Dr. Anthony Fauci Appreciation Thread

[Neonmoon 38129]

1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

Oh, the guy that said his opinion could change after further research, did further research, and then published a paper last March describing his analysis and concluding the virus wasn't engineered? 

Gee, do you think deleting the twitter account could have anything to do with the whackadoos posting a bunch a shit to him? 

That interpretation doesn’t help my conspiracy theory  

[TwiceHorn 31512]

Seriously, though.  I have mentioned it in passing on this and other threads.

Right now you google "Fauci" anything and you get a really alarming return of goofy-ass, borderline Q sites repeating all this nonsense.

I don't trust much media and try to go to sources when I can and read very critically to see if the inferences made in articles are fair.

But the sheer amount of repetition from kooky "media" is really something else.

I don't think BY is an idiot.  He's fully capable of discerning stuff driven by an agenda, but it's quite the demonstration of how the gullible or willing can be sucked in.

I guess this is a blinding glimpse of the obvious, but if you haven't noticed it before, give it a try.

As a lawyer, I am used to reading "persuasive" or argumentative documents.  And you develop an intuition or spider-sense of when a controversial allegation or argument is made.  And you expect a citation to a factual or other source that supports that contention.  And when there's no citation, you immediately think "bullshit" or this is taking liberties. So much of this lacks that citation, and when it has it, it's just to another opinion/editorial piece that makes the same assertion without a citation.  It even gets circular at times.

Edited June 9, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[BabaYaga 15302]

11 hours ago, ChiTownDoc said:

Sorry buddy.  As someone who knows a lot more than you about all of this, including how shitty China is when it comes to research/stolen research...you sound batshit crazy.  And you insisting you're not - over and over - makes it worse.  It's zero surprise, as the GQP is VERY antiscience these days.  Very sad because they used to be the more educated party - my how times have changed.  And save me the LIBRULLLL education shit.  Dumb, uneducated people make up the base of today's R party.  There's zero disputing that. 

Gotcha.  So, just to be clear, say back in July of 2019, DaszaK DIDN'T use NIH funding began research at Wuhan to study how genetic engineering could make SARS more contagious to help predict spillover events?  Is that what you are saying?

Quote

"In vitro and in vivo characterization of SARSr-CoV spillover risk, coupled with spatial and phylogenetic analyses to identify the regions and viruses of public health concern. We will use S protein sequence data, infectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds in S protein sequences predict spillover potential."

So here we are.  Back to the zoonotic hypothesis and cave infections hundreds of miles away with no bats in them with absolutely zero trace evidence of any kind between the center of the outbreak and the caves themselves.  Glad you could clear that up for us.  

[Anastasis 23480]

Closest relative to SARS-COV2 to date discovered in Yunnan...still that pesky spike region...

https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0092-8674(21)00709-1

348 Of particular note was that one of the novel bat coronavirus identified here - RpYN06
349 - exhibited 94.5% sequence identity to SARS-CoV-2 across the genome as a whole
350 and in some individual gene regions (ORF1ab, ORF7a, ORF8, N, and ORF10) was
351 the closest relative of SARS-CoV-2 identified to date. However, much lower sequence
352 identity in the spike gene, undoubtedly the product of a past recombination event,
353 made it a second closest relative of SARS-CoV-2, next to RaTG13, at the genomic
354 scale. Hence, aside from the spike gene, RpYN06 possessed a genomic backbone that
355 is arguably the closest to SARS-CoV-2 identified to date.

356 Although several SARS-CoV-2-like viruses have been identified from different
357 wildlife species that display high sequence similarity to SARS-CoV-2 in some
358 genomic regions, none are highly similar (e.g. >95%) to SARS-CoV-2 in the spike
359 gene in terms of both the overall sequence identity and the amino acid residues at
360 critical receptor binding sites (Zhou et al., 2020b; Lam et al., 2020; Xiao et al., 2020;
Journal Pre-proof 361 Zhou et al., 2020a; Murakami et al., 2020; Hul et al., 2021; Wacharapluesadee et al., 362 2021). 

 

[GW Hayduke 1953]

59 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Seriously, though.  I have mentioned it in passing on this and other threads.

Right now you google "Fauci" anything and you get a really alarming return of goofy-ass, borderline Q sites repeating all this nonsense.

I don't trust much media and try to go to sources when I can and read very critically to see if the inferences made in articles are fair.

But the sheer amount of repetition from kooky "media" is really something else.

I don't think BY is an idiot.  He's fully capable of discerning stuff driven by an agenda, but it's quite the demonstration of how the gullible or willing can be sucked in.

I guess this is a blinding glimpse of the obvious, but if you haven't noticed it before, give it a try.

As a lawyer, I am used to reading "persuasive" or argumentative documents.  And you develop an intuition or spider-sense of when a controversial allegation or argument is made.  And you expect a citation to a factual or other source that supports that contention.  And when there's no citation, you immediately think "bullshit" or this is taking liberties. So much of this lacks that citation, and when it has it, it's just to another opinion/editorial piece that makes the same assertion without a citation.  It even gets circular at times.

I don’t think Babayaga is an idiot in terms of not being able to differentiate his pillow case from toilet paper.

However, he clearly has been captured by right wing propaganda in this case. Was he also captured by Qanon, Jade helm, trump resuming office in August, CRT phobia, ukrainegate, Hillary’s emails, and Benghazi? Probably some of it. 

Everyone is susceptible to propaganda to a certain extent. Some are more vulnerable than others. Not everyone has an education and job experiences that allow for fine tuned critical thinking skills. Has our basic education system failed at preparing people for today’s information world? Hopefully not for the young. For older folks, their education clearly didn’t prepare them for this world.  What do we do about that?

Ideally, folks recognize they have a problem and have been duped at some point. Hopefully, they realize they are in a rabbit hole. That seems like a big step IMO. After that, it seems obvious they should cut out the blatant propaganda from their media diet - Tucker, daily caller, random you tubers, random twitter accounts, Facebook, and Fox News.  And replace that with more moderate sources - WSJ, PBS, NPR, Texas tribune, Post, Times, AP, Reuters, austin American statesman.

[jimmyjazz 46000]

So, I dug in a little to verify that what I posted in my HIV/AIDS screed was on point.  Guess who was one of Dr. Duesberg's staunchest allies in the failed "HIV doesn't cause AIDS" hypothesis?

Dr. Kary Mullis.  You know, the guy who was hypercritical of Fauci prior to the emergence of covid.  The guy @BabaYaga cites as a leading expert in his Don Juan fever dream where Fauci enabled the engineering of covid. 

Now, anyone can be wrong, but that's a pretty big swing and a miss and it does tend to point to a less than optimal capability of Mullis to apply critical thought to a complicated problem.

[wildcat09 29359]

I'm just waiting for Baba to link to Andrew Wakefield. Or has he already?

[BabaYaga 15302]

51 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Closest relative to SARS-COV2 to date discovered in Yunnan...still that pesky spike region...

https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0092-8674(21)00709-1

348 Of particular note was that one of the novel bat coronavirus identified here - RpYN06
349 - exhibited 94.5% sequence identity to SARS-CoV-2 across the genome as a whole
350 and in some individual gene regions (ORF1ab, ORF7a, ORF8, N, and ORF10) was
351 the closest relative of SARS-CoV-2 identified to date. However, much lower sequence
352 identity in the spike gene, undoubtedly the product of a past recombination event,
353 made it a second closest relative of SARS-CoV-2, next to RaTG13, at the genomic
354 scale. Hence, aside from the spike gene, RpYN06 possessed a genomic backbone that
355 is arguably the closest to SARS-CoV-2 identified to date.

356 Although several SARS-CoV-2-like viruses have been identified from different
357 wildlife species that display high sequence similarity to SARS-CoV-2 in some
358 genomic regions, none are highly similar (e.g. >95%) to SARS-CoV-2 in the spike
359 gene in terms of both the overall sequence identity and the amino acid residues at
360 critical receptor binding sites (Zhou et al., 2020b; Lam et al., 2020; Xiao et al., 2020;
Journal Pre-proof 361 Zhou et al., 2020a; Murakami et al., 2020; Hul et al., 2021; Wacharapluesadee et al., 362 2021). 

 

It's just a big coincidence.....rabble, rabble, rabble....it's almost as if the virus variants have been greatly advanced in terms of transmission capability?  What is that called again?

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

If one is going to go down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole, then flip the script. In June and July of 2019, several nursing homes in Springfield, Virginia about 54 miles away from  Frederick, MD had outbreaks of a respiratory illness that caused severe illness and multiple deaths. Testing for Legionnaires was negative and later some of the bacteria Haemophilus influenzae (H.flu) were found present, but once COVID was determined in the US in 2020 those cases were not reinvestigated for COVID-19. In August, the BSL-3 and 4 labs at Fort Detrick were shut down due to safety violations. Although the labs were not acknowledged as  studying coronaviruses the full list of the pathogens that were being studied and not under investigation was not released. In October, the US Army sent competitors to the Military World Games about twenty days prior to the first confirmed case in China. If mostly healthy people are asymptomatic, the virus is easy to spread globally among travelers.

There, that is easy. I have listed no sources, but I can find a bunch if anyone needs them. All of the above things are true in separate, but correlation is not causation.

 

[Anastasis 23480]

58 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

It's just a big coincidence.....rabble, rabble, rabble....it's almost as if the virus variants have been greatly advanced in terms of transmission capability?  What is that called again?

IMO, a recombination event in an area of the genome highly susceptible to such events in the setting of a viral co-infection of bats with overlapping range in Yunnan. 

Here is an interesting thread where a virologist has been developing a potential natural origin explanation since last year...he brings the spike from one bat cov into backbone of another bat cov via a copy choice event, and cleans up the remaining mismatches in genome with some natural mutations.  He argues that it is compatible with a completely natural origin, given the range of the bat species involved.  I suppose it could also be compatible either a natural or unnatural recombination event, and mutation pressure via passage, but I am not equipped to make that argument. Anyways, it's an interesting read.

https://virological.org/t/tackling-rumors-of-a-suspicious-origin-of-ncov2019/384/25

 

ETA: link goes to the most recent post where is cleaning things up, but you can scroll to the top to track the thread since Feb 2020. 

Edited June 9, 2021 by Anastasis

[BabaYaga 15302]

42 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

If one is going to go down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole, then flip the script. In June and July of 2019, several nursing homes in Springfield, Virginia about 54 miles away from  Frederick, MD had outbreaks of a respiratory illness that caused severe illness and multiple deaths. Testing for Legionnaires was negative and later some of the bacteria Haemophilus influenzae (H.flu) were found present, but once COVID was determined in the US in 2020 those cases were not reinvestigated for COVID-19. In August, the BSL-3 and 4 labs at Fort Detrick were shut down due to safety violations. Although the labs were not acknowledged as  studying coronaviruses the full list of the pathogens that were being studied and not under investigation was not released. In October, the US Army sent competitors to the Military World Games about twenty days prior to the first confirmed case in China. If mostly healthy people are asymptomatic, the virus is easy to spread globally among travelers.

There, that is easy. I have listed no sources, but I can find a bunch if anyone needs them. All of the above things are true in separate, but correlation is not causation.

 

China tried to play the Ft D angle early....except there seems to be zero dispute that the outbreak took place in Wuhan, not the US.  BTW, the timeline for the nursing homes correlates to slightly before the CCP quietly shut down the WIV databases.  

[BabaYaga 15302]

41 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

IMO, a recombination event in an area of the genome highly susceptible to such events in the setting of a viral co-infection of bats with overlapping range in Yunnan. 

Here is an interesting thread where a virologist has been developing a potential natural origin explanation since last year...he brings the spike from one bat cov into backbone of another bat cov via a copy choice event, and cleans up the remaining mismatches in genome with some natural mutations.  He argues that it is compatible with a completely natural origin, given the range of the bat species involved.  I suppose it could also be compatible either a natural or unnatural recombination event, and mutation pressure via passage, but I am not equipped to make that argument. Anyways, it's an interesting read.

https://virological.org/t/tackling-rumors-of-a-suspicious-origin-of-ncov2019/384/25

 

ETA: link goes to the most recent post where is cleaning things up, but you can scroll to the top to track the thread since Feb 2020. 

Be curious to see how he explains the "spike" that was reported back in 2020 and not being naturally occurring.  I may have missed it, but has the character assassination train hit Dr. Li-Man Yan is a former researcher at Wuhan Institute of Virology. 

She claims the recombination specifically the furin cleavage to the spike protein adds functionality (i.e. gain of function engineering) which makes SAR-COV2 exponentially more transmissive), and yet is an insertion, not a mutation.

This is not to posit that it was cooked up in a lab, but is rather a naturally occurring virus, via GOF, was made exponentially more transmissive and dangerous

Quote

In the sequence from 680 to 700 (surrounded by the green lines), there are lines where NOTHING (____) is replaced Serine (S) Proline (P) Arginine (R) & Arginine (R). This isn't a mutation. It's an insertion and it doesn't happen in nature.

 

Origin story

 

 

 

 

 

[Dahobbs 17627]

5 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

Be curious to see how he explains the "spike" that was reported back in 2020 and not being naturally occurring.  I may have missed it, but has the character assassination train hit Dr. Li-Man Yan is a former researcher at Wuhan Institute of Virology. 

She claims the recombination specifically the furin cleavage to the spike protein adds functionality (i.e. gain of function engineering) which makes SAR-COV2 exponentially more transmissive), and yet is an insertion, not a mutation.

This is not to posit that it was cooked up in a lab, but is rather a naturally occurring virus, via GOF, was made exponentially more transmissive and dangerous

Origin story

Interesting, but I think this disclaimer at the top deserves a mention:

"This manuscript does not demonstrate sufficient scientific evidence to support its claims. Claims are at times baseless and are not supported by the data and methods used. Decision-makers should consider the author's claims in this study misleading."

by Takahiko Koyama, Adam Lauring, Robert Gallo, and Marvin Reitz

https://rapidreviewscovid19.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/78we86rp/release/2

"the lead author of those preprints, Yan Li-Meng, has personally attacked scientists engaged in combating this misinformation with evidence, including me. As a result, I’ve been threatened with violence and sexual assault, an occupational hazard of misinformation debunking that I’ve unfortunately come to expect. Although this is deeply unpleasant, I am more concerned about the long-term effects of this type of misinformation for scientists around the world and our ability to conduct impactful scientific research on emerging viruses with pandemic potential."

By Angela L. Rasmussen

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01205-5

Peer review is important. 

 

 

[Anastasis 23480]

11 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

She claims the recombination specifically the furin cleavage to the spike protein adds functionality (i.e. gain of function engineering) which makes SAR-COV2 exponentially more transmissive), and yet is an insertion, not a mutation.

The thread I linked suggests that it is a copy-choice error/recombinant event followed by mutations that unlocked the pandemic potential (See below).  Could the mutations required in that last step be pressure by serial passage?  No idea.  Perhaps.  But they could also be explained by natural mutations. 

IMO, there will never be a smoking gun as to whether SARS-CoV2 evolved naturally or via lab techniques that pressure mutations. The genome appears compatible with a natural origin story, and there appears to be potential for lab-based passage related mutations to help nature along. IMO, the immediate focus should be on whether the initial outbreak can be traced to an accidental lab release or fur farms or whatever, meanwhile it is going to take years to suss out the evolutionary chain of events involved, and whether they may have been sped along in a lab. 

 

 

I now propose that the intermediate sequence in the insert involved only NINE identical nucleotides from the same region of HKU-9 downstream in S encoding TSAG, but inserted here in a different frame, to yield the recombinant:

23581 tat cag act cag act aat t/ct cgg cgg g\ca cgt agt
Y Q T Q T N S R R A R S

While this insert created the furin site, it would be less accessible and inefficient without an additional amino acid in the peptide loop, particularly if that missing amino acid would be proline introducing a kink in the otherwise freely rotating peptide chain.

The KEY BREAKTHROUGH MUTATION fully enabling the furin site, and producing a SARS-CoV-2 with higher pathogenicity and transmissibility, would be the next step – a direct tandem repeat of ctc just downstream of the redundant CAGAC breakpoint sequence - finally yielding what was seen in the early clinical isolates of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan. The key was what I would call “the missing kink” in the direct precursor to the pandemic version of the virus.

That this region of sequence is a “hot spot” for mutation has been amply demonstrated by the multiple nucleotide and amino acid substitutions that have subsequently appeared independently in multiple sub-lineages of the virus while circulating in the human population.

Thus the 12 nucleotide insert occurred in TWO stages, a nine nucleotide recombinant followed later by a three nucleotide direct repeat. Each stage has thorough precedent in the genomic gymnastics of the coronavirus replicase, as well as sequential mutational events at this same site, as demonstrated in the known genetic rearrangements found among bat coronaviruses and even in SARS-CoV-2 while circulating in the human population.

Combined with the earlier work of Boni et al (2) and my own earlier work (1), this scenario fully accounts for a natural origin for every single nucleotide in the SARS-CoV-2 genome, as well for a breakthrough mutation that was the last step in enabling the pandemic potential of the virus.

[TwiceHorn 31512]

28 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Interesting, but I think this disclaimer at the top deserves a mention:

"This manuscript does not demonstrate sufficient scientific evidence to support its claims. Claims are at times baseless and are not supported by the data and methods used. Decision-makers should consider the author's claims in this study misleading."

by Takahiko Koyama, Adam Lauring, Robert Gallo, and Marvin Reitz

https://rapidreviewscovid19.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/78we86rp/release/2

"the lead author of those preprints, Yan Li-Meng, has personally attacked scientists engaged in combating this misinformation with evidence, including me. As a result, I’ve been threatened with violence and sexual assault, an occupational hazard of misinformation debunking that I’ve unfortunately come to expect. Although this is deeply unpleasant, I am more concerned about the long-term effects of this type of misinformation for scientists around the world and our ability to conduct impactful scientific research on emerging viruses with pandemic potential."

By Angela L. Rasmussen

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01205-5

Peer review is important. 

 

 

Zenodo is a legit site, as far as it goes.  It's operated or founded by CERN.  But, it is "open science," meaning anyone can post anything on it.  I have had clients use it to publish "defensive publications" so things can't be validly patented later on.

To their credit, the site attaches warnings like that.

Also curious that the authors are not affiliated with any university or research institution, but rather Rule of Law Society & Rule of Law Foundation, which seems to be an organization dedicated to making China look bad.  Which is fine as far as it goes,  I guess.

 

Edited June 9, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[Dahobbs 17627]

17 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

IMO, there will never be a smoking gun as to whether SARS-CoV2 evolved naturally or via lab techniques that pressure mutations. 

Very good stuff in your post. I just wanted to highlight this for a second. If a smoking gun were to exist, China is the one that would have it in the lab. The fact that China hasn't come out with anything to suggest that this virus was actually the result of lab based mutations funded by the US is about as close to a smoking gun that it didn't happen as we are likely to find. 

[TwiceHorn 31512]

Just now, Dahobbs said:

Very good stuff in your post. I just wanted to highlight this for a second. If a smoking gun were to exist, China is the one that would have it in the lab. The fact that China hasn't come out with anything to suggest that this virus was actually the result of lab based mutations funded by the US is about as close to a smoking gun that it didn't happen as we are likely to find. 

On the one hand, that would make China look bad for being the source.  On the other, that would be compensated somewhat if we had funded it.  

[Dahobbs 17627]

2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

On the one hand, that would make China look bad for being the source.  On the other, that would be compensated somewhat if we had funded it.  

China looks bad (is bad) regardless. I can't imagine China not using that if it was available. 

Edited June 9, 2021 by Dahobbs

[BabaYaga 15302]

21 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Zenodo is a legit site, as far as it goes.  It's operated or founded by CERN.  But, it is "open science," meaning anyone can post anything on it.  I have had clients use it to publish "defensive publications" so things can't be validly patented later on.

To their credit, the site attaches warnings like that.

Also curious that the authors are not affiliated with any university or research institution, but rather Rule of Law Society & Rule of Law Foundation, which seems to be an organization dedicated to making China look bad.  Which is fine as far as it goes,  I guess.

 

The author is/claims to be a former Wuhan lab scientist, so that take for what it's worth.  The point of the post is her assertion that I have so far not seen refuted, that the "addition" isn't natural - ie., her example of a mutation is found on line 651 where Glutamine (Q CAA) is mutated into Arginine (R CGA). During transcription, adenine was replaced with guanine....and there's your "mutation"

She posits that in the sequence from 680 to 700 (surrounded by the green lines), there are lines where NOTHING (____) is replaced Serine (S) Proline (P) Arginine (R) & Arginine (R).

Her whole point:  This isn't a mutation. It's an insertion and it doesn't happen in nature.

[wildcat09 29359]

27 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Zenodo is a legit site, as far as it goes.  It's operated or founded by CERN.  But, it is "open science," meaning anyone can post anything on it.  I have had clients use it to publish "defensive publications" so things can't be validly patented later on.

To their credit, the site attaches warnings like that.

Also curious that the authors are not affiliated with any university or research institution, but rather Rule of Law Society & Rule of Law Foundation, which seems to be an organization dedicated to making China look bad.  Which is fine as far as it goes,  I guess.

 

Regarding the Rule of Law Foundation:

Quote

A sprawling online network tied to Chinese businessman Guo Wengui has become a potent platform for disinformation in the United States, attacking the safety of coronavirus vaccines, promoting false election-fraud claims and spreading baseless QAnon conspiracies, according to research published Monday by the network analysis company Graphika.

The report, provided in advance to The Washington Post, details a network that Graphika says amplifies the views of Guo, a Chinese real estate developer whose association with former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon became a focus of news coverage last year after Bannon was arrested aboard Guo’s yacht on federal fraud charges.

Graphika said the network includes media websites such as GTV, for which Guo last year publicly said he was raising funds, along with thousands of social media accounts that Graphika said amplify content in a coordinated fashion. The network also includes more than a dozen local-action groups over which Guo has publicly claimed an oversight role, Graphika found.

Graphika’s research sheds more light on Guo, a onetime billionaire real estate developer who, in addition to his relationship with Bannon, has drawn attention for the confusing mix of disinformation and invective he has broadcast since moving to the United States, including contradictory attacks on both the Chinese Communist Party and anti-CCP dissidents in the West.

The Graphika report “is an important forensic analysis of the ways that rich and politically motivated people can manipulate social media,” said Joan Donovan, director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center.

Graphika, which has conducted research on Internet use for a wide variety of organizations including Facebook and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, called Guo the “linchpin” of the network, though it stopped short of detailing his exact role. “He is the leading personality, appears to define goals and messaging, and is positioned as a wise leader who should be admired and followed,” the report says.

Guo is the featured speaker in many of the videos and texts disseminated by the network, including some that have sought to undermine the scientific consensus about the causes and remedies of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a video posted in April on GNews, a media website Guo has publicly suggested he helped establish, Guo calls vaccines against the coronavirus “fake” and “poison.”

Images disseminated by the network on Instagram have portrayed coronavirus vaccines as grenades, bullets and handguns. Another meme that circulated on Instagram in January warned, “Don’t trust the vaccine, the medical industry is completely controlled by a special interest.”

Daniel Podhaskie, a spokesman for Guo, denied that Guo controlled content on GTV or GNews.

“They are not platforms whose content is managed or directed by Mr. Guo or any single individual or company,” he said by email. “GTV is an online video sharing platform with posts mainly in Chinese Mandarin. Similar to Twitter and Facebook, the GTV video hosting platform allows users to create, upload, view, like/dislike, comment, and share videos . . . implying that Mr. Guo is responsible for everything that is posted on this platform is ludicrous.”

“Mr. Guo posts his own videos on GTV and does not control or coordinate what subscribers or other GTV bloggers do with them,” he added.

Information disseminated by the entities that Graphika defined as the network focuses primarily on attacking China’s political leadership, but the network also has played a loud, persistent and largely overlooked role in U.S. politics, including in fueling falsehoods – repeatedly rejected by investigators and courts – that widespread fraud marred the 2020 election.

Graphika said its analysis found thousands of accounts apparently working together across social media platforms in a well-coordinated effort to push selected themes in a manner that amplifies their reach. Many of the accounts “appear to be run by real people but solely amplify Guo-related content,” Graphika said.

People who describe themselves as Guo supporters in Chinese expatriate communities in the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries help translate and prepare the videos and memes that the network disseminates, Graphika researchers said.

 

Dozens of corporate entities, media organizations and activist groups participate in the network, Graphika said, including Saraca Media Group Inc., a Delaware-registered company that is listed as the entity offering the GNews and GTV apps in Apple’s App Store. Saraca also owns Guo Media, an entity that agreed to pay Bannon an annual fee of $1 million for consulting services, according to a 2018 contract published by Axios.

Asked whether Guo is a direct or beneficial owner of Saraca, GTV Media Group or the other companies identified by Graphika, Podhaskie said: “Mr. Guo does not own or have any employment, oversight or formal consulting/advisory relationship with any of these entities. He has served in an unpaid capacity, as GTV Media’s sponsor, and as an unpaid informal advisor and key host for content.”

Podhaskie is listed as president and director of Saraca in a document filed in February with Delaware’s secretary of state. Podhaskie declined to comment on that.

The Graphika report identifies videos posted online in which Guo claims a leading role in some operations, including an April 2020 clip of Guo speaking about overseeing the sale of shares in media outlet GTV.

“We mainly accept investments from our friends,” Guo says in the video, which concludes with written instructions for investors to send the signed shareholder agreement to “Mr. Guo Wengui’s WhatsApp number.”

Guo also refers to Bannon as a GTV board member in the video. Bannon didn’t respond to a request for comment, but in the past has called Guo “the toughest Chinese opponent the CCP has ever encountered.”

Last year, GNews quoted Guo as saying, “Our GNews viewer and registration numbers grow by multiples every week . . . The chance for our products to grow rapidly and make an enormous profit is boundless!”

Teng Biao, a Chinese dissident and human rights scholar at Hunter College in New York, who was harassed at his New Jersey home for weeks last year by protesters he said were sent by Guo, said the Graphika research is particularly valuable in identifying the various companies and entities that appear to be working in tandem.

“Guo and his media have played a very active role in spreading misinformation related to Chinese and American politics and society,” Teng said. In addition to circulating broadly in English, the material “has significantly polluted the public discussion on Chinese-language social media,” including the popular WeChat app, he added.

The protests at Teng’s home began after Guo recorded a series of videos encouraging his followers to “eliminate” roughly 20 people he deemed “traitors,” including Teng. Other dissidents named in the videos reported being targeted by similar protests that on one occasion turned violent, The Post previously reported.

Asked by The Post about the protests last year, Guo appeared to confirm his involvement, though he denied any role in violence. “To be clear, I have never condoned any type of violence towards any individuals. Myself, the anti-CCP supporters, and the New Federal State of China movement are exercising our First Amendment right to expose and oppose those who support the CCP,” he said at the time, referring to a pro-democracy movement he created with Bannon with the stated aim of replacing CCP rule.

Guo supporters who help produce and spread the network’s memes and videos are a combination of volunteers and paid workers who refer to themselves as “ants,” working for what Guo has called a movement of “whistleblowers” challenging Chinese government power, Graphika said. The researchers titled their report, “Ants in a Web: Deconstructing Guo Wengui’s Online ‘Whistleblower Movement.’ “

The “ants” appear to coordinate their work on chat apps, including Discord, WhatsApp and Telegram, and to post content across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other sites, Graphika said. The researchers found identical posts appearing almost simultaneously from different Facebook accounts, a sign of tight coordination. But the researchers came to believe that this work was not “inauthentic,” a term meaning that those posting content are not expressing their own views – often a trigger for takedowns or other enforcement actions.

Accounts said to be part of the network have faced sporadic sanctions by social media companies, including the closing of 150 Twitter accounts for “spam and platform manipulation” during the 2020 presidential election. Graphika found concerted efforts to sidestep platform rules by, for example, posting modified web addresses that would not face automatic bans by Facebook or Twitter.

“Twitter’s top priority is keeping people safe, and we remain vigilant about coordinated activity on our service,” spokeswoman Katie Rosborough said. Facebook didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Guo supporters are organized into local action groups known as “Himalaya farms,” according to Graphika and Guo’s public statements. In a September 2020 video clip posted on GNews, Guo said that the Himalaya Standing Committee oversees the network of farms. “If you name your organization after a Himalaya Farm without our approval, we will soon cut our ties with you,” he said.

Graphika said the Guo-affiliated network became more involved in U.S. political activity in the run-up to the November election. On Sept. 25, Lude Media, an online program that Graphika identified as part of the network, began reporting about allegedly damaging content purportedly recovered from Hunter Biden’s computer – three weeks before the New York Post became the first news organization to report on the topic, Graphika said.

GNews also published many negative claims about Hunter Biden, including false allegations that he engaged in child sexual abuse.

After the election, content across the network embraced President Donald Trump’s false election-fraud claims and the related #StoptheSteal hashtag, and promoted Trump’s plans for a Jan. 6 rally in Washington, Graphika found. During the rally and subsequent storming of the U.S. Capitol, GTV featured live streams of the action, which Guo supporters promoted on social media, along with material calling members of the mob “patriots.”

Later, GNews and other wings of the network pushed false conspiracies that the violence was the work of antifa, Graphika found.

Regarding the coronavirus pandemic, Graphika said the network has amplified the unsubstantiated claim that China purposely manufactured the virus as a bioweapon. Chinese scientist Li-Meng Yan, whose spreading of unproven claims about the origins of the novel coronavirus sparked a pitched backlash among American medical researchers last year, is regularly featured in content and has openly affiliated herself with two nonprofits that Guo announced he was founding in 2018.

Posts on the network have pushed the use of the unproven treatment hydroxychloroquine to fight covid-19 – GNews published comments from Guo saying he himself has taken the drug – and repeatedly attacked the safety of coronavirus vaccines.

One video released on GNews in April by a Himalaya farm in Toronto said that Chinese authorities “quickly developed and exported another biochemical virus in the form of a vaccine.” The video included images of the AstraZeneca vaccine and clips of Guo saying “How many people will die? The vaccine is a real poison,” and “The vaccines are all fake. . . . There is no vaccine, never ever. Because it is the bioweapon.”

Graphika said the network also has “continuously amplified QAnon-aligned content,” including by posting an “extensive collection” of QAnon videos on GTV.

“Mr. Guo does not work with, know, or seek guidance from QAnon,” Podhaskie said.

Graphika said the network also includes the Rule of Law Foundation and the Rule of Law Society – two nonprofits that Guo said he was launching in 2018. Bannon was to lead the Rule of Law Society, which would be backed by a $100 million donation from Guo, the two men said at a news conference at the time.

On their websites, the Rule of Law groups say they collect donations to provide support to people who have run afoul of Chinese authorities. Graphika found that donations to the groups were in some cases mandatory before a Guo supporter could join a Himalaya farm.

Podhaskie said: “Perhaps the above requirement, if true, are attempts to filter out potential CCP agents from legitimate supporters.”

These guys seem legit.

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

Bannon has always been the smart fascist. He is really good at what he does.

[Willfully Horn 8039]

On 6/8/2021 at 11:26 AM, hayden_horn said:

one of the best, most satisfying meals i've had was in an open air wet market in tsim sha tsui in hong kong. think of blue plastic kiddie pools with fish swimming around. multiple vendors just cooking on the street.  saw them kill, clean, and cook the fish whole in an amazing sauce. coworker and i sat there, and ate with relish. place seemed dodgy, but the food was delicious. i did not catch a global pandemic while there.

i really think some of yall have this opaque idea when you start slinging phrases around. hell, some of the local austin asian places will take a swimming fish and kill it and clean it right in front of you. is that a wet market?

Depends on my date.

[sheeeit 129]

On 6/7/2021 at 12:16 PM, TwiceHorn said:

Yknow.  Who gives a fuck where the virus came from.  In some sense it's relevant, but for the past year it has been highly irrelevant.  Whether lab-created or lab-leaked or both has shit to do with our response.

Now, I suppose you could argue that if it had been lab-created, the Chinese could have been somehow compelled to give over the lab-creation data, which might have expedited some aspect of the response, like vaccine formulation.  But, even if it was  lab-created, I don't think the Chinese would ever admit that.

Frankly, we had bigger fish to fry than trying to determine the origin of the virus.  Until some point in the future, when the virus is mostly in the rear-view mirror, it remains an academic question.

Interesting take here. You certainly did seem to care where it came from when you posted earlier in this thread articles that seemed to assure you that the virus had not come from a lab. Now that it is certainly possible that those articles and the people who contributed to them were wrong, instead of getting mad at those people for duping you or trying to figure out other explanations, you resort to who cares, Trump is an idiot.
 

there is a tremendous need to know where the virus came from. The virus is responsible for the deaths of millions of people and trillions of dollars in economic damage. literally one of the worst events in human history.  If it did come from a lab and if it was altered in the lab (which certainly seems extremely likely now that the genome has been sequenced and there are specific markers that are used to make viruses attachable to human cells that do not occur naturally) there absolutely needs to be a worldwide discussion about whether this type of research should be happening at all. I do not know the answer to that question but, I think it is going to be difficult for someone to make an argument that there was any net positive benefit to this research that could offset millions dead and trillions in economic loss.

further, there is tremendous geopolitical capital in determining if this happened in China.  For all of our lifetimes, China is going to be an adversary.  Whether it Is national security, trade negotiations, pollution, climate change, human rights, currency manipulation  etc, this is potentially a huge stick that the rest of the world, and especially the United States, can use against China.  
 

Amd the investigation has to happen quickly. There are too many ways that the evidence can be hidden or scrubbed or disappeared over time. Our government is massive. We could very easily be doing whatever is necessary to mitigate the damage to the virus while simultaneously investigating its origins. It is juvenile to think that one couldn’t happen because of the other.  

[sheeeit 129]

3 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

Very good stuff in your post. I just wanted to highlight this for a second. If a smoking gun were to exist, China is the one that would have it in the lab. The fact that China hasn't come out with anything to suggest that this virus was actually the result of lab based mutations funded by the US is about as close to a smoking gun that it didn't happen as we are likely to find. 

I completely disagree with this and I think the opposite is probably a much more realistic interpretation.  To date, all of the cases being made for US based funding are only talking about extremely small amounts of money in the grand scheme of things.  The vast bulk of funding for these labs is from China.  And no one is going to buy an excuse that a lab in Communist China that is being run by Chinese scientists somehow did some thing that the Chinese either were not aware of or did not approve of because the US gave a little bit of money. That is a preposterous position.  Nothing happened in those labs that the Chinese government was not aware of.  
 

The fact that China will not release that information nor make it open to outside investigators is much more bolstering to the case that the virus was somehow lab manipulated.  It is by no means a smoking gun but, to me, is much more indicative that Chyna knows more than they are letting on.

 

[sheeeit 129]

https://www.independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/a-proposed-origin-for-sars-cov-2-and-the-covid-19-pandemic/
 

this is a very good read. It really dumb’s down the scientific jargon so people like me can understand it.

it is obviously just an opinion but it certainly raises lots and lots of circumstantial evidence that isn’t easily explained.

This particular line of facts is quite high opening to me:

1) The bats that apparently carry the original virus have only been found in Yunann.  None of the bats in and around Wuhan have been found to carry the virus.  Yunann is 1300 or so miles from Wuhan. 
 

2) The researchers in the Wuhan lab have documented that they traveled to Yunnan to collect virus samples from the bats there.

3) The researchers have publicly stated that the original virus in the bats was not harmful or contagious to humans.  For the transmission to be zoonic (meaning that the virus was harmless to humans im the bats but then the bats infected the virus into some other animal host which it then mutated in that new host into a form that was contagious to humans and was transmitted from that animal to humans) there would obviously have to be some other animal that had the virus.  it is highly unlikely to the point of almost being preposterous that the initial outbreak in humans, which is confirmed to be in Wuhan, occurred naturally by a bat some 1300 miles away infecting some other animal that somehow made its way to Wuhan and didn’t infect anybody in the 1300 mile journey. Certainly there were no initial cases in Yunann.  
 

4) The lead scientist in the Wuhan lab published research in 2017 where they actually took a bat virus and mutated it into a form that was attached to human cells.  
 

It would have to be the greatest coincidence in the history of the world that somehow a bat virus infected some other animal and that animal somehow migrated 1300 miles and began infecting people in the exact same city that housed China’s largest laboratory for infectious disease research that was openly known and a actually published results of work that they did that combined bat viruses to human cells.   
 

anyway, it is a good article for laypeople to read and understand.   

[Horn of Gabriel 1650]

Regardless of lab-leak or natural, can we agree that gain-of-function research is fucking stupid?  I see Dazak and virologists who want funding talking about all these wonderful supposed benefits of GoF: we need to "get ahead" of nature, etc.  Have any of these benefits actually come true?  Where was getting ahead of nature w/ COVID?  Do we have demonstrable benefits from GoF to weigh against the real, documented lab-leaks that happen anywhere there is a BSL lab?

[TwiceHorn 31512]

8 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

Regardless of lab-leak or natural, can we agree that gain-of-function research is fucking stupid?  I see Dazak and virologists who want funding talking about all these wonderful supposed benefits of GoF: we need to "get ahead" of nature, etc.  Have any of these benefits actually come true?  Where was getting ahead of nature w/ COVID?  Do we have demonstrable benefits from GoF to weigh against the real, documented lab-leaks that happen anywhere there is a BSL lab?

Saying "fucking stupid" is, well, fucking stupid.  I suspect only a handful of posters can really answer that question with any degree of insight.

Also, only specific types of "gain of function" research pose risk.  And there's lots of bio research not involving gain of function that poses a similar risk of release of human pathogens. See, e.g. Sverdlovsk leak; any research involving hemorrhagic fevers (Ebola, Marburg), Creutzfeld-Jakob, etc. that are already known human pathogens, but could yield really important discoveries in their prevention or the prevention of related problems (various demntias in the case of Creutzfeld-Jakob).

Should all this shit be overseen carefully, sure.  Concluding that it has zero value seems, well, maybe fucking stupid.

[Anastasis 23480]

39 minutes ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

Where was getting ahead of nature w/ COVID?  Do we have demonstrable benefits from GoF to weigh against the real, documented lab-leaks that happen anywhere there is a BSL lab?

The getting ahead here was the decade+ long investment in foundational science related to vaccine technology, and the private sectors ability to rapidly respond in collaboration with public support and partners. The GoF devotees are not digging us out out of this shit.  The people that persevered in the face of the scientific community, academic community, and others up and down shitting on them and on telling them that their tech would never amount to jack shit are the heroes here. 

Edited June 9, 2021 by Anastasis

[TwiceHorn 31512]

14 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

The getting ahead here was the decade+ long investment in foundational science related to vaccine technology, and the private sectors ability to rapidly respond in collaboration with public support and partners. The GoF devotees are not digging us out out of this shit.  The people that persevered in the face of the scientific community, academic community, and others up and down shitting on them and on telling them that their tech would never amount to jack shit are the heroes here. 

Do you think "GoF" risk outweighs any value, whether potential or actually realized?  Let's call it human gain of function for more specificity, although I suppose gain of function research could also accidentally produce a super-pathogen while expressly avoiding human-transmissibility research.

What about non GoF research that poses similar risks?

Apparently USAMRIID has been adjudged too lax to deal with any human pathogens, whether of natural or man-made origin.

Edited June 9, 2021 by TwiceHorn

[Anastasis 23480]

6 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Do you think "GoF" risk outweighs any value, whether potential or actually realized?  Let's call it human gain of function for more specificity, although I suppose gain of function research could also accidentally produce a super-pathogen while expressly avoiding human-transmissibility research.

What about non GoF research that poses similar risks?

Apparently USAMRIID has been adjudged too lax to deal with any human pathogens, whether of natural or man-made origin.

Impossible to assess the risk/benefit without clearly articulating the protective measures and protocols in place. 

It is clear that the Chinese labs (as well as the American ones to be frank) have problems with their SOPs.  So default should be that unless the safety protocols are proved up and subject to rigorous oversight, yes, the risks outweigh the benefits. 

[TwiceHorn 31512]

For the sake of discussion, here's what HHS used when dealing with the particular type of GOF research I think under consideration.

A. A potential pandemic pathogen (PPP) is a pathogen that satisfies both of the following: 1. It is likely highly transmissible and likely capable of wide and uncontrollable spread in human populations; and 2. It is likely highly virulent and likely to cause significant morbidity and/or mortality in humans. B. An enhanced PPP is defined as a PPP resulting from the enhancement of the transmissibility and/or virulence of a pathogen. Enhanced PPPs do not include naturally occurring pathogens that are circulating in or have been recovered from nature, regardless of their pandemic potential.

"Enhanced PPP" is what was banned. I don't even want to look at the Senate bill because I'm relatively confident that it's stupid.

[bolverk 29695]

I'm curious what handle @BabaYagawas using when he was posting furiously in the pizzagate and Seth Rich threads back on the old CR board.

[WhatTheBuck 28794]

9 hours ago, GW Hayduke said:

I don’t think Babayaga is an idiot in terms of not being able to differentiate his pillow case from toilet paper.

I think he’s an idiot in terms of not being able to differentiate his ass from a hole in the ground. 

[Anastasis 23480]

Disregard the noise and deflections.

If you really want to tip toe around the rabbit hole that Baba has fallen down, critically review the FOIA emails from Jan 31 to Feb 4. There is smoke there, largely hidden behind redactions. Hand wave if you want.  I believe there is a natural origin explanation, but also don't think that we should dig our head into the sand about the other alternatives here.  There were some people curiously highly concerned about the early indications. But a good number of posters are just reflexively repeating their acritical history at this point.

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Anastasis

[Horn of Gabriel 1650]

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Saying "fucking stupid" is, well, fucking stupid.  I suspect only a handful of posters can really answer that question with any degree of insight.

I see a lot of justification that seems suspiciously like hand-waving from elite virologists like Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance regard GoF and its benefits to mankind and preventing or mitigating exactly this type of pandemic.  When I look for specifics I get some variation of "well you have to be an elite virologist to really understand any of this..."  That is bull.  Lots of complex topics are made simple and clear in terms of their benefits and risks to laypeople, many of whom in the U.S. are apparently funding this research via the Government.  I'd love to see this broken down as "we prevented X pandemic" or "our GoF research accelerated vaccine discovery and production for a virus we first created artificially in the lab and later actually emerged in the wild."  And for good measure I'd like to hear that from someone other than the scientists directly benefitting from the research grant.  Maybe those benefits actually exist; I'd love to see them!  Right now the risks seem pretty clear, the benefits murky.

 

Quote

Also, only specific types of "gain of function" research pose risk.  And there's lots of bio research not involving gain of function that poses a similar risk of release of human pathogens. See, e.g. Sverdlovsk leak; any research involving hemorrhagic fevers (Ebola, Marburg), Creutzfeld-Jakob, etc. that are already known human pathogens, but could yield really important discoveries in their prevention or the prevention of related problems (various demntias in the case of Creutzfeld-Jakob).

OK?  Thank you for illustrating a real benefit to tradeoff against the risk. Dealing with horrifying pathogens involves risks and should be regulated tighter than it is today.  

It still doesn't address the question of what benefit we're getting from literally creating new, more horrifying, more transmissive pathogens.

[WhatTheBuck 28794]

I’m disinclined to pay much attention to the musings on scientific matters of someone who goes by the name of “Horn of Gabriel.”

[Anastasis 23480]

9 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I’m disinclined to pay much attention to the musings on scientific matters of someone who goes by the name of “Horn of Gabriel.”

An example of the types of brain damage that must be accounted for in these discussions. 

[SizzleChest 8284]

2 hours ago, bolverk said:

I'm curious what handle @BabaYagawas using when he was posting furiously in the pizzagate and Seth Rich threads back on the old CR board.

FetusYaga?

[UpperWestside 6172]

1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

If you really want to tip toe around the rabbit hole that Baba has fallen down, 

 

I do not want to tip toe around it. I want to get everyone out of that rabbit hole like BabaYaga that is mired in neck deep conspiracies that lead to nowhere except the musings of others people sucked into the same conspiracies. The I want to take the hole and bomb it into oblivion so we can start to heal these folks whose minds are completely and utterly adrift. These folks have the same one shot at life like the rest of us and it saddens me that they are using up so much of their life focused on conspiracies that are based upon lie after lie after lie. The only thing I want to tip toe around is the fragility of the minds of those who are going to need a whole lot of therapy and mental and emotional healing to get back into the real world. I think all their energy can be put to positive use, but it won't happen with the state so many of them are currently in mentally.

[Anastasis 23480]

2 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:

I do not want to tip toe around it. I want to get everyone out of that rabbit hole like BabaYaga that is mired in neck deep conspiracies that lead to nowhere except the musings of others people sucked into the same conspiracies. The I want to take the hole and bomb it into oblivion so we can start to heal these folks whose minds are completely and utterly adrift. These folks have the same one shot at life like the rest of us and it saddens me that they are using up so much of their life focused on conspiracies that are based upon lie after lie after lie. The only thing I want to tip toe around is the fragility of the minds of those who are going to need a whole lot of therapy and mental and emotional healing to get back into the real world. I think all their energy can be put to positive use, but it won't happen with the state so many of them are currently in mentally.

The thrust of the point goes whoosh. 

[SizzleChest 8284]

1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

Disregard the noise and deflections.

If you really want to tip toe around the rabbit hole that Baba has fallen down, critically review the FOIA emails from Jan 31 to Feb 4. There is smoke there, largely hidden behind redactions. Hand wave if you want.  I believe there is a natural origin explanation, but also don't think that we should dig our head into the sand about the other alternatives here.  There were some people curiously highly concerned about the early indications. But a good number of posters are just reflexively repeating their acritical history at this point.

 

Conspiracy theorism is a foundational belief system for most of these people, tbh.

[JimmyJames 12271]

Why does it have to be more complicated than it appears the Chinese fucked up? Seems pretty simple to me if that can be proven, which of course the Chinese have done their best to cover up. To argue beyond that seems to be an attempt to deflect from that. 

Edited June 10, 2021 by JimmyJames

[UpperWestside 6172]

Just now, Anastasis said:

The thrust of the point goes whoosh. 

It had nothing to do with the rest of your point. That was not of interest to me. You have folks you converse with who have that interest. Your sentence was a jumping off point into something that was on my mind.

[SizzleChest 8284]

2 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

The thrust of the point goes whoosh. 

It’s a valid POV though, even if it misses your thrust.

[Anastasis 23480]

1 minute ago, SizzleChest said:

It’s a valid POV though, even if it misses your thrust.

You are not wrong. 

But we are dodging trees at this point. 

[Anastasis 23480]

5 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Why does it have to be more complicated than it appears the Chinese fucked up?

Because the reality is more complex and deserves honest and forthright discussion. 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Anastasis

[SizzleChest 8284]

3 hours ago, Anastasis said:

The getting ahead here was the decade+ long investment in foundational science related to vaccine technology, and the private sectors ability to rapidly respond in collaboration with public support and partners. The GoF devotees are not digging us out out of this shit.  The people that persevered in the face of the scientific community, academic community, and others up and down shitting on them and on telling them that their tech would never amount to jack shit are the heroes here. 

GoF devotees are structurally incapable of assessing risk / benefit, imo.

[JimmyJames 12271]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

Because the reality is more complex and deserves honest and forthright discussion. 

Maybe so. But it appears that the reality will be almost impossible to prove. So why not start with the simple things first. Hopefully the easiest to prove. Otherwise it’s just talk on the net. 

[Anastasis 23480]

Just now, SizzleChest said:

GoF devotees are structurally incapable of assessing risk / benefit, imo.

That is more than clear at this point. We are in total agreement. And that assessment has nothing to do with what was happening at WIV or the semantics of whether NIH was funding it and where they were funding it. 

[Anastasis 23480]

1 minute ago, JimmyJames said:

Maybe so. But it appears that the reality will be almost impossible to prove. So why not start with the simple things first. Hopefully the easiest to prove. Otherwise it’s just talk on the net. 

Precisely why we should focus on tracing down the spillover to humans.  Whether a lab accident or fur farms or wet markets, etc.