All things CoronaVirus

[Typical Lax Dad]

Hey nit picking, wordsmith trolls :

we need to determine, with greater certainty, implies (to any rational reader) a lack of certainty.

The existing conventional wisdom "certainty" narrative is bat to other mammal to human, via the Wuhan wet market.

You guys will grasp at anything to deflect or distract from the obvious & ignore the coincidence of the outbreak in Wuhan, of all places.

No....greater certainty means that there is some level of certainty that has been determined. You want more of it. You received one of the finest educations on the planet.... You know better.

That’s the question I keep asking myself. Is this a ruse or real? Either answer isn’t a good one but that’s what is left.

58 million people live in Wuhan Province.... it’s like saying, I am surprised we saw an outbreak in NYC.

7x as large as NYC. Basically almost the Trump voting population which would include Timothy McVeigh if he could vote along with A vid Koresh-theyre both MAGA types. But sure nothing can happen within a cohort of 58mm.

The Chinese govt initially traced it to the wet market in Wuhan. At least that was their first story.

You mean they didn’t trace it to a lab!

[MDlaxfan76]

Salty, if you didn't mean what you wrote, just say so. No one is arguing against the desirability of knowing the actual answer, if that's possible, it's just that coincidence is not equivalent to any level of certainty. And the "if that's possible" is very likely to disappoint.

Blah blah Trump blah blah.

I mean exactly what I said. We need to know with a greater degree of certainty the origin of the virus & how it jumped to humans.

All the verbal gymnastics & nit picking is just an attempt to blow smoke to deflect & divert from coming to grips with the question.

Who was patient zero & how & where did he/she contract it ?
Are you confident that it was not related to the lab in Wuhan ?
If so, don't you find it a remarkable coincidence that was the location of the outbreak ?
Instead of addressing that question, you attempt to discredit anyone who asks the obvious.

That's your takeaway when I treat your argument respectfully and thoughtfully, acknowledging its merits, and explaining my own perspective and logic?

ok, you deserve the eye roll now.

We'd all love to know with "greater certainty" (since there's zero certainty now) exactly what the transmission was, heck it'd be cool to know who patient one was. But that's virtually an impossibility, certainly an impossibility for all possible zoonotic spreads.

But ok, you've again revealed that you're in this weird Trumpist, right wing conspiracy world. Ok, got it.

More blah blah Trump blah. If you agree that greater certainty is needed, why have you been hectoring me for saying that, other than as an excuse to launch into another Trump rant. Are you content with China's transparency on this ? Do you buy their claim that it was introduced by the US military team to the 2019 World Military Games in Wuhan ?

I don't "buy" anything that the Chinese government says. Of course we wish they would be more "transparent".

But the US would turtle up too, or lash out, if the reaction to a pandemic killing many thousands of our people was to accuse us of purposely releasing the virus on the world. (Yes, that was the reaction). How dare the US do pandemic research at NIH !! Come on in China and Russia, inspect all our research...

Do I agree that "greater certainty" is "needed"?
No, not in the sense you mean.
Desirable, absolutely.

But there's very little reasonable expectation of such "certainty" that it would put to bed, one way or another, these blame someone, anti-science, conspiracy theories.

I'm willing to hold out the possibility that there really was this specific virus strain engineered and accidentally released, despite all the attestations from the scientists who worked there, but it can never be disproven to the satisfaction of the anti-science conspiracy types that with whom you've aligned yourself.

That alignment is your choice. Whether you like it or not, the nutjobs, anti-science, anti-China, anti-globalism, right wing Trumpist sorts have aligned themselves together to make all sorts of totally unsubstantiated accusations, each for their own twisted purposes. Those are your bedfellows on this, Salty. Your choice.

[Farfromgeneva]

https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/bioterrori ... index.html

You missed that day of training.

Like I said, old guy at the gym mentioned he was part of the team that developed a response....

So now you geniuses are comparing smallpox to covid as a bio weapons threat. Don't forget anthrax.

I knew about Anthrax as a little kid. Here’s you’re jam

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WkjZfWmTLUs

From having unprotected sex with a calf.

At least you are making an effort now.

But you know I don’t mess around with any “scratch and dent calf”. I only goes for the Mallory Edens of Calf’s.

Here’s another one for those who want to blame China for all our problems.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rdEupVsL07E

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... t-we-found

[old salt]

Do I agree that "greater certainty" is "needed"?
No, not in the sense you mean.
Desirable, absolutely.

That alignment is your choice. Whether you like it or not, the nutjobs, anti-science, anti-China, anti-globalism, right wing Trumpist sorts have aligned themselves together to make all sorts of totally unsubstantiated accusations, each for their own twisted purposes. Those are your bedfellows on this, Salty. Your choice.

In the sense I mean ? It's not that complicated.
Are you reassured with the access & transparency the WHO investigators received ?

The alignment is NOT my choice. You are imposing your alignment. I don't care what motivates your Trumpist boogeymen. You don't have to be a Trumpist to be skeptical of what the WHO & their Chinese sponsors are putting out.

[old salt]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... t-we-found

Sampling of bats in Hubei province and wildlife across China has revealed no Sars-CoV-2 to date.

[MDlaxfan76]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... t-we-found

Sampling of bats in Hubei province and wildlife across China has revealed no Sars-CoV-2 to date.

well, duh...the hypothesis is an intermediate animal, then further mutation within human population before outbreak turned deadly.

[Farfromgeneva]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KNMRD9nCASw

[MDlaxfan76]

Do I agree that "greater certainty" is "needed"?
No, not in the sense you mean.
Desirable, absolutely.

That alignment is your choice. Whether you like it or not, the nutjobs, anti-science, anti-China, anti-globalism, right wing Trumpist sorts have aligned themselves together to make all sorts of totally unsubstantiated accusations, each for their own twisted purposes. Those are your bedfellows on this, Salty. Your choice.

In the sense I mean ? It's not that complicated.
Are you reassured with the access & transparency the WHO investigators received ?

I already answered, no.
But "needed", nope..."desirable", yup.

The alignment is NOT my choice. You are imposing your alignment. I don't care what motivates your Trumpist boogeymen. You don't have to be a Trumpist to be skeptical of what the WHO & their Chinese sponsors are putting out.

Actually, the alignment is very much your choice, as it has been on other issues.

No, you don't have to be a Trumpist to be a whack job, anti-science or anti-globalist, conspiracy monger..nope, don't have to support Trump at all. But they do overwhelmingly...why? Because he's one of them, panders to them, incites them.

And you're parroting the same BS as if you're unaware of your bedfellows' wild, unsubstantiated accusations.

Why should we care that our POTUS, now ex-POTUS, is such a nut job, and so many people follow him? Well, on this because it does such damage to the only real path to improving the chances to preventing pandemics in the future: safety, oversight, and international cooperation.

[old salt]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... t-we-found

Sampling of bats in Hubei province and wildlife across China has revealed no Sars-CoV-2 to date.

well, duh...the hypothesis is an intermediate animal, then further mutation within human population before outbreak turned deadly.

The Chinese have not found it in any bats or other intermediate animals.
So your theory is just one bat to one other intermediate animal, then it spread human to human like wildfire ?

Okie Dokie.

[MDlaxfan76]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KNMRD9nCASw

classic...

[Farfromgeneva]

Explain the whole situation.

[old salt]

And you're parroting the same BS as if you're unaware of your bedfellows' wild, unsubstantiated accusations.

Sheesh ! My thoughts are my own. Any reasonable person would ask the same questions I'm asking.

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KNMRD9nCASw

classic...

Yes! I saw it on TV!

[MDlaxfan76]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... t-we-found

Sampling of bats in Hubei province and wildlife across China has revealed no Sars-CoV-2 to date.

well, duh...the hypothesis is an intermediate animal, then further mutation within human population before outbreak turned deadly.

The Chinese have not found it in any bats or other intermediate animals.
So your theory is just one bat to one other intermediate animal, then it spread human to human like wildfire ?

Okie Dokie.

not my theory...the consensus hypothesis is that the virus didn't mutate to its deadly form until in humans.

[MDlaxfan76]

And you're parroting the same BS as if you're unaware of your bedfellows' wild, unsubstantiated accusations.

Sheesh ! My thoughts are my own. Any reasonable person would ask the same questions I'm asking.

And for some reason, you remain on attack mode, even when I respond thoughtfully and respectfully to every darn question.

Questions are fine, it's the implied conclusions that you draw where we seem to actually disagree.

Back to your "thoughts"...same logic you apply to every Trumpist issue, you think totally independently, uninfluenced by Der Leader and his various acolytes, the media, whatever information stream you're in...

None of us have truly independent "thoughts", we're all influenced by lots of other's "thoughts". You too.

[old salt]

And you're parroting the same BS as if you're unaware of your bedfellows' wild, unsubstantiated accusations.

Sheesh ! My thoughts are my own. Any reasonable person would ask the same questions I'm asking.

And for some reason, you remain on attack mode, even when I respond thoughtfully and respectfully to every darn question.

Questions are fine, it's the implied conclusions that you draw where we seem to actually disagree.

Back to your "thoughts"...same logic you apply to every Trumpist issue, you think totally independently, uninfluenced by Der Leader and his various acolytes, the media, whatever information stream you're in...

None of us have truly independent "thoughts", we're all influenced by lots of other's "thoughts". You too.

I have implied no conclusions.

For crying out loud -- I've been saying we need greater certainty. You have lost the ability to objectively listen.

[old salt]

Back to my original point.

https://mbio.asm.org/content/11/4/e01868-20

...it is concerning to us that a bad actor may see the way COVID-19 has been (mis)handled as evidence that a bioweapon can be used to inflict a great degree of damage.

[MDlaxfan76]

And you're parroting the same BS as if you're unaware of your bedfellows' wild, unsubstantiated accusations.

Sheesh ! My thoughts are my own. Any reasonable person would ask the same questions I'm asking.

And for some reason, you remain on attack mode, even when I respond thoughtfully and respectfully to every darn question.

Questions are fine, it's the implied conclusions that you draw where we seem to actually disagree.

Back to your "thoughts"...same logic you apply to every Trumpist issue, you think totally independently, uninfluenced by Der Leader and his various acolytes, the media, whatever information stream you're in...

None of us have truly independent "thoughts", we're all influenced by lots of other's "thoughts". You too.

I have implied no conclusions.

For crying out loud -- I've been saying we need greater certainty. You have lost the ability to objectively listen.

nope, I agreed 100% that it would be terrific to have "greater certainty", given that we have zero certainty now, just much higher probability of zoonotic than lab developed.

But you have repeatedly implied that there's some level of "certainty" of lab developed...just not buying that there's a shred of actual evidence of such...arguments as to its possibility, sure, but not a shred of evidence that it actually existed at that lab, either while the US scientists hasd access or after we withdrew (dumb!).

[MDlaxfan76]

Back to my original point.

https://mbio.asm.org/content/11/4/e01868-20

...it is concerning to us that a bad actor may see the way COVID-19 has been (mis)handled as evidence that a bioweapon can be used to inflict a great degree of damage.

Perfectly valid concern.

Next step, what to actually do about it?

Stop research?
Withdraw international oversight?

If one says yes to either or both, then we're back to that anti-science, anti-globalist problem...bury the head in the sand and nothing bad will happen.