[Genuine Realist]

This is the dumbest thing I've seen today.

Given what is happening now, how does the fact Chinese scientists studied the bat virus two years ago matter even a little bit? Likely millions of bats carry SARS-CoV-2. If the virus lab were next to the Russian border, how would that have prevented one of these millions of bats from infecting something that made it to the Wuhan wet market and launched the pandemic?

The Washington Post is suppose to be better than this.

Because it doesn't fit with your narrative, that the Chinese government has been fantastic in fighting this disease, it becomes the dumbest thing you've seen today and Washington Post should be better? 

Perhaps it matters so it never happens again. Perhaps it didn't come from a wet market, after all.

Scientists have been predicting the transmission of a zoonotic virus to humans that would cause a global pandemic, for over a decade. It's why Bush and Obama were so keen on being prepared for it. 

Some more facts. Degradation of environments that put humans closer to animals that carry novel viruses, is only going to happen more, not less frequently. So again, even if the virus accidentally escaped a lab, what difference does it exactly make? I don't believe humans have any Devine Right to populate the Earth any more than any other species. Life is a competition. Humans now face the need to adapt in ways we haven't needed to in a generation, or maybe even longer. Let's see if we can. Casting blame for how it got started does us absolutely zero good right now, and in fact, makes things far worse.

---

This is the dumbest thing I've seen today.

Given what is happening now, how does the fact Chinese scientists studied the bat virus two years ago matter even a little bit? Likely millions of bats carry SARS-CoV-2. If the virus lab were next to the Russian border, how would that have prevented one of these millions of bats from infecting something that made it to the Wuhan wet market and launched the pandemic?

The Washington Post is suppose to be better than this.

I have a more fundamental question that pertains to this and other topics:  why are some people so vested in the belief that (a) the virus did not reach the US until late January/February versus earlier, and/or (b) the virus must have started in late 2019?  Who cares at this point?

Is it because if it's been around longer than originally thought, then the spread modeling being used now is inaccurate?  I guess I "get' that, but again, as a layman my big concern is ability of hospitals to be able to treat those that need it.  Can't you just say "we are at capacity, thus we shouldn't pull back on restrictions," or "we have excess beds and equipment and can handle more cases," which militates in favor of loosening to some extent?

Anyway, I find it interesting that people tweet their absolute certainty that this didn't arrive in US till February; or alternatively, those insisting that the virus was here earlier than initially believed.  I don't "get" why it is such a big deal either way.

It's a big deal because knowing when it is introduced helps track spread.  I posted this earlier, but I'll do it again, since it directly answers the question:

[tweet]https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1249414291297464321[/tweet]

I didn't write the first post because I believe the virus escaped from the Chinese lab. It may have, but the evidence is entirely conjectural - always will be.

I wrote it because the warning was actually about inadequate safeguards, training, etc. The implication I got was that we are dealing with a Chinese Chernobyl in prospect, anyway. Chernobyl is the paradigm example of what can go wrong when a sophisticated and very dangerous technology is placed in the hands of a Third World culture, which is what the Soviet Union had become in effect by 1983.

I suppose the Post ran the story because - faced with these cables - Trump should have done . . . should have done . . . . what, exactly? My mind was made up about Trump back in 2016, with disgraceful tweets about a second generation Hispanic judge, former prosecutor, and staunch conservative - undiluted nativism with a soupcon of racism. Since then, however, I have seen the Democratic Party devolve into an incoherent, frothing, hysterical mass of an anti-personality cult. Trump didn't win the 2016 election because of Russian collusion, or a sudden resurgence of White nationalism (in decline for 60 years now, and STILL declining, as it did during the Obama years. There are in fact not enough White Nationalists in the whole country to elect anyone to the school board in a medium size city.) It lost because its obsession with identity politics, coupled with a candidate almost as unattractive as Trump, destroyed the Big Tent of FDR. It's a shame that Biden didn't run in 2016. He'd be President now.

The leak the Post cites doesn't actually touch Trump all that much, particularly since the newspaper seems to have forgotten the claims of xenophobia made in reaction to what Trump did do, both from its own editors and Democratic personages, who now wish they'd shut up. Just what was supposed to happen two years ago is somewhat mystifying. 

But it says a great deal about the risks foreign nations run in doing business with China - or, to be accurate, the CCP. Not only do you have the inadequate training, but no assurance the that the nations of the world are going to get any sort of reasonable cooperation when - not if - Hell breaks loose again.  (BTW, I am using China as shorthand for CCP, not individual Chinese or the Chinese culture. As I wrote before, I know half a dozen or so Chinese nationals. To a man and woman, they loathe the government. We should join them.)

[Genuine Realist]

This is the dumbest thing I've seen today.

Given what is happening now, how does the fact Chinese scientists studied the bat virus two years ago matter even a little bit? Likely millions of bats carry SARS-CoV-2. If the virus lab were next to the Russian border, how would that have prevented one of these millions of bats from infecting something that made it to the Wuhan wet market and launched the pandemic?

The Washington Post is suppose to be better than this.

Because it doesn't fit with your narrative, that the Chinese government has been fantastic in fighting this disease, it becomes the dumbest thing you've seen today and Washington Post should be better? 

Perhaps it matters so it never happens again. Perhaps it didn't come from a wet market, after all.

Scientists have been predicting the transmission of a zoonotic virus to humans that would cause a global pandemic, for over a decade. It's why Bush and Obama were so keen on being prepared for it. 

Some more facts. Degradation of environments that put humans closer to animals that carry novel viruses, is only going to happen more, not less frequently. So again, even if the virus accidentally escaped a lab, what difference does it exactly make? I don't believe humans have any Devine Right to populate the Earth any more than any other species. Life is a competition. Humans now face the need to adapt in ways we haven't needed to in a generation, or maybe even longer. Let's see if we can. Casting blame for how it got started does us absolutely zero good right now, and in fact, makes things far worse.

---

This is the dumbest thing I've seen today.

Given what is happening now, how does the fact Chinese scientists studied the bat virus two years ago matter even a little bit? Likely millions of bats carry SARS-CoV-2. If the virus lab were next to the Russian border, how would that have prevented one of these millions of bats from infecting something that made it to the Wuhan wet market and launched the pandemic?

The Washington Post is suppose to be better than this.

I have a more fundamental question that pertains to this and other topics:  why are some people so vested in the belief that (a) the virus did not reach the US until late January/February versus earlier, and/or (b) the virus must have started in late 2019?  Who cares at this point?

Is it because if it's been around longer than originally thought, then the spread modeling being used now is inaccurate?  I guess I "get' that, but again, as a layman my big concern is ability of hospitals to be able to treat those that need it.  Can't you just say "we are at capacity, thus we shouldn't pull back on restrictions," or "we have excess beds and equipment and can handle more cases," which militates in favor of loosening to some extent?

Anyway, I find it interesting that people tweet their absolute certainty that this didn't arrive in US till February; or alternatively, those insisting that the virus was here earlier than initially believed.  I don't "get" why it is such a big deal either way.

It's a big deal because knowing when it is introduced helps track spread.  I posted this earlier, but I'll do it again, since it directly answers the question:

[tweet]https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1249414291297464321[/tweet]

I didn't write the first post because I believe the virus escaped from the Chinese lab. It may have, but the evidence is entirely conjectural - always will be.

I wrote it because the warning was actually about inadequate safeguards, training, etc. The implication I got was that we are dealing with a Chinese Chernobyl in prospect, anyway. Chernobyl is the paradigm example of what can go wrong when a sophisticated and very dangerous technology is placed in the hands of a Third World culture, which is what the Soviet Union had become in effect by 1983.

I suppose the Post ran the story because - faced with these cables - Trump should have done . . . should have done . . . . what, exactly? My mind was made up about Trump back in 2016, with disgraceful tweets about a second generation Hispanic judge, former prosecutor, and staunch conservative - undiluted nativism with a soupcon of racism. Since then, however, I have seen the Democratic Party devolve into an incoherent, frothing, hysterical mass of an anti-personality cult. Trump didn't win the 2016 election because of Russian collusion, or a sudden resurgence of White nationalism (in decline for 60 years now, and STILL declining, as it did during the Obama years. There are in fact not enough White Nationalists in the whole country to elect anyone to the school board in a medium size city.) It lost because its obsession with identity politics, coupled with a candidate almost as unattractive as Trump, destroyed the Big Tent of FDR. It's a shame that Biden didn't run in 2016. He'd be President now.

The leak the Post cites doesn't actually touch Trump all that much, particularly since the newspaper seems to have forgotten the claims of xenophobia made in reaction to what Trump did do, both from its own editors and Democratic personages, who now wish they'd shut up. Just what was supposed to happen two years ago is somewhat mystifying. 

But it says a great deal about the risks foreign nations run in doing business with China - or, to be accurate, the CCP. Not only do you have the inadequate training, but no assurance the that the nations of the world are going to get any sort of reasonable cooperation when - not if - Hell breaks loose again.  (BTW, I am using China as shorthand for CCP, not individual Chinese or the Chinese culture. As I wrote before, I know half a dozen or so Chinese nationals. To a man and woman, they loathe the government. We should join them.)