Covid-19 likely to be man made

SafeSurfer wrote: »

It’s also true that there are individuals who have already dogmatically decided that it’s origins are zoonotic. In fact not only decided but worked to actively ensure no other origin thesis was entertained. All this was done surreptitiously.
Why?
If the zoonotic origin turns out to be correct, virologists such as Peter Daszak would be hailed as heroes. If however the origin is due to a lab leak, virologists and many in the research community would be vilified.
There is obviously a preference among the very people investigating Covids origins for one particular narrative, not to mention the Chinese government who are tightly controlling all information relating to the origins of Covid.

Oh. So you're claiming that there is a conspiracy amoung the WHO and other scientists to cover up a lab leak.

This is a conspiracy theory.

King Mob wrote: »

Ok. Why?
What was wrong or falsified in the report?

And why do you say it wasn't?
The WHO report did investigate it.

What studies do you have to support the idea of a lab leak?


Ok. So you claim. However the "wet market origin" is not the only part of the zoonotic origin.

What about the studies that support the zoonotic origin. Are all those studies false?

I am not sure if you have read the report but the members of the investigating team have stated that the information that they were supplied with from the Chinese was insufficient to determine the origin of Covid.
One simple step that the Chinese could undertake to restore confidence would be to allow access to the records from the lab which were mysteriously taken off line as the virus emerged.

SafeSurfer wrote: »

I am not sure if you have read the report but the members of the investigating team have stated that the information that they were supplied with from the Chinese was insufficient to determine the origin of Covid.
One simple step that the Chinese could undertake to restore confidence would be to allow access to the records from the lab which were mysteriously taken off line as the virus emerged.

Ok so what was wrong or false in the report?

You also seem to have missed my other questions. Could you please answer them now.
If you don't intend to address them it would save us a lot of effort if you just state this directly rather than just ignoring them.

US2 wrote: »

So is Dr Fauci a conspiracy theorist or why is this thread in this forum?

Apparently he just indirectly admitted he created Covid. That's what I'm seeing on some conspiracy sites anyway.

King Mob wrote: »

Cool. Ignoring questions and requests for your evidence, then resorting to ridiculous insults.

Pretty typical tactic when conspiracy theorists are faced with opinions, facts and questions they aren't able to deal with.

From this we can conclude there are no studies that support the lab leak idea. If there were, you wouldn't be dodging and running away from the question, you'd be rubbing it in our "epsilon semi moronic" faces.
We can also conclude that because you aren't reeling off a list of issues, you can't explain how any of the studies that support a zoonotic origin are wrong.

Show us your evidence for a zoonotic origin. Eighteen months of the entire resources of the 1.4 billion Chinese nation have been unsuccessful in finding the zoonotic link.

King Mob wrote: »

I have done so several times in this thread.
You then claimed all of those studies were invalid and fraudulent. When you were asked to back up these claims, you ignored those requests and ran away.
If you want to see those studies go back and look at them properly this time. Don't just make up claims of fraud because you don't want to accept them.

And again, since you're reverting to the "nuh uh, you are" tactics, this also shows that you cannot provide any studies that supports a lab based origin.

So case closed, Covid is zoonotic in origin?

This puts you at odds with the head of WHO and many leading experts in virology.
It is too soon to conclude that Covid is definitively zoonotic in origin. I don’t believe that this is controversial or contentious. It is just a statement of fact.

For whatever reason some people have already made up their minds before all the information that would inform a conclusion is available.

What if the people being asked to investigate where this came from, are the same people who would be responsible IF it turns out to be a lab leak?

That's a wee bit of a conflict of interest.

emo72 wrote: »

What if the people being asked to investigate where this came from, are the same people who would be responsible IF it turns out to be a lab leak?

That's a wee bit of a conflict of interest.

Yup, this is a big problem, if it was leaked from a lab, China would be v keen to keep that private.

Also we may never know the origin. If it's been transmitted from animals, it's still like looking for a needle in a haystack, no matter how transparent China is.

The current consensus among virologists and related experts is that this virus looks like it was organically transmitted via animals. There's not enough evidence to support the lab-leak theory, but it cannot be ruled out.

PuddingBreath wrote: »

i'm embarrassed for you buddy, trump didn't say inject bleach into yourself, he said scientists were looking at different things, ways to disinfect internally, suddenly the heal light was scrubbed off the internet wherever possible.

He indirectly suggested injecting or ingesting bleach. Accidental poisonings with bleach and household products rose after this
https://time.com/5835244/accidental-poisonings-trump/

To quote:

"And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?

"So it'd be interesting to check that."

With this picture in the background



Trump later said he was being sarcastic.

PuddingBreath wrote: »

i'm embarrassed for you buddy, trump didn't say inject bleach into yourself, he said scientists were looking at different things, ways to disinfect internally, suddenly the heal light was scrubbed off the internet wherever possible.



https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131022102227.htm


have you heard of manuka honey ? i suppose Holland and barrett should be shut down for peddling conspiracy products. if you hate trump you took it up as he's telling people to drink bleach, if you don't hate him you'd just accept it as him trying to give off a positive vibe about different treatments that might be coming down the line.



my thoughts on Trump is that he was useful to give the system a jolt when he got elected, this world is an unmerciful sh1tshow and it's not his fault(DEMS and GOP in usa are the same scum) however, i don't want to see him re-elected. he was step 1 of 1000s of steps needed to turn this world around from the hell it is, the systems in place don't want real change.
any chance we can stop all the plastic going into the oceans, stop polluting and littering in general, have ALL the people in the planet having clean drinking water, a toilet ? enough to eat ? we could do it with ease but bill clinton didn't sort it, barack obama didn't, joe biden won't, the UN won't. FF or FG won't (we now see after 100 years they're two cheeks of the same arse).



he is probably right about this coming from a lab in wuhan, he is probalby right to blame the chinese and some in the USA helped them. therein lies the problem.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/reporters-blame-trump-finding-wuhan-lab-theory-credible
it's trumps fault that reported didn't do their job!!!

he's a bad, bad, man
oh FFS

This is pretty typical of a trumpeter.

trump recommends disinfectant and using light as a treatment to use on people against the virus (after reading it on a poster before hand, thanks for this as it makes trumps ineptitude even more hilarious).

Holland and Barrett sell manuka honey.

Trumpeter sees these two things exactly the same.

The fact that you equate both is an indication of a pretty huge problem in your cognitive reasoning,

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Do you understand that such studies are impossible because access to the Wuhan lab and it’s data is being denied?
.

There would be other ways to indicate the virus was manufactured or otherwise wasn't able to develop naturally.

Do you now agree that there are no studies supporting the idea of a lab origin?
You still don't seem to be willing to actually admit this directly.

SafeSurfer wrote: »

There is no direct evidence to conclusively support either.
.

Sorry no. This is a lie.
I posted several studies that support the zoonotic origin. You have done everything you can to pretend they don't exist. You ignored them. You claimed they weren't peer reviewed. You claimed they were fraudulent. You claimed they said things they didn't.
Now you're back to claiming they don't exist.

This is bizarre.

King Mob wrote: »

And then there's the fact that there's a difference between the idea that the virus was bred in a lab, that the virus was developed as a bioweapon and the idea that the virus was created purposefully to be released intentionally to create a pandemic.
These ideas are also adopted or dropped depending on which is the most advantageous at the time.

That last sentence is the very example of conflation of opinions that you have complained of in this thread, despite a) the ignoring of other hypotheses, like the simple escape of a wild-type sample that was incorrectly stored and more importantly b) the studies that are published that have raised question marks over the limited evidence that supported a purely-natural origin hypothesis in the first place.

Deleted User wrote: »

People aren't posting hypotheses, though? What's going on is posters are:
-claiming things as fact, when they are anything but
-misrepresenting the position of qualified people to twist their words to suit their own narrative
-dodging and avoiding anything which challenges that narrative
-jumping on any little thing which supports their stance and cherry-picking stuff to back it up, while ignoring everything else that pokes holes in thier opinion
-shouting others down / calling them names / declaring mutliple time that they're finished discussing the matter nanananananana-can't-hear-you like toddlers
-posting links and claiming the link proves their point, only to abandon that link and offer a new one when it's pointed out they're incorrect
-falsely claiming they're being bullied when someone has the temerity to not swallow their garbage opinions
-refusing to engage in a debate....e,g, claiming something as fact as per the first point in this list then refusing to provide anything to back it up
-asking for proof or links or studies that have already been provided, then going around in circles two days later and doing the same
-infantile jabs at other posters "does he live in Beijing hurrr durrr"
-avoiding questions by answering different questions which weren't asked


That's a million miles away from what a hypothesis looks like........"I think that X happened in Y country which resulted in Z for everybody else, and here's why I think that".

Instead, we have the above....with posters looking like cranks who jump on the smallest nugget that confirms their already entrenched beliefs and ignoring that which does not.

Know what I haven't seen?

Someone directly stating "I think most of the conspiracy claims are bull****, but I believe that X theory is plausible for Y reasons".

I think this is mostly due to the fact that most conspiracy mongers on twitter and youtube etc, don't like making definitive statements.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Nope, sorry. I've yet to see one person claim that the virus definitely, 100% occurred naturally and was definitely not man-made. You can't "both sides" this one. All I've seen from that side is links to studies which identify it as the most plausible explanation, and the lab grown theory as the least likely. Multiple people have been asked why they think these studies are flawed. None have responded.

There's so much conflation in that, it's hard to know where to start. What some prominent virologists have said is that it's extremely unlikely. Others in the field, Peter Desziak and various media outlets have overtly described lab-origin explanations as a conspiracy theory. If that isn't a 100% certain declaration, then what is?

I thought I tried to explain earlier in this thread, the scientific issues with the proximal origins of SARS-CoV-2 by Andersen et al, the most glaring of which is the whataboutery of how "better" the spike protein could bind to the huACE2 receptor if it had been pre-designed, which didn't address how this high-affinity binding came to be in the first place, nor the implicit assumption that the virus could not be chimeric. I guess the comparison is like having a ford Mondeo when you could have a Ferrari - and the truth in this is that I see a lot more ford Mondeos driving around than I see Ferraris, while the binding of the virus and its variants are more than able to go from A to B in terms of functionality.

But that's not an argument for any side, just a strikingly bad argument to make in a scientific paper and to make it through review.

Realistically the biggest issue with the natural-origin hypothesis, from the genetic level, is the furin cleavage site within the spike protein. CoV-2 seems to share homology with a sample spike protein identified by the WIV in the past, except for this cleavage site. It's an extra 12 base pairs, and they code for amino acids in a particular way (RXXR) in a pattern that are frankly not readily found in the known betacoronavirus repotoire.

Other furin binding sites have been found in betacoronaviruses, like MERS, but the RNA coding for those few known examples is different.

This fundamental question remains unexplained, and would need an intermediary strain identified, thorough investigation of endemic viruses. We're currently nowhere near finding the evidence to demonstrate immediate prior ancestors, not even a starting point has been found (bats directly has been mostly rebuffed, pangolins were rebuffed in more recent papers). There is honestly a lot more to it, and inherently unsuited to this forum. Most experts wouldn't even bother commenting on a thread that has made its way here, and the leading experts in the field are busy, well, researching SARS-CoV-2 and a cure / way out of the crisis / working with govts on pandemic management etc, on top of whatever preexisting projects and grants they were worrying about.

Edit: strictly speaking this thread is about a trash paper that got published in a rag, not the wider topic. The explicit acknowledgement of the current US administration that it is a possibility, no more less, alongside Anthony Fauci and Ralph Baric, the world's leading expert on betacoronaviruses, is not exactly "conspiracy theory" level, it needs to be discussed scientifically and rationally.

You have gone from

Pretty hilarious seeing the truth come out. The “DeBuNkeRZ” must be raging.

splashuum wrote: »

So if the Wuhan lab leak theory is confirmed to be true, mainstream media & social media censorship helped facilitate one of the biggest cover-ups in modern history.

All in the name of "stopping misinformation."

Why should they be trusted to be the arbiters of truth ever again?

So nothing confirmed but you're posting as if it's conclusive:rolleyes:

splashuum wrote: »

So if the Wuhan lab leak theory is confirmed to be true, mainstream media & social media censorship helped facilitate one of the biggest cover-ups in modern history.

All in the name of "stopping misinformation."

Why should they be trusted to be the arbiters of truth ever again?

-Pjw

It's unlikely to be confirmed true, there would need to be more evidence than the one US intelligence report and a year is plenty of time for a facility to remedy any faults, evidence to be lost etc. In the context of the pandemic and US politics, Trump made any honest skepticism into its origins politically toxic and the likes of Peter Deszac was given a platform in the Guardian that he shouldn't have been even from a journalistic ethics perspective.

The best way to restore trust is exactly what Joe Biden is doing, by announcing a serious examination of the evidence and possibilities that stem from that. There are not many true experts in the immediate field and most of them coalesce around one of two labs, including the WIV. It is hard to ask trust to be placed in various experts, and stay at home, while simultaneously undermining the work of the foremost experts in the field with potentially world-changing allegations.

mcsean2163 wrote: »

In fairness she is a doctor of virology and very much out of her natural environment in the US. As far as I can tell she acted in good faith based on the intelligence she had. However, she really didn't do herself any favours by aligning with Trump...

Who aligned with trump?

lucernarian wrote: »

There's so much conflation in that, it's hard to know where to start. What some prominent virologists have said is that it's extremely unlikely. Others in the field, Peter Desziak and various media outlets have overtly described lab-origin explanations as a conspiracy theory. If that isn't a 100% certain declaration, then what is?

Well this seems to be conflation. As the investigation lead by Desziak was the source of your quote of "extremely unlikely".

I have also asked you what your stance is but you seem to have missed the question.
Which do you believe is the real explanation? Or which explanation do you believe is the most likely?
Was it a virus with a natural origin?
Did it have a natural origin, but then escaped from a lab?
Did it have a natural origin, was altered artificially, then escaped?
Was it altered or created as a bioweapon and then escaped?
Was it altered or created as part of a plot to cause a pandemic for some reason?

Do you believe something between these options?

At which point in this list do the options become conspiracy theories that aren't worth considering?

lucernarian wrote: »

I thought I tried to explain earlier in this thread, the scientific issues with the proximal origins of SARS-CoV-2 by Andersen et al, the most glaring of which is the whataboutery of how "better" the spike protein could bind to the huACE2 receptor if it had been pre-designed, which didn't address how this high-affinity binding came to be in the first place, nor the implicit assumption that the virus could not be chimeric. I guess the comparison is like having a ford Mondeo when you could have a Ferrari - and the truth in this is that I see a lot more ford Mondeos driving around than I see Ferraris, while the binding of the virus and its variants are more than able to go from A to B in terms of functionality.

But from my limited understanding was that this indicated that the virus wasn't altered in the most efficient and obvious way that viruses are typically altered.
Is there some reason why it would be altered in a suboptimal way?
Why buy a mondeo when you can afford a Ferrari?

lucernarian wrote: »

But that's not an argument for any side, just a strikingly bad argument to make in a scientific paper and to make it through review.

Why do you believe it made it through review when this argument should have got it rejected?

lucernarian wrote: »

Realistically the biggest issue with the natural-origin hypothesis, from the genetic level, is the furin cleavage site within the spike protein. CoV-2 seems to share homology with a sample spike protein identified by the WIV in the past, except for this cleavage site. It's an extra 12 base pairs, and they code for amino acids in a particular way (RXXR) in a pattern that are frankly not readily found in the known betacoronavirus repotoire.

Other furin binding sites have been found in betacoronaviruses, like MERS, but the RNA coding for those few known examples is different.

Ok.
Which studies use this argument to conclude the virus was altered?

Are all the other papers and studies that support the idea of a zoonotic origin incorrect?

thecretinhop wrote: »

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/us-sitting-raft-unexamined-virus-origin-intel-former-official-says-almost-no-evidence

a rag etc blah blah

Yes. It's a rag that seems to peddle crap.

Why should we take this seriously?

Especially when the author of the article appears to be "Tyler Durden".