WHO Team Member to New York Times: What We Learned in China (nytimes.com) 168
Peter Daszak is part of the World Health Organization's 14-member team investigating the origins of the coronavirus. This weekend on Twitter he described "explaining key findings of our exhausting month-long work in China" to journalists — only to see team members "selectively misquoted to fit a narrative that was prescribed before the work began."
Daszak was responding to a New York Times article which painted China as uncooperative for failing to hand over some raw data. But ironically, the next day the Times published a longer interview they'd done with Daszak, which acknowledges that Daszak "said that the visit had provided some new clues..."
The Times had even specifically asked him if China's attitude made their work difficult, to which Daszak had explicitly answered: no. "You've got a task to do. You've volunteered. You know what it's going to be like. You get caught up in the historical importance. I don't know if we were the first foreigners to walk around the Huanan seafood market, which is blocked off even to Chinese citizens. The only people that have been in there have been the Chinese disease investigators. We met with the doctors that treated the first known Covid patients."
The Times also asked if they'd learned anything they didn't know before. Daszak's response: From Day 1, the data we were seeing were new that had never been seen outside China. Who were the vendors in the Huanan seafood market? Where did they get their supply chains? And what were the contacts of the first cases? How real were the first cases? What other clusters were there? When you asked for more, the Chinese scientists would go off, and a couple of days later, they've done the analysis, and we've got new information. It was extremely useful.
The team also learned how extensively China's disease-control center had investigated the Wuhan market: They'd actually done over 900 swabs in the end, a huge amount of work. They had been through the sewage system. They'd been into the air ventilation shaft to look for bats. They'd caught animals around the market. They'd caught cats, stray cats, rats, they even caught one weasel. They'd sampled snakes. People had live snakes at the market, live turtles, live frogs. Rabbits were there, rabbit carcasses... Animals were coming into that market that could have carried the coronavirus. They could have been infected by bats somewhere else in China and brought it in. So that's clue No. 1... Some of these are coming from places where we know the nearest relatives of the virus are found. So there's the real red flag...
There were other markets. And we do know that some of the patients had links to other markets. We need to do some further work, and then the Chinese colleagues need to do some further work...
What is the next step?
For the animals chain, it's straightforward. The suppliers are known. They know the farm name; they know the owner of the farm. You've got to go down to the farm and interview the farmer and the family. You've got to test them. You've got to test the community. You've got to go and look and see if there are any animals left at any farms nearby and see if they've got evidence of infection, and see if there is any cross-border movement.
The Times' interview begins by specifically acknowledging Daszak's statement about new information obtained on the visit, "which all of the scientists, Chinese and international, agreed most likely pointed to an animal origin within China or Southeast Asia.
"The scientists have largely discounted claims that the virus originated in a lab, saying that possibility was so unlikely that it was not worth further investigation."
Daszak was responding to a New York Times article which painted China as uncooperative for failing to hand over some raw data. But ironically, the next day the Times published a longer interview they'd done with Daszak, which acknowledges that Daszak "said that the visit had provided some new clues..."
The Times had even specifically asked him if China's attitude made their work difficult, to which Daszak had explicitly answered: no. "You've got a task to do. You've volunteered. You know what it's going to be like. You get caught up in the historical importance. I don't know if we were the first foreigners to walk around the Huanan seafood market, which is blocked off even to Chinese citizens. The only people that have been in there have been the Chinese disease investigators. We met with the doctors that treated the first known Covid patients."
The Times also asked if they'd learned anything they didn't know before. Daszak's response: From Day 1, the data we were seeing were new that had never been seen outside China. Who were the vendors in the Huanan seafood market? Where did they get their supply chains? And what were the contacts of the first cases? How real were the first cases? What other clusters were there? When you asked for more, the Chinese scientists would go off, and a couple of days later, they've done the analysis, and we've got new information. It was extremely useful.
The team also learned how extensively China's disease-control center had investigated the Wuhan market: They'd actually done over 900 swabs in the end, a huge amount of work. They had been through the sewage system. They'd been into the air ventilation shaft to look for bats. They'd caught animals around the market. They'd caught cats, stray cats, rats, they even caught one weasel. They'd sampled snakes. People had live snakes at the market, live turtles, live frogs. Rabbits were there, rabbit carcasses... Animals were coming into that market that could have carried the coronavirus. They could have been infected by bats somewhere else in China and brought it in. So that's clue No. 1... Some of these are coming from places where we know the nearest relatives of the virus are found. So there's the real red flag...
There were other markets. And we do know that some of the patients had links to other markets. We need to do some further work, and then the Chinese colleagues need to do some further work...
What is the next step?
For the animals chain, it's straightforward. The suppliers are known. They know the farm name; they know the owner of the farm. You've got to go down to the farm and interview the farmer and the family. You've got to test them. You've got to test the community. You've got to go and look and see if there are any animals left at any farms nearby and see if they've got evidence of infection, and see if there is any cross-border movement.
The Times' interview begins by specifically acknowledging Daszak's statement about new information obtained on the visit, "which all of the scientists, Chinese and international, agreed most likely pointed to an animal origin within China or Southeast Asia.
"The scientists have largely discounted claims that the virus originated in a lab, saying that possibility was so unlikely that it was not worth further investigation."
9 months ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Fact is this team should have been on scene 9 months ago. Whatever progress or resistance they are receiving now is less than what could have been achieved if this team was on scene last year.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What difference would it have made? Oh right, it would have humiliated China, the implication being that their own experts couldn't do this work or that they were not trusted to be honest with the data.
Also you are assuming that China delayed the mission. China didn't, the WHO took this long to set it up. The WHO is not a fast moving organization and researching the origin of this virus isn't a high priority compared to helping countries actually deal with. When your house is on fire you don't start a foren
Re:9 months ago (Score:4, Funny)
A voice of sanity in the middle an anti-China thread? Will wonders never cease? :o)
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Only one flamebait mod so far too, I am surprised.
Re:9 months ago (Score:4, Insightful)
Your analogy with the house on fire fits better than you thought: If your house is on fire, the fire department wants to know very much upfront, where the fire started, because it helps them a great deal dealing with the fire. It also tells them, whether the fire source continues to be active and whether similar fire sources can be expected nearby.
The only reason, why all of this didn't make much of a difference is, that the USA and most European countries totally blew their covid-19 response even after all the relevant facts were publicly known.
Re: 9 months ago (Score:2)
No, China did delay the mission. After Australia asked for an inquiry, they turned the screws on Australia commercially (still on). Then their president said "we'll have an inquiry, but only after the pandemic is over"
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The W in WHO means "World".
If "Bozo the clown" really was the problem, they could have sent a team without members from the US.
Re: 9 months ago (Score:1, Troll)
Prior? What Universe do you live in? The US funded WHO until their role in the spread of misinformation about the pandemic became very clear. Even this piece is just shilling for the CCP, oh look at how great our benefactors are, they let us swab an area they locked down over a year ago. But letâ(TM)s definitely not contradict the narrative they set for us, all other potential sources (nearby wet markets, nearby research labs) thatâ(TM)s just so preposterous we can dismiss it without investigation
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: 9 months ago (Score:2)
You're forgetting, apparently, the multipage NYT article from Feb or March 2020 laying out the timeline from December of doctors in Wuhan alerting others and getting fined or threatened by local officials, the one that died working on these cases, the coverage of the wet market and live animals, etc.
Too Little Too Late (Score:2, Troll)
I personally don't think we will ever find the truth. Too much power and too much fear to call out the real culprit in this fiasco.
Phylogenetic Analysis (Score:5, Informative)
I personally don't think we will ever find the truth.
Actually, yes. We could.
- We have a closest known relative virus (around a decade ago a 90-something-ish-percent similar RaTG13 sequence [nih.gov] was sampled from a bat in Yunnan) /. summary all the supply chain and general travel of people and animals into- / from- Wuhan's market
- We have the full sequence of early patient in Wuhan-Hu-1: NC_045512.2 [nih.gov]
- As mentioned in the
- Sequencing SARS-CoV-2 is definitely [github.io] not [workflowhub.eu] some [galaxyproject.org] secret black art.
- Phylogenetic analysis (i.e.: making family tree) isn't either, be it for virus samples carried by humans [nextstrain.org] or for virus samples carried by other species [nextstrain.org] (so much that there are guys out there doing this analysis on their laptop [free-hoster.net], for fun).
"All that" is left, is now doing "just" the foot work, and tracking all these chains, hunting for:
- humans who have had some weird pneumonia in the past (there might be some frozen samples in some hospital lab's basedment) (antibody test could also give some interect information)
- animal colonies where some descendant of the virus still making rounds today (RacCS203 and RmYN02 are example of such viruses related to SARS-CoV-2 that were recovered recently, though they are a bit more distant than RaTG13)
That is going to be an herculean task, but:
Collect enough of such genetic information and you'll start adding branches in the tree that fit between RaTG13 and our SARS-CoV-2, as you uncover possible intermediate along the chain.
Collect even more such information, both tracking and filling the tree, and you start to have a pretty picture of what might have happened and how the virus has travelled around and mutated until it got spotted in Wuhan.
^--: And this is very important research.
Not because it will finally help dispel all these "but it was a BioWeapon! Produced in a Chinese Lab! Financed by the Reptilian Illuminati! So Bill Gate can inject our innocent children with deadly 5G-chipped vaccines! And so Fauci can force a fascist lock down on freedom loving patriots! And BigPharma profits by selling drugs made out of alien embryos!" crackpot theories.
But because it will give us some very important insights into the dynamic with which zoonosis emerge, so we can know better how to anticipate the next one.
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We have a closest known relative virus (around a decade ago a 90-something-ish-percent similar RaTG13 sequence [nih.gov] was sampled from a bat in Yunnan)
I think you are juat a monkey because your DNA is 90-something-ish percent similar to a monkey [independent.co.uk].
Actually, yes. (Score:2)
I think you are juat a monkey because your DNA is 90-something-ish percent similar to a monkey [independent.co.uk].
You just wanted to make a joke, but that's actually a not so bad comparison:
- chimpanzee *are* our closest known relatives.
- researchers have spent the last several decades filling up the phylogenetic tree with all the "missing links" in between and by now have pretty clear picture of how the whole hominid family has evolved over time.
- some of that has even involved comparing genetic sequences.
The main difference is that we're DNA-based eukaryote (so we have a much lower mutation rate) with slow generation
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Even if you do all of this, who will trust you? The research may result in :
1. Exonerating the CCP. The anti-China conspiracy theorists won't trust you. Since there is no expectation of truth from China, even if an honest research exonerates China, normal people also wouldn't be able to trust you.
2. If it implicates the CCP : most likely the researcher won't escape China, or he or his credibility will be severely harmed. Even if it doesn't happen : so many have concluded the CCP is guilty without any credib
Multiple natural occurences in time. (Score:2)
Or the simpler explanation that the WIV was experimenting with RaT13G by splicing ACE2 receptors from another coronavirus and a researcher got infected (due to poor safety protocols) and spread the virus around Wuhan and eventually the rest of the world.
That a very nice scenario for some Holywood movie, with a few big name actors in there.
But the reality is that, because another coronavirus got famous a bit under two decades ago (the first SARS), and a few other in between (MERS), coronaviruses have been studied a bit more in the recent time.
Turns out, there are multiple independent occurrences of viruses evolving quite good receptors to human proteins in this family (e.g.: the furin cleavage site has been independently evolved by multiple different member
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It's like when the tiger attacked Roy, they'd been doing that act for 30 years, and then they had a bad day.
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"not worth further investigation" LOL (Score:4, Insightful)
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We sold our country out to China, and in return, they have infinite resources to gaslight us.
Re: "not worth further investigation" LOL (Score:4, Insightful)
Random people: Does the US flag contain purple?
Historians: No. It only contains 3 colors: red, white, & blue.
Random people: How do you know for sure, have you recently tested it?
Historians: No, it's always been those three colors. It wouldn't be the US flag if it contained purple. No further testing needed.
Random people: Of course you would say that; you guys are biased because you don't agree with my world view! My view should be given the same value and authority as yours! And it should be tested till my .... ohh shiny!
On a more serious note: Gene manipulation isn't some magical black box. Our methods to do so follow what is basically high selectivity of massive permutations of natural processes. What you end up with is something that you can trace back on how it was created and the steps it underwent. Those markers to determine those steps haven't been found in the virus so not lab grown. Can we move on?
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OK, ignore the flag comment and the shiny, and just read the end:
Gene manipulation isn't some magical black box. Our methods to do so follow what is basically high selectivity of massive permutations of natural processes. What you end up with is something that you can trace back on how it was created and the steps it underwent.
Yes, you have decided that the evil commies in China created the virus and destroyed 1/3 of their GDP last spring because [some reason or other], but you have no evidence that is what happened beside "evil commie Chinese". Step back and let the grown ups do actual science to find out where it came from and then frelling ***LISTEN TO THEM***.
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Yeah, you stated that the World Health Organization is controlled by China, which is absurd and for which you have no evidence. You also claim that scientists are slaves in China, apparently owned by the evil commies of the CCP. And you expect people to listen to your opinion? Why? "Because I say so" has never been considered "evidence" anywhere outside of Vatican City or Jonestown.
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Because I say so" has never been considered "evidence" anywhere outside of Vatican City or Jonestown.
You should Google this Donald Trump fellow....
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Apparently you're blissfully unaware of why the lab was in that location investigating corona viruses. It's because that's where Chinese and international researchers had identified several animal corona viruses which were likely to mutate and become human-contagious. Guess what? They were right!
If we shut down any sort of lab investigating possible developing diseases there won't be any more new diseases. Is that the way it works in RonPaulLand?
So I have a question for you. What frelling "long game" d
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I have one question for you: is there _any_ evidence that could _ever_ convince you that this _didn't_ come from a lab in China?
Ask yourself that honestly. If the answer is "no", then it is YOU who has the agenda.
You cannot "prove" a negative.
Prove to me that the virus didn't come from a laboratory in the US! We have all kinds of labs working with viruses here. PROVE that it _didn't_ come from one of them...
Here we have some of the world's foremost experts in this field saying that it is "highly unlikely
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The only thing interesting about the Chinese response to the whole business was their revision of the total number of cv-19 deaths in China. The revised/corrected number was EXACTLY 1.5x the previous number.
Which, for me, had the effect of deciding that anything they said on the subject was probably a steaming pile of what my dog leaves in the backyard....
I would like to see the raw data (Score:1)
Re: I would like to see the raw data (Score:2)
I would question that data.
Vendors at a wet market are not exactly registered. I imagine everyone scattered when the military came in.
Re: I would like to see the raw data (Score:1)
You have evidence for your claim? I'd suggest that they are actually registered.
What you "imagine" is of little relevance.
Re: I would like to see the raw data (Score:3)
Actually, they are, since you have to pay to be there, and have an official permit. It is silly to imagine these lucrative spots are free for anyone to grab.
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Which raw data do you want to see?
A lot depends on what kind of scientist you're working with. Government scientists are usually in the business of producing technical reports and follow whatever the government policy is on the data. Academic researchers on the other hand tend to keep their data close to their vest until they've published. I worked for a number of years with primatologists who are notoriously slow at publishing.
Re:I would like to see the raw data (Score:5, Insightful)
No. The data in question is likely comparable to HIPPA compliance. China has pushed for follow-up investigations in other nations like the US. If the sides flipped, the "raw data" would not be released in the US either, or Europe, or virtually anywhere (except maybe African nations). It's standard practice to anonymize the data and the article in question doesn't seem to fully explain it's position that non-standard data practices were applied here. It twisted the narrative towards it's own bias and repeats the idiom that western propaganda is just a different flavor than the Chinese form. Peter Daszak clearly states the data revealed new insights and that Chinese counterparts were extremely helpful in the process. Instead people say to check his bank account and ask if his family is being held hostage. None of these people have even stepped foot in China and more than likely have never stepped foot outside the US, much less their own state. They have small minds, easily prescribed the narrative given, and this is what it is to be "brave and free" -- stupid and ignorant. Fuck this noise but I am just a un-paid intern shill for BIZX and my Chinese masters.
This message brought to you by an American expat in China. Oh, and I worked at a laboratory doing bio-forensics, so that should also count for something about my understanding of this process -- but it won't because I am a shill. Point. Set. Match.
Re:I would like to see the raw data (Score:5, Insightful)
It certainly didn't help that they threatened doctors and shut down media at the start of the outbreak, and it didn't help that they didn't release the raw patient data from the original 120 infected individuals (they summarised the information apparently) to the WHO doctors.
If you are doing bio-forensics, you must understand what all the data from those 120 cases means, and why its important.
I'm sure there were new insights, but that honestly says nothing really does it. That could mean anything. All we do know is that they still have a very murky picture as to the origins of the virus - and missing a few pieces of the initial puzzle, no matter how small a data set, does not inspire confidence.
Now I'm not saying it did at all (I think it was from a bat and intermediary), but ask yourself - IF it did come from that lab, would it be something you think China would allow to be known? No.
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>I think the problem is that a lot of people feel as though that with China's governments incredibly strict adherence to avoiding criticism at all costs, including supressing media, links to outside media, editing search results, social media, etc. means they have doubt for really getting to the bottom of it.
I mean China lied even about the total covid deaths. There is no way that only ~4,600 Chinese people died from Covid!
Japan, with argueably one of the world's best healthcare systems and high social c
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Every countries death rates are confounded in someway. This shouldn't be a reasonable scrutiny and doesn't lead one to any real significant position. If you want to guess the real numbers, we have to start asking some serious questions. How many deaths do you think the Chinese government could cover up? For the comorbidities, how likely is it for Chinese to have these and in turn to account for the largest difference in mortality. I recently learned about my uncle dying in the states and I know a cousin who
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Now I'm not saying it did at all (I think it was from a bat and intermediary), but ask yourself - IF it did come from that lab, would it be something you think China would allow to be known? No.
I don't need to ask this question because I worked in the research groups that study growth media and other markers for determining how biological threats are made and engineered. I know the people who isolated the laboratory which made the anthrax used in the attacks that happened in America. If the markers were there... we would be completely telling everyone because the largest biological attack in world history just took place and nothing would satisfy the American agenda than having the perfect means t
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I think the problem is that a lot of people feel as though that with China's governments incredibly strict adherence to avoiding criticism at all costs, including supressing media, links to outside media, editing search results, social media, etc. means they have doubt for really getting to the bottom of it.
Just like some Democrat officials in the US of A [cnn.com]?
It certainly didn't help that they threatened doctors and shut down media at the start of the outbreak, and it didn't help that they didn't release the raw patient data from the original 120 infected individuals (they summarised the information apparently) to the WHO doctors.
Just like some Republican officials in the US of A [washingtonpost.com]?
No, it is not, because Chinese police had never pointed their guns to children of the whistle blowing doctors [washingtonpost.com].
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No. The data in question is likely comparable to HIPPA compliance.
There are carve-outs for medical research with HIPPA, which doctors would have access to. This type of data can be released with personal identification removed, too. I worked with medical researchers in college who had access to this data. The only identifier would be a code indicating "20-25 year old male" or something like that. If you jumped through more hoops you could get some basic demographic data as well, but you could get most of their medical chart otherwise.
In any case, I don't see a reason why
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Which is the point. The article doesn't specify how the data isn't raw. HIPPA compliment data is not "raw" data. It's curated but yes, with the right level of oversight you can get into demographics. I am unsure if this was the hurdle involved here because the article says jack shit. This being said, getting into demographics may be harder in China due to their laws. The claim being made spins this as the government arbitrarily limited the data but the limitations and the nature of those limitations (any re
Re:I would like to see the raw data (Score:4, Insightful)
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I didn't say "non-standard" data practices were followed. I said the article claims this is the case but then fails to provide any systematic argument to support the claim.
The data is being published as far as I understand but I am not looking that deeply. Often people make all these claims, like "China is not releasing the sequences for COVID" when I saw the sequence data on NCBI over a year ago, before testing was even really being taken seriously in any western country.
The data is perfectly fine, when yo
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Re: I would like to see the raw data (Score:3)
Your administration had data hold back that were even less sensitive. Laws were changed to do that. People were fired and replaced by party shills just to not have to disclose numer of infections.
Nobody can claim with a straight face that data on a "disaster of this magnitude" would have been published. All trends and evidence point to the contrary.
Hence the downmods.
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China has actually become a lot more open with this kind of data over time. Rewarding them by pushing conspiracy theories and sinophobic propaganda is not going to encourage them to be more open in the future.
Some of it is probably sour grapes. China managed to control the virus and so is now able to offer more vaccine to other countries, which is great for diplomacy and soft power. Meanwhile Europe and the US are still being ravaged by it and hording as much vaccine as they can get.
Re: I would like to see the raw data (Score:2)
Some of it is probably sour grapes. China managed to control the virus and so is now ...
I agree.
European politics has failed in this crysis at every turn & corner. (Most of) Europe locked down too late in March. Then they jumped at each other's throats over paper masks and respirators. Then they waited the whole summer essentially waiting for october in nothing but goid hopes, without developing a plan beyond "maybe it's going to be ok", for the oh so unlikely case in which winter would bring a new wave - which it did (surprise!), and it's not being ok (surprise!!). They pissed 4 months in
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I'm wondering at which point political incompetence finally becomes a felony.
At the "China" point. I think this is the humor. People want more accountability for their leadership and then claim China is a totalitarian regime that parallels the N word we cannot say but can ASCII art to oblivion on /.
China hands out death sentences for white collar crimes if the cost of life is significant enough. I think most politicians don't generally get screwed this bad but COVID responses in some areas have lead many people to losing any future in politics. They will still have influence almost
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And China managed to control it domestically (at least that's what they say, they won't share the data), while allowing it to spread globally. That's got to hurt them diplomatically.
Also, how is buying what we need to vaccinate ourselves "hoarding"?
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I'm very happy to see China distributing vaccines, especially if they are or will be serving third world countries which will otherwise go unvaccinated for unacceptably long periods.
However, "more open" receives proportionately apportioned rewards. They went to what one might describe as some lengths to prevent and/or delay dissemination about the extent of the Covid-19 problem in China.
Re: I would like to see the raw data (Score:3)
Well, if your opinion is that everyone who is left must be lying, and everyone who disagrees with you must be left, then of course you're always right.
You're a fine example of how Dunning Krueger works.
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So HIPAA and other privacy protections were overruled and the raw data of US COVID patients early in the pandemic is publicly available?
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There is no need for credibility on a site where most everyone talks out their asses and hides behind being an AC... hmph... did my credibility just get questioned by an AC -- I can die happy.
Why does Data need InPerson Visit and 1 Year Wait? (Score:3, Insightful)
Paperwork, records, data, etc should not take an IN PERSON visit to China and should not have taken 1 year wait to get. Why wasn't the paperwork, records, data, etc electronically transferred to the WHO within 30 days of gathering? Because China is NOT our friend. Because China is not helping the WHO. Because China is yet again using delay tactics and misdirection to obfuscate what really happened at the time. And to provide distraction from other human rights violations and atrocities - concentration
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Do you think that would have happened if it instead had originated in the US or UK? Hell, the US still isn't even acquiring decent data today, we really have no clue how many people were actually infected with SARS2 at any point in the last year, just estimates for those few situations where testing is marginally adequate (none of them in the Stupid States). China tested all of Hunan in two weeks last summer, every person. We can't even test everyone in a small town in Nebraska.
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Having someone else do the work is useful, yeah, but it means the results are a joke.
"Remember, this happened because you attacked us." (Score:5, Funny)
- says every bat in the world.
Lab unlikely ?? (Score:3)
>> that possibility was so unlikely that it was not worth further investigation
Nope. They did tests on apes with genetically enhanced SARS. How likely is it that an ape escaped, spreading the virus ????
Now China CCP had one full year for carefully crafting a new chain of evidence.
Re: Lab unlikely ?? (Score:2)
[Citation needed]
Re: (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Italy September 2019 (Score:3)
Re: Italy September 2019 (Score:1, Troll)
Or that the disease was already present in September, and possibly mutated into a more aggressive form on the market by hunan to animal transfer. Perhaps even multiple.
It was already a hard problem to investigate the chain of events before Trump managed to defund the WHO and piss of China just to score some political brownie points at home. And now it's nearly impossible. Which suits Trump and his cronies just fine - it makes it much easier to keep shifting the attention away from himself and on to China wh
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Trump defunded the WHO in response to their handling of the pandemic not before. Stop lying.
propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think that democracies don't use propaganda, I have a really cheap bridge to sell.
Just the mechanism are different. Where in an autocratic system a central authority dictates what the news publish, in the western countries a consensus emerges in the media, steered by narratives and "leaks" and by what the public wants to hear. In the USA, that means TWO strains, due to the deep divide between the political blocks.
I've made it a habit to read publications I disagree with in my opinion, but it is very revealing to see how media from different parts of the spectrum report on the same events.
4/10 Slashdot RSS stories now on this FFS (Score:1)
Stop Already.
Editors, EDIT !
Re: (Score:1)
Current Slashdot RSS:
WHO Team Member to New York Times: What We Learned in China
Two WHO Team Members Dispute Report China Wasn't Cooperative for Covid-19 Investigation
How the NSA-led US Cyber Command Wishes You a Happy Valentine's Day
Why Some Amazon Delivery Drivers Hate Its Safety Monitoring App
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Is this just all a deflection? (Score:1)
The Australians have demonstrated that this virus is VERY good at escaping from quarantine where everyone is being careful. Why couldn't it have escaped from the lab
Why didn't this interview talk about what variants were in that lab.
Occam's Razor suggests someone was sloppy and walked out of the lab into the market.
THAT IS NOT THE THEORY (Score:5, Insightful)
The current working supposedly conspiracy theory is not that it was made in a lab. It was that it was being studied in a lab, and escaped. This theory is credible because a) the lab in question is there to study viruses and b) the lab in question has had safety failures before and c) labs have safety failures all the time.
By continually harping on the already discredited theory that it was made in a lab they are willfully ignoring the possibility that it was natural, but was being studied in a lab, and then escaped.
Why would they do this? Is this the media's fault, or the WHO? In the specific case of this article, I mean. Because I keep seeing this happening.
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Raw data? No you can't have it (Score:2)
The Chinese WOULD NOT provide the raw data for others to analyze, they kept it to themselves. This was noted in the earlier NYT article that was critical of China.
Irrelevant (Score:2)
The WHO has no credibility with me. They have a long history of incompetence. We should not confuse the potential of a world health organization with the reality of WHO.
New data? (Score:2)
Re:Nothing To See Here (Score:5, Insightful)
This just randomly came out of the very place WHO had a lab partially funded by Obama.
Do you think that they just randomly build labs to study coronaviruses in bats anywhere, and that it is a complete coincidence that they just happened to pick a place that was in a region that is home to bats that have multiple coronavirus strains? Are you saying that it was just as likely that "Obama" could have built this lab in the Antarctic, thousands of miles from any bat?
Are you also concerned about how dangerous hospitals are because there are so many sick people in them? Do you often find yourself wondering how deers know to cross at the "deer crossing" signs? Do you think that "danger, falling rocks" signs make nearby cliffs lose integrity? Is it some elaborate conspiracy that 99.9% of people who drown were near water at the time? Who is Big Water trying to silence, and what do they have to hide?
No, if you are going to study something then you go to the place where it needs studying. Don't try to make it some grand conspiracy just because the chose the right place to build a lab.
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Re: Nothing To See Here (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude... hundreds of miles away is still likely to be in the same province. And if this is the major city in the region, the one that all supply lines to through, then it absolutely makes sense to put your main lab there.
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Re:Nothing To See Here (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a major problem with this argument. The lab is close to the seafood market, but the bats come from caves hundreds of miles away.
How is that a major problem? Where do you think the wet market got their animals from? Are you suggesting that they raided the lab, because that is totally unfounded speculation. Perhaps you think the poor market vendors should use the same Antarctic bat colonies that Obama should have been studying instead. Or perhaps it is more likely that they simply source their produce from one of the same areas that the lab studies. But hey, never let Occam's Razor get in the way of a good conspiracy theory!
The bats are in the Wuhan region, whether you think that it sounds like it is far away or not. Is there a closer city to their caves that you think they should have used?
The Chinese were studying coronaviruses in bats because it was foreseen that the virus would eventually jump species and become a threat to mankind. Why is it suspicious when what they speculated was true actually happens? If I tell you not to run out onto the road because you might get hit by a car, and you do it anyway and get hit, does that mean that I actually made that happen?
You would have been totally at home during the dark ages. If someone ever said that you shouldn't eat a particular plant, and when people did they got sick, then person would get burnt as a witch. The modern equivalent is when scientists want to study a potential problem and then that problem happens. Witches, I tell you!
Did you know that the reason why scientists wear white lab coats is that they are flame-proof suits designed to protect them from the ignorant masses? Well there is as much evidence for that as there is that the virus escaped from the lab.
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SARS2 is genetically 94% identical to the original bat virus (chimpanzees and humans are 99% genetically identical). This indicates that the virus moved to some other host for quite some time before mutating sufficiently to be come human-contagious. The University of Toronto proposed feral dogs as an intermediate host because some of the mutations resemble corona virus mutations in dog intestinal tracts, but that's still only one possibility.
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There's a major problem with this argument. The lab is close to the seafood market
The lab is about 12 km away on the other side of town.
google maps [google.com]
Still reasonably close, but not very close.
Causation meet correlation (Score:2)
The "ground zero" city has a massive population of migrant workers. Nearly 1/2 the popula
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How many deaths are they responsible for?
Probably none. They never said their was no human to human transmission, for a very short period of time (a few days) they stated they had no evidence of human to human transmission which I assume was true at the time. unfortunately a lot of trumptards and anti WHO media hooked onto this statement early on like they were stating it as a categorical fact. Really it shows the public/media can't really be trusted with the truth, someone at WHO should absolutely be bitch slapped for what was an "unnecessary" st
Re: WHO: No human to human transmission (Score:2)
It seems you need more lessons in English comprehension.
Re: Who Cares (Score:2)
We're very fortunate then that you're here to tell the unenlightened masses the truth.
Our should I call it "pravda"?
Re:Quelle surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the guy who after getting put onto the "investigation team" from WHO announced what the findings will be. Before he got to China as a part of said investigation.
This would be considered stupid if this was a plot device in fiction. Yet this is reality.
Even more stupid, this team regurgitated the CCP propaganda nonsense with minimal criticism, such as that virus originally appeared from frozen fish. Yes, the creatures that don't even have breathing apparatus and instead use oxygenation via gills. They are totally valid origination points/vectors for infection with virus that specifically targets breathing apparatus. Somehow.
I suppose we're lucky that this team didn't go to investigate in February 2020, when CCP's propaganda line was that virus originated from Italy. Because WHO would be pointing finger at Italy if it did. Or in Summer 2020, when propaganda line was that it originated from US military. Or in Autumn 2020 when it originated from foreigners in China. Especially those foreigners that never left China during the current pandemic.
Again, all these would be considered really stupid plot points in fiction. But in reality of today... they are actually real propaganda points widely disseminated by Chinese media apparatus domestically and through their various propaganda outlets aimed at foreigners.
Chinese hard to understand (Score:2)
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I love these projections from a guilty mind. Do tell us more about your methods.
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LOL, a lot of murrican butthurt from a simple reminder about who actually funds WMD research.
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"The conflict of interest of the US government is also clear to see since they have been funding research in that lab! My god it is 9/11 all over again, an inside job!" - Conspiracy theories are what is left when the obvious is being overlooked, not the first port of call in analyzing a situation.
More prosaically a lot of scientific research is funded by governments and the money is spent all over the world. Daszak is funded by US government money - money which was withdrawn by the previous administration f
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Asian bat corona viruses were ripe to infect humans, and that lab was situated near their habitat in order to study them. Where should they have located it? The Yukon? Patagonia? Ibiza?
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It does not matter if they are neutral or not if the process they follow is systematic. The reported process is systematic. They include ongoing assessment of a Lab escape, frozen food transmission and other unlikely scenarios. The whole scientific community expects to be most likely to find it in animals and the investigation will follow that line until it finds it. If they don't find it in an animal then they and we will have to reassess the unlikely origins. Science gets it right in the end - at least fr
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Re:The assumption is that WHO is neutral (Score:5, Interesting)
And then you get to the part where they reveal how they came to their conclusion on the source - "When we sat down as a group, the China team and the W.H.O. team on the last full day of work, and said, “Let’s go through the hypotheses,” the one that received the most enthusiastic support was this pathway — wildlife, through a domesticated wildlife link, into Wuhan."
"Enthusiastic support"? Science is now governed by talent-show applause meters? Enthusiasm as a determinant becomes even more suspicious if you factor in - "looking for the source of this virus within China is not a great, high priority I think for the Chinese government. Anywhere this virus is shown to emerge is a political issue. "
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"Funneling"? As in part of the public budget allocation of the NIH going to WIV in plain sight of Congress and both Republican and Democratic administrations? With no input fro Dr. Daszak, except maybe grant applications that got publicly approved?
Anyway, most of the income of the company Dr Daszak worked for comes from the US Department of Defense. (There's a fine
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Oh, wow, you use Bill O'Lie-ly as a reference? You're funny.