #491
jacquesm wrote: post #341

If this comment thread is the way the self proclaimed smartest forum on the web deals with articles like this then we're doomed. This article contributes zero actual evidence, is littered with out of context quotes (including of all places the title), doesn't appear to understand the science or the probabilities involved and finally is clearly written with an agenda. It shouldn't have been posted to HN in the first p…

It's naive to think that HN is necessarily better than an arbitrary Subreddit in terms of quality of conversations and depth of discussions, especially on non-tech related material. I don't know why one might think it's better/worse than a Twitter thread or Facebook post when it comes to controversial topics. You can find smart and dumb people here. Also, going against the narrative of the comment section may have ne…

There was a point in time (10 to 15 years ago) in which HN was actually a good forum to check out, you could learn a lot from the discussions here.

But then it grew massively. Nowadays, it is no better than classic Facebook comments or r/technology on Reddit.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#528

Post by tremon »

scratcheee wrote: post #375
enriquto wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for anything at all they decide to? For me it was the masks. The masks were my tipping point. At some point at the beginning of the pandemic they said that the disease was totally not airborne and that masks were useless. I remember vividly president Macron (a person that I respected before that)…

This may be unpopular, but I'm actually fine with polititians manipulating the truth in that scenario (_if_ we accept as a starting point that the shortage of masks was already unavoidable, and the best option for public health was to convince the public to minimise purchases). Part of the job of politicians is to act as a rudder for the general public, and if tragedy of the commons applies to a scenario, a politicia…

a politician doing what they can to counteract that effect, even by deceipt, isn't fundamentally wrong

A politician manipulating the public is an attack on democracy, since democracy relies on having an informed demos. Condoning such behaviour shows how much faith a person has in (true) democracy.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#529

Post by ricardobayes »

native_samples wrote: post #495
ricardobayes wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though I usually like to stay away from political topics on here, but it pains me that a country I (used to) love so much, UK, is spiraling deeper and deeper into a void. So much so I have to believe its leadership no longer acts in favour of the country. For reasons unknown to me, however it is long known Brexit was a wanted scenario for Russian geopolitics, as laid out in their textbook: https://en.wikipedia.o…

One guy writing a book in 1997 that argues France and Germany should be strongly united in a Union, does not imply anything about the decision of British voters in 2016. You're peddling a literal conspiracy theory there.

Well, if said book is the de facto textbook for their foreign policy students, then yes I would say at least the intent was there to influence things the way they occurred. How much did that effectively take place, now that's a conspiracy theory.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#530

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

enriquto wrote: post #324
vasco wrote: post #241

You know this effect, when you've been reading the news for years, and finally your favorite source has a story about something you studied or worked on, and you realize how low quality or outright wrong it is? The spell is broken and you realize how little they know about anything they write. Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for a…

> Once government officials and scientists gaslight us about what they think they should, how does one know they wouldn't for anything at all they decide to? For me it was the masks. The masks were my tipping point. At some point at the beginning of the pandemic they said that the disease was totally not airborne and that masks were useless. I remember vividly president Macron (a person that I respected before that)…

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