OT: COVID-19 thread #4

[DuckIII]

What do we do about the possibility or even likelihood that the virus began in a lab? Are there international laws against virus manipulation?

These are not rhetorical. I’ve pretty much ignored origin theories to this point because both theories seemed viable and it seemed far more important to me to focus on mitigations and treatment at the time.

I wonder where we go even if a consensus is formed that it was created in a lab. Unless the international community can determine the release was intentional (which to me is extremely hard to believe for a variety of reasons), what happens? Outlaw it internationally? Is it already outlawed? Create an international standard for security protocols?

The people I know in the “real world” seem to be politicizing this issue (shocker) and I don’t really understand why (again).

[coldfish]

What do we do about the possibility or even likelihood that the virus began in a lab? Are there international laws against virus manipulation?

These are not rhetorical. I’ve pretty much ignored origin theories to this point because both theories seemed viable and it seemed far more important to me to focus on mitigations and treatment at the time.

I wonder where we go even if a consensus is formed that it was created in a lab. Unless the international community can determine the release was intentional (which to me is extremely hard to believe for a variety of reasons), what happens? Outlaw it internationally? Is it already outlawed? Create an international standard for security protocols?

The people I know in the “real world” seem to be politicizing this issue (shocker) and I don’t really understand why (again).

Quick summary:
- There are 3 labs in the world that investigate bat coronaviruses. Wuhan, North Carolina and Texas.
- There have been many known virus lab leaks across the world. Some in the US. At least twice, SARS-1 accidentally got out of a lab in China and infected people.
- Labs do "gain of function" experimentation on viruses. They find a virus and they try to teach it to infect human cells (for example), to see if its possible. This process is complicated but its functionally directed evolution. We do not know if Wuhan was doing this.
- There is a report on politico that the lab in Wuhan had found a new bat coronavirus that attached to ACE2 receptors.
- In general, bat coronaviruses don't just jump to humans and never do it well. There is almost always an intermediary species. For MERS, its camels. For OC43 it was cows. For N229E, it was alpacas. There are huge reservoirs of the viruses there. We never found the intermediary species for SARS-1 or covid19.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no smoking gun anywhere. Anyone who completely dismisses the possibility is playing a political angle at best. Many people focus on the "China" part of this but when you read about "gain of function" experimentation and the american leaks, I think the whole industry needs to get shut down. This is incredibly arrogant and dangerous with little benefit for humanity.

[DuckIII]

Many people focus on the "China" part of this but when you read about "gain of function" experimentation and the american leaks, I think the whole industry needs to get shut down. This is incredibly arrogant and dangerous with little benefit for humanity.

Thanks. This last part is the discussion worth having. What are the benefits? What are the downsides? How do you balance it? Can it be balanced? And if not should the international community pass laws and treaties completely banning the practice? Or is there something illegal about it already that sanctions are important to establish (or perpetuate) precedent?

This is what matters.

But what I hear instead is conservatives using the lab creation evidence as some sort of desperate justification after a year of stubborn ignorance, and liberals resisting it and sticking with the natural jump theory so as to not concede anything - anything - to conservatives. It would be nice if we could just look at the information and decide what is ACTUALLY TO BE DONE ABOUT IT, objectively, for the common benefit of world health.

[johnnyvann840]

What do we do about the possibility or even likelihood that the virus began in a lab? Are there international laws against virus manipulation?

These are not rhetorical. I’ve pretty much ignored origin theories to this point because both theories seemed viable and it seemed far more important to me to focus on mitigations and treatment at the time.

I wonder where we go even if a consensus is formed that it was created in a lab. Unless the international community can determine the release was intentional (which to me is extremely hard to believe for a variety of reasons), what happens? Outlaw it internationally? Is it already outlawed? Create an international standard for security protocols?

The people I know in the “real world” seem to be politicizing this issue (shocker) and I don’t really understand why (again).

Quick summary:
- There are 3 labs in the world that investigate bat coronaviruses. Wuhan, North Carolina and Texas.
- There have been many known virus lab leaks across the world. Some in the US. At least twice, SARS-1 accidentally got out of a lab in China and infected people.
- Labs do "gain of function" experimentation on viruses. They find a virus and they try to teach it to infect human cells (for example), to see if its possible. This process is complicated but its functionally directed evolution. We do not know if Wuhan was doing this.
- There is a report on politico that the lab in Wuhan had found a new bat coronavirus that attached to ACE2 receptors.
- In general, bat coronaviruses don't just jump to humans and never do it well. There is almost always an intermediary species. For MERS, its camels. For OC43 it was cows. For N229E, it was alpacas. There are huge reservoirs of the viruses there. We never found the intermediary species for SARS-1 or covid19.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no smoking gun anywhere. Anyone who completely dismisses the possibility is playing a political angle at best. Many people focus on the "China" part of this but when you read about "gain of function" experimentation and the american leaks, I think the whole industry needs to get shut down. This is incredibly arrogant and dangerous with little benefit for humanity.

Remember this? This was posted here last year when this thread first started.

https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan-lab-millions-us-dollars-risky-coronavirus-research-1500741

[TheStig]

What do we do about the possibility or even likelihood that the virus began in a lab? Are there international laws against virus manipulation?

These are not rhetorical. I’ve pretty much ignored origin theories to this point because both theories seemed viable and it seemed far more important to me to focus on mitigations and treatment at the time.

I wonder where we go even if a consensus is formed that it was created in a lab. Unless the international community can determine the release was intentional (which to me is extremely hard to believe for a variety of reasons), what happens? Outlaw it internationally? Is it already outlawed? Create an international standard for security protocols?

The people I know in the “real world” seem to be politicizing this issue (shocker) and I don’t really understand why (again).

Quick summary:
- There are 3 labs in the world that investigate bat coronaviruses. Wuhan, North Carolina and Texas.
- There have been many known virus lab leaks across the world. Some in the US. At least twice, SARS-1 accidentally got out of a lab in China and infected people.
- Labs do "gain of function" experimentation on viruses. They find a virus and they try to teach it to infect human cells (for example), to see if its possible. This process is complicated but its functionally directed evolution. We do not know if Wuhan was doing this.
- There is a report on politico that the lab in Wuhan had found a new bat coronavirus that attached to ACE2 receptors.
- In general, bat coronaviruses don't just jump to humans and never do it well. There is almost always an intermediary species. For MERS, its camels. For OC43 it was cows. For N229E, it was alpacas. There are huge reservoirs of the viruses there. We never found the intermediary species for SARS-1 or covid19.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no smoking gun anywhere. Anyone who completely dismisses the possibility is playing a political angle at best. Many people focus on the "China" part of this but when you read about "gain of function" experimentation and the american leaks, I think the whole industry needs to get shut down. This is incredibly arrogant and dangerous with little benefit for humanity.

I'm not a scientist and not familiar with this as indepth as others. I think the bigger problem is the protocol and safeties put into place to prevent an outbreak. That Wuhan lab has had issues before.The biggest issue of all is that when something did get out, if that is indeed the case, there was no communication and a coverup. The lack of information coming out of China was the big problem. There would have been an opportunity to stop it from spreading to the whole world. But I suspect they didn't mind that outcome. It helps them that they're not the only one to suffer and that it comes here and causes issues.

[johnnyvann840]

It's just way too coincidental that the first case of of Covid19 shows up down the street from that Wuhan lab that just happened to be doing gain of function research on bats with coronavirus. I think it's getting more and more obvious everyday what happened.

Oh yeah, then there's this.....

https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-wuhan-lab-fuels-debate-on-covid-19-origin-11621796228

[superdave]

Having done a good amount of recent reading and talks with my brother in law (Yale-y with doctorate in bio-science w/ years of lab experience)... the lack of intermediary COVID-19 in any animal species is pretty damning. This would be the first-of-a-kind transmission from animal to human leaving no detectable trail. Also, many well meaning scientists (even my brother in law) make mistakes, you cannot eliminate human error from experimental science.

The WSJ article and other science journals point to both US and China fault. China for unsurprisingly covering up and witholding information to save face. US for having some involvement in funding gain-of-function (basically; inventing new viruses) to the Wuhan lab. I hope the full truth comes out.

[Mbrahv0528]

It's just way too coincidental that the first case of of Covid19 shows up down the street from that Wuhan lab that just happened to be doing gain of function research on bats with coronavirus. I think it's getting more and more obvious everyday what happened.

Oh yeah, then there's this.....

https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-wuhan-lab-fuels-debate-on-covid-19-origin-11621796228

The Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch (of Faux news)... I'm not disputing the possibility of this being a lab leak, but I'm definitely not taking anything from Fox News as actual news either. Let's wait until a non right leaning publication confirms this.

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[johnnyvann840]

It's just way too coincidental that the first case of of Covid19 shows up down the street from that Wuhan lab that just happened to be doing gain of function research on bats with coronavirus. I think it's getting more and more obvious everyday what happened.

Oh yeah, then there's this.....

https://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-on-sick-staff-at-wuhan-lab-fuels-debate-on-covid-19-origin-11621796228

The Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch (of Faux news)...

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The WSJ is just one of hundreds of outlets that this story has been reported by..... Rupert Murdoch doesn't own all these. I mean this is getting to point of looking up and saying the sky is yellow and the sun is blue territory. There is just so much evidence pointing to the origin of the virus. Biden has finally called for an investigation after stopping the ones that were already going on.. nearly every scientific mind out there without bias is saying... "hey, on second thought, it sure looks like this is what happened"..

Like Duck just said. People need to stop politicizing this and just realize and speak the truth.

I'm not disputing the possibility of this being a lab leak, but I'm definitely not taking anything from Fox News as actual news either. Let's wait until a non right leaning publication confirms this.

Murdoch doesn't own these...

https://www.livescience.com/covid-lab-leak-wuhan.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-medical-records-wuhan-lab-staff-sick-in-2019-2021-6

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210524/wuhan-lab-researchers-illness

[HomoSapien]

It has always felt odd to me that there had been a recent rise in anti-vaxxing conspiracy theories over the past few years leading up to Covid. Obviously, it could be purely coincidental, but with the way misinformation has been weaponized it does make me wonder if there's something more here.

[jmajew]

It has always felt odd to me that there had been a recent rise in anti-vaxxing conspiracy theories over the past few years leading up to Covid. Obviously, it could be purely coincidental, but with the way misinformation has been weaponized it does make me wonder if there's something more here.

I never thought of this...interesting concept to say the least.

[samwana]

It has always felt odd to me that there had been a recent rise in anti-vaxxing conspiracy theories over the past few years leading up to Covid. Obviously, it could be purely coincidental, but with the way misinformation has been weaponized it does make me wonder if there's something more here.

This whole century, especially this whole covid situation, is a information war, are you sure who tells the truth?

Conspiracy theory is just a saying to disrespect another opinion. Why is it a conspiracy to have a different opinion? Isn't it way more important and interesting to discuss the reasoning of someone's opinion and learn about other ideas, instead of just brushing it off?





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[HomoSapien]

It has always felt odd to me that there had been a recent rise in anti-vaxxing conspiracy theories over the past few years leading up to Covid. Obviously, it could be purely coincidental, but with the way misinformation has been weaponized it does make me wonder if there's something more here.

This whole century, especially this whole covid situation, is a information war, are you sure who tells the truth?

Conspiracy theory is just a saying to disrespect another opinion. Why is it a conspiracy to have a different opinion? Isn't it way more important and interesting to discuss the reasoning of someone's opinion and learn about other ideas, instead of just brushing it off?





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Respectfully, there are some opinions that don't deserve respect.

[detlef_schrempf]

It has always felt odd to me that there had been a recent rise in anti-vaxxing conspiracy theories over the past few years leading up to Covid. Obviously, it could be purely coincidental, but with the way misinformation has been weaponized it does make me wonder if there's something more here.

This whole century, especially this whole covid situation, is a information war, are you sure who tells the truth?

Conspiracy theory is just a saying to disrespect another opinion. Why is it a conspiracy to have a different opinion? Isn't it way more important and interesting to discuss the reasoning of someone's opinion and learn about other ideas, instead of just brushing it off?





Sent from my POT-LX1 using RealGM mobile app

Try asking your primary care doctor what he or she thinks. There is no real information war - the facts are out there if you want them. There is certainly a misinformation war which is based on internet clicks and people trying to monetize crazy. Opinions aren't facts. You can say it is your opinion that the color red is actually green and that 9x9=82, but it doesn't make it true. Intelligent people are able to spot the phonies, but alas 49 percent of the planet has below average intelligence.

[molepharmer]

Below is a recent good article from Nature:
The COVID lab-leak hypothesis: what scientists do and don’t know
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01529-3?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=7511c53de9-briefing-dy-20210616&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-7511c53de9-45255538
There’s not yet any substantial evidence for a lab leak. Why are scientists still considering it?
What are the key arguments for a lab leak?
Is it suspicious that no animal has been identified as transmitting the virus to humans?
Is it suspicious that the WIV is in Wuhan?
Does the virus have features that suggest it was created in a lab?
etc

This is from Scientific American:
Why Scientists Tweak Lab Viruses to Make Them More Contagious
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-scientists-tweak-lab-viruses-to-make-them-more-contagious1/?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=747f58759f-briefing-dy-20210614&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-747f58759f-45255538

[coldfish]

Below is a recent good article from Nature:
The COVID lab-leak hypothesis: what scientists do and don’t know
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01529-3?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=7511c53de9-briefing-dy-20210616&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-7511c53de9-45255538
There’s not yet any substantial evidence for a lab leak. Why are scientists still considering it?
What are the key arguments for a lab leak?
Is it suspicious that no animal has been identified as transmitting the virus to humans?
Is it suspicious that the WIV is in Wuhan?
Does the virus have features that suggest it was created in a lab?
etc

This is from Scientific American:
Why Scientists Tweak Lab Viruses to Make Them More Contagious
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-scientists-tweak-lab-viruses-to-make-them-more-contagious1/?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=747f58759f-briefing-dy-20210614&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-747f58759f-45255538

Is it suspicious that the WIV is in Wuhan?
Virology labs tend to specialize in the viruses around them, says Vincent Munster, a virologist at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories, a division of the National Institutes of Health, in Hamilton, Montana. The WIV specializes in coronaviruses because many have been found in and around China. Munster names other labs that focus on endemic viral diseases: influenza labs in Asia, haemorrhagic fever labs in Africa and dengue-fever labs in Latin America, for example. “Nine out of ten times, when there’s a new outbreak, you’ll find a lab that will be working on these kinds of viruses nearby,” says Munster.

Researchers note that a coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan isn’t surprising, because it’s a city of 11 million people in a broader region where coronaviruses have been found. It contains an airport, train stations and markets selling goods and wildlife transported there from around the region5 — meaning a virus could enter the city and spread rapidly.

This is either inaccurate or highly misleading. There are only 3 viral labs in the world working on coronaviruses as of 2019. Two of them are in the US, one is in Wuhan. Beyond that, Wuhan is far away from where the bat populations in China primarily are. Just as a crappy analogy, it would be like a lab in Ohio studying alligators and when one got out people saying "well alligators are native to the US, so that alligator in Ohio could have come from nature."

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins

Dr. Richard Ebright, board of governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, said that from the very first reports of a novel bat-related coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, it took him “a nanosecond or a picosecond” to consider a link to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Only two other labs in the world, in Galveston, Texas, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, were doing similar research. “It’s not a dozen cities,” he said. “It’s three places.”

[ATRAIN53]

you guys still wearing masks in public?

seems like the the train/bus are the only place the are mandatory now.
my building you're supposed to wear them in the lobby and public areas but not everyone is and no one is enforcing it.

but I'm still not totally comfortable in crowd of folks without it, esp if I'm close to people.

I'm still not sure it's really 'gone', I don't expect it to ever just vanish. I kinda think there are some variants and other mutations that are gonna hit in waves, esp when the weather gets colder and were locked inside and people are gathering sans masks.

I think we have always lived in a world where respatory viruses exists, but this is like a new generation of them on steroids that were years from really understanding. It will be interesting decades form now when we look back and see what we really have learned from this whole pandemic. I found it interesting when they discussed the 1918 pandemic during this pandemic and how we just don't have a lot of data and memories, stores from that pandemic because most of the peopel who died were poor folks no one cared about.

I'm still going with the mask. How about you?

[HomoSapien]

you guys still wearing masks in public?

seems like the the train/bus are the only place the are mandatory now.
my building you're supposed to wear them in the lobby and public areas but not everyone is and no one is enforcing it.

but I'm still not totally comfortable in crowd of folks without it, esp if I'm close to people.

I'm still not sure it's really 'gone', I don't expect it to ever just vanish. I kinda think there are some variants and other mutations that are gonna hit in waves, esp when the weather gets colder and were locked inside and people are gathering sans masks.

I think we have always lived in a world where respatory viruses exists, but this is like a new generation of them on steroids that were years from really understanding. It will be interesting decades form now when we look back and see what we really have learned from this whole pandemic. I found it interesting when they discussed the 1918 pandemic during this pandemic and how we just don't have a lot of data and memories, stores from that pandemic because most of the peopel who died were poor folks no one cared about.

I'm still going with the mask. How about you?

Yeah, I'm feeling similar. I don't wear a mask outside and have recently done indoor dining (honestly didn't feel great about doing that yet), but I'm still wearing a mask at the grocery store. LA just lifted the mask ban on the 15th, but I'd say about 95% of the customers at my local Trader Joe's were still wearing masks. The Delta variant is in the back of my mind as a potential concern.

[coldfish]

you guys still wearing masks in public?

seems like the the train/bus are the only place the are mandatory now.
my building you're supposed to wear them in the lobby and public areas but not everyone is and no one is enforcing it.

but I'm still not totally comfortable in crowd of folks without it, esp if I'm close to people.

I'm still not sure it's really 'gone', I don't expect it to ever just vanish. I kinda think there are some variants and other mutations that are gonna hit in waves, esp when the weather gets colder and were locked inside and people are gathering sans masks.

I think we have always lived in a world where respatory viruses exists, but this is like a new generation of them on steroids that were years from really understanding. It will be interesting decades form now when we look back and see what we really have learned from this whole pandemic. I found it interesting when they discussed the 1918 pandemic during this pandemic and how we just don't have a lot of data and memories, stores from that pandemic because most of the peopel who died were poor folks no one cared about.

I'm still going with the mask. How about you?

Yeah, I'm feeling similar. I don't wear a mask outside and have recently done indoor dining (honestly didn't feel great about doing that yet), but I'm still wearing a mask at the grocery store. LA just lifted the mask ban on the 15th, but I'd say about 95% of the customers at my local Trader Joe's were still wearing masks. The Delta variant is in the back of my mind as a potential concern.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/two-doses-vaccine-highly-effective-against-delta-variant-u-k-n1270776

The new analysis found that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine were 96 percent effective against hospitalization from the Delta variant, and two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were 92 percent effective.

Random comments:
- This doesn't mean that if you had an mrna vaccine, you have a 4% chance of being hospitalized by the delta variant. It means you have 1/25th the chance of being hospitalized as an unvaccinated person.
- That doesn't even do it justice. Across the US, hospitals are reporting that the vaccinated people they are seeing are almost always older and immune compromised.

End result is that if you had a mrna vaccine and you are healthy, your chances of getting a severe case of covid are damn near zero.

[PaKii94]

I mean if you trusted the science and got the vaccine...why would you not trust the science behind the efficacy of it and stop wearing masks?

I stopped wearing mine. Still have one handy if people b*tch about it but noone has.

My opinion is that the length of "lockdown" and mask mandates were overkill (but sadly necessary). If the gov't was competent enough, they would have encouraged and developed rapid testing. Once you have blanket tested, you can isolate the pockets of outbreaks and protect the immunocompromised. Instead the virus became political. SMH.