Escape From The Chinese Lab - Printable Version
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RE: Escape From The Cinese LAb - dabigv13 - 04-23-2020
Yeah, seems like the market could have been an early super spreader area, like the Washington nursing home, the New Rochelle party, the choir practice. These essentially random occurrences at early stages of the outbreak can really significant alter the actual and remembered course of local outbreaks.
RE: Escape From The Cinese LAb - stupac2 - 04-23-2020
(04-23-2020, 04:36 PM)BostonCard Wrote: I wouldn't exclude the market, but I viewed this statement as saying it probably happened in rural Hubei province rather than urban Wuhan.
Quote:Rather, the experts interviewed by NPR all believe that the virus was transmitted between animals and humans in nature, as has happened in previous outbreaks — from Ebola to the Marburg virus — and with other known coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS.
"The real risk is in the wild in the way people interact with wildlife around the world," says Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance in New York City, a group that researches the origins of pandemics. "That's where we need to be focused if we want to really do something about preventing the next pandemic."
Doesn't mean the final transmission from animal to human didn't happen in the seafood market, of course. But my sense is that a better explanation is that an infected person transmitted it to numerous other people in the market. That explains the inconsistent association between early cases and the market, including one of the first patients diagnosed having no ties to it (or to the viral lab).
BC
Right, that was my point. Just from a pure probabilistic perspective it's likely that the first transfer was pretty rural (the Vox article had a pretty alarming statistic that some low-but-nontrivial percentage of a surveyed population had antibodies for bat viruses), but at the same time it seems likely that this would've just been a couple random deaths in rural China if not for the market. How it got between the rural place and the market is kind of immaterial, in my mind.
RE: Escape From The Cinese LAb - Genuine Realist - 04-23-2020
(04-23-2020, 06:27 PM)stupac2 Wrote:Does anyone know how to edit title headers, so I can edit the idiot typos here?(04-23-2020, 04:36 PM)BostonCard Wrote: I wouldn't exclude the market, but I viewed this statement as saying it probably happened in rural Hubei province rather than urban Wuhan.
Quote:Rather, the experts interviewed by NPR all believe that the virus was transmitted between animals and humans in nature, as has happened in previous outbreaks — from Ebola to the Marburg virus — and with other known coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS.
"The real risk is in the wild in the way people interact with wildlife around the world," says Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance in New York City, a group that researches the origins of pandemics. "That's where we need to be focused if we want to really do something about preventing the next pandemic."
Doesn't mean the final transmission from animal to human didn't happen in the seafood market, of course. But my sense is that a better explanation is that an infected person transmitted it to numerous other people in the market. That explains the inconsistent association between early cases and the market, including one of the first patients diagnosed having no ties to it (or to the viral lab).
BC
Right, that was my point. Just from a pure probabilistic perspective it's likely that the first transfer was pretty rural (the Vox article had a pretty alarming statistic that some low-but-nontrivial percentage of a surveyed population had antibodies for bat viruses), but at the same time it seems likely that this would've just been a couple random deaths in rural China if not for the market. How it got between the rural place and the market is kind of immaterial, in my mind.
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - stupac2 - 04-23-2020
(04-23-2020, 06:41 PM)Genuine Realist Wrote: Does anyone know how to edit title headers, so I can edit the idiot typos here?
I gotchu fam.
(But if you posted the thread, you should be able to just edit the OP, and change the name under "Post Subject", which will update the thread. I'm not going to go through and edit every single post, although I'm also not sure the individual post headers are displayed anywhere. Also, amusingly, I hadn't really noticed the typos. Brians are weird.)
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - Leftcoast - 04-24-2020
Quick note - The original poster can edit the thread title but only in "Full Edit" mode. Quick edit doesn't give that option.
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - fullmetal - 04-27-2020
When a neighbor's house catches fire while they're away, you have a choice to call 911 or to not call 911. When the fire spreads to your house, it is a little too late to call 911 and save your house. Not only did we not call 911 early enough (i.e. listen to the experts), we turned away from that neighbor deliberately so that we could not see their house burning.
We might have been able to get details earlier before the CCP censorship kicked in if we had not blinded our disease surveillance apparatus in China. Those US personnel built relationships with Chinese disease control experts and might have been able to get the straight story somehow. The fact that we had these positions in place (probably post-SARS) means that the CDC knew a new outbreak was going to happen eventually.
Imagine if we had stopped the virus at the Chinese border and didn't have to close down the non-essential economy. That is the price of failed vigilance.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-cdc-exclusiv/exclusive-u-s-axed-cdc-expert-job-in-china-months-before-virus-outbreak-idUSKBN21910S
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-cdc-exclusiv/exclusive-u-s-slashed-cdc-staff-inside-china-prior-to-coronavirus-outbreak-idUSKBN21C3N5
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-cuts-programs-responsible-for-fighting-coronavirus-2020-2
Okay even after you fumble the ball inside your own 20, there's a defensive playbook for situational strategies. The plans are there, so no time needs to be wasted developing blitz packages or assignments -- just execute. Well...it looks like we just fumbled the ball and then decided to also throw out the playbook. So now we're playing sandlot defense against a ruthless offense.
https://www.axios.com/trump-coronavirus-pandemic-playbook-7da0cf5b-1d83-438f-8111-57f955675dbc.html
Where are the coaches? Why wasn't anyone calling the defensive signals in just after the fumble? Looks like the Athletic Director grabbed the mic from the coaches and started a pep talk. We gave up an immediate first down before the Athletic Director relented and gave the mic back to the coaches.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/25/821009072/as-the-coronavirus-crisis-heats-up-why-arent-we-hearing-from-the-cdc
Now it's third and short, and boy do we need a stop. Do we really care what city the other team is from? No, but next time let's not skip film study that might have told us all about the opposing team's tendencies and schemes.
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - M T - 04-27-2020
(04-27-2020, 03:47 AM)fullmetal Wrote: We might have been able to get details earlier before the CCP censorship kicked in if we had not blinded our disease surveillance apparatus in China. Those US personnel built relationships with Chinese disease control experts and might have been able to get the straight story somehow. The fact that we had these positions in place (probably post-SARS) means that the CDC knew a new outbreak was going to happen eventually.
What was censored and when? How is it that I've looked at this in great detail and somehow don't see that? If you can give me details of this censorship, then maybe I can figure out what I'm missing. Was it before the 8-day WHO-China Joint Mission Feb 16, where WHO doctors went through China, observed the hospitals & ran their tests? Was it before Jan. 28 when US virologist Ian Lipkin visited China to talk to the medical & political leaders about the outbreak? Was it before the January 11 publication of the genome? Was it before the January 4th call between the heads of the US CDC & China CDC about the outbreak? Was it before the Dec. 31 notification to WHO? Was it before the Dec. 30 coverage of the unknown pneumonia cases in the newspaper, and the elevation of the situation above the city's jurisdiction? Was it before Dec. 15, when Ian Lipkin said he first heard of the pneumonia?
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - ChicagoCard - 04-27-2020
With input from Larry Gostin of Georgetown U. and officials from Taiwan, a case for culpability is made in this 10-minute Australian ABC segment...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WvzHvN6mCM
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - fullmetal - 04-28-2020
(04-27-2020, 06:07 AM)M T Wrote: What was censored and when? How is it that I've looked at this in great detail and somehow don't see that? If you can give me details of this censorship, then maybe I can figure out what I'm missing. Was it before the 8-day WHO-China Joint Mission Feb 16, where WHO doctors went through China, observed the hospitals & ran their tests? Was it before Jan. 28 when US virologist Ian Lipkin visited China to talk to the medical & political leaders about the outbreak? Was it before the January 11 publication of the genome? Was it before the January 4th call between the heads of the US CDC & China CDC about the outbreak? Was it before the Dec. 31 notification to WHO? Was it before the Dec. 30 coverage of the unknown pneumonia cases in the newspaper, and the elevation of the situation above the city's jurisdiction? Was it before Dec. 15, when Ian Lipkin said he first heard of the pneumonia?
Did you look at the the citizen reporting coming out of Wuhan during their quarantine and how that differed from official reports? The nature of your questioning seems rather adversarial, so this will be my last comment -- the CCP falsified information during the SARS outbreak, and they have definitely fudged the numbers again here (at least by indirect measures if not overt).
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - BostonCard - 05-04-2020
Apparently intelligence assessments shared amongst our allies pour cold water on this theory.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/04/politics/coronavirus-intelligence/index.html
Quote:"We think it's highly unlikely it was an accident," a Western diplomatic official with knowledge of the intelligence said. "It is highly likely it was naturally occurring and that the human infection was from natural human and animal interaction." The countries in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing coalition are coalescing around this assessment, the official said, and a second official, from a Five Eyes country, concurred with it. The US has yet to make a formal assessment public.
BC
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - Genuine Realist - 05-04-2020
(05-04-2020, 07:31 PM)BostonCard Wrote: Apparently intelligence assessments shared amongst our allies pour cold water on this theory.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/04/politics/coronavirus-intelligence/index.html
Quote:"We think it's highly unlikely it was an accident," a Western diplomatic official with knowledge of the intelligence said. "It is highly likely it was naturally occurring and that the human infection was from natural human and animal interaction." The countries in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing coalition are coalescing around this assessment, the official said, and a second official, from a Five Eyes country, concurred with it. The US has yet to make a formal assessment public.
Ya pays yer money, ya take your choice.
https://nypost.com/2020/05/02/intelligence-report-says-china-lied-about-origin-of-coronavirus/
I'm still thinking of a Chernobyl scenario, a small error magnified into a catastrophe by apparatchiks refusing to admit error.
BC
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - BostonCard - 05-04-2020
(05-04-2020, 09:00 PM)Genuine Realist Wrote: Ya pays yer money, ya take your choice.
https://nypost.com/2020/05/02/intelligence-report-says-china-lied-about-origin-of-coronavirus/
I'm still thinking of a Chernobyl scenario, a small error magnified into a catastrophe by apparatchiks refusing to admit error.
Touché. I will note that the NY Post (owned by News Corp) made a reference to another News Corp publication (The Daily Telegraph) as the original article:
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/coronavirus/bombshell-dossier-lays-out-case-against-chinese-bat-virus-program/news-story/55add857058731c9c71c0e96ad17da60
The article has more "details" of the alleged cover-up. It notes that it has the 15-page dossier, but doesn't post the document for review. And if you read the actual telegraph article, it is conflating two things that is apparent in this statement:
"As intelligence agencies investigate whether the virus inadvertently leaked from a Wuhan laboratory, the team and its research led by scientist Shi Zhengli feature in the dossier prepared by Western governments that points to several studies they conducted as areas of concern."
First, it says intelligence agencies are investigating whether the virus leaked from the lab, not that intelligence agencies believe the virus leaked from the lab. Secondly, it states that the dossier pointed to "several studies they conducted as areas of concern". However, those "areas of concern" are related to past activities, not specific concerns about the lab leaking the virus. But if you read the statement loosely, it would be easy to come to the belief that the dossier has found evidence that the virus leaked from the lab.
It notes that "The Australian government’s position is that the virus most likely originated in the Wuhan wet market but that there is a remote possibility — a 5 per cent chance — it accidentally leaked from a laboratory." It notes that "The US’s position, according to reports this week, is that it is more likely the virus leaked from a laboratory but it could also have come from a wet market that trades and slaughters wild animals, where other diseases including the H5N1 avian flu and SARS originated." Those reports, however, are unspecified, and the piece later states only that the "US intelligence committee is investigating whether COVID-19 was the result of an accident at a Wuhan laboratory."
Then there is a pretty lengthy point:
Quote:The Office of the Director of National Intelligence acting director Richard Grenell said the virus was not created in a laboratory.
“The entire Intelligence Community has been consistently providing critical support to US policymakers and those responding to the COVID-19 virus, which originated in China,” he said.
“The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified. As we do in all crises, the Community’s experts respond by surging resources and producing critical intelligence on issues vital to US national security. The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.”
So, the on the record statement by the office of the DNI is that it was not created in a laboratory, and the telegraph claims to be in possession of the dossier, but then point to other (unspecified) "reports" that the US's position is that it leaked from a laboratory.
So this all seems pretty fishy.
BC
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - OutsiderFan - 05-05-2020
OK, guys, hang on to your hats...
I don't know how many of you are familiar with Dr. Chris Martenson, a Duke Ph.D Pathologist, and his Peak Prosperity website, but I've been watching his Coronavirus videos on YouTube since he premiered them in January. He's been a tremendous resource of fact-driven understanding about the pandemic from the beginning. He appears to have no biases other than wanting to find absolute truth. Yesterday's video was jarring, and seems appropriate to put in this thread. Before watching his video, I was dubious of the idea SARS-CoV-2 was made in a lab because I trusted experts who said this was bunk. Let's just say new information can change your mind.
A couple weeks ago, PBS ran a 4-hour Ken Burns documentary called The Gene. It's a condensed history of genomic research. At the end it went into the evolution of, and dangers posed by, CRISPR gene editing technology. Since 2018 the global scientific community had agreed to stop all use of the technology due to ethical questions raised by it, after a Chinese researcher created a newborn baby with HIV immunity using it.
This video demonstrates how there is actually more data to support SARS-CoV-2 being produced in a lab than coming from nature, because there is evidence CRISPR was used to create it. Martenson also points out the conflicts of interest that might arise from scientists messing around with genetic engineering, having an accident, and taking CYA steps because such an accident could result in a backlash against this type of research and medicine, which would cut funding, etc. Importantly, both the United States and China have messed around with gain of function virus research, into Coronaviruses, but other countries have as well. It's possible Dr. Fauci says "we don't know if antibodies will confer immunity" because research he is aware of - since NIH helped fund it - shows they won't.
If the public learns evidence to demonstrate "playing god" created this nightmare we face, the backlash against genetic science and medicine could result in massive funding cuts and put many companies out of businesses.
https://youtu.be/uZUJhKUbd0k
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - stupac2 - 05-05-2020
(05-05-2020, 06:05 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: OK, guys, hang on to your hats...
I don't know how many of you are familiar with Dr. Chris Martenson, a Duke Ph.D Pathologist, and his Peak Prosperity website, but I've been watching his Coronavirus videos on YouTube since he premiered them in January. He's been a tremendous resource of fact-driven understanding about the pandemic from the beginning. He appears to have no biases other than wanting to find absolute truth. Yesterday's video was jarring, and seems appropriate to put in this thread. Before watching his video, I was dubious of the idea SARS-CoV-2 was made in a lab because I trusted experts who said this was bunk. Let's just say new information can change your mind.
A couple weeks ago, PBS ran a 4-hour Ken Burns documentary called The Gene. It's a condensed history of genomic research. At the end it went into the evolution of, and dangers posed by, CRISPR gene editing technology. Since 2018 the global scientific community had agreed to stop all use of the technology due to ethical questions raised by it, after a Chinese researcher created a newborn baby with HIV immunity using it.
This video demonstrates how there is actually more data to support SARS-CoV-2 being produced in a lab than coming from nature, because there is evidence CRISPR was used to create it. Martenson also points out the conflicts of interest that might arise from scientists messing around with genetic engineering, having an accident, and taking CYA steps because such an accident could result in a backlash against this type of research and medicine, which would cut funding, etc. Importantly, both the United States and China have messed around with gain of function virus research, into Coronaviruses, but other countries have as well. It's possible Dr. Fauci says "we don't know if antibodies will confer immunity" because research he is aware of - since NIH helped fund it - shows they won't.
If the public learns evidence to demonstrate "playing god" created this nightmare we face, the backlash against genetic science and medicine could result in massive funding cuts and put many companies out of businesses.
https://youtu.be/uZUJhKUbd0k
That logic (that scientists benefit from the status quo so we can't trust them) is basically the same as used by climate denialists, right? Why go against the consensus here because of one dude's opinion? Here's a good overview of why most scientists don't think it was engineered: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-scientists-think-the-novel-coronavirus-developed-naturally-not-in-a-chinese-lab/
It would be pretty odd to have a completely novel spike protein in something engineered.
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - 2006alum - 05-05-2020
Posted without comment, from Feb. 1, 2020:
YouTube Creators Cash In on Coronavirus Fears
Quote:Little-known YouTube accounts are trying to capitalize off fears about the coronavirus to gain viral clout—and for some, it’s paying off. Video creators are cranking out content that, in many cases, spreads alarm, unsubstantiated claims, scams, and sometimes outright disinformation. And a lot of them are trying to make money off of it. . . .
One popular series on the virus is produced by a personal finance guru with a history of pushing economic theories about peak oil and other resource crunches, but who has recently rebranded as a pandemic expert as news coverage of the virus has exploded.
“I’m here with a really important message about the coronavirus,” Chris Martenson, one of the founders of the financial website Peak Prosperity, says at the beginning of a video entitled “Coronavirus Is Worse Than You’ve Been Told: Scientist Explains.” ...
While Martenson calls himself a scientist in the video’s titles, his claim to the label is, according to him, based on a 1994 PhD from Duke’s Department of Pathology where he specialized in toxicology. While he published scientific research in the ’90s, for at least the last decade Martenson has focused on predicting stagflation and other large shifts in financial markets....
“He’s not a practicing physician, he’s just a guy with a science background who’s taken an interest in this virus,” said Dr. Angela Hewlett, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, who clarified that she didn’t see anything in Martenson’s videos that gave her cause for concern.
Adam Taggart, a co-founder of Peak Prosperity, initially explained the company’s mission to Mother Jones as “scientists making sense of the world.” When pressed on his scientific credentials, Taggart noted that he had an MBA but had studied pre-med as an undergraduate, and instead pointed to his colleague’s background.
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - oldalum - 05-05-2020
(05-05-2020, 06:05 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: Since 2018 the global scientific community had agreed to stop all use of the technology due to ethical questions raised by it, after a Chinese researcher created a newborn baby with HIV immunity using it.a minor correction: I don't think a global agreement has been reached, it's still being debated. See, e.g., the NIH Director's comments in November. And the main issue applies to moratorium on human germline use for embryo implantation, not to all use of CRISPR technology which is still being used extensively for biological research and to develop human somatic applications. The cited article says there are 19 current human clinical trials that use CRISPR for (somatic) gene editing.
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - OutsiderFan - 05-05-2020
Rather than shoot the messenger, watch the video.
Everything cited has sources. Nothing is made up from whole cloth. NIH Director Francis Collins uses the Nature Medicine published study to prove the virus was made in a lab theory has no currency. Martenson points out the holes in that very research when compared to other available data. He also completely took down the Stanford antibody study in ways similar to some on this board did, FWIW.
SARS-CoV-2 has been constructed from genetic material in a lab.
Coronavirus gain of function research has been going on for years, some of it funded by NIH.
There is evidence to show gene insertion caused SARS-CoV-2 to be more virulent.
I'm not prepared to say definitively that is was created in a lab, but these realities are cause for asking a lot more questions and demanding to see a lot more proof to explain them. I was totally on board with the idea it came from a lab to be nonsense. But I'm not going to hold on to that belief because I'm afraid contrary evidence revealing itself will make me look stupid for once believing what I did. ALL I'm interested in ever is the truth. That's the only way to understand what happened and the only way we can solve current problems and avoid similar ones in the future.
RE: Escape From The Chinese Lab - Genuine Realist - 05-05-2020
(05-04-2020, 09:40 PM)BostonCard Wrote:Who knows? The CNN article, which apparently was in response, is unsourced, which is the kiss of death for me. Before Watergate, almost no one quoted anonymous sources, only when there is real risk to the source. Now it's become standard, and why not? It minimizes accountability for both reporter and source.(05-04-2020, 09:00 PM)Genuine Realist Wrote: Ya pays yer money, ya take your choice.
https://nypost.com/2020/05/02/intelligence-report-says-china-lied-about-origin-of-coronavirus/
I'm still thinking of a Chernobyl scenario, a small error magnified into a catastrophe by apparatchiks refusing to admit error.
Touché. I will note that the NY Post (owned by News Corp) made a reference to another News Corp publication (The Daily Telegraph) as the original article:
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/coronavirus/bombshell-dossier-lays-out-case-against-chinese-bat-virus-program/news-story/55add857058731c9c71c0e96ad17da60
The article has more "details" of the alleged cover-up. It notes that it has the 15-page dossier, but doesn't post the document for review. And if you read the actual telegraph article, it is conflating two things that is apparent in this statement:
"As intelligence agencies investigate whether the virus inadvertently leaked from a Wuhan laboratory, the team and its research led by scientist Shi Zhengli feature in the dossier prepared by Western governments that points to several studies they conducted as areas of concern."
First, it says intelligence agencies are investigating whether the virus leaked from the lab, not that intelligence agencies believe the virus leaked from the lab. Secondly, it states that the dossier pointed to "several studies they conducted as areas of concern". However, those "areas of concern" are related to past activities, not specific concerns about the lab leaking the virus. But if you read the statement loosely, it would be easy to come to the belief that the dossier has found evidence that the virus leaked from the lab.
It notes that "The Australian government’s position is that the virus most likely originated in the Wuhan wet market but that there is a remote possibility — a 5 per cent chance — it accidentally leaked from a laboratory." It notes that "The US’s position, according to reports this week, is that it is more likely the virus leaked from a laboratory but it could also have come from a wet market that trades and slaughters wild animals, where other diseases including the H5N1 avian flu and SARS originated." Those reports, however, are unspecified, and the piece later states only that the "US intelligence committee is investigating whether COVID-19 was the result of an accident at a Wuhan laboratory."
Then there is a pretty lengthy point:
Quote:The Office of the Director of National Intelligence acting director Richard Grenell said the virus was not created in a laboratory.
“The entire Intelligence Community has been consistently providing critical support to US policymakers and those responding to the COVID-19 virus, which originated in China,” he said.
“The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified. As we do in all crises, the Community’s experts respond by surging resources and producing critical intelligence on issues vital to US national security. The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.”
So, the on the record statement by the office of the DNI is that it was not created in a laboratory, and the telegraph claims to be in possession of the dossier, but then point to other (unspecified) "reports" that the US's position is that it leaked from a laboratory.
So this all seems pretty fishy.
BC
Quoting myself, when you are reading an unsourced news report, you aren't reading news. You're reading an unsigned op-ed.
BTW, the question of the origin of the virus (lab or open market) seems to me secondary. The real question is the adequacy of the Chinese measures in response, and, secondarily, whether the CCP obscured the actual clinical experience with the disease. The trial lawyer in me sees the sanctions imposed on the MD's who reported honestly the actual experience as a very strong indication of bureaucratic embarrassment at the very least.