Does COVID-19 origin really matter?

[Fromas]

Conspiracy theories are easy to start and substantiate:

Was that a coincidence?
That's what "the establishment" says, but I just want to ask, that's all!

People are saying....

 

It takes 0 effort to spin a yarn.

 

I think Biden was right to order an investigation, and that is the stage we're at now.

 

[rabas]

13 hours ago, phills2k1 said:

We all wish that the world wasn't so reliant on China so that countries could stand up to them and that there could actually be ramifications to all of the horrific moves they make. But that's just not reality and quite frankly, there's no way that it ever can be.  Countries are so intertwined with China that it's a mutually assured destruction should the top powers mess with things

"Countries are so intertwined with China that it's a mutually assured destruction should the top powers mess with things."

 

Mutually...

 

The one sensible word in your long yearnings to let China do as it pleases. Why should 7 billion people and 213 countries let China and its 1.4 billion, most of whom can't stand the CCP, do as it wishes? It is counter to all human history. 

 

From a more accurate perspective, the world's rich and powerful went down this path to make countless trillions in profits. Now as it becomes dangerous, the path will be adjusted, mutually or otherwise. This issue of scientists and countries playing with ultra dangerous and now easy to make biological weapons will also get addressed. As did atomic weapons.

 

As for China the people, more power to them, love them, their history and culture. They are a great asset to the world as long as everyone plays fair and has freedom.

[rabas]

4 minutes ago, Fromas said:

Conspiracy theories are easy to start and substantiate:

Was that a coincidence?
That's what "the establishment" says, but I just want to ask, that's all!

People are saying....

 

It takes 0 effort to spin a yarn.

 

I think Biden was right to order an investigation, and that is the stage we're at now.

 

Yes, it is now a US administration investigation, as it should be.

 

However, applying the laws of physics and science, the truth is already cast. The CCP and PLA either did, or did not, research coronaviruses as potential biological weapons. The virus that caused the ongoing pandemic either came from human endeavour or not.   Whatever it is, it has already become factual and cannot be changed.

 

I hope they also investigate why one of the most critical issues facing humanity became taboo!  But it seems that is already being addressed.  Invest in popcorn.

 

[chonburimaster]

Just an interesting fact to share.

 

One of my friends was on business trip to Guangzhou in November 2019 for about a week or so.

 

After returning to his home country he fell sick and was hospitalized.  Fortunately he recovered but doctor found a trace of recovering from pneumonia in his lung from CT scan image.

 

After the pandemic started, he just look back and remember that there were already some unsual things happening in Guanzhou back in November like demolishing and burying some facilities with area being totally off-llimit.

[Enzian]

I'm impressed by  two things:

1) Commentators in the field, like Scott Gottlieb (not perfect, but generally informative), have been pointing out that to thinkers like themselves there has been no convincing case made for any particular animal to human (or animal to intermediate animal to human) transmission. In other words, unlike earlier events, no animal or animals have been found that seem irrefutable.

2) Many who work in these related fields are noting that accidents happen all the time; they are not rare at all.

So if origin from a lab accident is one possibility, then the origin matters, because the world can just stop doing this kind of lab work for a few decades and see what does or does not happen. 

Finally, a question of origin in this case is not the way to go, because the Chinese have destroyed or hidden so much of the evidence that any conclusion will have to be circumstantial only; unless a whistleblower comes forward with a smoking gun.

Edited June 6, 2021 by Enzian
typo

[kynikoi]

15 hours ago, Rookiescot said:

Start factories in our own countries to produce the goods we currently source from China.

Thus increasing our own domestic GDP and demand.

 

Of course this will fly in the face of hard core capitalists who want the highest profit margin possible.

 

It's not that easy.

 

All factories cannot be moved to home countries nor would you want them to be.

 

What can happen now is governments can be very selective about bringing back industries that are clean, technologically important, viable into the future, and that will provide decent jobs.

 

Let them keep all the shi++y plastics industry, chemicals and low end electronics..

 

Having said that these days China is all about very high technology and if the West doesn't watch out they're going to eat our lunch if they're not doing so already.

 

This is all entirely the fault of Western Nations allowing industries to shift overseas for the huge profits of the few to the detriment of the Nations.

[lucky2008]

16 hours ago, placnx said:

Sorry, you misunderstood. Just assuming that it was engineered, something that's probably not yet determined one way or the other, it's a pathogen that could only be used where it would not spread around the world. An island, i.e. Taiwan, would be a convenient target, to disable its military response to invasion.

I understood you just fine, I think it's you that's not understanding me.  

What if it was intentionally released around the world, and the only ones that are not getting infected are those on their own private island ????

[Sheryl]

A social media clip has been removed

[Enzian]

Looking at Worldometers yesterday said China is #98 in the world with 3 deaths and 63 cases per million population. There are so many ways one could go with those numbers, but what an amazing country.

But I'm with Cato the Elder: China delenda est.

[Liverpool Lou]

11 hours ago, scorecard said:

17 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

You going to sue the "ass" off him also for ensuring that the vaccine was produced in record time and, without just as much doubt, saved millions of lives?

Trump ensured the vaccine was produced in record time?

 

Nothing can relieve the hideous and incredibly sad fact that he ignored the virus for a long time, even called it fake. 

And nothing can relieve the hideous and incredibly sad fact that so many people ignore the other fact that he was responsible for ensuring that the vaccines were produced in record time that saved millions of lives.

 

"...he...even called it fake".

No, he didn't, regardless of selective media editing, he did not call the Covid-19 virus "fake" or even a "hoax". 

[Bezdomny]

The team of best world scientists is looking for culprit.  Same team, who found Saddam"s WMD. Success cant be exempt. ????

[scorecard]

2 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

And nothing can relieve the hideous and incredibly sad fact that so many people ignore the other fact that he was responsible for ensuring that the vaccines were produced in record time that saved millions of lives.

 

"...he...even called it fake".

No, he didn't, regardless of selective media editing, he did not call the Covid-19 virus "fake" or even a "hoax". 

 

I'm aware of the claims he didn't say 'fake',

and the further proof that he did say 'fake'.

[placnx]

9 hours ago, Fromas said:

The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 | Nature Medicine

 

The named authors from US, UK and Australia say: 

It is improbable that SARS-CoV-2 emerged through laboratory manipulation of a related SARS-CoV-like coronavirus. As noted above, the RBD of SARS-CoV-2 is optimized for binding to human ACE2 with an efficient solution different from those previously predicted. Furthermore, if genetic manipulation had been performed, one of the several reverse-genetic systems available for betacoronaviruses would probably have been used. However, the genetic data irrefutably show that SARS-CoV-2 is not derived from any previously used virus backbone.

 

 

 

Those scientists could still be wrong but any refutation should be science-based, not an "investigative reporter" piece in New York Magazine.

 

 

 

Rather than citing their argument, which falls short when placed in the context of the lengthy discussion in the New York Magazine article, you should read the article. You denigrate "investigative journalist" but just in Chapter 2, he mentions the earlier book which he wrote about possible US biological warfare in the Korean War.

 

While Andersen et al have not retracted their article, you should read the New York Magazine by Baker in its entirety to understand why I see Andersen having been refuted. You will see that the science is well-explained for educated lay readers.

[Fromas]

I did read the article. Bereft of scientific merit. Filled with speculation. No direct links to papers which you claim discredit the US-UK-AUS article in Nature. Selective quotes. Why don't you post those papers directly if the science is important to you?

 

You have also made false conspiracy claims about the Institut Pasteur.

 

It would appear your agenda is to spam post with the latest conspiracy scraps you collected to support your position (plandemic? new world order? just trolling for debate?), usually with erudite one-liners and guerilla style debate.

 

 

 

[placnx]

9 hours ago, Fromas said:

A poster mentioned The Institut Pasteur. [Note: In France a video was made that implicated The Institut Pasteur in the spread of Covid-19.]

 

 

Here is what they say in Coronavirus: Institut Pasteur warns against false information circulating on social media:

 

It is false and slanderous to assert that the Institut Pasteur released the coronavirus in the city of Wuhan in China.

 

The "BSL-4 laboratory" in Wuhan, which is mentioned in this video, is a research institute that strictly depends on the Chinese authorities and one with which the Institut Pasteur has no scientific interaction.

 

Pasteur has a unit in Shanghai, I believe. Actually, Alain Mérieux, who is not connected with the vaccine company Pasteur-Mérieux, was involved in organizing the lab construction.

https://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/france/310520/strange-saga-how-france-helped-build-wuhans-top-security-virus-lab

 

Further on the French connection with the BL4 lab (info from April last year):

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france-lab-idUSKBN21Z2ME

 

[Fromas]

 

Outrageous conspiracy rubbish. Anything is fair game for you.

 

[2 is 1]

World have had always some pandemic. This our globe try to decrease it most huge problem , what is overpopulated world. Human itself eventually going to wipe out all life in here. And when people continue eating some weird stuff they helping our species extinction! Or in other hand if some chemist's playing whit nature, they making new disease and new DNA chain's what is not growing in normal life.

[pseudorabies]

9 hours ago, Enzian said:

2) Many who work in these related fields are noting that accidents happen all the time; they are not rare at all.

No, biosafety-related accidents definitely do NOT happen all the time and actually are very rare, especially in industry where compliance is taken very seriously.  During much of my time in industry I was the on-site biosafety officer at the different companies I worked for.  In 20 years I saw only one accident and that was in a BSL2 level facility involving the breakage of test tubes containing human blood samples during centrifugation.  This was operator error - someone who lacked experience and was not being supervised properly.  Luckily there are protocols in place to handle this sort of situation and they were observed.  With human blood samples you always assume they are from HIV/HBV/HCV-positive patients and treat them as infectious.  The centrifuge was left closed for a period of time and then later disinfected.  Later an incident report was written up and filed. As I said this is taken seriously and gets more serious with higher risk-group pathogens.

 

If accidents happened all the time we'd be awash in smallpox, anthrax, ebola, pandemic influenza and hanta virus infections released from the labs that work on these pathogens.

 

 

[Rookiescot]

7 hours ago, kynikoi said:

 

It's not that easy.

 

All factories cannot be moved to home countries nor would you want them to be.

 

What can happen now is governments can be very selective about bringing back industries that are clean, technologically important, viable into the future, and that will provide decent jobs.

 

Let them keep all the shi++y plastics industry, chemicals and low end electronics..

 

Having said that these days China is all about very high technology and if the West doesn't watch out they're going to eat our lunch if they're not doing so already.

 

This is all entirely the fault of Western Nations allowing industries to shift overseas for the huge profits of the few to the detriment of the Nations.

 

You just said it yourself.

We need those industries back. Whether they are "dirty" or not because high end manufacturing needs a supply chain of the stuff those "dirty" industries provide.

Now there are various methods of taking those dirty manufacturing plants and making them clean. It will just cut into the profit margin of the companies doing it. Which is why they are currently outsourced to countries which do not care about such things.

The west needs to start being self sufficient. Western governments need to start putting legislation in place to encourage domestic rather than foreign supply.

And I will tell you this. As western companies pull out of China then its GDP will start to crash.

It would only take one recession to cripple China.

It is way to over leveraged. 

[Rookiescot]

6 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

And nothing can relieve the hideous and incredibly sad fact that so many people ignore the other fact that he was responsible for ensuring that the vaccines were produced in record time that saved millions of lives.

 

"...he...even called it fake".

No, he didn't, regardless of selective media editing, he did not call the Covid-19 virus "fake" or even a "hoax". 

 

Thats a lie.

Here is a timeline of what Trump said.

 

'It will disappear': the disinformation Trump spread about the coronavirus – timeline | Donald Trump | The Guardian

[starky]

On 6/4/2021 at 9:05 PM, Cali farong said:

Since they won’t allow investigators in and they

destroyed documents, and people have gone

missing and some BS story about a pangolin 

use common sense    A wet market or a lab

seems obvious to me

Seems obvious to you? Maybe you could lay out your extensive background in virology and epidemiological studies. What University you went to and what year your got your doctorate. Then explain your irrefutable argument backed by a peer based review so it's obvious to all the rest of us then. Cheers.

[Rookiescot]

19 minutes ago, starky said:

Seems obvious to you? Maybe you could lay out your extensive background in virology and epidemiological studies. What University you went to and what year your got your doctorate. Then explain your irrefutable argument backed by a peer based review so it's obvious to all the rest of us then. Cheers.

So given your extensive background in virology and epidemiolocal studies where do you think the virus originated from and how it came to infect humans. 

[Liverpool Lou]

1 hour ago, Rookiescot said:

8 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

And nothing can relieve the hideous and incredibly sad fact that so many people ignore the other fact that he was responsible for ensuring that the vaccines were produced in record time that saved millions of lives.

 

"...he...even called it fake".

No, he didn't, regardless of selective media editing, he did not call the Covid-19 virus "fake" or even a "hoax". 

 

Thats a lie.

Here is a timeline of what Trump said.

 

'It will disappear': the disinformation Trump spread about the coronavirus – timeline | Donald Trump | The Guardian

No, none of what I said was a lie.    Nothing in that link actually quotes the full context of Trump saying that "the Covid virus was fake or a hoax".   That's because he never said that.  If you have a link to an audio or video of Trump saying those words, let's see it.  

 

And he was responsible for getting the drug companies to produce vaccines in unprecedented record time.  

[Liverpool Lou]

5 hours ago, scorecard said:

I'm aware of the claims he didn't say 'fake',

and the further proof that he did say 'fake'.

Let's see that proof, then, the audio or video of Trump saying "the Coronavirus is fake".   I won't hold my breath.

[Elkski]

On 6/4/2021 at 5:38 AM, mtls2005 said:

Yes. Assuming you want to prevent a future pandemic. 

 

Do I want virologists mucking about with "gain-of-function" experiments? I'm leaning towards "no".

 

 

 

Intersting article...droppped yesterday.

 

The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins

 

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins

Very good but lengthy article everyone should read.  I have been of the opinion it's man made and was released from the lab since early 2020.  

[heybruce]

16 hours ago, Suua said:

I would gladly pay more for goods.

 

Putting your eggs in one basket, is, and always has been, a massive error.

 

The world has made a huge error.....time to put it right, whatever the cost.

Really?  You'd be willing to pay hundreds of dollars for goods that now cost tens of dollar?  Not everyone wishes to be so frivolous with their money.

 

Businesses are already re-assessing their supply chains and adjusting them to be more robust.  Governments telling businesses how to run things--mandating what kind of plants to build and where--has been tried and failed.

[scorecard]

3 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Let's see that proof, then, the audio or video of Trump saying "the Coronavirus is fake".   I won't hold my breath.

No need, this exact point has been covered numerous times by many media outlets.

[ukrules]

Quote

Does COVID-19 origin really matter?

 

More than you know.....

[rabas]

12 hours ago, pseudorabies said:

No, biosafety-related accidents definitely do NOT happen all the time and actually are very rare, especially in industry where compliance is taken very seriously.  During much of my time in industry I was the on-site biosafety officer at the different companies I worked for.  In 20 years I saw only one accident and that was in a BSL2 level facility involving the breakage of test tubes containing human blood samples during centrifugation.  This was operator error - someone who lacked experience and was not being supervised properly.  Luckily there are protocols in place to handle this sort of situation and they were observed.  With human blood samples you always assume they are from HIV/HBV/HCV-positive patients and treat them as infectious.  The centrifuge was left closed for a period of time and then later disinfected.  Later an incident report was written up and filed. As I said this is taken seriously and gets more serious with higher risk-group pathogens.

 

If accidents happened all the time we'd be awash in smallpox, anthrax, ebola, pandemic influenza and hanta virus infections released from the labs that work on these pathogens.

 

"All the time" is relative. If one high security lab leak per year is considered serious, then once a year is 'all the time'.  Relative to potential threat, lab leaks are common.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity_incidents

 

Notice how often SARS-1 leaked, particularly in Beijing.

 

Even the deadly  1977-1978 Russian flu was a lab leak. A Russian H1N1 influenza virus suddenly reappeared after 25 years, completely unchanged over time, meaning it was stored. It came from a lab in Russia or northern China.  The outbreak was first detected in N. China, then Russia, and eventually killed 700,000.

 

The  Wuhan lab was repeatedly noted for lax safety before the outbreak. Even though they had built a BSL4 lab, much of the coronavirus work was done at lower safety levels for convenience. 

 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by rabas

[phills2k1]

7 hours ago, scorecard said:

No need, this exact point has been covered numerous times by many media outlets.

They really are the best, aren't they?  trump spent all of January and February constantly lying to the country about the severity of the virus while damn well knowing just how dangerous it truly was, for the sole purpose of helping his reelection chances. 

 

And then at a rally, in the midst of constantly saying this is no worse than the flu, he referred to it as the situation being democratic hoax to harm him.

 

Now a normal and educated person would comprehend that he was implying that Democrats were overreacting to covid to harm him, and this is the case because covid is nothing disease, that it's just the flu (a comparison he made multiple times, despite knowing it wasn't). But the MAGAts will completely ignore all logical thought and tell us that because he didn't say the words "covid is a hoax", then of course he didn't mean it

 

Have never seen a person who's so loved for "saying what he means" while also apparently never meaning what he says when those words get him in trouble