Crazy NYT article on the lab leak theory for COVID

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The epidemiological evidence for origins at the wet market is strong, with vendors and delivery people who worked there among the earliest cases admitted to hospitals. The majority of the early cases had direct links to the market, and the transmissibility of the virus was such that early cases not identified as linked to the market very well could have been, similar to one person who became infected who had been visited by a friend who did work at the market, even though that patient had not been to the market himself.

Plus there is no epidemiological evidence AFAIK for the virus originating from the lab.
As for the intelligence community, only 1 agency (not identified in their unclassified report) reported "with low confidence" that there was a lab origin.

Good article by a scientist written for general readership: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-03-08/covid-lab-leak-energy-department-fbi

So many great points but some people don’t like to think about how complex these things are and think everything is simpler than it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The issue with liberal politicians and press/media mocking the lab theories and dismissing them as conspiracies is that it erodes public trust in both politicians and the media. Who can you believe when you are being mocked for something that turned out to be correct? It might not be a big deal per se whether it came from a lab or not, but the consequences of these small lies are long-lasting and great.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue with liberal politicians and press/media mocking the lab theories and dismissing them as conspiracies is that it erodes public trust in both politicians and the media. Who can you believe when you are being mocked for something that turned out to be correct? It might not be a big deal per se whether it came from a lab or not, but the consequences of these small lies are long-lasting and great.

They were being mocked for pushing a theory based on zero evidence.

China has a long history of unethical research practices. I wouldn’t say zero evidence.

Which is also why we contract out our unethical practices to China.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue with liberal politicians and press/media mocking the lab theories and dismissing them as conspiracies is that it erodes public trust in both politicians and the media. Who can you believe when you are being mocked for something that turned out to be correct? It might not be a big deal per se whether it came from a lab or not, but the consequences of these small lies are long-lasting and great.

The problem is we were/are drowning in misinformation and disinformation. There is no standard on how to deal with it. The media (right and left) just feed stories to anger their audience because it gets the viewers.

And the answer to that problem is not to shut down conversation. It's to educate people to be skeptical and think critically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue with liberal politicians and press/media mocking the lab theories and dismissing them as conspiracies is that it erodes public trust in both politicians and the media. Who can you believe when you are being mocked for something that turned out to be correct? It might not be a big deal per se whether it came from a lab or not, but the consequences of these small lies are long-lasting and great.

The problem is we were/are drowning in misinformation and disinformation. There is no standard on how to deal with it. The media (right and left) just feed stories to anger their audience because it gets the viewers.

And the answer to that problem is not to shut down conversation. It's to educate people to be skeptical and think critically.

Dp- oh and what a nuanced conversation the “China virus” crew was having! So constructive and thoughtful!

[Anonymous]

If the virus would have came from Russia there would be no liberal outcries of “don’t blame it on Russia and call it the Russia Virus because it might fuel anti Slavic hatred.”

Unless you’re living in delusion you know this would have been the case. Why are we caring more about the China, which is also our enemy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The epidemiological evidence for origins at the wet market is strong, with vendors and delivery people who worked there among the earliest cases admitted to hospitals. The majority of the early cases had direct links to the market, and the transmissibility of the virus was such that early cases not identified as linked to the market very well could have been, similar to one person who became infected who had been visited by a friend who did work at the market, even though that patient had not been to the market himself.

Plus there is no epidemiological evidence AFAIK for the virus originating from the lab.
As for the intelligence community, only 1 agency (not identified in their unclassified report) reported "with low confidence" that there was a lab origin.

Good article by a scientist written for general readership: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-03-08/covid-lab-leak-energy-department-fbi

Completely debunked by the Broad Scientist in the linked article. Epidemiological data are extremely weak supporting the wet market idea. Epidemiological data are strong supporting the lab leak hypothesis. It's almost as if you read zero of the article, backed by tons of scientific facts, that was written by a scientist working at one of the most prestigious intuitions in the entire country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It absolutely matters how it arrived and it’s just gaslighting by liberals to suggest otherwise.

Sure.
Now.
It sure didn’t then
Dickheads just used it as an excuse to beat up Asian people.
And you know it.

dp.. I'm Asian American. I suspected it could be a lab leak, but the vitriol by Trump and his team towards the Chlna virus (and I'm not even Chinese) was causing hate crimes against Asian Americans. A lot of the people who support Trump are racist, and constantly pointing fingers at another race just fueled their racism. There were covid patients who yelled at Asian American doctors for bringing in the virus.

That is why the rhetoric needed to be toned down. It was not helping.

When we had the MERs virus, we did not have a POTUS who constantly pointed fingers. There weren't people screaming at ME looking people about bringing in the virus (at least not to the degree we had during Trump's term).

Lab leaks happen. But, the question is, how is China (or any entity) going to ensure this doesn't ever happen again. And how will China be held accountable? Russia isn't going to support holding China accountable, and too many economies rely on Chinese exports.

By using common damn sense!! If you read the article, China was conducting gain of function research on the covid virus in a friggin BSL2 lab!!!! That's completely unacceptable risk for the entire world! It's mind boggling you people think China should be off the hook Scot free for conducting this kind of high risk research while having gross incompetence for safety and disregarding virtually all international standards for safety. If you read the actual article, the American scientist with ties to the research at the Wuhan lab knew it was being conducted under BSL2 and even explicitly stated that if American scientists found out that kind of research was being conducted in China under such lax safety oversight they would have lost their sh*t.

Why is it so hard to ask countries like China to obey international standards for every for this kind of research so they they don't kill millions of people yet again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The epidemiological evidence for origins at the wet market is strong, with vendors and delivery people who worked there among the earliest cases admitted to hospitals. The majority of the early cases had direct links to the market, and the transmissibility of the virus was such that early cases not identified as linked to the market very well could have been, similar to one person who became infected who had been visited by a friend who did work at the market, even though that patient had not been to the market himself.

Plus there is no epidemiological evidence AFAIK for the virus originating from the lab.
As for the intelligence community, only 1 agency (not identified in their unclassified report) reported "with low confidence" that there was a lab origin.

Good article by a scientist written for general readership: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-03-08/covid-lab-leak-energy-department-fbi

So many great points but some people don’t like to think about how complex these things are and think everything is simpler than it is.

Educated people “get” nuance.

And the south and rural areas (Trump bastion) underfund education. In part because they don’t see the value of contributing to the tax base. They also treat real science the same is dogma (ie, creationism). So, you get the voting patterns one sees in our country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It absolutely matters how it arrived and it’s just gaslighting by liberals to suggest otherwise.

Sure.
Now.
It sure didn’t then
Dickheads just used it as an excuse to beat up Asian people.
And you know it.

dp.. I'm Asian American. I suspected it could be a lab leak, but the vitriol by Trump and his team towards the Chlna virus (and I'm not even Chinese) was causing hate crimes against Asian Americans. A lot of the people who support Trump are racist, and constantly pointing fingers at another race just fueled their racism. There were covid patients who yelled at Asian American doctors for bringing in the virus.

That is why the rhetoric needed to be toned down. It was not helping.

When we had the MERs virus, we did not have a POTUS who constantly pointed fingers. There weren't people screaming at ME looking people about bringing in the virus (at least not to the degree we had during Trump's term).

Lab leaks happen. But, the question is, how is China (or any entity) going to ensure this doesn't ever happen again. And how will China be held accountable? Russia isn't going to support holding China accountable, and too many economies rely on Chinese exports.

By using common damn sense!! If you read the article, China was conducting gain of function research on the covid virus in a friggin BSL2 lab!!!! That's completely unacceptable risk for the entire world! It's mind boggling you people think China should be off the hook Scot free for conducting this kind of high risk research while having gross incompetence for safety and disregarding virtually all international standards for safety. If you read the actual article, the American scientist with ties to the research at the Wuhan lab knew it was being conducted under BSL2 and even explicitly stated that if American scientists found out that kind of research was being conducted in China under such lax safety oversight they would have lost their sh*t.

Why is it so hard to ask countries like China to obey international standards for every for this kind of research so they they don't kill millions of people yet again?

Cool. China sucks. We all know that. We all knew it then. We also knew it came from China.
Screeching about a lab leak did F all to help Americans in spring 2020. In fact it was a distraction and hindrance to where our focus needed to be. Testing, tracing, and treating.
We were failing at all of the above and the White House wanted to pull focus away from their failures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It absolutely matters how it arrived and it’s just gaslighting by liberals to suggest otherwise.

Sure.
Now.
It sure didn’t then
Dickheads just used it as an excuse to beat up Asian people.
And you know it.

dp.. I'm Asian American. I suspected it could be a lab leak, but the vitriol by Trump and his team towards the Chlna virus (and I'm not even Chinese) was causing hate crimes against Asian Americans. A lot of the people who support Trump are racist, and constantly pointing fingers at another race just fueled their racism. There were covid patients who yelled at Asian American doctors for bringing in the virus.

That is why the rhetoric needed to be toned down. It was not helping.

When we had the MERs virus, we did not have a POTUS who constantly pointed fingers. There weren't people screaming at ME looking people about bringing in the virus (at least not to the degree we had during Trump's term).

Lab leaks happen. But, the question is, how is China (or any entity) going to ensure this doesn't ever happen again. And how will China be held accountable? Russia isn't going to support holding China accountable, and too many economies rely on Chinese exports.

By using common damn sense!! If you read the article, China was conducting gain of function research on the covid virus in a friggin BSL2 lab!!!! That's completely unacceptable risk for the entire world! It's mind boggling you people think China should be off the hook Scot free for conducting this kind of high risk research while having gross incompetence for safety and disregarding virtually all international standards for safety. If you read the actual article, the American scientist with ties to the research at the Wuhan lab knew it was being conducted under BSL2 and even explicitly stated that if American scientists found out that kind of research was being conducted in China under such lax safety oversight they would have lost their sh*t.

Why is it so hard to ask countries like China to obey international standards for every for this kind of research so they they don't kill millions of people yet again?

Cool. China sucks. We all know that. We all knew it then. We also knew it came from China.
Screeching about a lab leak did F all to help Americans in spring 2020. In fact it was a distraction and hindrance to where our focus needed to be. Testing, tracing, and treating.
We were failing at all of the above and the White House wanted to pull focus away from their failures.

The time to extract resources from China for all the testing, tracing, and treating was then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It absolutely matters how it arrived and it’s just gaslighting by liberals to suggest otherwise.

Sure.
Now.
It sure didn’t then
Dickheads just used it as an excuse to beat up Asian people.
And you know it.

dp.. I'm Asian American. I suspected it could be a lab leak, but the vitriol by Trump and his team towards the Chlna virus (and I'm not even Chinese) was causing hate crimes against Asian Americans. A lot of the people who support Trump are racist, and constantly pointing fingers at another race just fueled their racism. There were covid patients who yelled at Asian American doctors for bringing in the virus.

That is why the rhetoric needed to be toned down. It was not helping.

When we had the MERs virus, we did not have a POTUS who constantly pointed fingers. There weren't people screaming at ME looking people about bringing in the virus (at least not to the degree we had during Trump's term).

Lab leaks happen. But, the question is, how is China (or any entity) going to ensure this doesn't ever happen again. And how will China be held accountable? Russia isn't going to support holding China accountable, and too many economies rely on Chinese exports.

By using common damn sense!! If you read the article, China was conducting gain of function research on the covid virus in a friggin BSL2 lab!!!! That's completely unacceptable risk for the entire world! It's mind boggling you people think China should be off the hook Scot free for conducting this kind of high risk research while having gross incompetence for safety and disregarding virtually all international standards for safety. If you read the actual article, the American scientist with ties to the research at the Wuhan lab knew it was being conducted under BSL2 and even explicitly stated that if American scientists found out that kind of research was being conducted in China under such lax safety oversight they would have lost their sh*t.

Why is it so hard to ask countries like China to obey international standards for every for this kind of research so they they don't kill millions of people yet again?

Cool. China sucks. We all know that. We all knew it then. We also knew it came from China.
Screeching about a lab leak did F all to help Americans in spring 2020. In fact it was a distraction and hindrance to where our focus needed to be. Testing, tracing, and treating.
We were failing at all of the above and the White House wanted to pull focus away from their failures.

+1

Trump always sucks all of the oxygen out of the room with his self-created drama. Instead of focusing on actually addressing covid he was busy stoking racism and all other sorts of distractions. Pure chaos.

At the very beginning of covid, I actually thought he could easily step in and bring our country together during a major crisis. Like Bush during 9/11. I was annoyed because I thought he’d ride that easy win right into a second term.

But no. He couldn’t even do the very basic acts of leadership. It was so much worse than I expected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It absolutely matters how it arrived and it’s just gaslighting by liberals to suggest otherwise.

Sure.
Now.
It sure didn’t then
Dickheads just used it as an excuse to beat up Asian people.
And you know it.

dp.. I'm Asian American. I suspected it could be a lab leak, but the vitriol by Trump and his team towards the Chlna virus (and I'm not even Chinese) was causing hate crimes against Asian Americans. A lot of the people who support Trump are racist, and constantly pointing fingers at another race just fueled their racism. There were covid patients who yelled at Asian American doctors for bringing in the virus.

That is why the rhetoric needed to be toned down. It was not helping.

When we had the MERs virus, we did not have a POTUS who constantly pointed fingers. There weren't people screaming at ME looking people about bringing in the virus (at least not to the degree we had during Trump's term).

Lab leaks happen. But, the question is, how is China (or any entity) going to ensure this doesn't ever happen again. And how will China be held accountable? Russia isn't going to support holding China accountable, and too many economies rely on Chinese exports.

By using common damn sense!! If you read the article, China was conducting gain of function research on the covid virus in a friggin BSL2 lab!!!! That's completely unacceptable risk for the entire world! It's mind boggling you people think China should be off the hook Scot free for conducting this kind of high risk research while having gross incompetence for safety and disregarding virtually all international standards for safety. If you read the actual article, the American scientist with ties to the research at the Wuhan lab knew it was being conducted under BSL2 and even explicitly stated that if American scientists found out that kind of research was being conducted in China under such lax safety oversight they would have lost their sh*t.

Why is it so hard to ask countries like China to obey international standards for every for this kind of research so they they don't kill millions of people yet again?

1. no one said China should go scott free
2. How are you going to enforce China obey international laws? We don't even obey all international laws.
3. Why did Trump defund the pandemic response team, and that included the scientists whose boots were on the ground in China at the time.

You want small government? That's what you got.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It absolutely matters how it arrived and it’s just gaslighting by liberals to suggest otherwise.

Sure.
Now.
It sure didn’t then
Dickheads just used it as an excuse to beat up Asian people.
And you know it.

dp.. I'm Asian American. I suspected it could be a lab leak, but the vitriol by Trump and his team towards the Chlna virus (and I'm not even Chinese) was causing hate crimes against Asian Americans. A lot of the people who support Trump are racist, and constantly pointing fingers at another race just fueled their racism. There were covid patients who yelled at Asian American doctors for bringing in the virus.

That is why the rhetoric needed to be toned down. It was not helping.

When we had the MERs virus, we did not have a POTUS who constantly pointed fingers. There weren't people screaming at ME looking people about bringing in the virus (at least not to the degree we had during Trump's term).

Lab leaks happen. But, the question is, how is China (or any entity) going to ensure this doesn't ever happen again. And how will China be held accountable? Russia isn't going to support holding China accountable, and too many economies rely on Chinese exports.

By using common damn sense!! If you read the article, China was conducting gain of function research on the covid virus in a friggin BSL2 lab!!!! That's completely unacceptable risk for the entire world! It's mind boggling you people think China should be off the hook Scot free for conducting this kind of high risk research while having gross incompetence for safety and disregarding virtually all international standards for safety. If you read the actual article, the American scientist with ties to the research at the Wuhan lab knew it was being conducted under BSL2 and even explicitly stated that if American scientists found out that kind of research was being conducted in China under such lax safety oversight they would have lost their sh*t.

Why is it so hard to ask countries like China to obey international standards for every for this kind of research so they they don't kill millions of people yet again?

Cool. China sucks. We all know that. We all knew it then. We also knew it came from China.
Screeching about a lab leak did F all to help Americans in spring 2020. In fact it was a distraction and hindrance to where our focus needed to be. Testing, tracing, and treating.
We were failing at all of the above and the White House wanted to pull focus away from their failures.

The time to extract resources from China for all the testing, tracing, and treating was then.

So, then Trump shouldn't have defunded the scientists who were there who could've gotten the samples out.

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN21C3NE/

Reductions at the U.S. agencies sidelined health experts, scientists and other professionals who might have been able to help China mount an earlier response to the novel coronavirus, as well as provide the U.S. government with more information about what was coming, according to the people who spoke with Reuters. The Trump administration in February chastised China for censoring information about the outbreak and for keeping U.S. experts from entering the country to assist.
“We had a large operation of experts in China who were brought back during this administration, some of them months before the outbreak,” said one of the people who witnessed the withdrawal of U.S. personnel. “You have to consider the possibility that our drawdown made this catastrophe more likely or more difficult to respond to.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The epidemiological evidence for origins at the wet market is strong, with vendors and delivery people who worked there among the earliest cases admitted to hospitals. The majority of the early cases had direct links to the market, and the transmissibility of the virus was such that early cases not identified as linked to the market very well could have been, similar to one person who became infected who had been visited by a friend who did work at the market, even though that patient had not been to the market himself.

Plus there is no epidemiological evidence AFAIK for the virus originating from the lab.
As for the intelligence community, only 1 agency (not identified in their unclassified report) reported "with low confidence" that there was a lab origin.

Good article by a scientist written for general readership: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-03-08/covid-lab-leak-energy-department-fbi

So many great points but some people don’t like to think about how complex these things are and think everything is simpler than it is.

Educated people “get” nuance.

And the south and rural areas (Trump bastion) underfund education. In part because they don’t see the value of contributing to the tax base. They also treat real science the same is dogma (ie, creationism). So, you get the voting patterns one sees in our country.

Racist much? We get what you mean by lack of education in the south.