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Post by hcpride on May 25, 2021 15:55:28 GMT -5
By Glenn Kessler The Fact Checker May 25, 2021 at 3:00 a.m. EDT The source of the coronavirus that has left more than 3 million people dead around the world remains a mystery. But in recent months the idea that it emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) — once dismissed as a ridiculous conspiracy theory — has gained new credence. How and why did this happen? For one, efforts to discover a natural source of the virus have failed. Second, early efforts to spotlight a lab leak often got mixed up with speculation that the virus was deliberately created as a bioweapon. That made it easier for many scientists to dismiss the lab scenario as tin-hat nonsense. But a lack of transparency by China and renewed attention to the activities of the Wuhan lab have led some scientists to say they were too quick to discount a possible link at first... As a reader service, here is a timeline of key events, including important articles, that have led to this reassessment. In some instances, important information was available from the start but was generally ignored. But in other cases, some experts fought against the conventional wisdom and began to build a credible case, rooted in science, that started to change people’s minds. This has led to renewed calls for a real investigation into the lab’s activities before the coronavirus emerged. Early Speculation Dec. 30, 2019: The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission issues an “urgent notice” to medical institutions in Wuhan, saying that cases of pneumonia of unknown cause have emerged from the city’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market... www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/25/timeline-how-wuhan-lab-leak-theory-suddenly-became-credible/%3foutputType=amp
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on May 25, 2021 20:47:18 GMT -5
With the lab being in Wuhan it is astounding that anyone would have believed that it was not the source of the pandemic. It is sad that people ignore facts, science, and logic to fit a preconceived narrative. So, the argument is that they did research in a lab in Wuhan and the virus was discovered in Wuhan, therefore the virus must have been developed in the lab. My Jesuit education included Introduction to Logic where I learned fallacies. One common one is "cum hoc ergo propter hoc" or correlation does not prove causation. It may well have started there but the causation leap you are making is unfounded (at least up to now.) I aced Logic as taught by Father Haran and have no reason to believe I am violating any of the discipline's principles here. The key issue is not where the virus was developed but where it broke out into the world. If you want to believe that the lab in Wuhan had nothing to do with this pandemic I really don't know what to say.
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Post by hcpride on May 26, 2021 4:50:50 GMT -5
CNN reports this morning: “Chinese state media is turning on Fauci amid Wuhan lab controversy.”"US elites degenerate further in morality, and Fauci is one of them," was the headline of a blistering opinion piece penned by Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times this week.
In the article Hu accused the top US infectious disease expert of "fanning a huge lie against China" by hyping the theory that the coronavirus was leaked from a Wuhan lab. Another article in the Global Times declared that Fauci had "betrayed Chinese scientists."
The anger is centered on Fauci's remarks this month that he is no longer convinced the Covid-19 pandemic originated naturally...
The attack on Fauci is an about-face from the positive portrayal of him in earlier coverage. Last year, as Fauci repeatedly spoke out against the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic, Chinese state media published glowing reports praising the scientist for his professionalism and courage to speak the truth.www.cnn.com/2021/05/26/china/china-wuhan-lab-coronavirus-mic-intl-hnk/index.htmlOn a different front, it must be remain quite a puzzler to some as to why China engaged in an enormous, frantic, and heavy-handed coverup at the very start of the pandemic if it occurred via a natural occurrence in the wild: www.cnn.com/2021/05/25/politics/wuhan-lab-covid-origin-theory/index.html
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Post by nhteamer on May 26, 2021 8:38:45 GMT -5
Using terms like "virtue signaling," "social justice warrior," and even calling the 44th President "the Messiah" are ways the "real men" "own the libs." What harm is there in wearing a mask? People in Asia have been doing it for decades. I wouldn't wear a mask in the setting described above, but I don't give a rat's -----whether someone else does. Did it ever occur to you that they do it because a friend or relative might be nervous and they just want to make that person more comfortable? I just thought it was a funny quip. I stopped at an outdoor farm stand to buy a plant yesterday, saw the couple of people there were wearing masks so I put mine on without thinking about it. I did the same thing at self service gas stations before being vaccinated. I guess it's the "When in Rome do as the Romans do" approach. OK, footnote this one. Within five years there will be a study that shows the deleterious effects of inhaled microfibers from mask wearing. Make sure you spell my name right and when I am mentioned be sure that it is said that I went to "Holy Cross", not "College of the Holy Cross, located in Worchester, Massachusetts." Thank you
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Post by mm67 on May 26, 2021 10:08:47 GMT -5
When everyone is an "expert," no-one is an expert. It seems to me that IGNORANCE & STUPIDITY masquerading as expertise reign supreme.
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Post by timholycross on May 26, 2021 10:23:13 GMT -5
CNN reports this morning: “Chinese state media is turning on Fauci amid Wuhan lab controversy.”"US elites degenerate further in morality, and Fauci is one of them," was the headline of a blistering opinion piece penned by Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times this week.
In the article Hu accused the top US infectious disease expert of "fanning a huge lie against China" by hyping the theory that the coronavirus was leaked from a Wuhan lab. Another article in the Global Times declared that Fauci had "betrayed Chinese scientists."
The anger is centered on Fauci's remarks this month that he is no longer convinced the Covid-19 pandemic originated naturally...
The attack on Fauci is an about-face from the positive portrayal of him in earlier coverage. Last year, as Fauci repeatedly spoke out against the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic, Chinese state media published glowing reports praising the scientist for his professionalism and courage to speak the truth.www.cnn.com/2021/05/26/china/china-wuhan-lab-coronavirus-mic-intl-hnk/index.htmlOn a different front, it must be remain quite a puzzler to some as to why China engaged in an enormous, frantic, and heavy-handed coverup at the very start of the pandemic if it occurred via a natural occurrence in the wild: www.cnn.com/2021/05/25/politics/wuhan-lab-covid-origin-theory/index.htmlBut our potus will continue to insist we be nice to their government.
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Post by hcpride on May 26, 2021 11:55:37 GMT -5
Wouldn’t shock me if Tony ducks out shortly. The Chinese are now mad at him, half this country thinks he’s incompetent and flip-floppy, and his pals in the US press are finally eyeballing US funding at the Wuhan Lab. In fact, the whole public re-emergence of the Wuhan Lab as a possible source for the pandemic seems to have him very very uncomfortable.
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Post by nhteamer on May 26, 2021 13:59:51 GMT -5
more decaf, less MSNBC 67
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 26, 2021 14:09:13 GMT -5
it was no secret that Fauci and NIH were providing the Wuhan lab with a relatively small amount of funds, and had been doing so since 2014. One could actually 'blame' Obama for that, as it was he who got the ball rolling, on developing new vaccines. That initiative led to NIH funding Moderna (and others) for developing new vaccine platforms for existing / emerging infectious disease. That R&D effort set the stage for the production of Moderna's mRNA vaccine in 2020. www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-officials-discuss-novel-coronavirus-recently-emerged-chinawww.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/atomic-structure-novel-coronavirus-proteinThis is the timeline for the development of Moderna's COVId-19 vaccine > January 11, 2020 Chinese authorities shared the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus. > January 13, 2020, The NIH and Moderna’s infectious disease research team finalized the sequence for mRNA-1273. Moderna mobilized toward clinical manufacture. > February 7, 2020. The first clinical batch of mRNA-1273 was completed, a total of 25 days from sequence selection to vaccine manufacture. The batch then proceeded to analytical testing for release. >February 24, 2020. Moderna shipped the first clinical batch of mRNA-1273 to the NIH for use in their Phase 1 clinical study. >March 4, 2020. The FDA completed its review of the IND application filed by the NIH for mRNA-1273 and allowed the study to proceed to clinical trials. Source: www.modernatx.com/modernas-work-potential-vaccine-against-covid-19+++++++++ March 15, 2020 www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-clinical-trial-investigational-vaccine-covid-19-begins63 days after NIH/NIAID received the virus' genome from Wuhan, a vaccine against this virua began Phase 1 trials. Unprecedented, and quite frankly, unbelievable.Perhaps this timeline was not positive news for the anti-vaxxers, and their allies, the vaccine resisters. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/05/26/vaccine-mandate-litigation-siri-glimstad-ican/
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 26, 2021 14:16:22 GMT -5
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Post by hcpride on May 26, 2021 14:22:31 GMT -5
it was no secret that Fauci and NIH were providing the Wuhan lab with a relatively small amount of funds, and had been doing so since 2014. One could actually 'blame' Obama for that, as it was he who got the ball rolling, on developing new vaccines.] So, does that (recent or ongoing connections to the Wuhan Lab) mean Fauci and a few others at NIH might have had a very early inkling as to the source of the virus? It just seems a bit much given China’s history of leaky labs (SARs twice!) the location of this particular lab, and the location of the first cases (not to mention China’s frantic coverup)...
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 26, 2021 14:25:28 GMT -5
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Post by nhteamer on May 26, 2021 14:34:04 GMT -5
it was no secret that Fauci and NIH were providing the Wuhan lab with a relatively small amount of funds, and had been doing so since 2014. One could actually 'blame' Obama for that, as it was he who got the ball rolling, on developing new vaccines.] So, does that (connections to the Wuhan Lab) mean Fauci and a few others at NIH might have had a very early inkling as to the source of the virus? It just seems a bit much given China’s history of leaky labs, the location of this particular lab, and the location of the first cases (not to mention China’s frantic coverup)... Ya think?
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Post by longsuffering on May 26, 2021 14:34:39 GMT -5
I just thought it was a funny quip. I stopped at an outdoor farm stand to buy a plant yesterday, saw the couple of people there were wearing masks so I put mine on without thinking about it. I did the same thing at self service gas stations before being vaccinated. I guess it's the "When in Rome do as the Romans do" approach. OK, footnote this one. Within five years there will be a study that shows the deleterious effects of inhaled microfibers from mask wearing. Make sure you spell my name right and when I am mentioned be sure that it is said that I went to "Holy Cross", not "College of the Holy Cross, located in Worchester, Massachusetts." Thank you Duly recorded as a non virtue signaler. However if I had to place a $2 bet at Pimlico on a horse to do the most damage, I'd put it on "Aeresol Virus Particle" over "Cotton Fiber" because People have been working around, wearing and breathing cotton fibers for centuries and Covid-19 virus particles have only been airborne for about 18 months. Did you ever put a cotton sweater on over your head and squirm when it got caught up in your arms and shoulders and head and glasses and in the process got a mouthful of cotton fibers as you struggled while rueing the 20 pounds you gained since the last time you wore that sweater? Well I have and I'm still tapping the keyboard.😋
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Post by nhteamer on May 26, 2021 14:47:26 GMT -5
20 seconds with the sweater
14 hours/day with the mask
Stand by to stand by
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Post by hcpride on May 26, 2021 14:47:47 GMT -5
So, does that (connections to the Wuhan Lab) mean Fauci and a few others at NIH might have had a very early inkling as to the source of the virus? It just seems a bit much given China’s history of leaky labs, the location of this particular lab, and the location of the first cases (not to mention China’s frantic coverup)... Ya think? As I was typing I realized not everyone knows that SARS leaked twice (yes, it is twice and that is not a misprint) from a Chinese lab. As a matter of fact, Taiwan assumed it was SARS again (via yet another Chinese lab leak) when they first heard of the very first cases. Which is why they went on fast alert. I believe the Wuhan lab now manages the deadly SARS viruses in China. Sleep well.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 26, 2021 14:54:59 GMT -5
it was no secret that Fauci and NIH were providing the Wuhan lab with a relatively small amount of funds, and had been doing so since 2014. One could actually 'blame' Obama for that, as it was he who got the ball rolling, on developing new vaccines.] So, does that (connections to the Wuhan Lab) mean Fauci and a few others at NIH might have had a very early inkling as to the source of the virus? It just seems a bit much given China’s history of leaky labs, the location of this particular lab, and the location of the first cases (not to mention China’s frantic coverup)... The monies going to Wuhan, from my reading of the grant award, were to primarily study recently emergent coronaviruses (emerged in the past 20 years: SARS (Hong Kong 2002)) civets are the intermediate animal hosts; MERS (Middle East, 2012) dromedary camels are the intermediate host; a pig-affecting coronavirus virus (China, 2018) that led to China culling many thousands of pigs to stop the outbreak. This pig virus did not infect humans. The grant was also to study other wild coronaviruses and assess their potential for evolving into a virus affecting humans. This work was being done so that vaccine platforms being developed could be quickly adapted into a vaccine against existing or emergent viruses, including coronaviruses and influenza. (SARS was successfully exterminated. MERS is still active in the Middle East, high mortality rate, not easily transmissible. As to why to give money to Wuhan, well, as Willie Sutton once said, 'I rob banks because that's where the money is.' With respect to COVID-19, there is a very similar coronavirus affecting pangolins, and horseshoe bats. Pangolins were sold in the wild animal markets at Wuhan. No animals infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus were subsequently found in the Wuhan markets, but coronavirus was found in the waste drains. This is indicative of the virus being present at some point in the market. Given that COVID was present in Europe no later than September 2019, infected animals at the market would have long been sold and devoured by the time that the investigators arrived. Minks are?/were identified as a possible intermediate host for COVID. Many thousands of minks were killed in western Europe as a result.
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Post by ndgradbuthcfan on May 26, 2021 15:02:48 GMT -5
Wouldn’t shock me if Tony ducks out shortly. The Chinese are now mad at him, half this country thinks he’s incompetent and flip-floppy, and his pals in the US press are finally eyeballing US funding at the Wuhan Lab. In fact, the whole public re-emergence of the Wuhan Lab as a possible source for the pandemic seems to have him very very uncomfortable. If I close my eyes, I can picture someone else uttering these exact same words.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on May 26, 2021 15:40:20 GMT -5
Lots of denials, backpedaling and creative writing as the new narratives are being rolled out. Of course there will be no apologies for the past accusations, no admissions of error.
Let’s use facts and logic
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Post by alum on May 26, 2021 15:59:43 GMT -5
Lots of denials, backpedaling and creative writing as the new narratives are being rolled out. Of course there will be no apologies for the past accusations, no admissions of error. Let’s use facts and logic Fine. Let us use facts and logic. While I admit that I have not been following this part of the story as carefully as some, I know that there has been some indication that scientists from the Wuhan lab might have been in the hospital in November. Assuming arguendo that this is true, that would be some evidence that the virus had a relationship to the lab. The difficulty is that there are other things to consider. Harvard did a study which was reported last summer which said that satellites showed a lot of traffic in the summer of 2019 near Wuhan hospitals. They also established that their was a spike in internet searches for the symptoms we now know are related to the virus in late summer 2019. So, what can we make of this? Again, it is possible that the virus escaped the lab but it is equally possible that the scientists became sick because one of them was exposed outside of work and spread the disease to his or her coworkers. Speculation on my part. Absolutely, but there certainly is not enough evidence to justify the cocksure attitudes of some politician, pundits, and Crossports posters.
On the other hand, science and logic tell us that the vaccines are almost 100% likely to prevent serious Covid disease and death and present virtually no safety risks. At least two of our number have indicated that they won't take the virus. Shouldn't we be expending our time convincing them to protect themselves, their families and our communities?
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 26, 2021 16:14:29 GMT -5
The four year old problem child. On November 21, 2019, a four year old child became sick. The child lived in the Milan region, and had not traveled. Retrospectively, his symptoms were probably those of Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome (MIS-C), which is COVID-related, and associated with infections of children and teens. MIS-C is thought to be a delayed immune system response to asymptomatic or mild COVID infection. www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/04/new-findings-covid-related-kids-syndrome-kawasaki-diseaseI characterize this kid as the problem child because of this: wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/2/20-4632_articleUnless this kid was unlucky enough to win the Las Vegas Jackpot, being one in a universe of one, there were numerous other cases circulating in Lombardy in November, 2019. And as the sequencing revealed that the virus infecting him had genomic components that were found later in other European variants, that pushes the arrival of COVID to at least the summer, 2019, IMO. Other retrospective testing in Italy indicates COVID was present in Italy in September, 2019, roughly four months before the first reported cases in Wuhan. I bring up the case of the problem child, in part, because I have read reports insisting that the virus originated in the Wuhan Lab because horseshoe bats are hibernating in Nov. Dec in that part of China, and thus could not be the source of the regional outbreak of cases. ------- As for the comment that SARS also originated in a lab, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3323155/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17848070/
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Post by hcpride on May 26, 2021 16:17:16 GMT -5
Lots of denials, backpedaling and creative writing as the new narratives are being rolled out. Of course there will be no apologies for the past accusations, no admissions of error. Let’s use facts and logic Fine. Let us use facts and logic. While I admit that I have not been following this part of the story as carefully as some, I know that there has been some indication that scientists from the Wuhan lab might have been in the hospital in November. Assuming arguendo that this is true, that would be some evidence that the virus had a relationship to the lab. The difficulty is that there are other things to consider. Harvard did a study which was reported last summer which said that satellites showed a lot of traffic in the summer of 2019 near Wuhan hospitals. They also established that their was a spike in internet searches for the symptoms we now know are related to the virus in late summer 2019. So, what can we make of this? Again, it is possible that the virus escaped the lab but it is equally possible that the scientists became sick because one of them was exposed outside of work and spread the disease to his or her coworkers. Speculation on my part. Absolutely, but there certainly is not enough evidence to justify the cocksure attitudes of some politician, pundits, and Crossports posters.
On the other hand, science and logic tell us that the vaccines are almost 100% likely to prevent serious Covid disease and death and present virtually no safety risks. At least two of our number have indicated that they won't take the virus. Shouldn't we be expending our time convincing them to protect themselves, their families and our communities?
/\ /\ It is more the location of the only Chinese lab that handles deadly coronaviruses, the location of the first cases, the history of Chinese virus lab leaks (including, but not limited to SARS twice), the frantic strongarm coverup of lab operations by the Chinese government, and the lack of evidence - after over a year of looking - supporting the natural emergence theory than it is the ill lab workers. Although there is that too. One imagines that IF more conclusive evidence emerges regarding the Lab leak theory, there will be efforts to have China foot the bill for the costs of the pandemic. That would most likely include the worldwide costs of the vaccines, treatment of 100 million+ survivors, and the burial costs for 3.5 million dead. (I'm thinking Bhopal and Union Carbide) Interestingly, for students of logic, one would imagine China would have been falling all over themselves early and often to provide full and complete lab access and interviews and samples in an effort to demonstrate the veracity of the natural occurrence theory.
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Post by hcpride on May 26, 2021 16:38:47 GMT -5
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on May 26, 2021 16:58:14 GMT -5
To my knowledge, there were four 'leaks' of SARS. Two in China, one involved two lab workers at a virology lab in Peking who became infected. The second individual an individual who was known to be infected and sick, and was mistakenly allowed to travel to visit her mother. The other two 'leaks' were in Taiwan and Singapore. As for those living in glass houses, www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/01/04/cdc-secret-lab-incidents-select-agents/95972126/When I worked at NASA, I was told NASA officials wanted to test the containment capability of the Lunar Receiving Lab by releasing the deadliest pathogens known to man inside to see if they were safely confined. I think smallpox was excluded only because they couldn't get specimens. I was only worried about alien lifeforms on Mars, and how to test for the presence of such before astronauts stepped on the surface. Hence, six Mars Surface Sample Returns (MSSRs) to be retrieved and analyzed before dispatching a lander with humans. This was a long time ago. And NASA is taking a different approach with Perseverance and its sampling.
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Post by mm67 on May 26, 2021 18:00:32 GMT -5
To the conspiracy crowd: Correlation is not causation.
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