placnx

16 hours ago, rabas said:

 

Gain of function experiments done on potentially dangerous human pandemic viruses to study how they may infect human tissue, done all over the world for years. This is what Bat Woman researched and published in international journals. She is famous for it. There are no secrets or cover ups.

 

 

Her research was published to some extent. Unfortunately, the WHO people could not examine her creations, lab books, etc, AFAIK. I guess we'll have to wait for the final report and any leaks.

18 hours ago, placeholder said:

There are a huge number of coronaviruses. The lab in Wuhan collected most of them.

They were generally collecting coronaviruses from bats. There may be lots more out there, not to mention any lab experiments. After that there are other species, but these may have originated in bats.

14 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Which research product would that be?

Coronaviruses

2 hours ago, Proboscis said:

Completely misleading. There are a number of diseases, including different varieties of flu, that match the symptoms of "Spanish" flu. The best experts in the subject believe that the zoonosis occurred in the USA with the first human case in Pennsylvania and the most likely origin was from turkeys.

 

For your outlandish scenario to work, the Chinese workmen would have had to make it to Canada, somehow not infect any other humans along the way but somehow give it exclusively to turkeys that would have had to have been transported to Pennsylvania without transmitting it to anyone else before infecting the workers on the turkey farm. Hmmm.

 

Here's a link:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/1/140123-spanish-flu-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/

There was an earlier theory published in 1923 suggesting Kansas, but bird species could not be known. Please show the link to your turkey story.

18 hours ago, placeholder said:

But nothing about Covid-19 specifically. The researchers there collected hundreds of samples.

In terms of technology, it's the smoking gun. If you read the article you would know that it's not just about collecting in caves and quarries. It's about the experiments to transform these samples into even more infectious pathogens. So that's why UK and US, no doubt many other countries, want access to this Wuhan research product.

8 hours ago, sammieuk1 said:

After some of the statements coming out after the visit a check on bank statements may now also be in order ????

In the case of academics with previous or current projects in China, if they go against the Chinese narrative they and their institutions risk losing access in China. Then they may also lose grant money from their own governments.

16 hours ago, Enoon said:

 

Eastern Thailand featuring in this article:

 

"Southeast Asia, due to its richness in both relevant bat species diversity and population density, may be more likely to be a hotspot for such viruses."

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/safety-quality/study-finds-coronavirus-related-bat-viruses-thailand

 

 

Thailand has quite good public health, so an outbreak would be noticed and not covered up!

18 hours ago, Proboscis said:

And the previous world pandemic of 100 years ago that killed over 50 million, the so-called Spanish Flu, came from the USA, most likely a turkey farm in Pennsylvania. Do we also say, "There you go, case closed" too? What does it really tell us?

Actually, sleuths have uncovered an epidemic in NE China the year before with symptoms matching "Spanish" flu. So life was cheap and nobody cared. It took a long time to connect the dots. It's postulated that Chinese workmen imported to Canada brought the virus to the West.

19 hours ago, placeholder said:

And I'm supposed to take your word for that? I googled it and came up with nothing.

What's more, even if the funds were dedicated to gain of function research, would that be a bad thing?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK285579/

 

Please read Chapter VI about Ralph Baric's research on altering natural viruses to enhance ability to infect other species. Quote: "Baric and Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the two top experts on the genetic interplay between bat and human coronaviruses, began collaborating in 2015." In Chapter X the PREDICT program is described and Batwoman's involvement, through EcoHealth Alliance, Daszak's NY foundation. Chapter XII gives further detail about the Baric-Batwoman research collaboration. Anyway, you can learn a lot by reading the entire article.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html

There are many linked sources. For example, here is a paper mentioned in Chapter IV that was in preprint before it vanished:

https://img-prod.tgcom24.mediaset.it/images/2020/02/16/114720192-5eb8307f-017c-4075-a697-348628da0204.pdf

You can also read about lab accidents and a report from a visit to the Wuhan lab in 2018. Without proper staff training, I think that GoF research is inadvisable (and so do various scientists).

Nicholson Baker is a good, very diverse writer who wrote a book about biowarfare research, in the US at Fort Detrick in the 50s. 

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/553978/baseless-by-nicholson-baker/

3 hours ago, placeholder said:

Some people have clearly been inhaling way to much of the smoke from that gun. Support by Fauci's organization (whatever that is) of "gain of function"  is a false allegationfirst propagated by the garbage news website known as World Net Daily. It picked up the allegation, unsupported by evidence, from extreme right wing commentator Steve Hilton. Subsequently World Net Daily had to back down somewhat from that claim. There is no evidence at all the gain of function research on a predecessor to the Covid 19 virus was supported by funds obtained through Fauci.

Fact-check: Did Dr. Fauci fund research that created COVID-19?

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/29/847948272/why-the-u-s-government-stopped-funding-a-research-project-on-bats-and-coronaviru

You are spreading disinformation. The NIH grant was to EcoHealth Alliance in NY, run by Daszak. He then transferred part to the Wuhan lab for the Gain of Function research around 5 years ago, though your link just mentions more recent activity - that they collected 400 distinct previously unknown coronaviruses.

While it's claimed that this virus collection program would help prevent the next pandemic, funds might be better spent on sentinel labs to discover outbreaks sooner, with international staff to avoid coverups!

19 hours ago, Jeffr2 said:

It's entirely possible a human got it directly from a bat. Could have been from a worker from that lab. But it wasn't manufactured there.

Is anyone claiming that the virus was "manufactured"? The hypotheses concern natural viruses that were modified for Gain of Function (GoF) research, which is to create experimental viruses that could pose a threat to humanity, to know something of their potential, perhaps develop ways to counteract. The idea is to anticipate possible natural mutations, to be proactive. Research of this kind was stopped in the US because it was considered too dangerous.

20 hours ago, tonbridgebrit said:

 

Okay.   https://www.itv.com/news/2021-02-09/covid-extremely-unlikely-coronavirus-came-from-wuhan-lab-in-china-says-world-health-organisation

A whole load of other news channels and newspapers have repeated the same story as above.
From the article.   "Covid-19 is “extremely unlikely” to have first spread to humans in a lab-related leak or incident, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). " 
And “The findings suggest lab incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus into the human population,” Dr Peter Ben Embarek, leader of the WHO’s investigating team said.

So, who is saying that it is extremely unlikely that it came from a lab-related leak or incident ?  It's the WHO team who are saying this. A number of people are trying to say that, China bribed the WHO team, in order to get them to say this. This is basically a very dangerous accusation. If it is the case that the accusation is true, well, yes, planet earth must scrap the WHO. And also, Trump was correct to pull America out of the WHO. Now, most of us accept that Trump was wrong to undermine the WHO with his comments and actions ? Surely.

I don't remember anyone on this site claiming that WHO team members were bribed. You might not be aware that several members have conflicts due to their activities with Batwoman or long-standing relationships in China which could affect their objectivity.

Is it even clear who all was on the foreign team? It's reported that there were 14 people, but in the end did they all get past immigration? If we knew who was on the team, then we could discuss the likelihood of their objectivity.

Ben Embarek has a PhD in food safety from the Royal Agricultural and Veterinary University of Copenhagen.

Regrettably, since the beginning WHO does not have a good record on responding to the many challenges presented by this pandemic.

1 minute ago, Jeffr2 said:

It's pretty much been proven it didn't come from a lab. Possible. But highly unlikely.

How do you know that it is "highly unlikely"? If you read that somewhere, it's important to note who said it. To be frank, lab origin is the most plausible explanation.

19 hours ago, Jeffr2 said:

Agreed. But I've yet to see a credible article say the virus came from a lab.

 

In the end. China is 100% to blame. Again.

The article which I cited with link does not state unequivocally that the virus came from the Wuhan lab. I just shows that it is possible. Without a whistleblower it would be difficult to prove, since the Chinese are not allowing a real investigation of the activities in that lab.

10 hours ago, Bkk Brian said:

Indeed:

 

Coronavirus related to Sars-CoV-2 found in Thailand.

 

They have discovered a virus that is a close match to the virus that causes Covid-19 in bats at a wildlife sanctuary in eastern Thailand. The virus, named RacCS203, is a close match to the genetic code of Sars-CoV-2 (with 91.5% similarity in their genomes).

 

The antibodies found in the bats were able to neutralise the pandemic virus, which is further evidence that Sars-CoV-2-related coronaviruses are circulating in Southeast Asia, they said.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55998157

Other viruses were 96% similar, but still that's pretty far. Do you know the genetic similarity between yourself and a gorilla?

22 hours ago, AgMech Cowboy said:

You're right. It was written by a reporter at Reuters who only write the current narrative, which is what they want you to think is true.

21 hours ago, Jeffr2 said:

Yeah. Proves it's not man made. Thanks!

 

Based on its genome sequence, 2019-nCoV belongs to lineage b of Betacoronavirus (Fig. 1A), which also includes the SARS-CoV and bat CoV ZXC21, the latter and CoV ZC45 being the closest to 2019-nCoV. 2019-nCoV shares ~76% amino acid sequence identity in the Spike (S)-protein sequence with SARS-CoV and 80% with CoV ZXC21 (Chan et al., 2020). I

"Man-made" is a confusing term, in that the real issue is whether a natural virus was altered in the lab. This article is comparing the SARS-Cov (2003) and various other Coronaviruses with the 2019 nCoV to try to fix the new virus on the genetic tree. This is a work in progress, made extremely difficult because access is denied to the Wuhan lab's extensive virus collection and experimental results!!

6 hours ago, scorecard said:

Sure, I suspect everybody would be strongly expecting that the databases/access to the databases has gold standard security.

 

Seems that the time is coming soon where impending international passengers will have to prove that they have had a complete Covid 19 vaccination. if the security is poor and can easily be manipulated* then it seems unscrupulous people could organize hackers or whoever to 'confirm' a passenger has had the vaccination when in fact they haven't.

This brings all sorts of dangerous scenarios.

(*My colleagues who are IT experts say there are plenty of hackers around who 'just love to hack anything' and plenty will accept payment for a specific 'hack'.) 

I agree that security is an issue, especially since all the major proposals envision having travelers use apps to authenticate their vaccination status.

That's why I think that the opposite approach is better, to have each individual have their own fixed QR code which could be displayed on a WHO card, on a sticker in their passport. Then various dedicated apps would be used on phones belonging to clinics (people giving the jabs), airport screeners, immigration, etc. Each such app has a different function, of course, and has specific capabilities, predetermined rights to write data (or not) on databases.

In addition, travelers could enter their QR code when making a reservation so that there would be little chance of having problems when checking in. Airlines would have to update their online reservation software so that it can scan a traveler's QR code using phone or laptop camera.

1 hour ago, tifino said:

or, more a matter of who is the majority player paying the WHO? 

What's also interesting is the conflicts of interest of the team members. Daszak and Ben Embarek both have connections to the Wuhan lab or do research in China. If someone displeases the Chinese authorities, they risk to lose access.

6 hours ago, John Drake said:

This man started his career with WHO in their China office. A total coincidence that he is giving the Chinese a free pass.  

 

Does anyone know what happened to the two people on the WHO team who were not allowed in with the rest of the group. Oddly, at the time their names were not disclosed. I'm still wondering whether they rejoined the group later.

11 hours ago, dcnx said:

The week it becomes policy, fake ones will be sold on Chinese websites within days. They have been selling fake COVID19 tests for months on TaoBao.

With the IATA project and others, all the app-based QR codes are generated uniquely each time there is a demand. The alternative of having a card with a QR code could not be faked either, since each person would have a different code on their card, and the databases would know who's who. 

4 minutes ago, robblok said:

Sure but there is no hard proof of this at all, and some people were saying it was created and released on purpose (extremist think like that). I would not exclude an accidental release of the virus. But so far it has not been proved. But even if it was from a lab. You can't really hold China responsible. Like your article said it happened in the USA too. So accidents happen. Same like the japan reactor breach. Stuff happens and unless it was huge negligence i find it a bit hard to blame a country.

It would be difficult to prove the escape hypothesis unless a whistleblower emerges some day. Accidents do happen, and this virus would have been difficult to contain in that case. The Wuhan level 4 lab has been visited by outsiders in the past and been criticized for sloppiness. As for the negligence issue, if any escape happened, it was compounded by the willful coverup of the outbreak by local officials, a factor not in serious dispute.

1 hour ago, robblok said:

Are we blaming the Brits and Southafricans for the strain that is worse too. If not (and I dont) then stop blaming the Chinese. That is my opinion seems a lot like yours.

 

Its unlikely it came from a lab, if there was a cover up then for sure the US or other countries could prove it. Besides one can see if a virus is made in a lab or not.

 

Unless anyone can prove this was done on purpose then its an accident. We are not blaming Japan for the reactor breach either. I think only die hard anti Chinese people think this is done on purpose. 

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html

This article explains the origin of technology used in the Wuhan lab to create bat viruses that appear to be perfectly natural. The starting point is a bat virus collected in nature. No one is claiming (as far as I know) that there was an intentional release from the Wuhan lab, but due to the asymptomatic infective ability of this virus, it is much easier to escape undetected. 

1 hour ago, car720 said:

Actually in China they are called red envelopes. 

Those are for giving children at CNY. Are you implying something about the WHO team?

1 hour ago, Autonuaq said:

The big problem is that the people who are Vaccinated still can be super spreaders.

If this turns out to be true, it's why we would want to do antigen testing at the airport before they can infect people on the plane.

1 hour ago, Captain Monday said:

People in developing countries are often actual already ahead in mobile technology as wireless networks/ smartphones leapfrog installation  of backward wired networks. More than a year since I have been to China but they are way ahead the US in mobile payments, hard to pay using cash there in many stores. The digital administrative environment and  health profile could be expanded to include visa information, criminal background checks, even bank data and credit ratings.  

We should keep all personal data not connected with vaccination separate. China is a control society. Now their government wants to co-opt Alipay so they can monitor people even more closely.