Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

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ImperfectPixie

ImperfectPixie

Well-Known Member
SamusAranX

SamusAranX

Well-Known Member
ImperfectPixie said:
My understanding has been that there's no definitive evidence either way, but that it's rather suspicious that we haven't found the crossover animal yet. (Found for SARS and MERS in one and three months.)
Click to expand...

Read the article, it goes a bit into virus makeup and markers and makes a solid case as to why it's not natural.
 
danlb_2000

danlb_2000

Premium Member
SamusAranX said:
Read the article, it goes a bit into virus makeup and markers and makes a solid case as to why it's not natural.
Click to expand...

... and this article seems to make a solid case why it is natural. I don't know enough about virology to be able to say if one of these is more credible then the other.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

SARS-COV-2 as an artificial creation: scientific arguments and counterarguments

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

and here is a recent episode of The Week in Virology with the author paper talking about virus origin in depth...

TWiV 762: SARS-CoV-2 origins with Robert Garry

Robert Garry joins TWiV to explain how the molecular biology of SARS-CoV-2 shows that it came from Nature and not a lab, including the receptor binding domain, the furin cleavage site, and the two lineages circulating in Wuhan wildlife markets.
www.microbe.tv

and a more recent article by the same author with other support for the natural theory...

virological.org

Early appearance of two distinct genomic lineages of SARS-CoV-2 in different Wuhan wildlife markets suggests SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin

Early appearance of two distinct genomic lineages of SARS-CoV-2 in different Wuhan wildlife markets suggests SARS-CoV-2 has a natural origin Robert F. Garry1,2 1Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Tulane University Medical Center, 1430 Tulane Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana 70112 USA...
virological.org virological.org
 
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GimpYancIent

Well-Known Member
From the very beginning the PRC authorities have not been forthcoming, provided misinformation, followed the clandestine code of Admit Nothing, Deny Everything and Make Counter Accusations. Bungled containment within Wuhan then bungled containment within the country as for international travel that was OK as in lets share this pestilence with the rest of the world. Despicable and irresponsible. How the virus came to be in the first place is but a small part of a humongous disaster perpetuated by the PRC on the entire globe.
As a Disney fan I am amazed at the vastness of this disaster that caused all Disney parks globally to close something that prior to COVID19 was deemed impossible.
 
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hopemax

hopemax

Well-Known Member
SamusAranX said:
Meanwhile on the origins front, WSJ published an op-ed by two scientists that it’s more likely then not that not only did the virus escape from a lab, but that it wasn’t naturally occurring or originated.
Click to expand...
People sure seem to be in love with proving they are smart by taking the maxim to "question everything" to the point of absurdity. This time by a breast cancer researcher and a retired physicist (previously known as a former-climate change skeptic), who are apparently now experts in virology of coronaviruses of likely bat origin. And others like to prove they are smart by accepting obscure theories as facts.

Since I was on vacation when the lab leak stuff resurfaced, I missed the previous discussion. I've spent a little time over the last day or two, and all I've learned is how easily humans will accept misinterpretations and misrepresentations in order to avoid the threats that come with uncertainty. We really want to know how this happened, and the prospect of never knowing, or that it will take a decade+ like SARS did is intolerable.

The phrases that keep popping up is "never seen before in nature" and "we still haven't found..." The amount of hubris contained in those phrases, to me is overwhelming. The investigation into SARS revealed hundreds of unknown bat coronaviruses, and that was only one species' coronaviruses. The SARS scientists searched bat caves for 8 months and found nothing and thought they were looking in the wrong place, until they decided to look for antibodies, not active virus, which turned up 3 samples that helped direct their research which included another 5 years of heavy sampling at the cave where they eventually found the evidence they needed to prove the origin. And we're convinced that 15 months is too long. Also, when that paper was published there were the same concerns of how SARS got from a bat cave in Yunnan to Guangdong without the people living around the cave in Yunnan from getting sick or having antibodies. What we are learning, is that for as much as we know about coronaviruses there are still mountains of things we don't know, and tons of things occurring in nature all the time that we don't know about because there isn't the impetus or the financing to support it. The newly reported dog-intermediate species-coronavirus should be a hint of all of what we don't know.

When all of this started, and people were talking about how they must have had it in December, my feeling was that another virus was circulating and I guessed that if SARS-CoV-2 didn't exist we would be identifying and talking about that. I was wrong. I think since it wasn't killing people at a high enough rate we would have not investigated the origins and instead chalk it up to the something like 47% of illnesses that are of unknown origin. There would have been no investigation, no surveillance unless someone decided to look for something. Like the scientists who discovered the dog-coronavirus because they got curious to what gave patients in their area Covid-type symptoms but wasn't Covid. All we know is that of what we have bothered to genetically sample and research, it's not there.

This particular theory sounds impressive to lay people because we know we don't have the knowledge to immediately counter the claims, never seen before CGG-CGG except human manipulation. An alternate hypothesis that I have seen postulated by virologists, is that the human coronavirus, HKU1, does have CGG-CGT, a one nucleotide difference. Also a feline coronavirus has a CGG-CGA, sequence. What would nature due with a recombination of bat coronavirus and one of these other species coronavirus? They also point out that the much maligned wet market there is photographic evidence of several species of animals that are susceptible to coronaviruses, like HKU1. The SARS intermediary was confirmed because they tested the animals that were in proximity to the people who contracted SARS, and identified the civet as a likely candidate. In this case, China denies live animals and illegal animals were even present at the market. So what are the odds that all of the potential animals that were there were properly sampled? Or what if the animals of consequence weren't at that particular market but somewhere else in Wuhan (there was more than one market associated with early cases, as well as the potential at an animal farm)? People suspect that the severity of the original outbreak was greater in scale than China reported, so did dealing with the effects of human surveillance from trying to bring the infections under control, impede investigators from conducting the massive animal surveillance that needed to occur? One of the virologists I saw, was frustrated that pangolins were given so much attention early on, that turned out to be a dead end, when there were likelier candidates in their estimation.

China obviously fubar-ed this from the start. IMO, what that proves is Chinese officials are susceptible to the same lay-person ideas that humans, in general, ran with. They had to make some decisions early, for when the International investigators started poking around, and a lab leak was likely at the top of list, and reacted. It was also at the top of Dr. Shi's list, which is why she dove into the samples under study at the WIV. But unlike Dr. Shi who has the experience to decisively eliminate what didn't happen, I suspect the officials hedged...what if despite her saying it wasn't a lab leak, it was? I have no doubt evidence that would have helped prove what happened, has been destroyed. That somebody (likely not a scientist) was worried about the list of "correlations that are not causations" that would be shiny objects for lay people, like them, to grab onto, were manipulated in attempt to minimize the correlations; as well as evidence of things that they shouldn't have been doing that needed to go away. Another correlation that is making the news is the miner connection. I've also seen in virology twitter, that despite the genetic similarities there is no way that RaTG13 (the miner's virus) could actually be a genetic ancestor of SARS-CoV-2, even a human manipulated / Gain of Function one, so all the reports about releasing the medical records of the miners is another example of barking up the wrong tree, and the conspiracy is left without a base virus to manipulate into what was supposedly released.

Proving definitive zoonotic origins requires meticulous and extensive research. The paper confirming the civet genetic connection to SARS didn't come until 2007. The paper confirming the horseshoe bat connection didn't get published until 2017. Both of them had previous educated guesses. But even then, it lacked the necessary confidence until proof came for the civet in 2004 during a later outbreak, and the horseshoe bats to the cave in Yunnan after 5 years of sampling. But they had a solid place to start. This is more like, to bring up a local to me now case, the Jon-Benet Ramsey investigation where during the original investigative period was so messed up that to make another cultural reference, we don't even know "if we're digging in the right place," regarding which animal to search, making the needle in a haystack hunt much harder.
 
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S

seascape

Well-Known Member
hopemax said:
People sure seem to be in love with proving they are smart by taking the maxim to "question everything" to the point of absurdity. This time by a breast cancer researcher and a retired physicist (previously known as a former-climate change skeptic), who are apparently now experts in virology of coronaviruses of likely bat origin. And others like to prove they are smart by accepting obscure theories as facts.

Since I was on vacation when the lab leak stuff resurfaced, I missed the previous discussion. I've spent a little time over the last day or two, and all I've learned is how easily humans will accept misinterpretations and misrepresentations in order to avoid the threats that come with uncertainty. We really want to know how this happened, and the prospect of never knowing, or that it will take a decade+ like SARS did is intolerable.

The phrases that keep popping up is "never seen before in nature" and "we still haven't found..." The amount of hubris contained in those phrases, to me is overwhelming. The investigation into SARS revealed hundreds of unknown bat coronaviruses, and that was only one species' coronaviruses. The SARS scientists searched bat caves for 8 months and found nothing and thought they were looking in the wrong place, until they decided to look for antibodies, not active virus, which turned up 3 samples that helped direct their research which included another 5 years of heavy sampling at the cave where they eventually found the evidence they needed to prove the origin. And we're convinced that 15 months is too long. Also, when that paper was published there were the same concerns of how SARS got from a bat cave in Yunnan to Guangdong without the people living around the cave in Yunnan from getting sick or having antibodies. What we are learning, is that for as much as we know about coronaviruses there are still mountains of things we don't know, and tons of things occurring in nature all the time that we don't know about because there isn't the impetus or the financing to support it. The newly reported dog-intermediate species-coronavirus should be a hint of all of what we don't know.

When all of this started, and people were talking about how they must have had it in December, my feeling was that another virus was circulating and I guessed that if SARS-CoV-2 didn't exist we would be identifying and talking about that. I was wrong. I think since it wasn't killing people at a high enough rate we would have not investigated the origins and instead chalk it up to the something like 47% of illnesses that are of unknown origin. There would have been no investigation, no surveillance unless someone decided to look for something. Like the scientists who discovered the dog-coronavirus because they got curious to what gave patients in their area Covid-type symptoms but wasn't Covid. All we know is that of what we have bothered to genetically sample and research, it's not there.

This particular theory sounds impressive to lay people because we know we don't have the knowledge to immediately counter the claims, never seen before CGG-CGG except human manipulation. An alternate hypothesis that I have seen postulated by virologists, is that the human coronavirus, HKU1, does have CGG-CGT, a one nucleotide difference. Also a feline coronavirus has a CGG-CGA, sequence. What would nature due with a recombination of bat coronavirus and one of these other species coronavirus? They also point out that the much maligned wet market there is photographic evidence of several species of animals that are susceptible to coronaviruses, like HKU1. The SARS intermediary was confirmed because they tested the animals that were in proximity to the people who contracted SARS, and identified the civet as a likely candidate. In this case, China denies live animals and illegal animals were even present at the market. So what are the odds that all of the potential animals that were there were properly sampled? Or what if the animals of consequence weren't at that particular market but somewhere else in Wuhan (there was more than one market associated with early cases, as well as the potential at an animal farm)? People suspect that the severity of the original outbreak was greater in scale than China reported, so did dealing with the effects of human surveillance from trying to bring the infections under control, impede investigators from conducting the massive animal surveillance that needed to occur? One of the virologists I saw, was frustrated that pangolins were given so much attention early on, that turned out to be a dead end, when there were likelier candidates in their estimation.

China obviously fubar-ed this from the start. IMO, what that proves is Chinese officials are susceptible to the same lay-person ideas that humans, in general, ran with. They had to make some decisions early, for when the International investigators started poking around, and a lab leak was likely at the top of list, and reacted. It was also at the top of Dr. Shi's list, which is why she dove into the samples under study at the WIV. But unlike Dr. Shi who has the experience to decisively eliminate what didn't happen, I suspect the officials hedged...what if despite her saying it wasn't a lab leak, it was? I have no doubt evidence that would have helped prove what happened, has been destroyed. That somebody (likely not a scientist) was worried about the list of "correlations that are not causations" that would be shiny objects for lay people, like them, to grab onto, were manipulated in attempt to minimize the correlations; as well as evidence of things that they shouldn't have been doing that needed to go away. Another correlation that is making the news is the miner connection. I've also seen in virology twitter, that despite the genetic similarities there is no way that RaTG13 (the miner's virus) could actually be a genetic ancestor of SARS-CoV-2, even a human manipulated / Gain of Function one, so all the reports about releasing the medical records of the miners is another example of barking up the wrong tree, and the conspiracy is left without a base virus to manipulate into what was supposedly released.

Proving definitive zoonotic origins requires meticulous and extensive research. The paper confirming the civet genetic connection to SARS didn't come until 2007. The paper confirming the horseshoe bat connection didn't get published until 2017. Both of them had previous educated guesses. But even then, it lacked the necessary confidence until proof came for the civet in 2004 during a later outbreak, and the horseshoe bats to the cave in Yunnan after 5 years of sampling. But they had a solid place to start. This is more like, to bring up a local to me now case, the Jon-Benet Ramsey investigation where during the original investigative period was so messed up that to make another cultural reference, we don't even know "if we're digging in the right place," regarding which animal to search, making the needle in a haystack hunt much harder.
Click to expand...
If you don't want someone to respond, don't post. Now, if China believed they did nothing wrong, why not let the US or EU investigate at the beginning? They have something to hide and everyone knows that. It could easily have been just a lab error and not something nefarious. I believe that is the likely cause, just a terrible mistake. Plus, the reason for not allowing anyone inside was to protect the contracts with US and other groups which funded the lab. In any case, even if the cause were natural, China needed to protect those providing the lab funding. So I am very happy to learn that it was the US that helped pay for China's research and technical advances rather than fund the experiments here with US scientists. US bureaucrats always look out for what is best for the citizens of the US and never do anything unethical or illegal.
 
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GimpYancIent

Well-Known Member
seascape said:
If you don't want someone to respond, don't post. Now, if China believed they did nothing wrong, why not let the US or EU investigate at the beginning? They have something to hide and everyone knows that. It could easily have been just a lab error and not something nefarious. I believe that is the likely cause, just a terrible mistake. Plus, the reason for not allowing anyone inside was to protect the contracts with US and other groups which funded the lab. In any case, even if the cause were natural, China needed to protect those providing the lab funding. So I am very happy to learn that it was the US that helped pay for China's research and technical advances rather than fund the experiments here with US scientists. US bureaucrats always look out for what is best for the citizens of the US and never do anything unethical or illegal.
Click to expand...
🤨
 
G

GimpYancIent

Well-Known Member
Fellow Disney fans I believe everything will work out it ain't fast but progress has been steady. COVID19 arrived, WDW and the rest of Disney did what was deemed necessary and Disney has been prevailing. On the good side temp checks (No More), masks (requirements reduced and soon to be gone), social distancing (what?). On the down side the waiting for parades, pyro, character meet and greets, interactive character dining, stage shows and full on dessert parties is a big irritation. Soooo folk's all of that won't solve all the problems of the world but some Dole Whip or maybe something a little stronger and some ever so brief (time does pass quickly when enjoying things) moments at WDW will do for me.
 
L

Lilofan

Well-Known Member
GimpYancIent said:
Fellow Disney fans I believe everything will work out it ain't fast but progress has been steady. COVID19 arrived, WDW and the rest of Disney did what was deemed necessary and Disney has been prevailing. On the good side temp checks (No More), masks (requirements reduced and soon to be gone), social distancing (what?). On the down side the waiting for parades, pyro, character meet and greets, interactive character dining, stage shows and full on dessert parties is a big irritation. Soooo folk's all of that won't solve all the problems of the world but some Dole Whip or maybe something a little stronger and some ever so brief (time does pass quickly when enjoying things) moments at WDW will do for me.
Click to expand...
Drinking lots during Epcot Food and Wine may dull the senses and not think about what has changed but still keep some with a happy face.
 
danlb_2000

danlb_2000

Premium Member
hopemax said:
There was one of these studies last year too. But the samples were destroyed in the process so there was no way to re-test to make sure that it was actually SARS-CoV-2 the test found and not another similar coronavirus. Looking at your link, it looks like it is the same thing but as PP mentioned they have a 2nd paper, with only the January 2020. I bet the media conflated the two...again.

I wouldn’t get too attached to the alternate conspiracy theory that it arrived earlier than we thought. As we’ve seen, consistently, where there is actual COVID, the bodies follow. This is not the evidence that disproves lab leak, although that seems to be today’s primary Twitter purpose.
Click to expand...

I missed the date on the article, and the source I got it from probably did to. They really should have retracted this paper to avoid confusion like this.
 
danlb_2000

danlb_2000

Premium Member
hopemax said:
People sure seem to be in love with proving they are smart by taking the maxim to "question everything" to the point of absurdity. This time by a breast cancer researcher and a retired physicist (previously known as a former-climate change skeptic), who are apparently now experts in virology of coronaviruses of likely bat origin. And others like to prove they are smart by accepting obscure theories as facts.

Since I was on vacation when the lab leak stuff resurfaced, I missed the previous discussion. I've spent a little time over the last day or two, and all I've learned is how easily humans will accept misinterpretations and misrepresentations in order to avoid the threats that come with uncertainty. We really want to know how this happened, and the prospect of never knowing, or that it will take a decade+ like SARS did is intolerable.

The phrases that keep popping up is "never seen before in nature" and "we still haven't found..." The amount of hubris contained in those phrases, to me is overwhelming. The investigation into SARS revealed hundreds of unknown bat coronaviruses, and that was only one species' coronaviruses. The SARS scientists searched bat caves for 8 months and found nothing and thought they were looking in the wrong place, until they decided to look for antibodies, not active virus, which turned up 3 samples that helped direct their research which included another 5 years of heavy sampling at the cave where they eventually found the evidence they needed to prove the origin. And we're convinced that 15 months is too long. Also, when that paper was published there were the same concerns of how SARS got from a bat cave in Yunnan to Guangdong without the people living around the cave in Yunnan from getting sick or having antibodies. What we are learning, is that for as much as we know about coronaviruses there are still mountains of things we don't know, and tons of things occurring in nature all the time that we don't know about because there isn't the impetus or the financing to support it. The newly reported dog-intermediate species-coronavirus should be a hint of all of what we don't know.

When all of this started, and people were talking about how they must have had it in December, my feeling was that another virus was circulating and I guessed that if SARS-CoV-2 didn't exist we would be identifying and talking about that. I was wrong. I think since it wasn't killing people at a high enough rate we would have not investigated the origins and instead chalk it up to the something like 47% of illnesses that are of unknown origin. There would have been no investigation, no surveillance unless someone decided to look for something. Like the scientists who discovered the dog-coronavirus because they got curious to what gave patients in their area Covid-type symptoms but wasn't Covid. All we know is that of what we have bothered to genetically sample and research, it's not there.

This particular theory sounds impressive to lay people because we know we don't have the knowledge to immediately counter the claims, never seen before CGG-CGG except human manipulation. An alternate hypothesis that I have seen postulated by virologists, is that the human coronavirus, HKU1, does have CGG-CGT, a one nucleotide difference. Also a feline coronavirus has a CGG-CGA, sequence. What would nature due with a recombination of bat coronavirus and one of these other species coronavirus? They also point out that the much maligned wet market there is photographic evidence of several species of animals that are susceptible to coronaviruses, like HKU1. The SARS intermediary was confirmed because they tested the animals that were in proximity to the people who contracted SARS, and identified the civet as a likely candidate. In this case, China denies live animals and illegal animals were even present at the market. So what are the odds that all of the potential animals that were there were properly sampled? Or what if the animals of consequence weren't at that particular market but somewhere else in Wuhan (there was more than one market associated with early cases, as well as the potential at an animal farm)? People suspect that the severity of the original outbreak was greater in scale than China reported, so did dealing with the effects of human surveillance from trying to bring the infections under control, impede investigators from conducting the massive animal surveillance that needed to occur? One of the virologists I saw, was frustrated that pangolins were given so much attention early on, that turned out to be a dead end, when there were likelier candidates in their estimation.

China obviously fubar-ed this from the start. IMO, what that proves is Chinese officials are susceptible to the same lay-person ideas that humans, in general, ran with. They had to make some decisions early, for when the International investigators started poking around, and a lab leak was likely at the top of list, and reacted. It was also at the top of Dr. Shi's list, which is why she dove into the samples under study at the WIV. But unlike Dr. Shi who has the experience to decisively eliminate what didn't happen, I suspect the officials hedged...what if despite her saying it wasn't a lab leak, it was? I have no doubt evidence that would have helped prove what happened, has been destroyed. That somebody (likely not a scientist) was worried about the list of "correlations that are not causations" that would be shiny objects for lay people, like them, to grab onto, were manipulated in attempt to minimize the correlations; as well as evidence of things that they shouldn't have been doing that needed to go away. Another correlation that is making the news is the miner connection. I've also seen in virology twitter, that despite the genetic similarities there is no way that RaTG13 (the miner's virus) could actually be a genetic ancestor of SARS-CoV-2, even a human manipulated / Gain of Function one, so all the reports about releasing the medical records of the miners is another example of barking up the wrong tree, and the conspiracy is left without a base virus to manipulate into what was supposedly released.

Proving definitive zoonotic origins requires meticulous and extensive research. The paper confirming the civet genetic connection to SARS didn't come until 2007. The paper confirming the horseshoe bat connection didn't get published until 2017. Both of them had previous educated guesses. But even then, it lacked the necessary confidence until proof came for the civet in 2004 during a later outbreak, and the horseshoe bats to the cave in Yunnan after 5 years of sampling. But they had a solid place to start. This is more like, to bring up a local to me now case, the Jon-Benet Ramsey investigation where during the original investigative period was so messed up that to make another cultural reference, we don't even know "if we're digging in the right place," regarding which animal to search, making the needle in a haystack hunt much harder.

However, since we are indulging in speculation...and please, no one respond to this, I can't help but notice that this lab leak re-examination reached critical mass the same time as discussion into the commission into the events of January 6th, and wonder if this is all *squirrel* to things certain factions don't want dominating the news cycle. Bonus points for the anti-China narrative.
Click to expand...

Great response! If anyone wants to dig deeper I would recommend the TWIV episode I quoted earlier that goes into a lot of this in more depth. It even address the "never seen before" genetic sequence, that has since been found in other un-related viruses. The podcast all addresses the WSJ article. They say the genetic evidence presented in the article in support of label leak seems credible on the surface, but when you really dig into the science it really isn't.

TWiV 762: SARS-CoV-2 origins with Robert Garry

Robert Garry joins TWiV to explain how the molecular biology of SARS-CoV-2 shows that it came from Nature and not a lab, including the receptor binding domain, the furin cleavage site, and the two lineages circulating in Wuhan wildlife markets.
www.microbe.tv
 
SamusAranX

SamusAranX

Well-Known Member
hopemax said:
People sure seem to be in love with proving they are smart by taking the maxim to "question everything" to the point of absurdity. This time by a breast cancer researcher and a retired physicist (previously known as a former-climate change skeptic), who are apparently now experts in virology of coronaviruses of likely bat origin. And others like to prove they are smart by accepting obscure theories as facts.

Since I was on vacation when the lab leak stuff resurfaced, I missed the previous discussion. I've spent a little time over the last day or two, and all I've learned is how easily humans will accept misinterpretations and misrepresentations in order to avoid the threats that come with uncertainty. We really want to know how this happened, and the prospect of never knowing, or that it will take a decade+ like SARS did is intolerable.

The phrases that keep popping up is "never seen before in nature" and "we still haven't found..." The amount of hubris contained in those phrases, to me is overwhelming. The investigation into SARS revealed hundreds of unknown bat coronaviruses, and that was only one species' coronaviruses. The SARS scientists searched bat caves for 8 months and found nothing and thought they were looking in the wrong place, until they decided to look for antibodies, not active virus, which turned up 3 samples that helped direct their research which included another 5 years of heavy sampling at the cave where they eventually found the evidence they needed to prove the origin. And we're convinced that 15 months is too long. Also, when that paper was published there were the same concerns of how SARS got from a bat cave in Yunnan to Guangdong without the people living around the cave in Yunnan from getting sick or having antibodies. What we are learning, is that for as much as we know about coronaviruses there are still mountains of things we don't know, and tons of things occurring in nature all the time that we don't know about because there isn't the impetus or the financing to support it. The newly reported dog-intermediate species-coronavirus should be a hint of all of what we don't know.

When all of this started, and people were talking about how they must have had it in December, my feeling was that another virus was circulating and I guessed that if SARS-CoV-2 didn't exist we would be identifying and talking about that. I was wrong. I think since it wasn't killing people at a high enough rate we would have not investigated the origins and instead chalk it up to the something like 47% of illnesses that are of unknown origin. There would have been no investigation, no surveillance unless someone decided to look for something. Like the scientists who discovered the dog-coronavirus because they got curious to what gave patients in their area Covid-type symptoms but wasn't Covid. All we know is that of what we have bothered to genetically sample and research, it's not there.

This particular theory sounds impressive to lay people because we know we don't have the knowledge to immediately counter the claims, never seen before CGG-CGG except human manipulation. An alternate hypothesis that I have seen postulated by virologists, is that the human coronavirus, HKU1, does have CGG-CGT, a one nucleotide difference. Also a feline coronavirus has a CGG-CGA, sequence. What would nature due with a recombination of bat coronavirus and one of these other species coronavirus? They also point out that the much maligned wet market there is photographic evidence of several species of animals that are susceptible to coronaviruses, like HKU1. The SARS intermediary was confirmed because they tested the animals that were in proximity to the people who contracted SARS, and identified the civet as a likely candidate. In this case, China denies live animals and illegal animals were even present at the market. So what are the odds that all of the potential animals that were there were properly sampled? Or what if the animals of consequence weren't at that particular market but somewhere else in Wuhan (there was more than one market associated with early cases, as well as the potential at an animal farm)? People suspect that the severity of the original outbreak was greater in scale than China reported, so did dealing with the effects of human surveillance from trying to bring the infections under control, impede investigators from conducting the massive animal surveillance that needed to occur? One of the virologists I saw, was frustrated that pangolins were given so much attention early on, that turned out to be a dead end, when there were likelier candidates in their estimation.

China obviously fubar-ed this from the start. IMO, what that proves is Chinese officials are susceptible to the same lay-person ideas that humans, in general, ran with. They had to make some decisions early, for when the International investigators started poking around, and a lab leak was likely at the top of list, and reacted. It was also at the top of Dr. Shi's list, which is why she dove into the samples under study at the WIV. But unlike Dr. Shi who has the experience to decisively eliminate what didn't happen, I suspect the officials hedged...what if despite her saying it wasn't a lab leak, it was? I have no doubt evidence that would have helped prove what happened, has been destroyed. That somebody (likely not a scientist) was worried about the list of "correlations that are not causations" that would be shiny objects for lay people, like them, to grab onto, were manipulated in attempt to minimize the correlations; as well as evidence of things that they shouldn't have been doing that needed to go away. Another correlation that is making the news is the miner connection. I've also seen in virology twitter, that despite the genetic similarities there is no way that RaTG13 (the miner's virus) could actually be a genetic ancestor of SARS-CoV-2, even a human manipulated / Gain of Function one, so all the reports about releasing the medical records of the miners is another example of barking up the wrong tree, and the conspiracy is left without a base virus to manipulate into what was supposedly released.

Proving definitive zoonotic origins requires meticulous and extensive research. The paper confirming the civet genetic connection to SARS didn't come until 2007. The paper confirming the horseshoe bat connection didn't get published until 2017. Both of them had previous educated guesses. But even then, it lacked the necessary confidence until proof came for the civet in 2004 during a later outbreak, and the horseshoe bats to the cave in Yunnan after 5 years of sampling. But they had a solid place to start. This is more like, to bring up a local to me now case, the Jon-Benet Ramsey investigation where during the original investigative period was so messed up that to make another cultural reference, we don't even know "if we're digging in the right place," regarding which animal to search, making the needle in a haystack hunt much harder.

However, since we are indulging in speculation...and please, no one respond to this, I can't help but notice that this lab leak re-examination reached critical mass the same time as discussion into the commission into the events of January 6th, and wonder if this is all *squirrel* to things certain factions don't want dominating the news cycle. Bonus points for the anti-China narrative.
Click to expand...
I just find it fascinating and compelling that it's possible. I have no dog in the political and nationalism fight. just interested in the outcome, as this would be interesting history if it was a lab issue.

Also, didn't they find patients as far back as November (France I believe) with COVID?
 
GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
GimpYancIent said:
Fellow Disney fans I believe everything will work out it ain't fast but progress has been steady. COVID19 arrived, WDW and the rest of Disney did what was deemed necessary and Disney has been prevailing. On the good side temp checks (No More), masks (requirements reduced and soon to be gone), social distancing (what?). On the down side the waiting for parades, pyro, character meet and greets, interactive character dining, stage shows and full on dessert parties is a big irritation. Soooo folk's all of that won't solve all the problems of the world but some Dole Whip or maybe something a little stronger and some ever so brief (time does pass quickly when enjoying things) moments at WDW will do for me.
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Amen brother. It‘s great to see the progress being made towards returning to normal. For the average American WDW is probably an after thought but to the people it matters to it’s a symbol of hope and a symbol of joy returning to the world. Little things like seeing your favorite restaurant come back or seeing the plexiglass being removed from your favorite ride or seeing characters return to meals and other venues are all signs of the slow and steady return to normal. It seems like night shows and other entertainment are coming back soon as well.

I get that there are some people who think we are moving too fast and that’s a fair debate on timing, but the end plan has always been a slow and steady return to normal due to a highly effective vaccine. I have been saying for some months now that the end is in sight and that appears to be playing out. I have been wrong about more things than I have been right about during this whole pandemic but thankfully that’s one nail that I appear to have hit on the head. Things looking real good for this Summer 😎
 
hopemax

hopemax

Well-Known Member
seascape said:
If you don't want someone to respond, don't post. Now, if China believed they did nothing wrong, why not let the US or EU investigate at the beginning? They have something to hide and everyone knows that. It could easily have been just a lab error and not something nefarious. I believe that is the likely cause, just a terrible mistake. Plus, the reason for not allowing anyone inside was to protect the contracts with US and other groups which funded the lab. In any case, even if the cause were natural, China needed to protect those providing the lab funding. So I am very happy to learn that it was the US that helped pay for China's research and technical advances rather than fund the experiments here with US scientists. US bureaucrats always look out for what is best for the citizens of the US and never do anything unethical or illegal.
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You misunderstood that when I said don’t respond, I was referring to only the final bit about the timing of the sudden media interest in the US. To save some headaches for the thread mods.

As to your point, there is plenty of evidence of things that “China did wrong,”without needing there to be a lab leak. I don’t think China wants the World messing around in the lab, I don’t think China wants the World messing around in their markets, and I don’t think China wants the World messing around in their animal, especially the fur animal, trade. If the alternative hypothesis, that this originated in the horrible conditions found in the fur farms, it will be the final nail in fur’s coffin for the International community. China resisted the recommendations concerning animal handling and food, and this becomes another battleground in the “World is coming to destroy China’s way of life.”

Poor conditions for the animals, people have tolerated, in many countries including our own, but reservoirs of disease with potential of setting off global pandemics at a frequency we won’t tolerate is another thing. Problem is, once we accept the danger of these types of farms and slaughtering facilities in China, then the rest of us would have to evaluate how those things operate in our own countries which would not go over well. A lab leak conveniently leaves us off the hook for the need for self-examination and preparation for the next one.
 
hopemax

hopemax

Well-Known Member
SamusAranX said:
I just find it fascinating and compelling that it's possible. I have no dog in the political and nationalism fight. just interested in the outcome, as this would be interesting history if it was a lab issue.

Also, didn't they find patients as far back as November (France I believe) with COVID?
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As long as people are willing to accept evidence that it wasn’t a lab leak even if it takes years, with the same fervor that they are falling over themselves with now. Zoonotic, comparatively, will be boring and time consuming and not the stuff that tickles the fancy of theorists. I am concerned that people have already decided it MUST be a lab leak and any evidence to the contrary is proof of the extent of the conspiracy.
 
L

Lilofan

Well-Known Member
Wild Mister Toad said:
The evidence on lockdowns is inconclusive. For every legit study that shows correlation there is a legit study that shows the opposite. It will take years of analysis to figure out whether the lockdown experiment worked
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This is the attitude - We can't stop living to prevent dying. Fortunately lockdowns were in place to prevent the spread .
 
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