Origin of Covid-19

[PittsburghTiger 6192]

3 hours ago, Schulz2.0 said:

Arguably the bigger issue than whether it was a lab leak or human/animal transmission.

Holy cow, the flights into and out of Wuhan has been known since Day 1. I hope he is not stating that as some sort of new information.

The Chinese own a ton of the Italian luxury brands. Travel was not restricted for them out of Wuhan into Italy. Italy got hammered early on. 

The Red Cross tested blood on the West Coast and they reported that this first started showing up in late October and November of 2019. Nobody knew what it was at the time.

Edited February 28, 2023 by PittsburghTiger

[Rimbo 25984]

8 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

Well not millennia, but America has a long tradition of all kinds of huge fucking grifters, snake oil salesmen, and liars of all types finding enormous success here, and they're rarely ever punished for it. Elizabeth Holmes is the exception, not the rule. 

Yes, but the grifters themselves are a minority. A small one. It's not like it's literally every person you meet.

[Dahobbs 17625]

13 minutes ago, PittsburghTiger said:

Holy cow, the flights into and out of Wuhan has been known since Day 1. I hope he is not stating that as some sort of new information.

As far as I can tell, it isn't true, at least not the way he phrased it. If you have any source that says otherwise, I'd be interested in seeing it. 

[PittsburghTiger 6192]

1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

As far as I can tell, it isn't true, at least not the way he phrased it. If you have any source that says otherwise, I'd be interested in seeing it. 

My brother has lived in Taiwan for almost 30 years. There was a ton of information smuggled out to Taiwan. Yes, they did shut it down January 23. That's not in dispute. Covid started before January 2020 and there was a ton of travel before the 23rd, a lot to Europe and a lot to the U.S.

Late January 2020 we had to get my nephew back from Taiwan before we thought everything was to be shut down and that was the last week of January. 

[Dahobbs 17625]

5 minutes ago, PittsburghTiger said:

My brother has lived in Taiwan for almost 30 years. There was a ton of information smuggled out to Taiwan. Yes, they did shut it down January 23. That's not in dispute. Covid started before January 2020 and there was a ton of travel before the 23rd, a lot to Europe and a lot to the U.S.

Late January 2020 we had to get my nephew back from Taiwan before we thought everything was to be shut down and that was the last week of January. 

I see. That isn't what Zeihan stated. Travel certainly happened, both within China and outside China, until January 23. However, Zeihan suggested that international flights from Wuhan continued after travel was shut down within China . I haven't seen any evidence to supports that statement. 

[Hate 20116]

Wait…so one could have hopped on a plane after Jan 23rd in Wuhan and traveled to Bejing to hop on an international flight? But you are arguing that there were no direct international flights so they are lying?

If that is not what you are saying than mea culpa. I just want to understand your point correctly. And to be fair, I didn’t read the entire article.

[Dahobbs 17625]

5 minutes ago, Hate said:

Wait…so one could have hopped on a plane after Jan 23rd in Wuhan and traveled to Bejing to hop on an international flight? But you are arguing that there were no direct international flights so they are lying?

If that is not what you are saying than mea culpa. I just want to understand your point correctly. And to be fair, I didn’t read the entire article.

No. The claim was that China banned internal travel from Wuhan (e.g., Wuhan to Beijing), but allowed international travel from Wuhan (e.g., Wuhan to Paris). I don't see any evidence that was the case. 

Edited March 1, 2023 by Dahobbs

[dimyh 1874]

[babysdaddy 2725]

[wild_turkey 3167]

13 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

I always find the “China is inherently dishonest” rhetoric kind of funny. One the one hand, they’re definitely an authoritarian state and authoritarian states lie about pretty much everything as a matter of course. They lie even about shit even when there’s no reason to. On the other hand, we lie to the world about shit all of the time too and most presidential administrations that we’ve had absolutely would lie and try to cover it up if we had a lab leak, or even just a shitty response to an outbreak of a new zoonotic disease that began here. 

Although I think there's truth to the idea that many democratic governments would attempt some degree of a cover-up in the early stages of an outbreak, I don't think the U.S. government would blatantly lie to maintain that cover-up coverup 3 years into a pandemic that killed over 7 million people. 

China has lied to the entire world every step of the way going on 3 years now. It was catastrophic in the initial stages of the pandemic, continues to prevent a proper investigation into the origins of the virus, which also impedes efforts to prevent a similar pandemic in the future. They constantly lie to their own population, resulting in a disaster over the past 6 months, and the general Chinese population doesn't seem to have any idea what's going on most of this time. Just mass confusion with no options but to blindly follow the orders of their government. They will continue to lie to everyone and refuse to work with world health agencies. Good luck with any suggestion that they tighten up lab safety protocols or restrict zoonotic transmission in wet markets because they will lie to everyone about that too.

Nothing even close to this level of blatant deception could ever occur in the U.S. or 

[wildcat09 29355]

10 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

Although I think there's truth to the idea that many democratic governments would attempt some degree of a cover-up in the early stages of an outbreak, I don't think the U.S. government would blatantly lie to maintain that cover-up coverup 3 years into a pandemic that killed over 7 million people. 

China has lied to the entire world every step of the way going on 3 years now. It was catastrophic in the initial stages of the pandemic, continues to prevent a proper investigation into the origins of the virus, which also impedes efforts to prevent a similar pandemic in the future. They constantly lie to their own population, resulting in a disaster over the past 6 months, and the general Chinese population doesn't seem to have any idea what's going on most of this time. Just mass confusion with no options but to blindly follow the orders of their government. They will continue to lie to everyone and refuse to work with world health agencies. Good luck with any suggestion that they tighten up lab safety protocols or restrict zoonotic transmission in wet markets because they will lie to everyone about that too.

Nothing even close to this level of blatant deception could ever occur in the U.S. or 

I think I could argue that this is wrong pretty persuasively but it'd be completely CR material.

[Bevo 13579]

16 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I think I could argue that this is wrong pretty persuasively but it'd be completely CR material.

Just out of curiosity would you be arguing for the sake of arguing or would you truly believe the bullshit you would be writing?

[wild_turkey 3167]

I think I could argue that this is wrong pretty persuasively but it'd be completely CR material.

I assume you mean the part about the U.S. not lying on that grand of a scale, or not covering things up at that level.

I agree with you that there have been major coverups throughout our history but I like to believe we have a culture that expects and pursues the truth, and that many of the events in our history that you would point out (if we were in CR but I can guess what they are) have since been exposed and investigated with some degree of repercussions for those involved. Perhaps it’s prison time or perhaps it’s loss of political office, or loss of political capital for a given party, but there are consequences.

In recent years you could argue that America unfortunately has 2-3 “truths” on most topics, but I think a reasonably intelligent and politically unbiased person has the ability to look at the facts for a given topic and make a good judgment about where the actual truth is.

China has one “truth” which is whatever the PRC says, even if that is a blatant lie. There is no expectation for investigating and exposing the actual truth on anything because doing so could be a death sentence. There is no room for dissent and certainly no hope for anyone to ever understand a complex topic like COVID. It’s a complete black box buried in lies.

[statsman 5472]

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/trumps-flawed-china-travel-conspiracy/

[YGIFS 19452]

I really think it's quite cloak room of you to directly quote U.S. Federal policy to the Covid-19 situation back in 2020.  That has no bearing on anything.  Coronavirus wasn't even really a thing back then.  

[RubyManJack 47]

On 2/27/2023 at 9:40 PM, axiom of foundation said:

I pressed the hookem reputation button to your post for the listeners at home and for the keeper of records. 

Hey old friend, I owe you a long email. Glad to see you are alive, still.

[DDD Dad 14339]

14 hours ago, babysdaddy said:

 

This really isn't groundbreaking news, and the FBI's assessment is far from a conclusive determination.  What does appear to be most likely is that however it made its way into the human population, it was not genetically engineered or released intentionally.

From the DNI website:

"The IC assesses that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, probably emerged and infected humans through an initial small-scale exposure that occurred no later than November 2019 with the first known cluster of COVID-19 cases arising in Wuhan, China in December 2019. In addition, the IC was able to reach broad agreement on several other key issues. We judge the virus was not developed as a biological weapon. Most agencies also assess with low confidence that SARS-CoV-2 probably was not genetically engineered; however, two agencies believe there was not sufficient evidence to make an assessment either way. Finally, the IC assesses China’s officials did not have foreknowledge of the virus before the initial outbreak of COVID-19 emerged."

The report goes on to note that the intelligence community remains divided on the most likely origin of COVID-19 (with which I'm currently suffering, BTW).

Quote

After examining all available intelligence reporting and other information, though, the IC
remains divided on the most likely origin of COVID-19. All agencies assess that two hypotheses

• are plausible: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident. Four IC elements and the National Intelligence Council assess with low confidence that the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection was most likely caused by natural exposure to an animal infected with it or a close progenitor virus—a virus that probably would be more than 99 percent similar to SARS-CoV-2. These analysts give weight to China’s officials’ lack of foreknowledge, the numerous vectors for natural exposure, and other factors.
• One IC element assesses with moderate confidence that the first human infection with SARS-CoV-2 most likely was the result of a laboratory-associated incident, probably involving experimentation, animal handling, or sampling by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. These analysts give weight to the inherently risky nature of work on coronaviruses.
• Analysts at three IC elements remain unable to coalesce around either explanation without additional information, with some analysts favoring natural origin, others a laboratory origin, and some seeing the hypotheses as equally likely. 
• Variations in analytic views largely stem from differences in how agencies weigh intelligence reporting and scientific publications, and intelligence and scientific gaps. 

The IC judges they will be unable to provide a more definitive explanation for the origin of COVID-19 unless new information allows them to determine the specific pathway for initial natural contact with an animal or to determine that a laboratory in Wuhan was handling SARSCoV-2 or a close progenitor virus before COVID-19 emerged.

• The IC—and the global scientific community—lacks clinical samples or a complete understanding of epidemiological data from the earliest COVID-19 cases. If we obtain information on the earliest cases that identified a location of interest or occupational exposure, it may alter our evaluation of hypotheses.

China’s cooperation most likely would be needed to reach a conclusive assessment of the origins of COVID-19. Beijing, however, continues to hinder the global investigation, resist sharing information and blame other countries, including the United States. These actions reflect, in part, China’s government’s own uncertainty about where an investigation could lead as well as its frustration the international community is using the issue to exert political pressure on China. 

https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Unclassified-Summary-of-Assessment-on-COVID-19-Origins.pdf

Edited March 1, 2023 by DDD Dad

[babysdaddy 2725]

1 hour ago, DDD Dad said:

This really isn't groundbreaking news, and the FBI's assessment is far from a conclusive determination.  What does appear to be most likely is that however it made its way into the human population, it was not genetically engineered or released intentionally.

From the DNI website:

"The IC assesses that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, probably emerged and infected humans through an initial small-scale exposure that occurred no later than November 2019 with the first known cluster of COVID-19 cases arising in Wuhan, China in December 2019. In addition, the IC was able to reach broad agreement on several other key issues. We judge the virus was not developed as a biological weapon. Most agencies also assess with low confidence that SARS-CoV-2 probably was not genetically engineered; however, two agencies believe there was not sufficient evidence to make an assessment either way. Finally, the IC assesses China’s officials did not have foreknowledge of the virus before the initial outbreak of COVID-19 emerged."

The report goes on to note that the intelligence community remains divided on the most likely origin of COVID-19 (with which I'm currently suffering, BTW).

https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Unclassified-Summary-of-Assessment-on-COVID-19-Origins.pdf

How many times have you had the damn thing?  

Not breaking news?  I don't recall ever seeing on video the Director of the FBI publicly making that statement so it seemed relevant.  I also don't see anyone pushing the biological weapon theory so don't know why you felt the need to put that out there.  "low confidence is probably was not genetically engineered".  I guess that settles it....lol. Come on DDD, the number one reason for knowing it was lab related is the lack of cooperation and outright destruction of evidence that could destroy that theory.  Oh well, as it states in the full DNI report: 

"China’s cooperation most likely would be needed to reach a conclusive assessment of the origins of COVID-19. Beijing, however, continues to hinder the global investigation, resist sharing information, and blame other countries, including the United States. These actions reflect, in part, China’s government’s own uncertainty about where an investigation could lead as well as its frustration the international community is using the issue to exert political pressure on China."

 

[Dahobbs 17625]

7 minutes ago, babysdaddy said:

How many times have you had the damn thing?  

Not breaking news?  I don't recall ever seeing on video the Director of the FBI publicly making that statement so it seemed relevant.  I also don't see anyone pushing the biological weapon theory so don't know why you felt the need to put that out there.  "low confidence is probably was not genetically engineered".  I guess that settles it....lol. Come on DDD, the number one reason for knowing it was lab related is the lack of cooperation and outright destruction of evidence that could destroy that theory.  Oh well, as it states in the full DNI report: 

"China’s cooperation most likely would be needed to reach a conclusive assessment of the origins of COVID-19. Beijing, however, continues to hinder the global investigation, resist sharing information, and blame other countries, including the United States. These actions reflect, in part, China’s government’s own uncertainty about where an investigation could lead as well as its frustration the international community is using the issue to exert political pressure on China."

 

Wray was just referring to the original 2021 FBI determination. It isn't new information. It's referenced in the DNI Report, which states:

"One IC element assesses with moderate confidence that the first human infection with SARS-CoV-2 most likely was the result of a laboratory-associated incident, probably involving experimentation, animal handling, or sampling by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. These analysts give weight to the inherently risky nature of work on coronaviruses."

The FBI's moderate level of confidence is an outlier from the other intelligence elements that have reviewed the data. It appears from the DNI report that the FBI was putting a lot of weight on the inherent riskiness of working with coronaviruses. 

Edited March 1, 2023 by Dahobbs

[DDD Dad 14339]

9 minutes ago, babysdaddy said:

How many times have you had the damn thing?  

This is my second go-round, despite 5 shots.  Pretty sure I got it from the fat guy sitting on top of me on my SW flight back from Miami 10 days ago.

Quote

Not breaking news?  I don't recall ever seeing on video the Director of the FBI publicly making that statement so it seemed relevant.  I also don't see anyone pushing the biological weapon theory so don't know why you felt the need to put that out there.

I don't think it's breaking news that several agencies have reached different conclusions, each of differing levels of confidence, as to the source of the outbreak.  I wasn't intending to question you for posting the report, it's all over the news today.  I just meant to point out that it's hardly surprising that the FBI might have reached that assessment given the other assessments that have already come out.

Without going CR or Q-tard, there is a significant population (many who post in this forum because they think the CR is icky) who harbor this exact theory, and look for anything to support their confirmation bias.  Implicit in many of the posts in this very thread is this presumption.

Quote

  "low confidence is probably was not genetically engineered".  I guess that settles it....lol. Come on DDD, the number one reason for knowing it was lab related is the lack of cooperation and outright destruction of evidence that could destroy that theory.  Oh well, as it states in the full DNI report: 

"China’s cooperation most likely would be needed to reach a conclusive assessment of the origins of COVID-19. Beijing, however, continues to hinder the global investigation, resist sharing information, and blame other countries, including the United States. These actions reflect, in part, China’s government’s own uncertainty about where an investigation could lead as well as its frustration the international community is using the issue to exert political pressure on China."

OK you got me.  I overlooked the "low confidence" point.  It doesn't appear that anyone has a firm opinion supported to a level of high confidence of anything.

I think we all agree that China has been particularly obstructive here, and justifies a reasonable level of suspicion as to its motives.

[babysdaddy 2725]

5 hours ago, DDD Dad said:

This is my second go-round, despite 5 shots.  Pretty sure I got it from the fat guy sitting on top of me on my SW flight back from Miami 10 days ago.

I don't think it's breaking news that several agencies have reached different conclusions, each of differing levels of confidence, as to the source of the outbreak.  I wasn't intending to question you for posting the report, it's all over the news today.  I just meant to point out that it's hardly surprising that the FBI might have reached that assessment given the other assessments that have already come out.

Without going CR or Q-tard, there is a significant population (many who post in this forum because they think the CR is icky) who harbor this exact theory, and look for anything to support their confirmation bias.  Implicit in many of the posts in this very thread is this presumption.

OK you got me.  I overlooked the "low confidence" point.  It doesn't appear that anyone has a firm opinion supported to a level of high confidence of anything.

I think we all agree that China has been particularly obstructive here, and justifies a reasonable level of suspicion as to its motives.

Feel better soon

[Guest]

10 hours ago, RubyManJack said:

Hey old friend, I owe you a long email. Glad to see you are alive, still.

Good to hear from you, I hope all is well.  Looking forward to catching up.  

[BrickHorn 18237]

I’m about halfway through this podcast episode on the lab leak theory. It’s a good listen:

Starting at around the 43 minute mark, they address the ”too big of a coincidence” argument. One of the guests notes that big cities are where respiratory virus epidemics emerge and 8 of China’s 10 largest cities house labs conducting coronavirus research. His view is that it’s not unreasonable to be intrigued by the seeming coincidence, but further analysis reveals that it’s actually quite unremarkable.   

[Anastasis 23477]

 

3 hours ago, BrickHorn said:

One of the guests notes that big cities are where respiratory virus epidemics emerge

Especially the ones where unique niche cov virus research is going down across the street. Funny watching otherwise intelligent posters discard their own common sense.  

[BrickHorn 18237]

12 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

 

Especially the ones where unique niche cov virus research is going down across the street. Funny watching otherwise intelligent posters discard their own common sense.  

Common sense is for dopes. But you already know that and, in fact, count on it.

[wildcat09 29355]

It’s definitely common sense to think that someone got sick at the lab then went across town and got a bunch of people at a market sick, but don’t appear to have gotten anyone else sick. 

[atomheartbevo 89734]

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/03/covid-origins-research-raccoon-dogs-wuhan-market-lab-leak/673390/
A new analysis of genetic samples from China appears to link the pandemic’s origin to raccoon dogs.

Quote

For three years now, the debate over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic has ping-ponged between two big ideas: that SARS-CoV-2 spilled into human populations directly from a wild-animal source, and that the pathogen leaked from a lab. Through a swirl of data obfuscation by Chinese authorities and politicalization within the United States, and rampant speculation from all corners of the world, many scientists have stood by the notion that this outbreak—like most others—had purely natural roots.

But that hypothesis has been missing a key piece of proof: genetic evidence from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, showing that the virus had infected creatures for sale there.

Quote

This week, an international team of virologists, genomicists, and evolutionary biologists may have finally found crucial data to help fill that knowledge gap. A new analysis of genetic sequences collected from the market shows that raccoon dogs being illegally sold at the venue could have been carrying and possibly shedding the virus at the end of 2019. It’s some of the strongest support yet, experts told me, that the pandemic began when SARS-CoV-2 hopped from animals into humans, rather than in an accident among scientists experimenting with viruses.

Quote

“This really strengthens the case for a natural origin,” says Seema Lakdawala, a virologist at Emory University who wasn’t involved in the research. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist involved in the research, told me, “This is a really strong indication that animals at the market were infected. There’s really no other explanation that makes any sense.”

Quote

The genetic sequences were pulled out of swabs taken in and near market stalls around the pandemic’s start. They represent the first bits of raw data that researchers outside of China’s academic institutions and their direct collaborators have had access to. Late last week, the data were quietly posted by researchers affiliated with the country’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, on an open-access genomic database called GISAID. By almost pure happenstance, scientists in Europe, North America, and Australia spotted the sequences, downloaded them, and began an analysis.

Quote

The new analysis, led by Kristian Andersen, Edward Holmes, and Michael Worobey—three prominent researchers who have been looking into the virus’s roots—shows that that may not be the case. Within about half a day of downloading the data from GISAID, the trio and their collaborators discovered that several market samples that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were also coming back chock-full of animal genetic material—much of which was a match for the common raccoon dog. Because of how the samples were gathered, and because viruses can’t persist by themselves in the environment, the scientists think that their findings could indicate the presence of a coronavirus-infected raccoon dog in the spots where the swabs were taken. Unlike many of the other points of discussion that have been volleyed about in the origins debate, the genetic data are “tangible,” Alex Crits-Christoph, a computational biologist and one of the scientists who worked on the new analysis, told me. “And this is the species that everyone has been talking about.”

Quote

Finding the genetic material of virus and mammal so closely co-mingled—enough to be extracted out of a single swab—isn’t perfect proof, Lakdawala told me. “It’s an important step; I’m not going to diminish that,” she said. Still, the evidence falls short of, say, isolating SARS-CoV-2 from a free-ranging raccoon dog or, even better, uncovering a viral sample swabbed from a mammal for sale at Huanan from the time of the outbreak’s onset. That would be the virological equivalent of catching a culprit red-handed. But “you can never go back in time and capture those animals,” says Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. And to researchers’ knowledge, “raccoon dogs were not tested at the market and had likely been removed prior to the authorities coming in,” Andersen wrote to me in an email. He underscored that the findings, although an important addition, are not “direct evidence of infected raccoon dogs at the market.”

Now I’m no biologist, but these raccoon dogs sound like hybrids from dogs that were fucking raccoons, and I’m going to speculate that aggy was involved if inter-species sex was happening.

[Anastasis 23477]

Haha. Wildcat was caping for vax mandates during omicron and thinks anyone takes him seriously. 

[BrickHorn 18237]

29 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

It’s definitely common sense to think that someone got sick at the lab then went across town and got a bunch of people at a market sick, but don’t appear to have gotten anyone else sick. 

Common sense and probability don’t mix. Ask someone to apply common sense to the Monte Hall Problem or to determine their likelihood of having a rare disease based on a positive test result, and they’ll fuck it up.

The same is true for the lab leak coincidence. It’s just not that unexpected that a novel respiratory virus would emerge naturally in China and that, if it did so, it would be near a lab researching similar diseases. 

Notice that our resident font of obfuscation rattles off minute details about the realized outcome (outbreak in Wuhan), but ignores the other possible outcomes in the sample space (outbreak elsewhere in China). That’s exactly the kind of common sense on which conspiracy theories are built.

I’m no expert in virology. But I’ve now read/heard two experts in the field explain that numerous Chinese cities house coronavirus labs. These folks don’t seem to think Wuhan or its lab are particularly unique as it relates to likely sources of Covid. 

But I guess these otherwise intelligent scientists should just trust their gut instinct instead of, you know, reasoned analysis. 

[Anastasis 23477]

Go for it guys. You are not arguing from a strong position at this point. But certainly go for it. It will be entertaining. 

Edited March 17, 2023 by Anastasis

[wildcat09 29355]

16 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Haha. Wildcat was caping for vax mandates during omicron and thinks anyone takes him seriously. 

How silly of me for hoping we could save lots of lives.

[Anastasis 23477]

7 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

How silly of me for hoping we could save lots of lives.

Of course you think mandates do that. Public health genius. 

[wildcat09 29355]

1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

Of course you think mandates do that. Public health genius. 

They worked pretty great for public school kids and members of the military for decades. It’s a shame boomers like you have gone insane.

[BrickHorn 18237]

7 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Go for it guys. You are not arguing from a strong position at this point. But certainly go for it. It will be entertaining. 

Your only position, as it pertains to my posts on this thread, is that reasoned probabilistic analysis should be cast aside in favor of “common sense.” That’s about as weak as it gets. 

[Anastasis 23477]

Boomers!  
 

lol. Clowns. 

[NeverMarryAStripper 21907]

NVM

Edited March 17, 2023 by NeverMarryAStripper

[BrickHorn 18237]

16 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/03/covid-origins-research-raccoon-dogs-wuhan-market-lab-leak/673390/
A new analysis of genetic samples from China appears to link the pandemic’s origin to raccoon dogs.

The authors of that analysis are the guests on the podcast episode I posted above. 

[ABSR 5318]

Peter Zeihan has a short input on this.  He doesn't say whether Lab or non-Lab....but the most interesting point is at the end of his video where he states the following which I believe is correct.

His summarized statement:  Regardless of how/why the viral pathogen started, the Chinese knew that in Wuhan they had an issue and they canceled all domestic flights in and out of Wuhan.  HOWEVER, they did not cancel international flights out of Wuhan.   So knowing they had a viral pathogen outbreak they acted to limit the spread inside of China and by intentional omission/inaction acted to have it spread outside of China.

Maybe his facts are incorrect about the flights/dates, but whether I believe his analysis on issues he is usually fairly factual.

https://zeihan.com/covid-what-really-happened-in-wuhan/

[Dahobbs 17625]

3 hours ago, ABSR said:

Peter Zeihan has a short input on this.  He doesn't say whether Lab or non-Lab....but the most interesting point is at the end of his video where he states the following which I believe is correct.

His summarized statement:  Regardless of how/why the viral pathogen started, the Chinese knew that in Wuhan they had an issue and they canceled all domestic flights in and out of Wuhan.  HOWEVER, they did not cancel international flights out of Wuhan.   So knowing they had a viral pathogen outbreak they acted to limit the spread inside of China and by intentional omission/inaction acted to have it spread outside of China.

Maybe his facts are incorrect about the flights/dates, but whether I believe his analysis on issues he is usually fairly factual.

https://zeihan.com/covid-what-really-happened-in-wuhan/

That's simply not correct. 

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/trumps-flawed-china-travel-conspiracy/

Quote

 

It appears the origin may be a column by historian and author Niall Ferguson in the (London) Sunday Times on April 5, in which he discussed questions that ought to be posed to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Among them: “[A]fter it became clear that there was a full-blown epidemic spreading from Wuhan to the rest of Hubei province, why did you cut off travel from Hubei to the rest of China – on January 23 – but not from Hubei to the rest of the world?”

Hubei province is where the city of Wuhan is located.

Ferguson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, continued: “January is always a peak month for travel from China to Europe and America because of the lunar new year holiday. As far as I can tell from the available records, however, regular direct flights from Wuhan continued to run to London, Paris, Rome, New York and San Francisco throughout January and in some cases into February. You have lost no time in restricting international travel into China now that Covid-19 has gone global; your approach was conspicuously different when you were exporting it to us.”

The Jan. 23 date is significant because that is the day China implemented severe travel restrictions on Wuhan, halting train and air travel from the bustling city of 11 million people. That measure came two days after the country’s leading disease specialist, Zhong Nanshan, said in a press briefing that “since it is known that the virus can be transmitted from people to people, one thing to do is to strictly quarantine patients and track close contacts, which is probably the most important thing,” according to a timeline published by China. By that time, the virus was already known to have spread outside China, with the first recorded case in Thailand on Jan. 13.

However, the premise of Ferguson’s column — that China continued to allow flights from Wuhan to various international destinations including the U.S. after Jan. 23, even as China cut off travel between Wuhan and the rest of China — was later contested by Daniel Bell, dean of the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Shandong University in China.

In a post to his website dated April 21, Bell said he reached out to Ferguson via email, and that Ferguson provided his sourcing. But upon closer inspection, Bell wrote, “the sources he sent did not support the allegation that there were regular commercial flights from Wuhan to the US and Europe after January 23rd and ‘in some cases into February.’”

While data Ferguson provided from global flight tracker FlightStats “seem[ed] to show that thirty-one flights left from Wuhan to cities in the US and Europe on or after Jan 23,” when Bell checked those against data from a website for the Civil Aviation Administration of China, he found that most of those flights were cancelled. And a handful of others originating in Guangzhou that “in normal times would do a stopover in Wuhan on the way” to San Francisco instead flew “direct from Guangzhou, bypassing Wuhan.”

“The records show that flights out of Wuhan to the rest of the world stopped around mid-day on the 23rd,, the same day China stopped flights from Wuhan to the rest of China,” Bell wrote.

“Why does it matter?” Bell wrote. “If the Chinese government did allow regular flights from Wuhan to Western countries after January 23rd, it suggests the Chinese government deliberately allowed, if not encouraged, the spread of the virus to five cities in Western countries after it tried to control it in China.”

We spoke to Ian Petchenik, the director of communications for Flightradar24, a global flight tracking service, and Petchenik confirmed that “there were no more normal, commercial flights” from Wuhan after Jan. 23. “They did stop people from going to the U.S. and to the rest of the world,” he said.

After Jan. 23, flight data shows there were a few flights from Wuhan to destinations in Asia outside of China, Petchenik told us, but those may have been mostly empty planes returning to their base country. There were also a handful of flights from Wuhan chartered by the U.S. State Department to evacuate American citizens, including diplomats and their families, beginning on Jan. 28. Passengers on those planes were flown to military bases in California and were mandated to complete a 14-day quarantine.

On April 21, Ferguson provided an “update” to his April 5 column in which he acknowledged, “Data from sensors tracking actual flight paths would seem to indicate that no flights left from Wuhan itself to other countries in the world after January 23.” Ferguson wrote that he reached out to the U.S. company Flightspin, and that officials there “concluded that it was very unlikely indeed that any flights had gone from Wuhan to Western cities after January 23.”

 

Back to origins, here is a non-paywalled article on the new data linking SARS-CoV-2 to raccoon dogs and providing some additional evidence to support spillover. It is interesting that China so wants to sell the story that the virus didn't start in China that it would prefer having people speculate on a lab spillover rather than just release data indicating spillover from the Wuhan markets. 

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/03/genetic-data-links-sars-cov-2-to-raccoon-dogs-in-china-market-scientists-say/

Quote

 

Newly obtained genetic data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) links the pandemic coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 to animals—specifically raccoon dogs—at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, where the earliest COVID-19 cases centered, a group of independent scientists told the World Health Organization this week.

The genetic data came from environmental swabs collected at the market by China CDC in January of 2020. The existence of these swabs was previously known, as was the fact that they were positive for SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. But in late January of this year, scientists at China CDC uploaded—and then later removed—additional genetic data from these swabs to a public genetic database called GISAID, the WHO said. That additional data, which had not been previously disclosed, indicates that the SARS-CoV-2-positive swabs also contained genetic material from humans and animals, particularly large amounts of genetic material that closely matches that of raccoon dogs.

 

Raccoon dogs—foxlike animals whose faces closely resemble those of raccoons—are known to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection and were known to be sold at the market.

Such close commingling of genetic material from the virus and a susceptible animal at the epicenter of the outbreak provides additional—though still inconclusive—evidence in support of a natural spillover hypothesis instead of the main competing hypothesis of a laboratory biosafety breach, i.e., a "lab leak." Previous genetic studies had identified two genetic lineages of SARS-CoV-2 in people early in the pandemic, suggesting two separate cross-species jumps into humans.

In a spillover scenario, the virus could have leap-frogged to humans from its reservoir in bats via raccoon dogs, which would be considered an intermediate host. This is how many animal viruses move to humans, particularly coronaviruses related to SARS-CoV-2. After the 2003 SARS outbreak caused by SARS-CoV-1, data suggested that masked palm civets and potentially other wild animals—including a raccoon dog—acted as intermediate hosts at a wild animal market much like the Huanan market. Another coronavirus, MERS-CoV, which causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), is also known to spread to people via dromedary camels.

Data sleuthing

The newly discovered genetic data from the Huanan market has not yet been made publicly available, and much of what is known is from media reports of the data. The Atlantic was the first to report the existence of the data Thursday.

But the WHO confirmed in a press briefing Friday that it had first learned of the data on Sunday, and on Tuesday, it gathered SAGO, the agency's Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens. At that meeting, international scientists who were able to download the data before it was removed from GISAID presented their preliminary analysis to the advisory group.

The scientists working on the analysis include Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona; Kristian Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in California; Edward Holmes, a biologist at the University of Sydney; and Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.

Florence Débarre, a theoretician who specializes in evolutionary biology and works at CNRS, the French national research agency, is credited with the data sleuthing that initially discovered the data on GISAID in early March before it was removed.

According to media reports, the data was taken off of GISAID after the international scientists analyzing the data reached out to China CDC to collaborate.

"The big issue right now is that this data exists and that it is not readily available to the international community. This is first and foremost absolutely critical, not to mention that it should have been made available years earlier," Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, said Friday.

Throughout the investigations into SARS-CoV-2 origins, China has pushed a dubious hypothesis that the virus originated outside its borders entirely, suggesting at one point that it was carried into the Huanan market via imported frozen foods. It has strongly pushed back on suggestions of a possible lab leak and had previously denied the existence of any wild animals in Huanan that could have acted as intermediate hosts.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus echoed Van Kerkhove's frustration, emphasizing that the agency has again pushed China for transparency.

"These data could have—and should have—been shared three years ago," Tedros said Friday. "We continue to call on China to be transparent in sharing data and to conduct the necessary investigations and share the results. Understanding how the pandemic began remains both a moral and scientific imperative."

 

 

[Anastasis 23477]

Raccoon dog shit in market getting full on media blitz. The headlines are pretty hilarious though. This is the typical way top tier scientists vet their methodology and results. I wonder what they are trying to front run. 

Edited March 18, 2023 by Anastasis

[DDD Dad 14339]

12 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Raccoon dog shit in market getting full on media blitz. The headlines are pretty hilarious thought. This is the typical way top tier scientists vet their methodology and results. I wonder what they are trying to front run. 

JFC you are insufferable. 
 

let’s see if this information pans out. Nothing has been published in a peer-reviewed publication. 
 

why do you have to be such a cunt?  Your food posts are very good. The ones in here and the CR, not so much. 

[wildcat09 29355]

*Contrarianism intensifying!*

[Anastasis 23477]

26 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

JFC you are insufferable. 
 

let’s see if this information pans out. Nothing has been published in a peer-reviewed publication. 
 

why do you have to be such a cunt?  Your food posts are very good. The ones in here and the CR, not so much. 

What are you upset about now princess? See if the information pans out? What information? That human, sars, and raccoon dog genetic material is present in at least one of the hundreds of environmental swabs taken from a market where a super spreader event occurred and raccoon dogs shit all over the place in their cages stacked on top of each other? Are you really this stupid? Maybe the probability expert on the thread can help you interpret the information?

[atomheartbevo 89734]

On 3/16/2023 at 7:17 PM, atomheartbevo said:

Now I’m no biologist, but these raccoon dogs sound like hybrids from dogs that were fucking raccoons, and I’m going to speculate that aggy was involved if inter-species sex was happening.

Okay, I hit up Google and....

[Incredulity 11675]

BuT OtHEr ViRus LAbS NeAR wuHaN!!!!!11!!!

[BrickHorn 18237]

Just now, Incredulity said:

BuT OtHEr ViRus LAbS NeAR wuHaN!!!!!11!!!

And here comes Lowest Common Denominator to pledge his support for Captain Common Sense.

[TKthunder2 4992]

5 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/trumps-flawed-china-travel-conspiracy/

Zeihan is pretty vanilla and doesn’t get into politics himself. If he’s wrong he typically admits it.

This website looks to slant completely pro democrat anti republican. They quote Harvard guy who after getting pressured by liberals and China (since Trump was using his report as a talking point) recants. That’s not super convincing.

I don’t like Trump, never voted for him, but if you’re using this “source” you’re not going to convince anyone who actually reviews how slanted the publication. It like my in laws sending me Fox News articles as “proof”.

[Incredulity 11675]

23 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

And here comes Lowest Common Denominator to pledge his support for Captain Common Sense.

 

carrying Xi water.  Wonder why….?

[BrickHorn 18237]

1 minute ago, Incredulity said:

 

carrying Xi water.  Wonder why….?

I’m not carrying anyone’s water and I don’t have an opinion on lab leak versus natural origin, except to note that lab leak theorists rely in part on flawed logic of a type common to empty-headed conspiracy theories. 

Beyond that, I’ll leave the debate about genetic sequences and furin cleavage sites and whatnot to the virology and epidemiology experts. 

[David Busters 22]

they’ll take my raccoon dog from my cold, dead hands