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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

#641

Post by onethought »

meowface wrote: post #633
onethought wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they have found the virus in bats... it’s not engineered. Yes there are lots of legitimate reasons to study viruses.

No, they haven't found the exact virus in bats in the wild, yet. They've found some relatives, but not the virus. There's still no strong empirical evidence one way or another for the zoonotic vs. lab leak hypothesis.

Even the lab leak is zoonotic. Because 100% it was from the bats... you are right it might have gone via the lab or via a wet market... what’s the difference though?

(Yes it isn’t 100% match, but it’s 100% an ancestor... so not engineered)

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

#642

Post by onethought »

tripletao wrote: post #634
onethought wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they have found the virus in bats... it’s not engineered. Yes there are lots of legitimate reasons to study viruses.

They haven't found the virus in bats. The closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2 found in the wild was a different virus found in bats, RaTG13. As you wrote above yourself, there's no known animal reservoir for SARS-CoV-2. Laboratory attempts to infect bat cells (e.g. [1]; but there have been many others) with SARS-CoV-2 have been unsuccessful. This was the significance of the pangolins, which were initially proposed t…

None of those citations indicate engineering of the virus. Am I missing something?

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

#643

Post by berdario »

tremon wrote: post #585
berdario wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the agency that published the article is twisting the truth, shouldn't that be called out?

It's your presumption to already know the "truth" that can never lead to a discussion in good faith, not your opinion on the article itself. But as to your point, are you asserting that none of the team’s investigators ever said anything like "China refused to give raw data on early COVID-19 cases to the WHO-led team probing the origins of the pandemic"? Where is your proof that the statement you quoted is false?

Propaganda doesn't work like you are implying it does.

It's part "bullshit asymmetry principle", but it's mostly repetition of the same talking points.

I.e. find something true but inconsequential (Dominic Dwyer said that they weren't necessarily given enough to do all of the analises that they would do), and that's then blown out of proportion:

- what are the actual facts? What was Dwyer's role? Was he working with the same people that Daszak and Fischer worked (i.e. their chinese counterparts)? Why don't we hear testimony from their side?

- one scientist became several members of their team

- one statement became just part of a narrative (repeated headlines) about Chinese negligence in sharing information

- the supposed neglicence then justified "deep concern" from the WH

That works thanks to the fact that, even if people read the articles, and realize that there's no smoking gun.. All they remember is the newspaper headline, and people will uncritically trust authorities like NYT or Reuters... So even when there's no smoking gun, them referring to each others as source is enough to make their narrative seem legitimate

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

#644

Post by meowface »

onethought wrote: post #641
meowface wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they haven't found the exact virus in bats in the wild, yet. They've found some relatives, but not the virus. There's still no strong empirical evidence one way or another for the zoonotic vs. lab leak hypothesis.

Even the lab leak is zoonotic. Because 100% it was from the bats... you are right it might have gone via the lab or via a wet market... what’s the difference though? (Yes it isn’t 100% match, but it’s 100% an ancestor... so not engineered)

The main lab leak hypothesis posits a gain-of-function research origin rather than a zoonotic origin. (Meaning, taking a coronavirus found in the wild, then manipulating its structure to study the effects and potentially devise remedies.)

Here's an article mentioning this hypothesis: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/05/coronavir...

SARS-CoV-2 has not yet been found in bats or any other animal. Relatives have been found, but relatives with key differences. It certainly could be found, and if it's correct then it'll still probably be very difficult to find due to being a needle in a haystack, but so far it hasn't been found.

I'm certainly not arguing it's true and the zoonotic origin is false (and I have no clue where to allocate the confidence values, myself), but your repeated insistence that it's "100% zoonotic" is puzzling because that hasn't even been claimed by any experts yet. The jury is still out.

Sure, the ultimate origin of the virus - tracing its full lineage - will have been from an animal no matter what. But if it were substantially modified by deliberate RNA manipulation in the lab after being collected from an animal, potentially increasing its lethality or contagiousness in the process and resulting in the pathogen we now call SARS-CoV-2, that would mean this particular virus isn't zoonotic. If true, it would totally change the discussion into one about the safety of such gain-of-function research and this particular lab.

Almost any engineered pathogen of any kind (protozoon, bacterium, virus) in any scenario will likely ultimately have been derived from something already living. But once the pathogen is experimentally modified to add, remove, or alter its functioning, it's no longer accurate to describe the modified pathogen as being zoonotic. By that logic, even engineered bioweapons would be considered zoonotic (and no one is claiming in this case it's a bioweapon; the lab leak hypothesis posits benign gain-of-function research and an accidental escape). Frankenstein's monster is no longer just some guy.

It's like saying the origin of the domestic dog is 100% natural because, look, you find its close ancestor the wolf everywhere in the wild. It omits the hypothesis that some wolves were taken and deliberately shaped and molded by humans to produce something new.

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

#645

Post by anonymouse008 »

sverhagen wrote: post #493
anonymouse008 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that same logic - Did you ever leave your house feb 2020 to now? If you did, you could’ve done more.

I turned into a freakin' hermit... How about you?

I turned into a jaded citizen. When first reports from China emerged, and we saw how the CCP was dragging people out of their homes over a ‘flu.’ I knew something was very, very wrong. I told my parents and immediate family to secure provisions for at least 3 months and to prepare for a time to not leave the house at all until c19 passes.

Then, nothing happened. Not one country stopped their domestic travel, no one prepared and mandated a ‘3 month summer staycation’ (my poor attempt at marketing a terrible circumstance with some positive spin)... and we all started blaming each other.

That was sickening to me... it’s bad enough when we don’t take the proper action to protect our fellow neighbor, but even after acknowledging the cause is basically lost, we turn on each other.

So my quip was in that jaded poor taste, when I saw the finger pointing beginning again... and I should have just commented this to begin with...

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

#646

Post by joshuahughes »

tal8d wrote: post #640
PeterStuer wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the US abandoned that course so long ago " How do you know this?

The very public shuttering of facilities, the absence of military doctrine, etc. Yes, there could be secret congressional funding for a secret research lab serving a secret component of the military that secretly maintains readiness to do something that is strategically counterproductive and categorically denied. Do I really need to go on with how silly that line of thought is?

I really don’t understand how anyone can have such a profound level of trust in organisations that have proved themselves utterly unworthy of that trust. Have the lessons of Snowden really been forgotten this quickly??

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

#647

Post by tripletao »

onethought wrote: post #642
tripletao wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't found the virus in bats. The closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2 found in the wild was a different virus found in bats, RaTG13. As you wrote above yourself, there's no known animal reservoir for SARS-CoV-2. Laboratory attempts to infect bat cells (e.g. [1]; but there have been many others) with SARS-CoV-2 have been unsuccessful. This was the significance of the pangolins, which were initially proposed t…

None of those citations indicate engineering of the virus. Am I missing something?

You're using the word "engineering" without defining it, and thereby conflating two things:

1. Direct artificial manipulation of a virus's genetic sequence.

2. Laboratory culture and passaging of a virus, allowing evolution due to natural mutations to proceed under artificial selective constraints.

No one serious is focusing on (1). The people bringing it up most often are either uneducated cranks, or zoonotic origin proponents using it as a strawman to refute.

The serious concern is that SARS-CoV-2 originated due to (2). In that case, since it's a natural evolutionary process, there would be no indication in the virus's genetic sequence of human tampering, because no direct human tampering occurred. The only evidence would be the absence of any animal reservoir of the virus. Perhaps that will eventually be found; but so far--unlike for SARS-CoV or MERS-CoV--it hasn't been.

As I note elsewhere in this thread, the discovery of a proximal animal host would convince me that the virus is probably of natural origin. Is there any evidence short of a direct admission from the people responsible that would convince you it might have escaped from a lab?

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

#648

Post by tripletao »

onethought wrote: post #641
meowface wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they haven't found the exact virus in bats in the wild, yet. They've found some relatives, but not the virus. There's still no strong empirical evidence one way or another for the zoonotic vs. lab leak hypothesis.

Even the lab leak is zoonotic. Because 100% it was from the bats... you are right it might have gone via the lab or via a wet market... what’s the difference though? (Yes it isn’t 100% match, but it’s 100% an ancestor... so not engineered)

First, even genetically-engineered viruses (i.e., viruses whose nucleic acid sequence was directly manipulated by scientists) are genetically similar to natural viruses--scientists lack the knowledge to design a viral genome entirely de novo, so such activity starts with one or more natural genomes. I believe other evidence makes such an origin for SARS-CoV-2 unlikely, but the existence of natural relatives means nothing.

Second, are you really saying that if we somehow later confirm that SARS-CoV-2 is a naturally-evolved virus sampled and accidentally released by the WIV, we should just shrug and do nothing? Even before the pandemic, there was a debate over whether deliberately seeking out novel pathogens (especially for gain-of-function experiments, but even just for collection and sequencing) brought sufficient benefit to justify the risk. If it turned out that such activity started a pandemic that killed millions of people, wouldn't it perhaps be worth revisiting that tradeoff?

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

#649

Post by SuoDuanDao »

nervlord wrote: post #411
refenestrator wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He encouraged people not to wear masks as a lifestyle choice and cultural signalling thing. Some % of transmission rate is directly attributable to him -- he could have said wearing a mask owns the libs and massively helped instead of hurting.

Dr Fauci told people masks where ineffective early on in the pandemic, allegedly for the "altruistic" motive of ensuring "front line" workers don't have issues getting hold of masks. Do you attribute a percent of transmission to him? The final verdict on the efficacy of masks against this virus is still TBD once we have more information and the passage of time removes the political agenda's that cloud this conversati…

It's creepy how some people keep trying to memory hole what our own health officials said about masks in the early days. I wonder whether they really think this kind of thing flies under the radar or they are so embarrassed they parroted the 'masks are worse than useless' line that they genuinely forgot about that part of the story themselves.

Though IMHO, given the role vitamin D deficiency seems to have on mortality rates, I think the harshest criticism (charges?) should be reserved for any mayor who ordered tanning beds to close in his or her city.

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

#650

Post by foolmeonce »

zepto wrote: post #632
foolmeonce wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that's what I said: > That China blocked the Who's efforts and the WHO disclosed this is more relevant to future health policy than where this particular outbreak started. (Obviously the WHO, like any part of the UN can do nothing but document anything a superpower refuses to do.) Now how does that build a case that the WHO is a problem instead of allowing superpowers to have super power is a problem? It seems to…

> allowing superpowers to have super power is a problem? What has this got do to do with anything we are discussing here? Who is ‘allowing this’. What does it mean to not ‘allow’ it? > It seems to me like people down voting my original comment are members of superpower states with hypocritical stances. What state are you a member of? Does something make you think it has no hypocritical stances?

Let's assume the US and China are the only states the WHO, a UN Org could extract useful information from based on this write up of the lab theory:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca...

Note, these nations are listed here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Counci...

Note Lord Acton (also from a state listed there) states the meaning of that list in the context of the UN system:

“All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Now, what has the WHO done wrong vs what is outside the abilities of any part of the UN to address?

I will summarize my very simple position again:

The WHO did a good write-up, if you want to look beyond what a UN organization is allowed to do then do your own inference.

You seem to be implying the WHO should do something else that is consistent with its position and the fact that choices by China and the US are beyond its control. Maybe you can elaborate on what that is?

If you are suggesting a reform to allow a UN organization to force these nations to not be a global threat in every area, including health, then I'm happy to hear it.

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