Semi-OT: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

[MotownMadness]

What is the point of creating a human virus? You can't control it once it is released. Look how fast Covid-19 spread from one spot to the entire world.

Creating it would be suicide. Eventually it comes back around. And why bother? We already have a number of killer viruses in containment centers for study throughout the world. Nature is way ahead of us because in nature you have natural mutation.

China has discovered over 2,000 new viruses in the last 12 years. Thats more then any other country has found combined over our existence.

They arent creating them but extracting them even by grabbing ticks off the animals. Im assuming to try and stay ahead creating new medicines or vaccines but really goofed up somewhere here and it became transferred from human to human.

Then you overlooking the most likely and probable scenario that nature created it. The fact that it surfaced in a seafood/animal market explains much about where it came from. This is just spin that it escaped from a lab.

As gross as those wet markets are they have been eating that way for a long time and its still shouldn't be ruled out either.

But to act so blinded to the fact the virus center containing the virus in a vile doesnt exist across the street basically from the wet market they are claiming spreaded it is just turning a blind eye.

[OkcSinceSGA]

That may be your own experience, but that's definitely not the dialog that was happening. The thought that it MIGHT of accidentally came from the lab was being declared a full on conspiracy. MSM was literally running a disinformation campaign for China. Now not only does it look increasingly likely, but it may go a step further and have been INTENTIONAL.

This whole COVID thing has really exposed how many people are owned by the Chinese. Seeing NBC run full on Chinese state propaganda to hit America daily has been insane.

SARS and MERS are previous zoonotic diseases caused by corona viruses of fairly proven natural origin, and this one is still very possibly similar. That it was manufactured in a lab or intentionally released from a lab pretty much remain conspiracy theories imo.

This!

I don't think anyone has said it is impossible this came from a lab. But without credible evidence there's no reason to go to what is a highly unlikely solution.

I also remain just dumbfounded by why people are so obsessed with the origin of this. I mean researchers sure and if we know, sure I'd read an article...but why are people so obsessed with it? I get some people are out of work and just looking for any conspiracy theory to entertain them, but really folks...you can't possibly have finished all of netflix yet.

Not one person here, including me said it was CREATED in a lab, so that's moving the goalposts. The claim was an already existing virus got out and that there was a chance of modifications/inserts, based on a couple papers. So there was no conspiracy in my claims.

That alone was being labeled as conspiracy by media and even here. As for people being obsessed with origin that's probably THE single most important thing. If we blame the wet markets and they add restrictions to wet markets, but not address lab safety protocols we are looking at this happening more in the future (if it's indeed a lab breach). It also gives us the culprit (China), and not some natural way of spreading via food to hold responsible.

[OkcSinceSGA]

Read on Twitter

How many people owe me an apology? As more intelligence comes in, the USA and allies now believe this came from the Wuhan lab. Multiple reports this week saying intelligence believes this to be the case. #Notaconspiracy?

Wow

This is the same **** that took us to war in Iraq.

While I agree that our intelligence agencies semi regularly lie when convenient, this has A LOT more evidence behind it than WMD's. We KNOW they were taking bats from 1000 KM away to extract viruses for research. We know there is a biological testing lab in Wuhan for certain (Hell America gave it a grant a while back). We also did the DNA sequencing to know it's likely from bats.

I could see America saying this to retaliate on China, but a lot of smoke here. So I do believe there is a fire. A lot of circumstantial evidence for the possibility. All we need is to identify patient 0.

Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using RealGM mobile app

[michaelm]

SARS and MERS are previous zoonotic diseases caused by corona viruses of fairly proven natural origin, and this one is still very possibly similar. That it was manufactured in a lab or intentionally released from a lab pretty much remain conspiracy theories imo.

This!

I don't think anyone has said it is impossible this came from a lab. But without credible evidence there's no reason to go to what is a highly unlikely solution.

I also remain just dumbfounded by why people are so obsessed with the origin of this. I mean researchers sure and if we know, sure I'd read an article...but why are people so obsessed with it? I get some people are out of work and just looking for any conspiracy theory to entertain them, but really folks...you can't possibly have finished all of netflix yet.

I dont think its some crazy conspiracy to think that somehow they accidentally leaked it or got exposed by it from that lab thats coincidentally in Wuhan close to that wet market.

They literally have videos of the scientists there extracting viruses from Horseshoe bats. To keep calling that some crazy conspiracy theory especially with how China tried so hard to cover it up is just flat dumb in my opinion.

I mean its a virus center that has definitely been collecting viruses from Horseshoe bats in the center of where the epidemic started.

That wasn’t what I was calling a conspiracy theory, but rather that it was a manufactured virus or deliberately spread.

I have read fairly extensively, and the prevailing theories seems to be that it is a virus of horseshoe bat origin which mutated either in a bat or in a human to become easily able to infect humans, with the alternatives being that it hybridised in a pangolin which has a virus with a similar structure for attaching to human cells but otherwise is not very similar to the Covid-19 virus, and another that a different as yet unrecognised animal was an intermediate host. Could someone researching the bats have been bitten by a bat or exposed to secretions/excretions of a bat rather than someone farming, keeping for sale or eating a bat ?; sure that is probably among the possibilities, but a long way from a conspiracy to infect the world with the virus. The Wuhan Lab was reportedly working in co-operation with international scientists and an internationally respected Chinese virologist who works in the lab was fairly convincingly, to me at least, adamant that the virus did not originate from the Wuhan lab; perhaps she would say that but she very much blamed humans rather the bats for the pandemic pretty much ascribing it to Chinese farming practices and smallholders both being forced to the edge of the bat habitats and finding they could earn a living farming wildlife, which would hardly endear her to the authorities either I imagine.

Bats carry other viruses which can infect humans including rabies, and rarely Hendra virus which is in Australian fruit bats and has caused 7 deaths in Australia in people exposed to sick horses which are the intermediate host, although neither is a corona virus. Perhaps it was a good idea that I got rid of 2 non-native palms in my backyard last year which attracted fruit bats from the large colony in the Sydney botanical gardens, although I don’t keep horses there.

[shakes0]

I dont think its some crazy conspiracy to think that somehow they accidentally leaked it or got exposed by it from that lab thats coincidentally in Wuhan close to that wet market.

They literally have videos of the scientists there extracting viruses from Horseshoe bats. To keep calling that some crazy conspiracy theory especially with how China tried so hard to cover it up is just flat dumb in my opinion.

I mean its a virus center that has definitely been collecting viruses from Horseshoe bats in the center of where the epidemic started.

That doesn't make it reasonable to assume it "got out". You need evidence, facts to go that direction. Viruses mutate, this according to scientists studying it, looks natural. So while it may or may not be...there's no reason to start speculating let alone the almost blasphemous idea that anyone has gone through the ridged scientific efforts to have reached a THEORY on this.

Bottom line, unless you have facts to assume otherwise, baseless speculation adds nothing to the discussions about this.

What facts do you have it didnt? Like i said the fact is they have a documentary of scientist from that Wuhan lab climbing up in caves extracting viruses from Horseshoe bats.

The scientist in the video even says how he hopes its only used in research and nothing else cause of how dangerous it is.

yea, I'm with you. at this point there is more "evidence" pointing towards the lab than the wet market. Just the fact that we already know for a fact that they study this exact type of virus in that lab is the most damning evidence we have.

saying this came from a lab is as simple as relying on Occams Razor at this point. The most obvious answer is the answer and right now the most obvious answer is clearly that this originated at a lab where they actively seek out and study CoronaVirus and bat viruses. If this simply came from bad hygene at a wet market I would believe that this would be happening a lot more often.

[dhsilv2]

I dont think its some crazy conspiracy to think that somehow they accidentally leaked it or got exposed by it from that lab thats coincidentally in Wuhan close to that wet market.

They literally have videos of the scientists there extracting viruses from Horseshoe bats. To keep calling that some crazy conspiracy theory especially with how China tried so hard to cover it up is just flat dumb in my opinion.

I mean its a virus center that has definitely been collecting viruses from Horseshoe bats in the center of where the epidemic started.

That doesn't make it reasonable to assume it "got out". You need evidence, facts to go that direction. Viruses mutate, this according to scientists studying it, looks natural. So while it may or may not be...there's no reason to start speculating let alone the almost blasphemous idea that anyone has gone through the ridged scientific efforts to have reached a THEORY on this.

Bottom line, unless you have facts to assume otherwise, baseless speculation adds nothing to the discussions about this.

What facts do you have it didnt? Like i said the fact is they have a documentary of scientist from that Wuhan lab climbing up in caves extracting viruses from Horseshoe bats.

The scientist in the video even says how he hopes its only used in research and nothing else cause of how dangerous it is.

You cannot, do not, and never will test to prove a negative like that. The burden of proof is to make a case for something. Now if you have evidence that this wasn't natural, well then that would open up discussion of other possibilities, but we haven't even established that.

And that is not evidence..

FYI but as already said but I'll repeat. If this came from a bat in a lab that they were studying, then it came from bats, not from the lab.

[Slava]

Wow

This is the same **** that took us to war in Iraq.

While I agree that our intelligence agencies semi regularly lie when convenient, this has A LOT more evidence behind it than WMD's. We KNOW they were taking bats from 1000 KM away to extract viruses for research. We know there is a biological testing lab in Wuhan for certain (Hell America gave it a grant a while back). We also did the DNA sequencing to know it's likely from bats.

I could see America saying this to retaliate on China, but a lot of smoke here. So I do believe there is a fire. A lot of circumstantial evidence for the possibility. All we need is to identify patient 0.

Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using RealGM mobile app

We know they grow Coriander in Mexico
We know the US imports Coriander
We know Chipotle uses Coriander in Burritos

A lot of smoke here isn't it? The next time a lard ass in Idaho gets diarrhea after eating a burrito, can we blame Mexico?

[michaelm]

That doesn't make it reasonable to assume it "got out". You need evidence, facts to go that direction. Viruses mutate, this according to scientists studying it, looks natural. So while it may or may not be...there's no reason to start speculating let alone the almost blasphemous idea that anyone has gone through the ridged scientific efforts to have reached a THEORY on this.

Bottom line, unless you have facts to assume otherwise, baseless speculation adds nothing to the discussions about this.

What facts do you have it didnt? Like i said the fact is they have a documentary of scientist from that Wuhan lab climbing up in caves extracting viruses from Horseshoe bats.

The scientist in the video even says how he hopes its only used in research and nothing else cause of how dangerous it is.

yea, I'm with you. at this point there is more "evidence" pointing towards the lab than the wet market. Just the fact that we already know for a fact that they study this exact type of virus in that lab is the most damning evidence we have.

saying this came from a lab is as simple as relying on Occams Razor at this point. The most obvious answer is the answer and right now the most obvious answer is clearly that this originated at a lab where they actively seek out and study CoronaVirus and bat viruses. If this simply came from bad hygene at a wet market I would believe that this would be happening a lot more often.

The Chinese themselves are saying a significant number of the early cases had no association with the wet market, but I think there is a fairly broad consensus including from them it spread to the world from there. The earlier SARS corona virus seems to have fairly definitely originated from a wet market with the civet cat as the intermediate host.

[dhsilv2]

Not one person here, including me said it was CREATED in a lab, so that's moving the goalposts. The claim was an already existing virus got out and that there was a chance of modifications/inserts, based on a couple papers. So there was no conspiracy in my claims.

That alone was being labeled as conspiracy by media and even here. As for people being obsessed with origin that's probably THE single most important thing. If we blame the wet markets and they add restrictions to wet markets, but not address lab safety protocols we are looking at this happening more in the future (if it's indeed a lab breach). It also gives us the culprit (China), and not some natural way of spreading via food to hold responsible.

So what do you think the difference in creating vs modification/inserts? it was either a natural evolutionary change in the virus or man changed the virus (man made).

[michaelm]

That doesn't make it reasonable to assume it "got out". You need evidence, facts to go that direction. Viruses mutate, this according to scientists studying it, looks natural. So while it may or may not be...there's no reason to start speculating let alone the almost blasphemous idea that anyone has gone through the ridged scientific efforts to have reached a THEORY on this.

Bottom line, unless you have facts to assume otherwise, baseless speculation adds nothing to the discussions about this.

What facts do you have it didnt? Like i said the fact is they have a documentary of scientist from that Wuhan lab climbing up in caves extracting viruses from Horseshoe bats.

The scientist in the video even says how he hopes its only used in research and nothing else cause of how dangerous it is.

You cannot, do not, and never will test to prove a negative like that. The burden of proof is to make a case for something. Now if you have evidence that this wasn't natural, well then that would open up discussion of other possibilities, but we haven't even established that.

And that is not evidence..

FYI but as already said but I'll repeat. If this came from a bat in a lab that they were studying, then it came from bats, not from the lab.

Exactly.

[OkcSinceSGA]

This is the same **** that took us to war in Iraq.

While I agree that our intelligence agencies semi regularly lie when convenient, this has A LOT more evidence behind it than WMD's. We KNOW they were taking bats from 1000 KM away to extract viruses for research. We know there is a biological testing lab in Wuhan for certain (Hell America gave it a grant a while back). We also did the DNA sequencing to know it's likely from bats.

I could see America saying this to retaliate on China, but a lot of smoke here. So I do believe there is a fire. A lot of circumstantial evidence for the possibility. All we need is to identify patient 0.

Sent from my LM-Q710(FGN) using RealGM mobile app

We know they grow Coriander in Mexico
We know the US imports Coriander
We know Chipotle uses Coriander in Burritos

A lot of smoke here isn't it? The next time a lard ass in Idaho gets diarrhea after eating a burrito, can we blame Mexico?

I get it. Causation vs correlation . I understand the need for more evidence. Which is why I always said it's my own opinion, NOT a fact. My goal here isn't to say see! I'm right, it's lab made for sure! It's to say hey, maybe we shouldn't label anyone a crazy conspiracy theorist when they mention another possibility. So the vindication isn't in being proven right, but rather it not being a "conspiracy theory" now. Did you follow how hard MSN tried to crush that theory with disinformation campaigns to defend China?

The fact that the earliest known COVID people didn't get traced back to the wet market should honestly be more of a story.

[OkcSinceSGA]

That doesn't make it reasonable to assume it "got out". You need evidence, facts to go that direction. Viruses mutate, this according to scientists studying it, looks natural. So while it may or may not be...there's no reason to start speculating let alone the almost blasphemous idea that anyone has gone through the ridged scientific efforts to have reached a THEORY on this.

Bottom line, unless you have facts to assume otherwise, baseless speculation adds nothing to the discussions about this.

What facts do you have it didnt? Like i said the fact is they have a documentary of scientist from that Wuhan lab climbing up in caves extracting viruses from Horseshoe bats.

The scientist in the video even says how he hopes its only used in research and nothing else cause of how dangerous it is.

You cannot, do not, and never will test to prove a negative like that. The burden of proof is to make a case for something. Now if you have evidence that this wasn't natural, well then that would open up discussion of other possibilities, but we haven't even established that.

And that is not evidence..

FYI but as already said but I'll repeat. If this came from a bat in a lab that they were studying, then it came from bats, not from the lab.

Mostly true with the last part. If it came from a bat, leaking out of the lab, then by all accounts the outbreak came from the lab. Yes, the virus is from bats, but that's a dishonest way to categorize it.

If I have a pet tiger and the tiger escapes (or gets walked outside on a leash, then escapes) and kills your daughter, you would say "The Tiger is responsible, not the handler". If a **** didn't own a tiger as a pet, it wouldn't of happened. If the **** didn't secure the tiger from getting out to the public, he's at fault. If it wasn't transported there from 1000 KM unnaturally (these bats live FAR away), the bats themselves are pretty irrelevant other than a source of the virus in the beginning.

[OkcSinceSGA]

Read on Twitter

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[HotRocks34]

Wow

This is the same **** that took us to war in Iraq.

While I agree that our intelligence agencies semi regularly lie when convenient, this has A LOT more evidence behind it than WMD's. We KNOW they were taking bats from 1000 KM away to extract viruses for research. We know there is a biological testing lab in Wuhan for certain (Hell America gave it a grant a while back). We also did the DNA sequencing to know it's likely from bats.

I could see America saying this to retaliate on China, but a lot of smoke here. So I do believe there is a fire. A lot of circumstantial evidence for the possibility. All we need is to identify patient 0.

Yeah. This is devastating and it would then make sense why China would want to cover it up. They' could be on the hook for trillions.

Those 2018 cables pretty much seal it for me, at least for now. I don't think this was done intentionally (at least based on what we know now), but I do think it came from the lab. Accidents happen, unfortunately. And they can happen, in particular, when a place already has known safety issues. Chernobyl wasn't a planned event but it happened.

Unlike WMD and Iraq, no one is going to be invading China or overthrowing Xi (at least not externally). In fact, part of the problem for the USA in doing intelligence reconnaissance on this matter is that we just signed a massive trade deal with China (which we want them to adhere to). Delicate issues.

Also, unlike WMD, the lab exists and was working on coronavirus experiments. There is no massive leap in logic here to believe this could have happened. If I recall right, and it's been a long time, people had to fabricate Sadaam's "stockpiles" as they did not seem to exist in reality.

[dhsilv2]

What facts do you have it didnt? Like i said the fact is they have a documentary of scientist from that Wuhan lab climbing up in caves extracting viruses from Horseshoe bats.

The scientist in the video even says how he hopes its only used in research and nothing else cause of how dangerous it is.

You cannot, do not, and never will test to prove a negative like that. The burden of proof is to make a case for something. Now if you have evidence that this wasn't natural, well then that would open up discussion of other possibilities, but we haven't even established that.

And that is not evidence..

FYI but as already said but I'll repeat. If this came from a bat in a lab that they were studying, then it came from bats, not from the lab.

Mostly true with the last part. If it came from a bat, leaking out of the lab, then by all accounts the outbreak came from the lab. Yes, the virus is from bats, but that's a dishonest way to categorize it.

If I have a pet tiger and the tiger escapes (or gets walked outside on a leash, then escapes) and kills your daughter, you would say "The Tiger is responsible, not the handler". If a **** didn't own a tiger as a pet, it wouldn't of happened. If the **** didn't secure the tiger from getting out to the public, he's at fault. If it wasn't transported there from 1000 KM unnaturally (these bats live FAR away), the bats themselves are pretty irrelevant other than a source of the virus in the beginning.

If you want to make a case that labs studying diseases naturally created need better whatever...sure fine. The problem is when you say it came from a lab, it implies this was not naturally occurring.

[OkcSinceSGA]

You cannot, do not, and never will test to prove a negative like that. The burden of proof is to make a case for something. Now if you have evidence that this wasn't natural, well then that would open up discussion of other possibilities, but we haven't even established that.

And that is not evidence..

FYI but as already said but I'll repeat. If this came from a bat in a lab that they were studying, then it came from bats, not from the lab.

Mostly true with the last part. If it came from a bat, leaking out of the lab, then by all accounts the outbreak came from the lab. Yes, the virus is from bats, but that's a dishonest way to categorize it.

If I have a pet tiger and the tiger escapes (or gets walked outside on a leash, then escapes) and kills your daughter, you would say "The Tiger is responsible, not the handler". If a **** didn't own a tiger as a pet, it wouldn't of happened. If the **** didn't secure the tiger from getting out to the public, he's at fault. If it wasn't transported there from 1000 KM unnaturally (these bats live FAR away), the bats themselves are pretty irrelevant other than a source of the virus in the beginning.

If you want to make a case that labs studying diseases naturally created need better whatever...sure fine. The problem is when you say it came from a lab, it implies this was not naturally occurring.

Yet nobody has said that. Go dig up the last few threads. I've said all along it's far more likely it was originally a bat strain. The only thing I question is the HIV protein inserts reports. Was it modified to make human transmission way easier?

Even if this is not the case, and we agree it was 100% naturally evolved, it's still coming out of the lab. Therefore people who were burned down as conspiracy theorists for saying this may be the case deserve an apology. As I posted above, even CNN is starting to backpeddle after their disinformation campaign.

We may never know for sure. We do know it's plausible now. Scientists literally went into wet markets and interviewed locals and the locals said bats aren't eaten there. That's not conclusive proof, but when you factor that horseshoe bats live FAR away, it's not likely a legit food source.

[HotRocks34]

Also on China's potential culpability, this doesn't look good:

Read on Twitter

This is not something you would expect to see from an innocent party. That doesn't mean that the lab theory is correct, by itself, but this doesn't help China's case much, I don't think.

[dhsilv2]

Mostly true with the last part. If it came from a bat, leaking out of the lab, then by all accounts the outbreak came from the lab. Yes, the virus is from bats, but that's a dishonest way to categorize it.

If I have a pet tiger and the tiger escapes (or gets walked outside on a leash, then escapes) and kills your daughter, you would say "The Tiger is responsible, not the handler". If a **** didn't own a tiger as a pet, it wouldn't of happened. If the **** didn't secure the tiger from getting out to the public, he's at fault. If it wasn't transported there from 1000 KM unnaturally (these bats live FAR away), the bats themselves are pretty irrelevant other than a source of the virus in the beginning.

If you want to make a case that labs studying diseases naturally created need better whatever...sure fine. The problem is when you say it came from a lab, it implies this was not naturally occurring.

Yet nobody has said that. Go dig up the last few threads. I've said all along it's far more likely it was originally a bat strain. The only thing I question is the HIV protein inserts reports. Was it modified to make human transmission way easier?

Even if this is not the case, and we agree it was 100% naturally evolved, it's still coming out of the lab. Therefore people who were burned down as conspiracy theorists for saying this may be the case deserve an apology. As I posted above, even CNN is starting to backpeddle after their disinformation campaign.

We may never know for sure. We do know it's plausible now. Scientists literally went into wet markets and interviewed locals and the locals said bats aren't eaten there. That's not conclusive proof, but when you factor that horseshoe bats live FAR away, it's not likely a legit food source.

If it came out of a lab it could just have easily happened naturally. And thus while it is an interesting story, there's not much more to it. The reason why the press shuts this stuff down is because it leads people to think it was manipulated and that's what caused it. That's the concern and that's what they want to avoid becoming a thing. Also news tend to want to wait for FACTS before they start letting things spread. As actual facts come, then we can reasonably discuss things that are outside the box and make sure to discuss them as reasonably as possible.

[Kabookalu]

There's a cave in China with hundreds of different strains of coronavirus. So yeah, not buying this BS that it was created in a lab. Escaped from a lab? Maybe, I have no doubt China wanted to get ahead of the curve and prevent another SARS outbreak. To imply this is some form of biological warfare, that's Z grade fiction writing.

[michaelm]

What facts do you have it didnt? Like i said the fact is they have a documentary of scientist from that Wuhan lab climbing up in caves extracting viruses from Horseshoe bats.

The scientist in the video even says how he hopes its only used in research and nothing else cause of how dangerous it is.

You cannot, do not, and never will test to prove a negative like that. The burden of proof is to make a case for something. Now if you have evidence that this wasn't natural, well then that would open up discussion of other possibilities, but we haven't even established that.

And that is not evidence..

FYI but as already said but I'll repeat. If this came from a bat in a lab that they were studying, then it came from bats, not from the lab.

Mostly true with the last part. If it came from a bat, leaking out of the lab, then by all accounts the outbreak came from the lab. Yes, the virus is from bats, but that's a dishonest way to categorize it.

If I have a pet tiger and the tiger escapes (or gets walked outside on a leash, then escapes) and kills your daughter, you would say "The Tiger is responsible, not the handler". If a **** didn't own a tiger as a pet, it wouldn't of happened. If the **** didn't secure the tiger from getting out to the public, he's at fault. If it wasn't transported there from 1000 KM unnaturally (these bats live FAR away), the bats themselves are pretty irrelevant other than a source of the virus in the beginning.

I don’t see much difference between a scientist being bitten or otherwise exposed to a bat as opposed to exposure duting farming, by keeping a bat captive or exposure at a wet market other than disagreeing with animal research on ethical grounds, not that the other practices are high water marks ethically either.

If they had isolated the virus, had it in viable form and it escaped the lab somehow then that is definitely negligent I would agree, but have as yet seen no evidence that this is likely. The Chinese can and have pointed out the summary closure of an American virology lab by the CDC fon safety grounds, although their conspiracy theory regarding that lab problem, and the Wuhan military games is also out there/wacky as well imo.