COVID-19 'has NO credible natural ancestor' and WAS created by Chinese scientists who then tried to cover their tracks with 'retro-engineering'

[bluehende]

If you look state by state, city by city and account who would have been receptive to that message it is hard to make that case.

A lot of governors were very receptive to that message. We had two months warning and we know through the Woodward interviews it was received at the highest levels yet we did not prepare at all.

 

[Yellowfin]

A lot of governors were very receptive to that message.

Again look state by state and there is no evidence of that changed the outcome.

We all remember the days when we were told the that the transmission rate was 6 , the fatality rate 6-8%, reinfections, exaggerated risk to kids, unrealistic models etc. even if there was already enough info to the contrary out there. Those exaggerations contributed to the distrust a lot more than any one individual could.

 

[rickandcindy23]

Now this is coming more to light. I find it all very interesting and not nearly as unbelievable as the "wet markets."

 

[Ralph Sir Edward]

I doubt we'll ever know the origins of this virus. China is not going to cooperate with ANY investigation that could possibly implicate them. It's just not going to happen. Absent their cooperation, I think it's going to be a while before scientests will be able to say, with certinty, where this thing came from. That being said, we as a nation should do everything possible to find out how this thing originated. Hopefully we'll learn something that will prevent this from happening again.

Now, the question that concerns me the most is, "Why did a country that represents 4% of the world's population end up with 25% of the worlds C19 cases and 20% of all deaths from Covid?" Bottom line is that we were not prepared and our response to this threat was inadequate. There will be another pandemic. The source could be natural or man made. It's going to happen! If we have an ineffective response, we'll end up with another 600K+ dead people. If we get our stuff together and ensure we have plans in place to respond effictively, we'll have a favorable outcome. 4% of the world's population and 25% of C19 cases is a national embarasement. We must do better.

We made no effort to check the possibility of re-purposed existing drugs. Only Big Pharma pipeline drugs. Anybody in authority who suggested that was vilified for telling lies. That work was done in the 3rd world. It's still being vilified here, despite trial after trial, and the massive experiment in India ongoing now, which seems to have knocked down the new cases by around 75% in 6 weeks.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india/ (vaccine rate is barely 10% currently in India.)

Masks used were ineffective. Fauci knew that in early 2020, but lied about it the whole time. (Check the FOIA released Fauci emails.) A friend of mine said cynically that "they were as effective as a chain-link fence to stopping a mosquito). The only masks that would work were N100 respirators (the ones with the chipmunk packs on the sides). They were designed to stop toxic chemicals, which are smaller than a virus. Luckily, i owned a couple before the pandemic (I keep roses - fungicides and pesticides, you know...)The use of masks in surgery are to prevent bacterial transmission (which are an order of magnitude or 2 bigger than viruses), not viruses.

And anybody that disagreed with the "Party Line" was cut off from social media for "encouraging conspiracy theories". (My sardonic comment - woke = croak.)

I know I'm skirting the permissability limit here, but 600,000 deaths, and who knows how many "long COVID" cases there are, makes me very cranky. . .

 

[bluehende]

Again look state by state and there is no evidence of that changed the outcome.

We all remember the days when we were told the that the transmission rate was 6 , the fatality rate 6-8%, reinfections, exaggerated risk to kids, unrealistic models etc. even if there was already enough info to the contrary out there. Those exaggerations contributed to the distrust a lot more than any one individual could.

611,000 deaths

references to any of your made up statistics.

no one ever had more than 2% fatality which was determined early and was about right
reinfections happen and not rarely
kids have risk but no one has claimed they are at the same risk as 87 yr olds with copd
the models hit the deaths right on. The original Oxford modeling had 2.1 million with no mitigation, 200,000 with complete mitigation and 600,000 as a realistic average model with anticipated adherence.

You cannot rewrite history.

as opposed to
it is just like the flu.
will be gone by easter 2020
it will magically go away
kids cannot transmit covid

 

[Yellowfin]

611,000 deaths

references to any of your made up statistics.

no one ever had more than 2% fatality which was determined early and was about right
reinfections happen and not rarely
kids have risk but no one has claimed they are at the same risk as 87 yr olds with copd
the models hit the deaths right on. The original Oxford modeling had 2.1 million with no mitigation, 200,000 with complete mitigation and 600,000 as a realistic average model with anticipated adherence.

You cannot rewrite history.

as opposed to
it is just like the flu.
will be gone by easter 2020
it will magically go away
kids cannot transmit covid

If you were a government official and Dr Fauci told you not to worry, what would you do? Mid February (the date of the interview) was probably a bit late to closing the gates.

Anthony Fauci on coronavirus: risk is 'low for the American public' | USA TODAY

I am sorry to see you want to relitigate the same things over and over on Tug. I can point to about every other expert on the planet who was wrong at one point or another, most more than once, many more wrong than right. I understand you want to make a political ping pong out of this so I will stop here.

 

[bluehende]

If you were a government official and Dr Fauci told you not to worry, what would you do? Mid February (the date of the interview) was probably a bit late to closing the gates.

Anthony Fauci on coronavirus: risk is 'low for the American public' | USA TODAY

I am sorry to see you want to relitigate the same things over and over on Tug. I can point to about every other expert on the planet who was wrong at one point or another, most more than once, many more wrong than right. I understand you want to make a political ping pong out of this so I will stop here.

No farther down the rabbit hole. But you should actually watch the video and to make it easy the 30 second mark.

 

[Yellowfin]

No farther down the rabbit hole. But you should actually watch the video and to make it easy the 30 second mark.

This was a very rich interview
Dr Fauci:

• “The risk is low right now” The actual time to act was then, not when too late (which is what actually happened)
• “But things can change” this is the part you are referring to. Wow, this is so deep, I guess this is why we have experts, to tell us that things can change.
• “Right now, do not worry about it” No comment
• “The drugstore masks let the virus through” No comment
• “We know we now have 15 cases in the US, we do not have spread in the community” Did he really think they caught all the cases at the time? I find this part very troubling
• At 3:20 he lays out what they were doing at the time. Wow, who thinks that this is what they should have done?
• “It will not be for more than a year or more until we know if a vaccine works” Good they made it happen faster
• Right now the Chinese government is telling their own people to be honest and transparent” No comment

 

[bluehende]

This was a very rich interview
Dr Fauci:

• “The risk is low right now” The actual time to act was then, not when too late (which is what actually happened)
• “But things can change” this is the part you are referring to. Wow, this is so deep, I guess this is why we have experts, to tell us that things can change.
• “Right now, do not worry about it” No comment
• “The drugstore masks let the virus through” No comment
• “We know we now have 15 cases in the US, we do not have spread in the community” Did he really think they caught all the cases at the time? I find this part very troubling
• At 3:20 he lays out what they were doing at the time. Wow, who thinks that this is what they should have done?
• “It will not be for more than a year or more until we know if a vaccine works” Good they made it happen faster
• Right now the Chinese government is telling their own people to be honest and transparent” No comment

so I will stop here

 

[Yellowfin]

Yesterday a conspiracy theory
Most now believe China made virus and 24% say it was ‘released on purpose’

Most Americans now believe the coronavirus originated from a laboratory in China | YouGov

Most Americans (58%) now put the origins of COVID-19 in a Chinese laboratory — up from 49% when YouGov first asked this question in May 2020.

today.yougov.com

 

["Roger"]

I am not taking sides, but unlike Yellowfin I think the idea that the origin is totally settled is far, far from a given. Just for a different point of view from the constant drumbeat of this thread...

LA Times piece

....What’s missing from all this reexamination and soul-searching is a fundamental fact: There is no evidence — not a smidgen — for the claim that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory in China or anywhere else, or that the China lab ever had the virus in its inventory. There’s even less for the wildest version of the claim, which is that the virus was deliberately engineered. There never has been, and there isn’t now....

...“We cannot prove that SARS-CoV-2 [the COVID-19 virus] has a natural origin and we cannot prove that its emergence was not the result of a lab leak,” the lead author of the Nature paper, Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, told me by email.

“However, while both scenarios are possible, they are not equally likely,” Andersen said. “Precedence, data, and other evidence strongly favor natural emergence as a highly likely scientific theory for the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, while the lab leak remains a speculative incomplete hypothesis with no credible evidence.”

...There’s no evidence that the three researchers had contracted COVID-19 as opposed to flu or any other virus. Nor is there information about the clinical outcome of these three cases, which might tell us more.

Virologists point out, moreover, that it would be unlikely for COVID to affect only three people seriously enough to warrant hospital care without infecting hundreds of others in the lab or their households

 

[Yellowfin]

I am not taking sides, but unlike Yellowfin I think the idea that the origin is totally settled is far, far from a given. Just for a different point of view from the constant drumbeat of this thread...

LA Times piece

....What’s missing from all this reexamination and soul-searching is a fundamental fact: There is no evidence — not a smidgen — for the claim that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory in China or anywhere else, or that the China lab ever had the virus in its inventory. There’s even less for the wildest version of the claim, which is that the virus was deliberately engineered. There never has been, and there isn’t now....

...“We cannot prove that SARS-CoV-2 [the COVID-19 virus] has a natural origin and we cannot prove that its emergence was not the result of a lab leak,” the lead author of the Nature paper, Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, told me by email.

“However, while both scenarios are possible, they are not equally likely,” Andersen said. “Precedence, data, and other evidence strongly favor natural emergence as a highly likely scientific theory for the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, while the lab leak remains a speculative incomplete hypothesis with no credible evidence.”

...There’s no evidence that the three researchers had contracted COVID-19 as opposed to flu or any other virus. Nor is there information about the clinical outcome of these three cases, which might tell us more.

Virologists point out, moreover, that it would be unlikely for COVID to affect only three people seriously enough to warrant hospital care without infecting hundreds of others in the lab or their households

I do not have at problem with anyone relying on science people to lean on one theory or another. Quoting Michael Hiltzik though, a business columnist should not be at the top of the priorities. He makes statements that are deeply flawed but hey, this is not his field so what does he actually know. One of your quotes for example: "Virologists point out , moreover, that it would be unlikely for COVID to affect only three people seriously enough to warrant hospital care without infecting hundreds of others in the lab or their households" Really Mr HIltzik? How do you know that many other people at the lab did not get infected but just 3 were seriously sick and had to be hospitalized? As we know not everybody gets sick, and not everybody who gets sick has to go to the hospital.

He quotes Kristian Andersen. Read what Kristian Anderson wrote to Dr Fauci.

Top researchers are calling for a real investigation into origin of covid-19

1) I quoted from the Financial times, so I will quote it again if you did not read it: "New rules were put in place in 2017 but similar experiments, often with US funding, had continued after the ban at laboratories around the world, including at the facility now at the centre of the coronavirus...

tugbbs.com

Between him and Nicolas Wade (the former NYT science editor) on this matter I will listen to Nicolas Wade any time of the day.

Evidence on the origin of Covid leads to lab in Wuhan – Former NY Times Science Editor

In the millions of articles, opinion pieces, and news stories written about Covid there is one topic that is more important than all the others. It’s more important than masks, vaccines, or …

www.todayville.com

 

[Cornell]

I am not taking sides, but unlike Yellowfin I think the idea that the origin is totally settled is far, far from a given. Just for a different point of view from the constant drumbeat of this thread...

LA Times piece

....What’s missing from all this reexamination and soul-searching is a fundamental fact: There is no evidence — not a smidgen — for the claim that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory in China or anywhere else, or that the China lab ever had the virus in its inventory. There’s even less for the wildest version of the claim, which is that the virus was deliberately engineered. There never has been, and there isn’t now....

...“We cannot prove that SARS-CoV-2 [the COVID-19 virus] has a natural origin and we cannot prove that its emergence was not the result of a lab leak,” the lead author of the Nature paper, Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, told me by email.

“However, while both scenarios are possible, they are not equally likely,” Andersen said. “Precedence, data, and other evidence strongly favor natural emergence as a highly likely scientific theory for the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, while the lab leak remains a speculative incomplete hypothesis with no credible evidence.”

...There’s no evidence that the three researchers had contracted COVID-19 as opposed to flu or any other virus. Nor is there information about the clinical outcome of these three cases, which might tell us more.

Virologists point out, moreover, that it would be unlikely for COVID to affect only three people seriously enough to warrant hospital care without infecting hundreds of others in the lab or their households

Michael Hiltzik? Come on, man.
This article is just full of political stuff.

 

[Yellowfin]

I am not taking sides, but unlike Yellowfin I think the idea that the origin is totally settled is far, far from a given. Just for a different point of view from the constant drumbeat of this thread...

LA Times piece

....What’s missing from all this reexamination and soul-searching is a fundamental fact: There is no evidence — not a smidgen — for the claim that COVID-19 originated in a laboratory in China or anywhere else, or that the China lab ever had the virus in its inventory. There’s even less for the wildest version of the claim, which is that the virus was deliberately engineered. There never has been, and there isn’t now....

...“We cannot prove that SARS-CoV-2 [the COVID-19 virus] has a natural origin and we cannot prove that its emergence was not the result of a lab leak,” the lead author of the Nature paper, Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, told me by email.

“However, while both scenarios are possible, they are not equally likely,” Andersen said. “Precedence, data, and other evidence strongly favor natural emergence as a highly likely scientific theory for the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, while the lab leak remains a speculative incomplete hypothesis with no credible evidence.”

...There’s no evidence that the three researchers had contracted COVID-19 as opposed to flu or any other virus. Nor is there information about the clinical outcome of these three cases, which might tell us more.

Virologists point out, moreover, that it would be unlikely for COVID to affect only three people seriously enough to warrant hospital care without infecting hundreds of others in the lab or their households

Also, can you please tell me when exactly I said that the issue of the origin was settled?

 

[MrockStar]

Nicolas Wade. Great read.

 

["Roger"]

1. The NY Times is one of only two newspapers that I know of that employ scientifically trained individuals (advanced degrees in science) to report of matters of science. Nicholas Wade is one of those and I have a great respect for him. Micheal Hilzik is a business reporter and on those grounds, it would appear that we should ignore him when faced off against Wade. On the other hand, Hilzik was basing his article on the work of Kristian Anderson, a virologist who co-authored an article for Nature, a highly respected peer review science journal, that backs the natural origin theory of SARS2. The article is old (in terms of the fast developing news about SARS2) in that it was published over a year ago. Still, Anderson, an actual virologist not a scientific reporter, refuses to back away from his earlier conclusion. (Link to a Newsweek article published three days ago.) All I was trying to do was point out that the lab leak theory is by no means a done deal.

2. As long as we are on the topic, there is a third candidate to consider. The Wuhan lab was collecting bat guano samples from caves in Yunan. They could have brought back a sample that contained the SARS2 virus and from there it escaped.

3. For the record, having read an extensive piece by Wade (not his op-ed piece in the Times), I tend to favor the lab lab leak theory. However, I think the reasonable thing to do at this time is wait until people who are a lot smarter than any of us on TUG sort things out and hopefully come to a final conclusion. Is it so awful for me to have pointed out that currently there are two sides to the debate and we need to wait and see?

 

[Yellowfin]

1. The NY Times is one of only two newspapers that I know of that employ scientifically trained individuals (advanced degrees in science) to report of matters of science. Nicholas Wade is one of those and I have a great respect for him. Micheal Hilzik is a business reporter and on those grounds, it would appear that we should ignore him when faced off against Wade. On the other hand, Hilzik was basing his article on the work of Kristian Anderson, a virologist who co-authored an article for Nature, a highly respected peer review science journal, that backs the natural origin theory of SARS2. The article is old (in terms of the fast developing news about SARS2) in that it was published over a year ago. Still, Anderson, an actual virologist not a scientific reporter, refuses to back away from his earlier conclusion. (Link to a Newsweek article published three days ago.) All I was trying to do was point out that the lab leak theory is by no means a done deal.

2. As long as we are on the topic, there is a third candidate to consider. The Wuhan lab was collecting bat guano samples from caves in Yunan. They could have brought back a sample that contained the SARS2 virus and from there it escaped.

3. For the record, having read an extensive piece by Wade (not his op-ed piece in the Times), I tend to favor the lab lab leak theory. However, I think the reasonable thing to do at this time is wait until people who are a lot smarter than any of us on TUG sort things out and hopefully come to a final conclusion. Is it so awful for me to have pointed out that currently there are two sides to the debate and we need to wait and see?

Nicolas Wade looks at all possible angles and he uses multiple sources on both sides of the argument . You can clearly see that a lot of research has been done and the facts are laid out by somebody he has the knowledge and the credibility to analyze them. He incorporates Mr. Anderson's point of view and he clearly states why he does not feel his explanation is credible.


"Unfortunately this was another case of poor science, in the sense defined above. True, some older methods of cutting and pasting viral genomes retain tell-tale signs of manipulation. But newer methods, called “no-see-um” or “seamless” approaches, leave no defining marks. Nor do other methods for manipulating viruses such as serial passage, the repeated transfer of viruses from one culture of cells to another. If a virus has been manipulated, whether with a seamless method or by serial passage, there is no way of knowing that this is the case. Dr. Andersen and his colleagues were assuring their readers of something they could not know."

and
"Contrary to the letter writers’ assertion, the idea that the virus might have escaped from a lab invoked accident, not conspiracy. It surely needed to be explored, not rejected out of hand. A defining mark of good scientists is that they go to great pains to distinguish between what they know and what they don’t know. By this criterion, the signatories of the Lancet letter were behaving as poor scientists: they were assuring the public of facts they could not know for sure were true."

I assume you read this one?

Origin of Covid — Following the Clues

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted lives the world over for more than a year. Its death toll will soon reach three million people. Yet the origin of pandemic remains uncertain: the political agendas…

nicholaswade.medium.com

No, it is not awful for you or anyone else to wait and see what happens. At the same time, after media calling this a "conspiracy" for a year, I do not see any harm either in showing there is another side of the story that is very legitimate. By the way, if we waited for any story to be "settled" before we discussed it here on TUG, we would have very few posts and comments about everything, including about timeshares.

 

[Yellowfin]

This is according to the Australian media. If this is true, no wonder Dr Fauci and his team were not interested in finding out if the virus escaped from the lab.


US paid Chinese People’s Liberation Army to engineer coronaviruses

NoCookies | The Australian

www.theaustralian.com.au

 

[bluehende]

This is according to the Australian media. If this is true, no wonder Dr Fauci and his team were not interested in finding out if the virus escaped from the lab.


US paid Chinese People’s Liberation Army to engineer coronaviruses

NoCookies | The Australian

www.theaustralian.com.au

Behind a paywall and owned by Rupert Murdock.....hmmm

 

[Yellowfin]

Behind a paywall and owned by Rupert Murdock.....hmmm

Google the headline and you will be able to read the article. If you did not subscribe already

 

[bluehende]

Google the headline and you will be able to read the article. If you did not subscribe already

Will still be right wing media as described by wikipedia.

The Australian has been described by some media commentators and scholars as working to promote a right-wing agenda and, as a result, encouraging political polarisation in Australia.[38][39][40][4][8] In 2019, former The Australian journalist Rick Morton reported the paper "fuels far-right recruitment" through dog whistle coded language.[41]

 

[Yellowfin]

Will still be right wing media as described by wikipedia.

The Australian has been described by some media commentators and scholars as working to promote a right-wing agenda and, as a result, encouraging political polarisation in Australia.[38][39][40][4][8] In 2019, former The Australian journalist Rick Morton reported the paper "fuels far-right recruitment" through dog whistle coded language.[41]

Very, very interesting. Good we are not dogs. Now you can read the article.

 

[Yellowfin]

The American media is also starting to cover the story

US-linked Chinese military scientist filed patent for COVID vaccine just after contagion emerged: report

Zhou Yusen, a decorated military scientist for the People’s Liberation Army, filed a patent for a COVID vaccine on Feb. 24 2020.

nypost.com

1. The NY Times is one of only two newspapers that I know of that employ scientifically trained individuals (advanced degrees in science) to report of matters of science. Nicholas Wade is one of those and I have a great respect for him. Micheal Hilzik is a business reporter and on those grounds, it would appear that we should ignore him when faced off against Wade. On the other hand, Hilzik was basing his article on the work of Kristian Anderson, a virologist who co-authored an article for Nature, a highly respected peer review science journal, that backs the natural origin theory of SARS2. The article is old (in terms of the fast developing news about SARS2) in that it was published over a year ago. Still, Anderson, an actual virologist not a scientific reporter, refuses to back away from his earlier conclusion. (Link to a Newsweek article published three days ago.) All I was trying to do was point out that the lab leak theory is by no means a done deal.

2. As long as we are on the topic, there is a third candidate to consider. The Wuhan lab was collecting bat guano samples from caves in Yunan. They could have brought back a sample that contained the SARS2 virus and from there it escaped.

3. For the record, having read an extensive piece by Wade (not his op-ed piece in the Times), I tend to favor the lab lab leak theory. However, I think the reasonable thing to do at this time is wait until people who are a lot smarter than any of us on TUG sort things out and hopefully come to a final conclusion. Is it so awful for me to have pointed out that currently there are two sides to the debate and we need to wait and see?

Kristian Anderson has deleted his Twitter account (after purging earlier today 5000 tweets). Why? The plot is thickening. Remember, he is the one who initially told Dr. Fauci that the virus did not look natural only to change his position few weeks after. Related or not we do not know, few months later he received a very nice grant from Dr Fauci's institute.

https://twitter.com/k_g_andersen?lang=en

 

[Cornell]

The American media is also starting to cover the story

US-linked Chinese military scientist filed patent for COVID vaccine just after contagion emerged: report

Zhou Yusen, a decorated military scientist for the People’s Liberation Army, filed a patent for a COVID vaccine on Feb. 24 2020.

nypost.com

Kristian Anderson has deleted his Twitter account (after purging earlier today 5000 tweets). Why? The plot is thickening. Remember, he is the one who initially told Dr. Fauci that the virus did not look natural only to change his position few weeks after. Related or not we do not know, few months later he received a very nice grant from Dr Fauci's institute.

https://twitter.com/k_g_andersen?lang=en

Hope Facebook doesn't block them

 

[bluehende]

The American media is also starting to cover the story

US-linked Chinese military scientist filed patent for COVID vaccine just after contagion emerged: report

Zhou Yusen, a decorated military scientist for the People’s Liberation Army, filed a patent for a COVID vaccine on Feb. 24 2020.

nypost.com

Kristian Anderson has deleted his Twitter account (after purging earlier today 5000 tweets). Why? The plot is thickening. Remember, he is the one who initially told Dr. Fauci that the virus did not look natural only to change his position few weeks after. Related or not we do not know, few months later he received a very nice grant from Dr Fauci's institute.

https://twitter.com/k_g_andersen?lang=en

[removed]

nypost

The New York Post is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper in New York City, United States. The Post also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com and the entertainment site Decider.com. Wikipedia


ownership RUPERT MURDOCH

great second source.

You really need to broaden past Murdoch/Fox News circle.

Attacks on Fauci grow more intense, personal and conspiratorial

Conservatives are amplifying attacks on Fauci after the release of his emails. And they’re fundraising off of it too.

www.politico.com