OT: COVID-19 thread #4

[Dresden]

Dr. Steven Quayle and a team of researchers went over to China, tested over 8,000 animals. Could not find a single one harboring the virus then ended up killing close to 5 million people. Dr. Baric in N.C., then DARPA in Maryland, then the Wuhan Lab, took an obscure coronavirus harbored in bats and ran it through serial cell cultures and animals in order to increase the virus's affinity for ACE-2 receptors.....which gave it the capacity for airborn transmission from human to human. Our government is never going to admit it. China is never going to admit it. In the immortal words of Hillary Clinton...at this point what difference does it make? They can set off all the rhetorical smoke bombs and unleash all the Clintonesque weasel word salads they can muster. The fact remains. That virus, in it's natural state almost 1,000 miles from Wuhan in a cave was not a danger to mankind. It was manipulated to become one.

The virus that killed a bunch of people is yet of unknown origin. To say it is manipulated to become a killer virus by GOF testing in a lab is something that has yet to be substantiated yet in any way and is just your pet theory.

The letter you posted as proof that GOF was taking place, explicitly said there was no GOF research but was unintended consequence and that the GOF that did happen was explicitly shown to not be on a virus related to COVID-19. So you can either disclaim the whole letter as false (even though you yourself sourced it), or you can take it as what is said in it, which is that this is unrelated to COVID-19.

Instead, you have taken this information and have straight up lied about what it says or you were too lazy to realize that you were repeating information that was straight up lying about what was said.

As for Fauci, say we give him the benefit of the doubt. Then he testified before Congress and gave Clintonesque responses to questions about gain of function. Like saying oral sex is not sex. At the worst he blatantly lied before Congress. If the latter he deserves to be reprimanded in the same way that a conservative witness would be treated if he or she lied to Congress. Perhaps at the very least he needs to appear once again and "re-explain" his prior testimony under oath and under questioning.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/physician-scientist-steven-quay-and-an-international-team-of-scientists-and-investigators-provide-science-based-analysis-of-the-origin-of-covid-19-to-the-us-congress-301334600.html

[b]What did he straight up lie about to congress?[/b]

You're source is a guy who decided to interpret the WHO report but didn't actually research anything?

You can easily access the video of Fauci's exchange with Rand Paul. Paul asked him about gain of function and Fauci denied it and told Paul he didn't know what he was talking about. Why did NIH Director Francis Collins resign after his Wuhan Lab lies were exposed? It was gain of function happening at Wuhan. And we helped to fund it. Period.

You have not made a convincing argument at all.

[Almost Retired]

That virus, in it's natural state almost 1,000 miles from Wuhan in a cave was not a danger to mankind. It was manipulated to become one.

Where exactly is "that" virus in its natural state/ ie the "base" virus that was edited?

There isn't one known at the time close enough to be manipulated.
There is no GoF where they randomly manipulate 100s or 1000s of sites

The closest ones still are not close enough.

Again if we want to take lab leak and or GoF lab leak seriously we need serious positive data.

The Virus just all of a sudden developed an affinity for the ACE-2 Receptor? You aren't going to get any data out of China. They're banning Celtics games just because Enes Kanter posted "Free Tibet". And the US isn't going to press China on this. Our hands are too dirty in this type of dangerous research ourselves. In an unredacted email from Peter Daszak of EcoHeath Alliance to Fauci he basically thanks Fauci for helping to deflect blame away from the Wuhan Lab. I quote: " I just wanted to thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for Covid-19 from bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

You don't have to be a genius to see what was going on. Fauci and Daszak were trying to cover their tracks. They both knew that US funding had been directed to Wuhan through the strawman EcoHealth Alliance. They needed to remove their fingerprints if they could. And you know well enough the major GOF aim was to make it more transmissible and that the Spike Protein was the target of the enhancement to give it more affinity to ACE-2. Covid 19 has gene sequencing CGG-CGG as I understand it, which is commonly used in GOF research and has never been found naturally according to Dr. Steven Quay and Richard Muller. "Proponents of zoonotic origin must explain why the novel coronavirus, when it mutated or recombined, happened to pick its least favorable combination, the double CGG.....Why did it replicate the choice of the gain of function researchers would have made." Further : "The presence of the double CGG sequence is strong evidence of gene splicing, and the absence of diversity in the public outbreak suggests gain of function acceleration."

British Professor Angus Dalgeish and Norweigan scientis Dr, Birger Sorensen wrote a damning study that said Wuhan created the final version of Covid 19 that escaped, then tried to cover their tracks by reverse-engineering versions of the virus to make it look like it evolved naturally from bats...Their attempts to publish their findings were unsuccessful however. One could assume that pressure from China may have had something to do with that. They are a major financial contributor to a large number of academic institutions. And they exert their influence to their advantage by any means necessary. I bet if I started a "Free Tibet" thread here they'd try to shut down RealGm Down too. Their tentacles are everywhere, all over the world.

[Michael Jackson]

I'll start out by saying:
1: Gun to my head, I believe COVID originated in the Wuhan lab and wasn't naturally occurring
2: Gun to my head, I believe the Wuhan lab was doing GOF research
3: We'll likely never get proof of either

I don't think there is any outcome with this though. You aren't going to meaningfully hold China accountable in any way.

We also are experimenting with dangerous stuff all over the world. Our research into AI is extraordinarily dangerous to humanity and has no restrictions at all that I'm aware of. It's probably an order of magnitude greater risk than experimenting on viruses.

But we may get proof that the virus is found in nature, which would at least provide another mechanism for it's spread, even if that would not totally rule out a lab accident. As others have pointed it, it took years to pinpoint the animal sources of other viruses in the past.

I have no problem believing that Covid-19 was a lab leak. None. Still if it was or wasn't viruses are going to come from nature that are just as destructive and will come again. It's not very scientific but I believe mother Nature takes her pound of flesh. We are vastly over using resources and nature will always work to find balance. Now that is just a complete gut feeling not based on any facts. It's not inconceivable that it came from a loan or nature. In this particular case, I think the lab fits better but neither would shock me.

[coldfish]

The odds of covid-19 jumping to humans within blocks of one of the 3 labs on the planet actively working on coronaviruses are so spectacularly low its difficult to fathom. That said, correlation does not equal causation. Its entirely possible that covid had been circulating in humans at a low level and was only identified because it got the attention of people who had the ability to determine that it was a new virus at that same lab.

Had China been more transparent, we may have been able to determine if the virus came from somewhere else in Hubei.

Realistically, there are only two futures for the origin story:
- We never know for certain
- We identify the carrier species and realize it jumped.

[micromonkey]

The Virus just all of a sudden developed an affinity for the ACE-2 Receptor? You aren't going to get any data out of China. They're banning Celtics games just because Enes Kanter posted "Free Tibet". And the US isn't going to press China on this. Our hands are too dirty in this type of dangerous research ourselves. In an unredacted email from Peter Daszak of EcoHeath Alliance to Fauci he basically thanks Fauci for helping to deflect blame away from the Wuhan Lab. I quote: " I just wanted to thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for Covid-19 from bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

You don't have to be a genius to see what was going on. Fauci and Daszak were trying to cover their tracks. They both knew that US funding had been directed to Wuhan through the strawman EcoHealth Alliance. They needed to remove their fingerprints if they could. And you know well enough the major GOF aim was to make it more transmissible and that the Spike Protein was the target of the enhancement to give it more affinity to ACE-2. Covid 19 has gene sequencing CGG-CGG as I understand it, which is commonly used in GOF research and has never been found naturally according to Dr. Steven Quay and Richard Muller. "Proponents of zoonotic origin must explain why the novel coronavirus, when it mutated or recombined, happened to pick its least favorable combination, the double CGG.....Why did it replicate the choice of the gain of function researchers would have made." Further : "The presence of the double CGG sequence is strong evidence of gene splicing, and the absence of diversity in the public outbreak suggests gain of function acceleration."

British Professor Angus Dalgeish and Norweigan scientis Dr, Birger Sorensen wrote a damning study that said Wuhan created the final version of Covid 19 that escaped, then tried to cover their tracks by reverse-engineering versions of the virus to make it look like it evolved naturally from bats...Their attempts to publish their findings were unsuccessful however. One could assume that pressure from China may have had something to do with that. They are a major financial contributor to a large number of academic institutions. And they exert their influence to their advantage by any means necessary. I bet if I started a "Free Tibet" thread here they'd try to shut down RealGm Down too. Their tentacles are everywhere, all over the world.

Again you miss the point--you are grasping at small details which can have multiple explanations--and are not definitive of any hypothesis--lab or natural. The bigger base virus remains elusive (to either the lab/natural crowd) so people are manufacturing "must be, can only be" when no, in fact there are several possibilities. They are making mountains out of molehills.

Again with "the virus" there are many coronaviruses that have an affinity for the ACE-2 receptor. In fact the newly found "BANAL" coronaviruses which may be the closest ones we know of, just found in Laos also have an affinity.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/10/06/origin-very-close-relatives-of-sars-cov-2-identified-in-laotian-bats/?sh=72e665377611 (there is a link to the actual pdf research there as well)
SARS, RATG13, BANAL-236 and that is without spending more time looking. There are probably hundreds that have affinity and some they belive based on computer models may even have stronger affinity/binding.

As expected, most of the interactions observed between the ACE2 and SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain were also present for BANAL-236.

Covid 19 has gene sequencing CGG-CGG as I understand it, which is commonly used in GOF research and has never been found naturally according to Dr. Steven Quay and Richard Muller.

Unfortunately they are simply wrong and didn't look very hard.

If you look at related coronaviruses, the CGG codon encodes about
5% of all arginines in Sars-CoV
3% of all arginines in Sars-CoV-2.
7% of all arginines in HKU9 7%
2%of all arginines in FCoV 2%
I'm sure there are more--but it's amazing if you do basic fact checking what you can find.
Its unremarkable and has less than the original SARS. This, like the ACE2 comment simply does not strongly support either conclusion. Its an unremarkable detail.

What for sure has never been found is the base structure that could have been used in GoF research that could have yielded CoV2.

A bunch of hacks are going around and claiming that small pieces are unique--when simply they do exist elsewhere and are not unique. This uniqueness is then the "smoking gun" when the most basic follow up shows it means nothing.

I know there is another "it was tailor made for human infection" argument. This too is wrong--there are several wild coronaviruses that appear to be more transmissible. And even so---the virus has made several mutations since the initial variant that GoF research couldn't even dream of. Over 50% from the original Wuhan to Alpha, another 50% for Delta and possibly another 10-15% for a sub-variant "Delta plus".

Again--lets keep our minds open to lab leaks. But there is a difference between evaluating data and coming to a conclusion vs coming to a conclusion and retrofitting all arguments to fit and ignoring other possibilities.

My point from before is lab leak won't be taken seriously if only weak and easily debunked arguments are used. And I think there is a percentage of people open to it--but not open to garbage arguments.

The best "missing link" in favor of lab leak at this point is--we have not (yet) seen evidence of the intermediate animal.
Again this is not strong evidence--but we normally would have found something if it did start in Wuhan.

It could be something or not. But It is also possible this virus actually mutated in humans and started somewhere that was not Wuhan, then a human infection/mutation caused an earlier weak version which then became Wuhan.

The above does not preclude a lab leak--in fact it could be a simple case of a worker getting infected after ass swabbing a bat.
We don't know enough of anything

[Dresden]

A good summary of the arguments about the lab leak theory and the GOF research can be found at factcheck.org: https://www.factcheck.org/2021/06/scicheck-the-facts-and-gaps-on-the-origin-of-the-coronavirus/

"Despite several lab leak narratives that claim RaTG13 could have been modified to create SARS-CoV-2, scientists who study viruses do not believe that’s possible. As others have explained before, RaTG13’s genome differs from SARS-CoV-2 by more than 1,000 nucleotides, making it too different to plausibly have served as a progenitor. “RaTG13 is too divergent to be this ancestral virus,” David Robertson, the head of viral genomics and bioinformatics at the University of Glasgow, told us.

Moreover, Shi says there is only a genome sequence for RaTG13 anyway — live virus was never isolated from the sample — and that she has only ever isolated three SARS-related bat coronaviruses.

The only way SARS-CoV-2 could have come from the lab, manipulated or not, is if the facility was in possession of a virus much more similar to SARS-CoV-2 than RaTG13, multiple experts told us.

“I would estimate at least 99%, that’s the minimum. It probably has to be 99.9% similar to make that kind of switch in the lab at all,” said Robert F. Garry, a virologist at Tulane University School of Medicine. “There’s just no evidence that they had anything close to that.”

...

But many scientists — especially the ones with the most expertise in coronaviruses — find a lab origin unlikely, even if they cannot exclude it.

“The finding of SARS-CoV-2-like viruses circulating in horseshoe bats in both China and Southeast Asia, coupled with the strong links of the first cases to animal markets in Wuhan are very compelling evidence SARS-CoV-2 is the result of an animal associated spillover much like SARS,” said Robertson, the University of Glasgow virus bioinformatician, who has studied how SARS-CoV-2 might have evolved. “On lab-leak, there’s no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab other than the coincidence of the Wuhan Institute of Virology being there.”

...

Garry, the Tulane virologist, also noted the past examples of natural spillovers, including SARS; the fact that the first four known COVID-19 cases in Wuhan had links to different wet markets, as shown in the WHO report — and no sign that Shi’s lab had any virus close to SARS-CoV-2.

“There is no evidence at all for a lab leak. Nothing scientific, it’s just an accusation,” Garry said. “You have to think one of the leading virologists on the planet is part of a major conspiracy that is involving hundreds of people.”

Sorry is this is too long of an excerpt. It's a good article, and covers a lot of ground.

[micromonkey]

Spoiler:

A good summary of the arguments about the lab leak theory and the GOF research can be found at factcheck.org: https://www.factcheck.org/2021/06/scicheck-the-facts-and-gaps-on-the-origin-of-the-coronavirus/

"Despite several lab leak narratives that claim RaTG13 could have been modified to create SARS-CoV-2, scientists who study viruses do not believe that’s possible. As others have explained before, RaTG13’s genome differs from SARS-CoV-2 by more than 1,000 nucleotides, making it too different to plausibly have served as a progenitor. “RaTG13 is too divergent to be this ancestral virus,” David Robertson, the head of viral genomics and bioinformatics at the University of Glasgow, told us.

Moreover, Shi says there is only a genome sequence for RaTG13 anyway — live virus was never isolated from the sample — and that she has only ever isolated three SARS-related bat coronaviruses.

The only way SARS-CoV-2 could have come from the lab, manipulated or not, is if the facility was in possession of a virus much more similar to SARS-CoV-2 than RaTG13, multiple experts told us.

“I would estimate at least 99%, that’s the minimum. It probably has to be 99.9% similar to make that kind of switch in the lab at all,” said Robert F. Garry, a virologist at Tulane University School of Medicine. “There’s just no evidence that they had anything close to that.”

...

But many scientists — especially the ones with the most expertise in coronaviruses — find a lab origin unlikely, even if they cannot exclude it.

“The finding of SARS-CoV-2-like viruses circulating in horseshoe bats in both China and Southeast Asia, coupled with the strong links of the first cases to animal markets in Wuhan are very compelling evidence SARS-CoV-2 is the result of an animal associated spillover much like SARS,” said Robertson, the University of Glasgow virus bioinformatician, who has studied how SARS-CoV-2 might have evolved. “On lab-leak, there’s no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab other than the coincidence of the Wuhan Institute of Virology being there.”

...

Garry, the Tulane virologist, also noted the past examples of natural spillovers, including SARS; the fact that the first four known COVID-19 cases in Wuhan had links to different wet markets, as shown in the WHO report — and no sign that Shi’s lab had any virus close to SARS-CoV-2.

“There is no evidence at all for a lab leak. Nothing scientific, it’s just an accusation,” Garry said. “You have to think one of the leading virologists on the planet is part of a major conspiracy that is involving hundreds of people.”

Sorry is this is too long of an excerpt. It's a good article, and covers a lot of ground.

This is right with my point of the "BIG" piece missing.
RaTG13 and BANAL are close--but not close enough. No one is explaining how these massive edits are taking place and why they would depart from all other similar work and do this level of edits.

The other thing that needs to be taken into account--though rarely mentioned--is how we had 2 strains.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02519-1

This has yet to be peer reviewed as far as I know--even if the conclusion is wrong--the fact remains that we do for certain have an A and B lineage that need to be accounted for in any theory.

It can't be ignored because it doesn't fit what we want to believe.

[Almost Retired]

A good summary of the arguments about the lab leak theory and the GOF research can be found at factcheck.org: https://www.factcheck.org/2021/06/scicheck-the-facts-and-gaps-on-the-origin-of-the-coronavirus/

"Despite several lab leak narratives that claim RaTG13 could have been modified to create SARS-CoV-2, scientists who study viruses do not believe that’s possible. As others have explained before, RaTG13’s genome differs from SARS-CoV-2 by more than 1,000 nucleotides, making it too different to plausibly have served as a progenitor. “RaTG13 is too divergent to be this ancestral virus,” David Robertson, the head of viral genomics and bioinformatics at the University of Glasgow, told us.

Moreover, Shi says there is only a genome sequence for RaTG13 anyway — live virus was never isolated from the sample — and that she has only ever isolated three SARS-related bat coronaviruses.

The only way SARS-CoV-2 could have come from the lab, manipulated or not, is if the facility was in possession of a virus much more similar to SARS-CoV-2 than RaTG13, multiple experts told us.

“I would estimate at least 99%, that’s the minimum. It probably has to be 99.9% similar to make that kind of switch in the lab at all,” said Robert F. Garry, a virologist at Tulane University School of Medicine. “There’s just no evidence that they had anything close to that.”

...

But many scientists — especially the ones with the most expertise in coronaviruses — find a lab origin unlikely, even if they cannot exclude it.

“The finding of SARS-CoV-2-like viruses circulating in horseshoe bats in both China and Southeast Asia, coupled with the strong links of the first cases to animal markets in Wuhan are very compelling evidence SARS-CoV-2 is the result of an animal associated spillover much like SARS,” said Robertson, the University of Glasgow virus bioinformatician, who has studied how SARS-CoV-2 might have evolved. “On lab-leak, there’s no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab other than the coincidence of the Wuhan Institute of Virology being there.”

...

Garry, the Tulane virologist, also noted the past examples of natural spillovers, including SARS; the fact that the first four known COVID-19 cases in Wuhan had links to different wet markets, as shown in the WHO report — and no sign that Shi’s lab had any virus close to SARS-CoV-2.

“There is no evidence at all for a lab leak. Nothing scientific, it’s just an accusation,” Garry said. “You have to think one of the leading virologists on the planet is part of a major conspiracy that is involving hundreds of people.”

Sorry is this is too long of an excerpt. It's a good article, and covers a lot of ground.

Not to get too conspiritorial but any idea if either scientist has been getting funding from China, directly or indirectly, to conduct their research. China's tentacles are deep in academia. Even at prestigious Universities like Harvard. China's "Thousand Talents Plan" funds researchers all over the world. Harvard Professor Charles Lieber was indicted almost a year ago for lying about his ties to the Plan where he received funding he tried to conceal. China was paying him $50 K a month from TheWuhan University of Technology, was reimbursed for living expenses to the tune of $158,000 and was also given a grant of $1.5 Million to establish a research lab at Harvard. Such Chinese funding would certainly influence a Professor to see things China's way, human nature being what it is and has always been. In the case of China money buys influence, money buys favorable press or suppresses unfavorable press and money buys silence when necessary.

And at nearby Boston University another researcher (Yanquing Ye) was charged with working on behalf of the PLA and sending documents and information to China

[Dresden]

A good summary of the arguments about the lab leak theory and the GOF research can be found at factcheck.org: https://www.factcheck.org/2021/06/scicheck-the-facts-and-gaps-on-the-origin-of-the-coronavirus/

"Despite several lab leak narratives that claim RaTG13 could have been modified to create SARS-CoV-2, scientists who study viruses do not believe that’s possible. As others have explained before, RaTG13’s genome differs from SARS-CoV-2 by more than 1,000 nucleotides, making it too different to plausibly have served as a progenitor. “RaTG13 is too divergent to be this ancestral virus,” David Robertson, the head of viral genomics and bioinformatics at the University of Glasgow, told us.

Moreover, Shi says there is only a genome sequence for RaTG13 anyway — live virus was never isolated from the sample — and that she has only ever isolated three SARS-related bat coronaviruses.

The only way SARS-CoV-2 could have come from the lab, manipulated or not, is if the facility was in possession of a virus much more similar to SARS-CoV-2 than RaTG13, multiple experts told us.

“I would estimate at least 99%, that’s the minimum. It probably has to be 99.9% similar to make that kind of switch in the lab at all,” said Robert F. Garry, a virologist at Tulane University School of Medicine. “There’s just no evidence that they had anything close to that.”

...

But many scientists — especially the ones with the most expertise in coronaviruses — find a lab origin unlikely, even if they cannot exclude it.

“The finding of SARS-CoV-2-like viruses circulating in horseshoe bats in both China and Southeast Asia, coupled with the strong links of the first cases to animal markets in Wuhan are very compelling evidence SARS-CoV-2 is the result of an animal associated spillover much like SARS,” said Robertson, the University of Glasgow virus bioinformatician, who has studied how SARS-CoV-2 might have evolved. “On lab-leak, there’s no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab other than the coincidence of the Wuhan Institute of Virology being there.”

...

Garry, the Tulane virologist, also noted the past examples of natural spillovers, including SARS; the fact that the first four known COVID-19 cases in Wuhan had links to different wet markets, as shown in the WHO report — and no sign that Shi’s lab had any virus close to SARS-CoV-2.

“There is no evidence at all for a lab leak. Nothing scientific, it’s just an accusation,” Garry said. “You have to think one of the leading virologists on the planet is part of a major conspiracy that is involving hundreds of people.”

Sorry is this is too long of an excerpt. It's a good article, and covers a lot of ground.

Not to get too conspiritorial but any idea if either scientist has been getting funding from China, directly or indirectly, to conduct their research. China's tentacles are deep in academia. Even at prestigious Universities like Harvard. China's "Thousand Talents Plan" funds researchers all over the world. Harvard Professor Charles Lieber was indicted almost a year ago for lying about his ties to the Plan where he received funding he tried to conceal. China was paying him $50 K a month from TheWuhan University of Technology, was reimbursed for living expenses to the tune of $158,000 and was also given a grant of $1.5 Million to establish a research lab at Harvard. Such Chinese funding would certainly influence a Professor to see things China's way, human nature being what it is and has always been. In the case of China money buys influence, money buys favorable press or suppresses unfavorable press and money buys silence when necessary.

And at nearby Boston University another researcher (Yanquing Ye) was charged with working on behalf of the PLA and sending documents and information to China

These are two of several scientists mentioned in the article, and it also states that most of the leading epidemiologists doubt the lab leak theory. Maybe they are all getting money from China? Maybe FactCheck.org has been purchased as well?

[ThisGuyFawkes]

A good summary of the arguments about the lab leak theory and the GOF research can be found at factcheck.org: https://www.factcheck.org/2021/06/scicheck-the-facts-and-gaps-on-the-origin-of-the-coronavirus/

"Despite several lab leak narratives that claim RaTG13 could have been modified to create SARS-CoV-2, scientists who study viruses do not believe that’s possible. As others have explained before, RaTG13’s genome differs from SARS-CoV-2 by more than 1,000 nucleotides, making it too different to plausibly have served as a progenitor. “RaTG13 is too divergent to be this ancestral virus,” David Robertson, the head of viral genomics and bioinformatics at the University of Glasgow, told us.

Moreover, Shi says there is only a genome sequence for RaTG13 anyway — live virus was never isolated from the sample — and that she has only ever isolated three SARS-related bat coronaviruses.

The only way SARS-CoV-2 could have come from the lab, manipulated or not, is if the facility was in possession of a virus much more similar to SARS-CoV-2 than RaTG13, multiple experts told us.

“I would estimate at least 99%, that’s the minimum. It probably has to be 99.9% similar to make that kind of switch in the lab at all,” said Robert F. Garry, a virologist at Tulane University School of Medicine. “There’s just no evidence that they had anything close to that.”

...

But many scientists — especially the ones with the most expertise in coronaviruses — find a lab origin unlikely, even if they cannot exclude it.

“The finding of SARS-CoV-2-like viruses circulating in horseshoe bats in both China and Southeast Asia, coupled with the strong links of the first cases to animal markets in Wuhan are very compelling evidence SARS-CoV-2 is the result of an animal associated spillover much like SARS,” said Robertson, the University of Glasgow virus bioinformatician, who has studied how SARS-CoV-2 might have evolved. “On lab-leak, there’s no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab other than the coincidence of the Wuhan Institute of Virology being there.”

...

Garry, the Tulane virologist, also noted the past examples of natural spillovers, including SARS; the fact that the first four known COVID-19 cases in Wuhan had links to different wet markets, as shown in the WHO report — and no sign that Shi’s lab had any virus close to SARS-CoV-2.

“There is no evidence at all for a lab leak. Nothing scientific, it’s just an accusation,” Garry said. “You have to think one of the leading virologists on the planet is part of a major conspiracy that is involving hundreds of people.”

Sorry is this is too long of an excerpt. It's a good article, and covers a lot of ground.

Not to get too conspiritorial but any idea if either scientist has been getting funding from China, directly or indirectly, to conduct their research. China's tentacles are deep in academia. Even at prestigious Universities like Harvard. China's "Thousand Talents Plan" funds researchers all over the world. Harvard Professor Charles Lieber was indicted almost a year ago for lying about his ties to the Plan where he received funding he tried to conceal. China was paying him $50 K a month from TheWuhan University of Technology, was reimbursed for living expenses to the tune of $158,000 and was also given a grant of $1.5 Million to establish a research lab at Harvard. Such Chinese funding would certainly influence a Professor to see things China's way, human nature being what it is and has always been. In the case of China money buys influence, money buys favorable press or suppresses unfavorable press and money buys silence when necessary.

And at nearby Boston University another researcher (Yanquing Ye) was charged with working on behalf of the PLA and sending documents and information to China

These are two of several scientists mentioned in the article, and it also states that most of the leading epidemiologists doubt the lab leak theory. Maybe they are all getting money from China? Maybe FactCheck.org has been purchased as well?

Just adding that my wife is an Infectious Disease Physician, who's been dealing with Covid directly for 1.5 years. She's done a ton of research for the benefit of her patients, and she'll laugh in your face if you suggest that it started in a lab. She explained why that's such a low probability, but my puny brain didn't comprehend most of it. There's just too much data to suggest otherwise. But if you believe that the Earth is flat or that Trump won the 2020 elections, maybe there's a chance that you'll believe that too.

[coldfish]

I used to give the lab leak theory a lot of credence. I still think its possible but lets look at the math and dynamics of covid. Delta showed up in India in December of 2020 or earlier. It took at least 5 months for the virus to go from emergent to overwhelming the hospital system. That's Delta, which is significantly more contagious than the original strains.

Its mathematically impossible for that virus to have jumped in December and have been so prevalent in January that they had to build emergency hospitals. Anyone espousing the "December" story should just be laughed at. When you work back on the exponential growth curves, covid likely showed up in Wuhan many, many, many months before it was identified. Sampling from around the world has verified positive samples from much earlier.

The most likely scenario, IMO, is that it popped up somewhere in China in 2018/early 2019. It spread slowly and started to adapt. It only got logged when it took off in Wuhan and the viral lab identified it as a new virus.

Had the whole world known that the virus existed for quite some time by the end of 2019, the response likely would have been different.

[molepharmer]

....Again with "the virus" there are many coronaviruses that have an affinity for the ACE-2 receptor. In fact the newly found "BANAL" coronaviruses which may be the closest ones we know of, just found in Laos also have an affinity.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/10/06/origin-very-close-relatives-of-sars-cov-2-identified-in-laotian-bats/?sh=72e665377611 (there is a link to the actual pdf research there as well)
SARS, RATG13, BANAL-236 and that is without spending more time looking. There are probably hundreds that have affinity and some they believe based on computer models may even have stronger affinity/binding....

fwiw - To those who may be highly concerned about these other coronavirus....."stronger affinity/binding" to the ACE-2 receptor does not equate to a higher virulency. There's a lot that happens after ACE-2 binding occurs which effects viral transmission. It's even possible that finding a higher affinity strain could lead to a drug which would be able to block coronavirus internalization via ACE-2. A higher affinity, less virulent strain could out compete Covid-19 for ACE-2 binding.

[coldfish]

....Again with "the virus" there are many coronaviruses that have an affinity for the ACE-2 receptor. In fact the newly found "BANAL" coronaviruses which may be the closest ones we know of, just found in Laos also have an affinity.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/10/06/origin-very-close-relatives-of-sars-cov-2-identified-in-laotian-bats/?sh=72e665377611 (there is a link to the actual pdf research there as well)
SARS, RATG13, BANAL-236 and that is without spending more time looking. There are probably hundreds that have affinity and some they believe based on computer models may even have stronger affinity/binding....

fwiw - To those who may be highly concerned about these other coronavirus....."stronger affinity/binding" to the ACE-2 receptor does not equate to a higher virulency. There's a lot that happens after ACE-2 binding occurs which effects viral transmission. It's even possible that finding a higher affinity strain could lead to a drug which would be able to block coronavirus internalization via ACE-2. A higher affinity, less virulent strain could out compete Covid-19 for ACE-2 binding.

When you look at all of the stuff that covid19 does to inhibit cellular and innate immunity its really mind boggling. Its the stuff under the hood that makes covid19 so dangerous. I was curious if our technology was to the point where we could de-engineer covid19 such that it appeared the same on the outside but the inside was far less dangerous and then use such a virus to inoculate the population.

[Dresden]

[quote="coldfish"]The odds of covid-19 jumping to humans within blocks of one of the 3 labs on the planet actively working on coronaviruses are so spectacularly low its difficult to fathom. That said, correlation does not equal causation. Its entirely possible that covid had been circulating in humans at a low level and was only identified because it got the attention of people who had the ability to determine that it was a new virus at that same lab.

Had China been more transparent, we may have been able to determine if the virus came from somewhere else in Hubei.

Realistically, there are only two futures for the origin story:
- We never know for certain
- We identify the carrier species and realize it jumped.[/quote]

I agree with the two scenarios you outlined. A third would be that somehow, information gets leaked which does shed more light on a lab leak theory- such as the medical records of the workers who got sick, or more data about what strains of the virus were present in the lab.

As for the boldfaced statement, the factcheck.org article shows why the fact that the virus first surfaced in Wuhan isn't such a coincidence- it's the wet markets, and the fact that as a major transport hub, many live, wild animals were being brought into the city from rural areas and sold in these places.

[coldfish]

The odds of covid-19 jumping to humans within blocks of one of the 3 labs on the planet actively working on coronaviruses are so spectacularly low its difficult to fathom. [/b]That said, correlation does not equal causation. Its entirely possible that covid had been circulating in humans at a low level and was only identified because it got the attention of people who had the ability to determine that it was a new virus at that same lab.

Had China been more transparent, we may have been able to determine if the virus came from somewhere else in Hubei.

Realistically, there are only two futures for the origin story:
- We never know for certain
- We identify the carrier species and realize it jumped.

I agree with the two scenarios you outlined. A third would be that somehow, information gets leaked which does shed more light on a lab leak theory- such as the medical records of the workers who got sick, or more data about what strains of the virus were present in the lab.

As for the boldfaced statement, the factcheck.org article shows why the fact that the virus first surfaced in Wuhan isn't such a coincidence- it's the wet markets, and the fact that as a major transport hub, many live, wild animals were being brought into the city from rural areas and sold in these places.

1. While Wuhan is a pretty big city, its nowhere near the largest in China. Wet markets are pretty common there and all through Asia. The fact that it was Wuhan is still an extraordinary coincidence, even if its 100% the wet market.

2. In the other coronaviruses where we have identified the carrier species, there was long term interspecies contact. The virus doesn't just jump after one interaction. It actually has to evolve to work in its new host. OC43 -> Cows. MERS -> Camels. 229E -> Alpacas. A wet market where creatures are stored for relatively short duration doesn't make a good candidate for a jump point. The most likely place for a jump is a farm where there is a large herd and sustained human contact (also true for influenza).

[Dresden]

The odds of covid-19 jumping to humans within blocks of one of the 3 labs on the planet actively working on coronaviruses are so spectacularly low its difficult to fathom. [/b]That said, correlation does not equal causation. Its entirely possible that covid had been circulating in humans at a low level and was only identified because it got the attention of people who had the ability to determine that it was a new virus at that same lab.

Had China been more transparent, we may have been able to determine if the virus came from somewhere else in Hubei.

Realistically, there are only two futures for the origin story:
- We never know for certain
- We identify the carrier species and realize it jumped.

I agree with the two scenarios you outlined. A third would be that somehow, information gets leaked which does shed more light on a lab leak theory- such as the medical records of the workers who got sick, or more data about what strains of the virus were present in the lab.

As for the boldfaced statement, the factcheck.org article shows why the fact that the virus first surfaced in Wuhan isn't such a coincidence- it's the wet markets, and the fact that as a major transport hub, many live, wild animals were being brought into the city from rural areas and sold in these places.

1. While Wuhan is a pretty big city, its nowhere near the largest in China. Wet markets are pretty common there and all through Asia. The fact that it was Wuhan is still an extraordinary coincidence, even if its 100% the wet market.

2. In the other coronaviruses where we have identified the carrier species, there was long term interspecies contact. The virus doesn't just jump after one interaction. It actually has to evolve to work in its new host. OC43 -> Cows. MERS -> Camels. 229E -> Alpacas. A wet market where creatures are stored for relatively short duration doesn't make a good candidate for a jump point. The most likely place for a jump is a farm where there is a large herd and sustained human contact (also true for influenza).

The wet markets likely housed the virus in a host that was brought in from the countryside somewhere, where it had already made the jump to be able to infect humans. From the wet market, it then infected the first human hosts (that we know of for sure- I don't know if any of these other reports of the virus being present in places like Italy in the summer or early fall of 2019 have ever been verified).

[dougthonus]

You can easily access the video of Fauci's exchange with Rand Paul. Paul asked him about gain of function and Fauci denied it and told Paul he didn't know what he was talking about. Why did NIH Director Francis Collins resign after his Wuhan Lab lies were exposed? It was gain of function happening at Wuhan. And we helped to fund it. Period.

That may be true, but the "evidence" you supplied explicitly said that was not true. Research was being done to test transmissibility and they noticed gain of function happening during this test. That is different than gain of function testing.

Again, you can either show something that points out a different narrative, but your source, the one you personally choose, not my source, does not support the argument you are making.

Beyond that, your source, the one you choose, explicitly states this virus is not genetically the same one as COVID 19 and is unrelated, so even if GoF was taking place, and even if they were lying about it being unintended but it was intended, then if it wasn't COVID 19, it is unrelated to the pandemic and just an unrelated thing to be pissed at China about that had nothing to do with this.

Either way, your point is not backed up by your evidence even a tiny bit. Like not at all. It's like you put an apple on a table next to a sock and said it was a steak dinner because an apple is a food and people who like steak also tend to wear socks.

[chefo]

I really think the wet market theory has no legs. Let's look at some chronology for context:

* 2014: The Obama administration bans US Gain of Function research

* 2014: NIH grants Eco-Health Alliance money to study the potential emergence of dangerous coronaviruses that could jump to humans; some of that money is sent to China and Wuhan is particular, for field work.

* 2015: A team of US and Chinese biologists/virologists publish a paper stating that they have created/engineered a 'chimeric' virus from a SARS backbone that is adapted to infect human ACE2 receptors, by mutating it repeatedly in 'human' mice. One of the authors of the paper is the head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the US government is EXPLICITLY thanked (NIH) for providing funding for said research. Again, to repeat: they created a 'chimeric' SARS that has an affinity for human cells. That paper is still available for download.

* 2018 Eco Health Alliance applies for a DARPA grant that specifies that:
-- they are inserting "furin cleavage site" into MULTIPLE SARS-related coronaviruses collected from Chinese bat populations
-- these "furin cleavage site" inserts are spliced explicitly to enhance binding to human cells
-- they want further money for field research, which includes RELEASING said engineered viruses back into the wild bat populations

-- DARPA denies the grant, chastising EHA that their actions will endanger local human populations.

Just because one branch of the US government denies the grant, does not mean that they did not get funding from another branch (NIH), the Chinese themselves, or private parties. From what I've seen, NIH $ was flowing from EHA to China all the way from 2014 to 2019.

* 2019 mid-to-late year:
-- a SARS-related coronavirus, with expressed affinity for human cells, causes a local pandemic in the city where ALL of the above work was taking place over the last 5 years. Within 6 months, the pandemic goes global because the virus is perfectly adapted to infect humans.

So, let me summarize this again:
--Chinese scientists with US help (IP and $) have been creating 'chimeric' SARS-related coronaviruses both through splicing and controlled mutation in 'human' mice for at least 5 years before COVID hit. Work is carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. All of this is easy to verify from the primary sources, not what somebody wrote in an article/fact check online--So, there's a clear paper and $ trail

--In 2018, EHA wants more $ to release MULTIPLE of said creations into the wild. DARPA tells them to F-off because that's too dangerous.

--Sometime in 2019: a coronavirus that targets human cells causes a pandemic... in 'effin Wuhan.

Given that the Chinese have probably burned/erased any record of what happened, you're never going to know the full truth. All you can trace is the IP and $ from the US 'partners', which is already in the open.

When a virus' spike protein shows an affinity for human ACE2 an order of magnitude higher than any other animal receptor currently known in nature, including bats, (research came out in 2020), and we are yet to find the species that this thing jumped from--that column of smoke is stratosphere-high and the odds are there's a massive fire there.

Who the F knows exactly what happened, but I just lost a family member to that bug last week and if that thing came from a lab, I want to know. To me, this transcends partisan politics. I don't give a F who's in office. As I've said before in the previous pages, I don't want ANYBODY playing with technology that can kill us all and good intentions notwithstanding, there is a TON of evidence people were doing just that in Wuhan. People are sloppy; can have bad days; they can get unlucky; etc. The list of historic lab leaks all over the globe is dozens long, so this won't be the first time it has happened. It's just that this time it could have been a new generation of spliced coronavirus that happened to be much more infectious than anything that's escaped before.

[Dresden]

As for furin cleavage site being suspicious:

"the cleavage site exists as an insertion in the genome that strangely breaks up the triplets in what is called an “out-of-frame” insertion. Any scientist wanting to add a furin cleavage site “would just plop it in nice and clean,” Goldstein said. “I don’t how to explain from a scientific standpoint how ridiculous this is, the idea that you would do an out-of-frame insertion. It just makes no sense.”

Garry, the Tulane virologist, was also baffled by the suggestion that the cleavage site sequence showed the virus had been engineered. “Which graduate student or post doc would think to put it in out-of-frame? That part I just don’t get,” he said. “This, for all the world, looks like a natural virus.”

From Factcheck.org article cited above....

[Dresden]

As for using humanized mice cells for creating mutations:

"Lab leak proponents often cite experiments with human cells or humanized mice as a potential way this could happen.

But Perlman, who has done experiments passaging coronaviruses in mice, said that would not work. “Most of the time when you take viruses and pass them in tissue culture cells, you get cells that grow very well in tissue culture cells and nowhere else,” he said. And humanized mice are still mostly mice, he said, so the virus would adapt to growing better in mice, not humans.
...
You’d also need a starting virus that is much closer to SARS-CoV-2 than any known virus, he said, and even then, the virus you’d end up with would almost certainly not be SARS-CoV-2.

As a result, Perlman said, such a scenario could be technically possible but is extraordinarily improbable. In his mind, the engineering scenario can be ruled out, although he still considered accidental release of a natural virus as an unlikely, but possible, pathway."