House Votes To Declassify Info About Origins of COVID-19 (apnews.com) 194
The House voted unanimously on Friday to declassify U.S. intelligence information about the origins of COVID-19, a sweeping show of bipartisan support near the third anniversary of the start of the deadly pandemic. From a report: The 419-0 vote was final approval of the bill, sending it to President Joe Biden's desk to be signed into law. Debate was brief and to the point: Americans have questions about how the deadly virus started and what can be done to prevent future outbreaks. "The American public deserves answers to every aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic," said Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. That includes, he said, "how this virus was created and, specifically, whether it was a natural occurrence or was the result of a lab-related event."
end of summary is misinformation (Score:2, Interesting)
Even if it was a "lab-related event" all agencies have said that it is a "natural occurence". i.e. none of these agencies determined it was "created" in a a lab.
It will be helpful to see more detail about how findings were reached. From other information it appears that two vastly differing standards of proof are being applied. Proof of species jump at the wildlife market requires identification of the individual animal through which it was transmitted, while proof of a lab leak just requires genetic s
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The question is whether it was modified in a lab. There is some evidence that the virus was modified by genetic manipulation. It could also be serial transmission, ie, they were growing coronaviruses in a dish with animal (or human) cells.
In any case we should look at this new evidence when it's released and continue investigating.
Re:end of summary is misinformation (Score:5, Insightful)
> No one thinks it was fully created in a lab
What rock have you been living under the past 2 years? While it's never been a "mainstream theory" there is absolutely no shortage of conspiracy nutters who entertain exactly that idea.
=Smidge=
Not a conspiracy, but Reagan era bioweapon (Score:5, Informative)
Science has had the ability to create viruses in the lab since the 1980's, perhaps earlier. You can look up recombinant DNA, which allows germ warfare makers to create a pathogen which targets people with specific DNA, i.e. a literal, genocidal pathogen.
While they may not be able to create a virus from scratch using only the raw input chemicals, they have been able to repurpose existing viruses for quite some time. The GOF research wasn't really revolutionary from a bioweapons perspective, except to the degree that it makes it possible to build a bioweapon with plausible deniability - i.e., one which looks like it has natural origins to all involved. That's a much more useful bioweapon, because it allows the aggressor nation to weaken and/or destroy its enemies without provoking a retaliatory response; a very useful feature in a world with nuclear weapons.
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That's what this is. Fuel for conspiracy theories. We will never know with certainty.
SARS and MERS [Re:end of summary is misinformation (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing "nut" about noticing that Covid-19 is jumping from human to a human with easiness way to impressive for an "animal virus", unlike it's other family members, like SARS and MERS.
Both SARS and MERS are previous examples of coronaviruses that jumped from animals to humans.
If your claim is that it's hard for a coronavirus to jump from animals to humans, the viruses you chose to mention are counterexamples showing that they can do so and have done so.
Re:end of summary is misinformation (Score:5, Insightful)
No one thinks it was fully created in a lab. We don't even know how to do that. That's a strawman.
That was the original theory going around in 2020. Eventually even the conspiracy theorists realized it was too far out there and changed the conspiracy theory.
The question is whether it was modified in a lab. There is some evidence that the virus was modified by genetic manipulation. It could also be serial transmission, ie, they were growing coronaviruses in a dish with animal (or human) cells.
The only "evidence" I've seen is people noticed a match between 12 base pairs in the virus and some sequence in a patent somewhere. But SARS-CoV-2 has 29,903 base pairs in it, and there's only 4 possible values for each position, so the odds of that happening randomly are pretty high. It's an extremely tiny segment of a large data set, and if you're matching it against all research ever done, you're highly likely to find a match somewhere. Then factor in that not all combinations of base pairs are equally likely - evolution is going to favor sequences that work over ones that don't - and your odds of a match go up even more.
In any case we should look at this new evidence when it's released and continue investigating.
Absolutely. The few agencies that have favored a lab leak theory haven't released any data supporting it, so I'd love to see if there is some.
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The only "evidence" I've seen is people noticed a match between 12 base pairs in the virus and some sequence in a patent somewhere.
This is a pretty good summary of the evidence [thebulletin.org]. Written by a scientist.
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The only "evidence" I've seen is people noticed a match between 12 base pairs in the virus and some sequence in a patent somewhere.
This is a pretty good summary of the evidence [thebulletin.org]. Written by a scientist.
Reading through that, he's not providing evidence. He's providing a long chain of highly unlikely but possible events that could lead to a lab leak. The idea is if you had a team of experts with the latest technology, and they did all their work from scratch without using any of the standard methods available for this type of work, it would be possible to create the virus without looking like you created it. Everything he says is possible, but it requires assuming the least likely option happened at every p
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Reading through that, he's not providing evidence
I'm really not convinced you read it. At best skimmed it. There's a quote in there from a virologist, that provides two pieces of evidence in a single sentence:
“When I first saw the furin cleavage site in the viral sequence, with its arginine codons, I said to my wife it was the smoking gun for the origin of the virus,” said David Baltimore, an eminent virologist
There's evidence, presented by a virologist.
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He didn't "clarify the meaning." In his own words, he "softened the phase." "Smoking gun" means it's clear undeniable proof. He walked all the way back to "it's not proof but you can't rule it out."
That Medium article also lays out a very thorough debunking of the whole idea. One of the key points of the theory is that you have expert scientists using top of the line tools to do highly precise edits to the RNA without leaving any trace of it. However, the counter article points out that the sequence in que
Re:end of summary is misinformation (Score:4, Informative)
This is a pretty good summary of the evidence [thebulletin.org]. Written by a scientist.
No, it's not written by a scientist. The article is clearly noted as written by Nicholas Wade a "science writer" most notable for his widely denounced book A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History.
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No one thinks it was fully created in a lab. We don't even know how to do that. That's a strawman. The question is whether it was modified in a lab. There is some evidence that the virus was modified by genetic manipulation.
No, there isn't.
The evidence given so far seems to be "it started in Wuhan. There exists a virus lab in Wuhan."
There may be more evidence, but we haven't seen it. It will be interesting to see what the (formerly) classified evidence is.
Good discussion here: https://www.npr.org/sections/g... [npr.org]
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“When I first saw the furin cleavage site in the viral sequence, with its arginine codons, I said to my wife it was the smoking gun for the origin of the virus,” said David Baltimore, an eminent virologist
That's evidence.
Re:end of summary is misinformation (Score:5, Insightful)
The flaw may be that if people assume it was a lab accident that they ignore the real possibility of future natural occurences. Pandemics in the past were all natural occurences. Animal crossover of disease happens all the time. Marburg and Ebola are natural occurences (so deadly they burn themselves out though, whereas covid and sars do not).
Assigning blame does not solve the problem of how to deal with pandemics, emerging viruses, treatments, and so forth. Assigning blame is just there so that some people can demand retaliation, and so others can sit back and claim the problem is solved, and so others will claim it's a hoax and we're all safe.
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The flaw may be that if people assume it was a lab accident that they ignore the real possibility of future natural occurences.
Or it may be that if people assume it was a natural outbreak that they ignore the real possibility of a lab leak - there aren’t extreme protection measures put in place because it saves money or looks cool - one slip up and you can get something that looks just like what happened. Further it did not help China has done everything possible to cover it up, which is likely in either case above but does the opposite of easing peoples suspicions and fears.
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There's a reasonable scenario where some lab worker got infected, maybe while collecting specimens in the field, then when shopping at the market. That's a lab leak. So is someone forgetting to replace a filter on the exhaust from the stored sample room.
But it's much more fun (i.e. profitable) to say "lab leak" and have everyone get visions of evil scientists with pipettes cackling as they zap dishes full of virus with lightning, Frankenstein style.
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The problem is that many of the people saying "lab leak" are being deliberately vague. They'll talk about "lab leak" as if it were a bio warfare agent, bring up gain of function research, and so forth. When they're pushed on it, though, they'll claim they were only talking about accidental release of a naturally occurring virus under study. It's a classic example of motte-and-bailey equivocation [wikipedia.org], and they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. Any time someone talks about a lab leak, they need to be
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all agencies have said that it is a "natural occurence[sic]". i.e. none of these agencies determined it was "created" in a a lab.
No that's not accurate. Some agencies have said there is not enough evidence to make a determination either way. So all agencies are most certainly not saying it is natural. It is possible that the gain of function research created a virus with a larger R number. I think what you, and others, are saying is that the virus was not genetically engineered, and that it has natural origins. I think most everyone believes that. However that does not mean that the virus, as it was when it began infecting people, wa
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Your own POST is selling disinformation.
Very, very few people are asserting this was 'created' in a lab. That is absolutely a strawman.
The general lab-leak narrative is that gain-of-function research was going on in the Wuhan lab. (This seems factually established and, depending on how far down the rabbit hole of connections you care to travel, it in some ways might have even been FUNDED by US taxpayer dollars.)
This GoF research was being done on animal sourced viruses, and I guess the likely vector is th
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From here. [forbes.com] Other less known investigations:
This agency conduct
Re: So the origin was classified and kept secret? (Score:2, Insightful)
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or we need regulations to conduct non-harmful research only
So we need to cease all research on pathogens? This will not have the intended affect you're looking for. Nearly all "harmful" research in the world is done in the aid of reducing our risk to disease and battling viruses.
Re: So the origin was classified and kept secret? (Score:3)
Re:So the origin was classified and kept secret? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares?
Anyone who doesn't want this shit to happen again? You know. SANE PEOPLE?
Sure, if it spins out of the wild, there's not a hell of a lot that can be done. But there's always the chance to learn SOMETHING.
But if it came out of a lab that lost control of something (whether something was natural or not), then containment protocols need to be reviewed and strengthened.
And we HAVE been given indicators that even if the original disease was completely natural, we've got people discussing GOF'ing it under lab conditions.
And that shit needs to be nipped in the bud.
Simply going "the past is past, let's move on" is doing the three monkeys routine.
FUCK THAT!
Re: So the origin was classified and kept secret? (Score:3, Insightful)
No-blame culture (Score:3)
If the intention is to find someone to blame, that is pointless indeed. As anyone else who's worked under the different regimes, I know how a no-blame culture promotes openness, reflection on ones deeds, and nurtures progress on both a personal level as for improvement and/or establishment of fail-safe procedures. No-blame culture promotes an open discussion in the search for truth.
Of course it would be very helpful to reveal any human errors that may be made along the way, so everyone doing similar work ca
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Chinese officials certainly did try to cover up COVID-19 at the start, which is not good, but also not really proof of anything. You don't really need any particular behavior from anyone else for Chinese officials to think they need to cover things up. It's just reflexive for them. It's like when there was that huge chemical factory explosion and all the fish in the river it was next to died. Chinese officials claimed that they died of natural hypoxia. I mean, seriously, why not just say that the huge ammon
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Re: So the origin was classified and kept secret? (Score:2)
Previous Pandemics have started in the US but nobody's enraged by that.
Not that it really matters, but which?
Re: So the origin was classified and kept secret? (Score:3)
H1N1 is the Spanish flu. Actually nobody really knows where it originated. We do know that the first recorded case was a military service member in Kansas, though that could have easily originated elsewhere because the first world war was in full swing, and many governments, especially European ones, were engaged in an active effort to suppress any information about it. Given what we know about the virus, it's also very unlikely he was the first person to have it, and to date there is no consensus on its ge
Re:end of summary is misinformation (Score:5, Informative)
The thing is that we have very detailed evidence of the initial first cases, and how they appear to be consistent with a single point transmission in the Wuhan market. There is nothing I have read in the primary literature that rules out that initial transmission being human-to-human from someone who was accidentally infected in the Wuhan lab. For most cases, the infection is like a cold; thus this hypothesized lab worker might well not have realized their sniffles were from a work-related exposure. They greeted their favorite vendors in the market, shared a laugh (and a spewful of virus particles), and headed home, staying there while their cold ran its course.
Note that I am NOT saying that this is the only plausible explanation. Just that the evidence I've seen can't rule that out, even the highly detailed studies of the initial epidemiological spread that confidently claim their observations support a natural transmission at the market (which they don't).
It is also worth noting that people who live in the area around Wuhan show evidence of high levels of non-COVID-19 coronavirus infections presumed to be from the large bat population in the region.
As such, the evidence published thus far also can't rule out that there was a species jump outside the market, and patient-0 sneezed, coughed, or whathaveyou at the market infecting the first few people before going home with a cold, and without infecting anyone else.
The problem with your theory is when you get CVOID-19, you're contagious several days before you start showing symptoms. It's usually another few days after initial symptoms before people start to actually feel sick. The lab is 8 miles away from the market. If your theory was correct, there would almost certainly be a cluster of cases near the lab at the same time as or before the initial market cluster, which we haven't seen any evidence of. You'd probably also see signs of transmission in between the two locations.
Your theory can't 100% be ruled out, but based on what we know how about the virus spreads, the odds of it playing out that way are extremely low.
Ultimately, I have a hard time understanding how understanding whatever scenario might have happened makes any difference. Wet markets are already frowned upon. Biohazard labs already have high levels of safety (although there are questions about that particular one). The international community isn't going to sue China for reparations. So, who cares?
The main reason to care is to see how we can prevent it from happening again, and possibly to figure out how to react better next time. But the people pushing for the release don't care about that, they just want someone to blame.
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>" thus this hypothesized lab worker might well not have realized their sniffles were from a work-related exposure."
I'd like to think that if anyone working at a coronavirus lab with pathogens came down with the "sniffles" there'd be a stringent quarantine protocol in place to ensure they weren't infected with their own supply, lol.
I guess not, huh!
Loaded Comment (Score:5, Interesting)
"That includes, he said, "how this virus was created and, specifically, whether it was a natural occurrence or was the result of a lab-related event.""
Based on him already saying it was "created" we know where he stands,.
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That's reaching. Virus can be created through natural occurrences. I guess you can debate on the semantics of creation versus mutation/modification, but considering that is not the first strain of covid, I don't think created is being used in the context you think it is.
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When something comes about naturally, no one says it was created. Created implies a creator. No one would talk about when a mountain was created or when a fish was created. Something created means someone caused it to happen.
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Maybe it's a regional thing? I use that verbiage and know people that do for things that come naturally. If a river occurs because of a rain, I'd say the rain created the river. I guess you would use the word caused instead?
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But in that case, the rain would be the creator, it is not necessarily a person. Something caused the river to happen, in this case the rain. In this case, the virus just evolved to be able to transfer to people (assuming that is the cause). The new flu strain every year isn't created, it just happens because the virus changes. Created implies an event that happened that caused the thing to exist. If we are assuming the virus jumped from animals to humans, no one has even suggested there was some action tha
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When something comes about naturally, no one says it was created. Created implies a creator. No one would talk about when a mountain was created or when a fish was created. Something created means someone caused it to happen.
You're ignoring the religious fundamentalists, of which there is no shortage in the US.
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COVID is not the "strain," it's the disease. The virus and original disease is SARS, which we had a scare about the turn of the milennium, and the virus that causes COVID-19 is SARS-CoV-2.
It stands for "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2." SARS (now 1) was bad, especially in Asia. Which is why, for example, the South Koreans handled it so well. Some of them were still masking from the first outbreak.
But people need to get their information straight. This was not "created." It's a mutation of so
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Understood but my point stands just replace Covid with SARS
Possibly loaded comment on slashdot (Score:2)
Based on him already saying it was "created" we know where he stands
Or, based on him saying a word that left it ambiguous enough for an outside observer on Slashdot with their own biases (a lack of trust in authorities) to reveal where THEY stand.
In other words, saying "created" most likely wasn't some Freudian slip.
Ummm....why??? (Score:4, Interesting)
...was anything like that ever classified in the first place?
There needs to be not laws on what should or shouldn't be declassified, but laws on what may or may not be classified in the first place.
Re:Ummm....why??? (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm sorry, but the reason it was classified in the first place is classified.
Well no shit... everyone wants there to be spies in China, you know, to have the inside track on stuff like this if possible, then they act shocked and confused that secret squirrel stuff needs to stay secret. At least until nobody can be exactly sure how info may have gotten out.
So it's not a joke really, you can't have the cake and eat it too.
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In fact, the US announcement that Russia was going to invade Ukraine almost seemed to me like a false flag operation undertaken by the Russians to prove the US can tell the truth about reasons for an
Re:Ummm....why??? (Score:5, Insightful)
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A lot was not. However Biden had many agencies looking into this, including intelligence agencies. This means fior example that there will be data about who we have as spies in China, or how we gathered information.
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Sources and methods
Re:Ummm....why??? (Score:5, Insightful)
...was anything like that ever classified in the first place?
There needs to be not laws on what should or shouldn't be declassified, but laws on what may or may not be classified in the first place.
Some of it has legit reasons to be classified. Revealing that you know sensitive things can also reveal how you know it. You might reveal that you have a spy, or that you have a way of intercepting "secure" communications.
Some of it is general paranoia intentionally classifying too much by default.
Some of it is is overly cautious protocols - if you had access to anything that was classified while doing your work, then your work becomes classified too. While this makes sense while dealing with highly sensitive data, it tends to creep and cover far too much.
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Um... because it was highly politicized, by parties I will not name in the interests of peace, and might have caused a riot against AAPI people? We don't know what's there. There may be a very good reason it was classified.
Better to err on the side of caution and then declassify it when the maelstrom of misinformation and confusion has somewhat passed. As it has, somewhat, now.
Distraction from corruption in pandemic response (Score:3)
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I am way more concerned about the pandemic response efforts being deliberately sabotaged in every way, than about the origins
Why? If the virus didn't happen, the latter wouldn't matter.
And if we can create safeguards to prevent this from happening again, how do you not see that as equally important to how we respond?
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deliberately sabotaged
You mean the months of downplaying, delaying international travel restrictions and throwing around "sinophobe," right?
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Re:Distraction from corruption in pandemic respons (Score:5, Informative)
I wonder if you're concerned, at all, the the US had finished phase-1 trials for a covid vaccine just a few months before the outbreak started. US intelligence also warned Israel about an epidemic in China, before China even knew about the epidemic or had enough sick people to detect it.
It's quite a coincidence then, that the US already had a working covid vaccine, immediately launched project "warp speed," where three major biotech companies were able to produce effective vaccines on the first attempt and in under a year; A feat no one has ever accomplished. Meanwhile, they gleefully cheered on the benefits to the economic war against China, since China didn't have access to the US/European produced vaccine.
Dude, the world knew [dailymail.co.uk] a corona virus was likely to become a global pandemic. Additionally, both Moderna and Pfizer work working on generic mRNA delivery mechanism for over 20 years.
No need to spin up a conspiracy.
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No need to spin up a conspiracy.
There's never a need for that -- unless you're a media company in desperate pursuit of ratings (money).
Re:Distraction from corruption in pandemic respons (Score:5, Informative)
I wonder if you're concerned, at all, the the US had finished phase-1 trials for a covid vaccine just a few months before the outbreak started.
mRNA vaccine trials were underway for a numbers of viruses, not SARS-CoV-2.
I mean did you forget about the other SARS? H1N1, MERS, and all the other gazillion damned viruses vaccine technology is always being developed for? How do you not know, wtf
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I wonder if you're concerned, at all, the the US had finished phase-1 trials for a covid vaccine just a few months before the outbreak started.
mRNA vaccine trials were underway for a numbers of viruses, not SARS-CoV-2.
I mean did you forget about the other SARS? H1N1, MERS, and all the other gazillion damned viruses vaccine technology is always being developed for? How do you not know, wtf
Okay, so now that we're through panicking over COVID, where are all those "other" vaccines "on verge" of being done?
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I wonder if you're concerned, at all, the the US had finished phase-1 trials for a covid vaccine just a few months before the outbreak started.
mRNA vaccine trials were underway for a numbers of viruses, not SARS-CoV-2.
I mean did you forget about the other SARS? H1N1, MERS, and all the other gazillion damned viruses vaccine technology is always being developed for? How do you not know, wtf
Okay, so now that we're through panicking over COVID, where are all those "other" vaccines "on verge" of being done?
If only there was some sort of search engine that could answer simple factual questions like that.
"Moderna, the biotech company behind one of the two approved mRNA vaccines for covid-19, is developing mRNA vaccines for RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), HIV, Zika, Epstein-Barr virus, and more. BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer on the other approved mRNA-based covid-19 vaccine, is exploring vaccines for tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, shingles, and flu. Both companies are working on treatments for cancer."
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I wonder if you're concerned, at all, the the US had finished phase-1 trials for a covid vaccine just a few months before the outbreak started.
mRNA vaccine trials were underway for a numbers of viruses, not SARS-CoV-2.
I mean did you forget about the other SARS? H1N1, MERS, and all the other gazillion damned viruses vaccine technology is always being developed for? How do you not know, wtf
Okay, so now that we're through panicking over COVID, where are all those "other" vaccines "on verge" of being done?
If only there was some sort of search engine that could answer simple factual questions like that. "Moderna, the biotech company behind one of the two approved mRNA vaccines for covid-19, is developing mRNA vaccines for RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), HIV, Zika, Epstein-Barr virus, and more. BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer on the other approved mRNA-based covid-19 vaccine, is exploring vaccines for tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, shingles, and flu. Both companies are working on treatments for cancer."
yeah, yeah...
Q: What's the difference between those listed above and Duke Nukem Forever?
A: The King of Vapourware did actually get released.
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I wonder if you're concerned, at all, the the US had finished phase-1 trials for a covid vaccine just a few months before the outbreak started.
mRNA vaccine trials were underway for a numbers of viruses, not SARS-CoV-2.
I mean did you forget about the other SARS? H1N1, MERS, and all the other gazillion damned viruses vaccine technology is always being developed for? How do you not know, wtf
Okay, so now that we're through panicking over COVID, where are all those "other" vaccines "on verge" of being done?
If only there was some sort of search engine that could answer simple factual questions like that. "Moderna, the biotech company behind one of the two approved mRNA vaccines for covid-19, is developing mRNA vaccines for RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), HIV, Zika, Epstein-Barr virus, and more. BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer on the other approved mRNA-based covid-19 vaccine, is exploring vaccines for tuberculosis, malaria, HIV, shingles, and flu. Both companies are working on treatments for cancer."
yeah, yeah... Q: What's the difference between those listed above and Duke Nukem Forever? A: The King of Vapourware did actually get released.
Well, I suppose if you discard all evidence that you're wrong, you're certainly right.
Re:Distraction from corruption in pandemic respons (Score:5, Insightful)
The US did not have a working vaccine, it had a working mRNA model that could be altered quickly to work against specific new viruses. But you know this most likely, and if you didn't then you need to start getting info outside of your conspiracy email list.
We already know where it came from (Score:4, Interesting)
But we're not gonna do that. For petty political reasons we're going to come up with conspiracy theories and let the tail wag us. We'll let our social betters get us into a new cold war all the while letting China continue the unsafe and unsanitary wet market practices and deforestation that the epidemiologists had been warning us about for nigh on 20 years.
China wins, because they keep getting to do high risk, high profit activities. The military industrial complex wins because we'll use this as an excuse to boost spending. Politicians win because they get to shift blame of their lousy handling of the pandemic onto China in a much easier to digest and get angry about way. Everybody wins.
Except us. We're all going to be dancing this Charleston again in 10-20 years when the next outbreak hits because we never addressed the real cause of the pandemic.
Re: We already know where it came from (Score:2)
Are you sure it didn't come from Danish minks or north american deer? I have incontrovertible evidence of covid spreading like fire in both species. Who's to say it didn't start there and we just weren't looking?
It's distinctly possible some strains of covid (Score:2)
But there were no bats or pangolins at the market (Score:3)
> virologists have long since sequenced the virus' DNA and narrowed it down to transmission from pangolins who in turn got it from bats.
And this is a problem for those who theorize that an animal sold by the wet market triggered this because prior research on the animals sold at that particular wet market [ox.ac.uk] shows that neither bats nor pangolins are sold there.
Indeed, the closest match to the original Covid-19 sequence is a bat sample from about a thousand miles away from Wuhan ... which was studied at the
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And no it was not from a bad thousands of miles away. The sequence was found right nearby Wuhan.
Do you have a citation for this?
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I won't rewrite my reply to rsilvergun which you can read up thread, but I wanted to reply to you so you see it too. I think he's wrong and the bats in northern Laos are the closest wild population, which is roughly 1000 miles away.
This is my source on that [nature.com], for reference.
I agree, it's good if they're gone (Score:3)
Unless you have a closer sequence than BANAL-52, this is inaccurate. Because BANAL-52 was found in limestone caves northern Laos [nature.com].
Here's a map that will give you some idea on the distance between Laos and Wuhan [distancecalculator.net]. I chose this map for convenience, not because that's exactly where the bats came from, so don't get too excited that it points to a random city in the southern part of Laos, when the bats were from up no
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virologists have long since sequenced the virus' DNA and narrowed it down to transmission from pangolins who in turn got it from bats.
Do you have a citation for this?
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Well the US public can flounder in ignorance but China closed the $70 billion industry of wildlife farms [npr.org] that the WHO concluded was the actual likely "source" of COVID-19. (i.e. the place where the right animals are in contact with humans enough for something like this to evolve. The Wuhan was probably just the first city it made it to via the wildlife market there.) It's starting to get hard to fathom how bad the US press has become - the actual conclusions of world-altering issues go almost entirely un
Just either or? (Score:2)
It could have been a natural mutation being studied in a lab ...
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How many if-or statements does a press release need to have?
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Doesn't require malfeasance or conspiracy.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
-- Hanlon's Razor [wikipedia.org]
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Exactly, and those facts are inconvenient to an authoritarian regime, so China was less than forthcoming and the whole thing got completely out of control faster than it should have.
But it was always going there given how virulent this thing is. We might have been able to flatten the wall-like curve in Europe had we all been in a cooperative spirit. That's it. I expected we'd end up at endemicity after a pandemic was declared and its virulence was established. So did the virologists, I imagine.
However, that
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It could have been a natural mutation being studied in a lab ...
That escaped from a janitor at the lab, who went shopping at a wet market and transmitted to a bat, where it mutated into SARS-CoV-2 and found its way back to patient zero.
Viruses get around. This one doubly so. It was highly virulent to begin with and now it's even moreso.
The rest is not a response to your post but a general statement of opinion:
All my concern is, in this case, is if virology labs have sufficient security protocols. In short: If something went wrong, what?
Who's at fault is a dopey, politic
How the virus started irrelavent or not? (Score:2)
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I believe the virus was created on the fake moon landing set in Area 51.
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The big question I have how will we manage the next pandemic?
That's easy. The government will put out recommendations based on the evidence available and as before the nutters will ignore it, thus dying off at a far higher rate [go.com] than those who followed simple, basic procedures.
An ABC News analysis of federal data found that on average, the death rates in states that voted for Trump were more than 38% higher than in states that voted for Biden, post widespread vaccine availability.
The problem is that Tucker Carlson will (Score:5, Insightful)
The internal Fox communications released during the Dominion lawsuit have shown just how little Fox cares about the truth. This is NOT a news organization.
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Re:The problem is that Tucker Carlson will (Score:5, Interesting)
Face it. All the large news agencies don't give a shit about the truth. They only give a shit about staying in business and backing their "team".
If you want to pretend any of the other MSM outlets are pristine in this, or the various government sources, you're fucking delusional.
Even Tucker Carlson thought, and producers at Fox think, The New York Times was/is a reputable mews organization. From video Chris Hayes: The Tucker Carlson villain origin story [youtube.com] (@2:42):
Tucker Carlson (speaking at CPAC about 15 years ago):
"If you create a news organization whose primary objective is not to deliver accurate news, you will fail. The New York Times is a liberal paper, but it is also a paper that cares if they spell people's names right, by and large. It's a paper that cares about accuracy. Conservatives need to build institutions that mirror those institutions. That's the truth."
Earlier in that clip, are texts from Fox producers on election night 2020 (a) extolling work by Steve Kornacki at NBC of his election coverage, especially Arizona, and (b) getting information they believe credible about Arizona from The New York Times.
Even people at Fox know where to turn when they want accurate news -- other news outlets.
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https://youtu.be/2_9zX6VyZuM?t... [youtu.be]
Re:The problem is that Tucker Carlson will (Score:5, Informative)
Fox had to admit in court that their shows are “entertainment” and not to be believed. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29... [npr.org]
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This is extremely off-topic. FFS, could we stop this already?
TFA was about the release of information, not your favorite and/or blacklisted sources of propaganda and/or news.
For once, can we stop rooting for "our team?" This is serious business.
Re:The problem is that Tucker Carlson will (Score:5, Insightful)
This is extremely off-topic. FFS, could we stop this already?
Actually it wasn't off topic in the slightest. It is a sad reality that we have shown time and time again that the release of factual information does not in any dispel myths or reduce nutbag conspiracy theorists. And we have shown time and time again that certain "news" agencies will knowingly and purposefully misrepresent that truth for political gains further fanning the flames.
Talking about Tucker Carlson isn't off-topic. It is actually a core part of the discussion we should be having about why the fuck we are bothering to release classified information in the first place as it clearly isn't of benefit.
For once, can we stop rooting for "our team?" This is serious business.
Which team are we talking about here? Why did you make this political? We're talking about the value of information in the hands of those who distort it.
Simple facks (Score:5, Insightful)
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After three years to clean up records? (Score:2)
Reviews of such documents such be done with deep skepticism. Simply discarding inconvenient records is common in bureaucracy, and government, and history.
Completely useless act. (Score:2)
Great. There's so much material that any opinion can be made with an argument so complex that the barrier to entry for opposing it is insurmountable. There's absolutely nothing to be gained here. No good will come of it.
No matter what you think, the evidence will support it.
Spoiler: Everyone Was Right! (Score:2)
Both Ds and Rs are convinced that the declassified truth will vindicate them.
And it will.
Disinformation campaigns from both parties will cherry pick the evidence and proclaim themselves vindicated and the other side wrong, wrong, wrong.
The only thing we can't know at this point is how many news cycles it will take up instead of coverage of something that might matter.
Civics class question (Score:2)
Is the Senate no longer involved?
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Well, I'll be interested in seeing if there's sufficient evidence to form an opinion. My guess is that there isn't.
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Yarp. We already heard the actual scientists chime in ages ago and tell us that the makeup of the virus strongly indicates it's wild and from the region around Wuhan.
There are lots of conspiracy theories about how China might have released a lab virus on purpose to solve a domestic demographic problem while simultaneously hurting the rest of the world... but those are really, really dumb conspiracies. The people in power are old and thus vulnerable, and there was no vaccine when COVID-19 broke out. No ca
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The Wuhan lab cooperated fully. The US lab did not, despite court orders for it to do so.
The Wuhan lab did not "cooperate fully". The fact that the Wuhan Lab did not cooperate, in fact, is one of the reasons that the theory of a lab leak is so prevalent-- people say "if they had nothing to hide, why didn't they open up the lab to inspections?"
https://healthpolicy-watch.new... [healthpolicy-watch.news]