*** OFFICIAL *** COVID-19 CoronaVirus Thread. Fresh epidemic fears as child pneumonia cases surge in Europe after China outbreak. NOW in USA (16 Viewers)

[The Big Donkey]

First People Sickened By COVID-19 Were Chinese Scientists At Wuhan Institute Of Virology, Say US Government Sources

The three scientists were engaged in “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses when they fell ill

public.substack.com

I'm not a doctor but i can put 2+2 together.

 

[Nathan R. Jessep]

FDA's fall 2023 vaccine plan

Today a much anticipated meeting took place at the FDA. Their external scientific committee—called VRBPAC—voted unanimously to update the COVID-19 vaccine in anticipation of the fall 2023-2024 respiratory illness season. Here are your Cliff notes. Why update the COVID-19 vaccines?

yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

 

[Nathan R. Jessep]

First People Sickened By COVID-19 Were Chinese Scientists At Wuhan Institute Of Virology, Say US Government Sources

The three scientists were engaged in “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses when they fell ill

public.substack.com

I'm not a doctor but i can put 2+2 together.

That substack post seems to be referring to this piece from The Times in UK.

I would invite you to read this rebuttal and see if your opinion changes any (congregate of a Twitter thread by Angie Rasmussen, who did research on Covid origins):

Thread by @angie_rasmussen on Thread Reader App

@angie_rasmussen: REVEALED: reporters at @thetimes working alongside the internet’s most prominent SARS-CoV-2 origins conspiracists combined the world’s most idiotic lab leak theories to create this long read of non...…

threadreaderapp.com

 

[The Big Donkey]

First People Sickened By COVID-19 Were Chinese Scientists At Wuhan Institute Of Virology, Say US Government Sources

The three scientists were engaged in “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses when they fell ill

public.substack.com

I'm not a doctor but i can put 2+2 together.

That substack post seems to be referring to this piece from The Times in UK.

I would invite you to read this rebuttal and see if your opinion changes any (congregate of a Twitter thread by Angie Rasmussen, who did research on Covid origins):

https://threadreadedR.rapp.com/thread/1668239114037067776.html

thank you for the post i read through Dr. Rasmussen's tweets. still of the same opinion. agree to disagree?

 

[IvanKaramazov]

First People Sickened By COVID-19 Were Chinese Scientists At Wuhan Institute Of Virology, Say US Government Sources

The three scientists were engaged in “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses when they fell ill

public.substack.com

I'm not a doctor but i can put 2+2 together.

That substack post seems to be referring to this piece from The Times in UK.

I would invite you to read this rebuttal and see if your opinion changes any (congregate of a Twitter thread by Angie Rasmussen, who did research on Covid origins):

Thread by @angie_rasmussen on Thread Reader App

@angie_rasmussen: REVEALED: reporters at @thetimes working alongside the internet’s most prominent SARS-CoV-2 origins conspiracists combined the world’s most idiotic lab leak theories to create this long read of non...…

threadreaderapp.com

The person who wrote this rebuttal seems unhinged. Seriously. That doesn't mean that their facts are wrong, but a lot of this stuff comes down to evaluating the credibility of people who have (in principle) better access to information than I do.

 

[Nathan R. Jessep]

First People Sickened By COVID-19 Were Chinese Scientists At Wuhan Institute Of Virology, Say US Government Sources

The three scientists were engaged in “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses when they fell ill

public.substack.com

I'm not a doctor but i can put 2+2 together.

That substack post seems to be referring to this piece from The Times in UK.

I would invite you to read this rebuttal and see if your opinion changes any (congregate of a Twitter thread by Angie Rasmussen, who did research on Covid origins):

Thread by @angie_rasmussen on Thread Reader App

@angie_rasmussen: REVEALED: reporters at @thetimes working alongside the internet’s most prominent SARS-CoV-2 origins conspiracists combined the world’s most idiotic lab leak theories to create this long read of non...…

threadreaderapp.com

The person who wrote this rebuttal seems unhinged. Seriously. That doesn't mean that their facts are wrong, but a lot of this stuff comes down to evaluating the credibility of people who have (in principle) better access to information than I do.

You are correct. I think she is just perturbed by the nonsense in that article. Also, it's Twitter, so there's that. The degree of complete BS on Twitter that a lot of the science communicators have to tolerate is ridiculous. She is normally pretty level-headed in her other responses and publications (at least the ones I have seen), but agreed she seems aggravated in that one.

 

[Nathan R. Jessep]

study: SARS-CoV-2 infection and viral fusogens cause neuronal and glial fusion that compromises neuronal activity

explanation of above study: Could fused neurons explain COVID-19’s ‘brain fog’?

 

[Nathan R. Jessep]

Designing a SARS-CoV-2 decoy

A molecular decoy that neutralizes the SARS-CoV-2 virus by preventing it from latching onto cells protected mice against COVID-19.

www.nih.gov

 

[Doug B]

Designing a SARS-CoV-2 decoy

A molecular decoy that neutralizes the SARS-CoV-2 virus by preventing it from latching onto cells protected mice against COVID-19.

www.nih.gov

That could be a godsend for immunocompromised people who don’t benefit from vaccinations. Needs to still be tested on humans.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

First People Sickened By COVID-19 Were Chinese Scientists At Wuhan Institute Of Virology, Say US Government Sources

The three scientists were engaged in “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses when they fell ill

public.substack.com

I'm not a doctor but i can put 2+2 together.

FWIW, the WSJ is confirming the part about the three WIV scientists who worked on bat coronaviruses falling ill with symptoms consistent with covid-19. They don't reveal who their government sources are, but they name the three Patient Zeros. Also worth noting that nobody is denying that this happened, even off the record (as far as I can tell).

I'm still leaving like maybe a 5% chance that this turns out to be false or just a weird coincidence (e.g. these people just so happened to catch the same normal chest cold right before a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic involving the exact organisms that they were studying). But that's only because I don't know who in the government is feeding people this information. If/when this stuff is declassified, confirmation of this information should pretty much end this debate.

I wish had bookmarked it, but somewhere in the other forum there is a half-joking/half-serious post from me predicting that we would eventually learn that not only did the pandemic originate from GOF research, but also that it was funded directly or indirectly by the NIH. That is is looking very likely to be correct.

Ben Hu, a scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who had done extensive laboratory research on how coronaviruses infect humans, was identified in U.S. intelligence reports as one of the researchers who became ill in November 2019 with symptoms that American officials said were consistent with either Covid-19 or a seasonal illness. None of the researchers died.

Hu is noteworthy, current and former officials say, because of his central role in coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Further, some of the projects he worked on were funded by U.S. government grants, according to documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act by the White Coat Waste Project, a nonprofit that opposes taxpayer funded research on animals.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

FWIW, I did not assign a tremendous amount of weight to this story when it was just Taibbi reporting on it. I just put a pin in it and decided to sit tight until somebody else either confirmed or rebutted that stuff. The fact that the WSJ is getting the same leaked info as Taibbi pretty much confirms with 100% confidence that somebody in the US government is passing this nugget onto reporters. That source might be lying or might be mistaken, but that source definitely exists for real and is apparently somebody that a legacy media outlet would take seriously.

 

[rockaction]

I wish had bookmarked it, but somewhere in the other forum there is a half-joking/half-serious post from me predicting that we would eventually learn that not only did the pandemic originate from GOF research, but also that it was funded directly or indirectly by the NIH. That is is looking very likely to be correct.

It was pretty early in the pandemic that the theory about the lab and NIH was floated. Whether you predicted it or not I don't remember. But I do remember thinking about the NIH, gain-of-function research, and wondering how on earth we supported this stuff rather early in the pandemic. Granted, it's not always easy for even the grant givers to follow their own money, but still . . .

Anyway, I was in the "it came from that lab" camp almost immediately after I found out they were studying the virus there so my thoughts instantly went to the floating of information about grants as probably true. It just reeked of not exactly a coincidence and that it was almost a diabolical thing that was going on. This doesn't mean I couldn't be persuaded by the "wet market" or "specie jumping" theory at all and I don't really have any passionate determination to argue one way or the other.

It's just like, at this point, people really ought check their prior convictions at the door no matter how bad they look. I'll do it. All we ask is for the same from reporters and experts.

 

[worrierking]

I haven't been in here in a while. I came in to report that I just returned from an Alaskan cruise and there was a pretty substantial COVID outbreak. The cruise people never mentioned it but in the last few days we went from nobody masking to more than half of the people masking, due mostly to being exposed to someone who ended up positive. One member of our group came up positive and we are all still monitoring. I have no symptoms 4+ days after last being with him, so I am pretty sure I'm in the clear, but I was around a whole bunch of people on a bus yesterday leaving the ship for the airport and I think that was a major risk too. I love cruises, but I believe they will still be dealing with periodic issues for a long time. The whole setup is perfect for this type of disease to spread.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

I wish had bookmarked it, but somewhere in the other forum there is a half-joking/half-serious post from me predicting that we would eventually learn that not only did the pandemic originate from GOF research, but also that it was funded directly or indirectly by the NIH. That is is looking very likely to be correct.

That was pretty early in the pandemic that the theory about the lab and NIH was floated. Whether you predicted it or not I don't remember. But I do remember thinking about the NIH, gain-of-function research, and wondering how on earth we supported this stuff rather early in the pandemic. Granted, it's not always easy for even the grant givers to follow their own money, but still . . .

Anyway, I was in the "it came from that lab" camp almost immediately after I found out they were studying the virus there so my thoughts instantly went to the floating of information about grants as probably true. It just reeked of not exactly a coincidence and that it was almost a diabolical thing that was going on. This doesn't mean I couldn't be persuaded by the "wet market" or "specie jumping" theory at all and I don't really have any passionate determination to argue one way or the other.

It's just like, at this point, people really ought check their prior convictions at the door no matter how bad they look. I'll do it. All we ask is for the same from reporters and experts.

The thing that will never cease being weird to me is why the "lab accident" hypothesis was so ruthlessly suppressed. It doesn't rely on any sort of weird conspiracy-theorizing. Pathogens actually do escape from research labs from time to time. It's just basic human error. Usually nothing terribly bad happens, but obviously this time was different.

The NIH stuff is also completely non-conspiratorial. We know with 100% certainty that the NIH was funding some of the research that took place at WIV on bat coronaviruses. Nobody disputes this in any way. If SARS-CoV2 escaped from WIV, there is a super-high likelihood that NIH will somehow be implicated. The only way they aren't is if this virus actually turns out to be part of a CCP bioweapons program (obviously the NIH wouldn't knowingly fund that) but that really is sort of an out-there conspiracy theory. A routine lab accident is like the exact polar opposite of that. It's a boring, incredibly plausible story that doesn't require any sort of willful malfeasance on anybody's part.

The disturbing part of this story isn't that that pandemic was the probably product of a lab accident. People had been warning about this sort of thing before -- Stephen King wrote a novel about it 40 years before it happened. The disturbing part is that the US government, legacy media, and every major social media firm did actually conspire to suppress a story that policy-makers knew had a good chance of being true. In a high-functioning society, this would call for something one step down from the Nuremberg trials, but we know that nobody is going to be held accountable. It's infuriating.

Edit: Also, there's absolutely no reason why this should have ever been seen as a political topic. Covid either escaped from a research lab or it jumped from bats to some other animal to humans. One or the other. It's an empirical issue, and ideology has absolutely nothing to tell us about which is correct. There should never have been a red-blue divide on this topic.

 

[Nathan R. Jessep]

New meta-analysis showing myocarditis after Covid infection significantly higher than after vaccination:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X23006102

 

[jamny]

I wish had bookmarked it, but somewhere in the other forum there is a half-joking/half-serious post from me predicting that we would eventually learn that not only did the pandemic originate from GOF research, but also that it was funded directly or indirectly by the NIH. That is is looking very likely to be correct.

That was pretty early in the pandemic that the theory about the lab and NIH was floated. Whether you predicted it or not I don't remember. But I do remember thinking about the NIH, gain-of-function research, and wondering how on earth we supported this stuff rather early in the pandemic. Granted, it's not always easy for even the grant givers to follow their own money, but still . . .

Anyway, I was in the "it came from that lab" camp almost immediately after I found out they were studying the virus there so my thoughts instantly went to the floating of information about grants as probably true. It just reeked of not exactly a coincidence and that it was almost a diabolical thing that was going on. This doesn't mean I couldn't be persuaded by the "wet market" or "specie jumping" theory at all and I don't really have any passionate determination to argue one way or the other.

It's just like, at this point, people really ought check their prior convictions at the door no matter how bad they look. I'll do it. All we ask is for the same from reporters and experts.

The thing that will never cease being weird to me is why the "lab accident" hypothesis was so ruthlessly suppressed. It doesn't rely on any sort of weird conspiracy-theorizing. Pathogens actually do escape from research labs from time to time. It's just basic human error. Usually nothing terribly bad happens, but obviously this time was different.

The NIH stuff is also completely non-conspiratorial. We know with 100% certainty that the NIH was funding some of the research that took place at WIV on bat coronaviruses. Nobody disputes this in any way. If SARS-CoV2 escaped from WIV, there is a super-high likelihood that NIH will somehow be implicated. The only way they aren't is if this virus actually turns out to be part of a CCP bioweapons program (obviously the NIH wouldn't knowingly fund that) but that really is sort of an out-there conspiracy theory. A routine lab accident is like the exact polar opposite of that. It's a boring, incredibly plausible story that doesn't require any sort of willful malfeasance on anybody's part.

The disturbing part of this story isn't that that pandemic was the probably product of a lab accident. People had been warning about this sort of thing before -- Stephen King wrote a novel about it 40 years before it happened. The disturbing part is that the US government, legacy media, and every major social media firm did actually conspire to suppress a story that policy-makers knew had a good chance of being true. In a high-functioning society, this would call for something one step down from the Nuremberg trials, but we know that nobody is going to be held accountable. It's infuriating.

Edit: Also, there's absolutely no reason why this should have ever been seen as a political topic. Covid either escaped from a research lab or it jumped from bats to some other animal to humans. One or the other. It's an empirical issue, and ideology has absolutely nothing to tell us about which is correct. There should never have been a red-blue divide on this topic.

I've always been a supporter of the lab leak hypothesis and believe it was so vehemently denied because the US supported the GoF research at the lab and is partially responsible. The unsafe conditions at the lab and lack of proper security measures made it seem like an obvious cause. While I wouldn't say in this case that the coverup is worse than the crime, it did lead to a lot of other speculation like that Fauci and the vaccine makers purposely released this to benefit financially, which I can't get behind. It is yet another reason for people to mistrust the government in an area where we should have complete confidence.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

I've always been a supporter of the lab leak hypothesis and believe it was so vehemently denied because the US supported the GoF research at the lab and is partially responsible. The unsafe conditions at the lab and lack of proper security measures made it seem like an obvious cause. While I wouldn't say in this case that the coverup is worse than the crime, it did lead to a lot of other speculation like that Fauci and the vaccine makers purposely released this to benefit financially, which I can't get behind. It is yet another reason for people to mistrust the government in an area where we should have complete confidence.

Yeah, obviously this part didn't happen. But it is important to keep in mind that academic virologists and people in leadership positions at NIH (like Fauci) are deeply conflicted here. These folks absolutely depend on NIH funding to run their labs. No access to NIH funds, and your academic career is over, at least if you're at an R1. And of course the folks in charge of the NIH would very much like to not be held accountable for funding research projects that led indirectly to a global pandemic. (Edit: USDA funding is also super-important for people who work with livestock, as I'm sure some virologists do, but of course the USDA is not implicated here at all so I'm glossing them over. Same with NSF.)

"They released covid intentionally so they could make a bunch of money on a vaccine" is pure conspiracy theory. There is no chance that this is true.

"Academics and academia-adjacent people circled the wagons and lied to everyone because they had obvious professional incentives to do so" is the kind of routine institutional corruption that occurs very frequently whenever an organization finds itself under public scrutiny. That's what the Catholic church did when it was under pressure for covering up child sexual abuse. That's what many firms tend to when regulators come calling. Politicians do this sort of thing all the time when scandal hits. It's totally normal behavior and it shouldn't be surprising to see scientists behave this way. They're people too.

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

My sister is positive. Fever, totally exhausted and headache. Probably from Taylor swift concert. Hopefully her almost 2yr old doesn’t get it.

 

[Doug B]

I still don't think "gain-of-function" should now be dirty words in virological circles. don't think that gain-of-function research should now be a never-ever-ever thing.

However:

• Gain-of-function research should be done in isolated areas and not in or near population centers. It it's important enough research, the extra cost of isolation is justified. If it's just "curiosity research", then the expense is not justified and too bad for those grant-seekers.
• Ideal location (if perhaps unrealistic) would be something like Antarctica. Next best would be out in the ocean on an atoll or similar. Maybe an abandoned deep-sea oil rig. Least best, but perhaps still acceptable, would be in unpopulated land areas. US states like Nevada, Wyoming, and Montana have sufficient open area for this kind of exercise. Much of interior Australia, as well.
• Researchers would have to treat their gain-of-function research "tours" as much like space-shuttle missions or ocean-exploring expeditions. They should expect to be away from their ordinary life for weeks -- or even months -- at a time.
• When researchers both head to the remote research facilities and head back home, there needs to be a lengthy quarantine (2-3 weeks) and extensive blood testing (or similarly comprehensive testing for infection). All such tests have to be triply redundant. Really, if it's not overkill, it's not enough testing.

The ideal set-up could be a pair of remote South Pacific atolls that are a relatively easy boat trip apart. One atoll would strictly be a quarantine facility where everyone stays on the way in and on the way out. Maybe arrival quarantines could be shorter than departure quarantines. Anyway, after clearing arrival quarantine, researchers could then move on to the second atoll hosing the gain-of-function research facility. Reverse the process to get back home.

Could do something similar with a pair of Antarctic facilities, or isolated land facilities.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

For "credit where credit is due" purposes, our old friend Zeynep Tufekci has a column out today on this topic that I would have felt comfortable signing my name to.

 

[Doug B]

For "credit where credit is due" purposes, our old friend Zeynep Tufekci has a column out today on this topic that I would have felt comfortable signing my name to.

Paywalled, but this from Tufekci's Twitter feed seems to give the gist.

EDIT: Someone in that Twitter thread must have posted a gift link. I was able to open and read Tufekci's NYT opinion piece here.

 

[Sand]

My sister is positive. Fever, totally exhausted and headache. Probably from Taylor swift concert. Hopefully her almost 2yr old doesn’t get it.

Now we get at the real culprit in all this. I blame Taylor Swift for this whole debacle.

 

[Schmeabs]

My sister is positive. Fever, totally exhausted and headache. Probably from Taylor swift concert. Hopefully her almost 2yr old doesn’t get it.

Sorry to hear. The good news is even if her 2 yr old catches it he/she should be just fine.

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

My sister is positive. Fever, totally exhausted and headache. Probably from Taylor swift concert. Hopefully her almost 2yr old doesn’t get it.

Sorry to hear. The good news is even if her 2 yr old catches it he/she should be just fine.

I agree.

I just thought this was going to be further behind us at this point. Anecdotally I am seeing the most cases since the fall.

 

[Doug B]

Clear as mud.

US intelligence report on COVID-19 origins rejects some points raised by lab leak theory proponents

A new U.S. intelligence report rejects several points raised by those who argue COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab.

apnews.com

 

[The Commish]

Clear as mud.

US intelligence report on COVID-19 origins rejects some points raised by lab leak theory proponents

A new U.S. intelligence report rejects several points raised by those who argue COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab.

apnews.com

Does this mean we are finally beyond the "it was created in a lab" crap that was prominent when this whole thing started?

 

[Nathan R. Jessep]

Clear as mud.

US intelligence report on COVID-19 origins rejects some points raised by lab leak theory proponents

A new U.S. intelligence report rejects several points raised by those who argue COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab.

apnews.com

Does this mean we are finally beyond the "it was created in a lab" crap that was prominent when this whole thing started?

Are you new here? People are more concerned with "being right" than evaluating evidence at hand.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Clear as mud.

US intelligence report on COVID-19 origins rejects some points raised by lab leak theory proponents

A new U.S. intelligence report rejects several points raised by those who argue COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab.

apnews.com

Does this mean we are finally beyond the "it was created in a lab" crap that was prominent when this whole thing started?

It probably wasn't "created" in a lab like a bioweapon, but it is extremely likely that it did escape from WIV accidentally. The people who told you that this was a racist conspiracy theory were lying to you, and they colluded to suppress this story. That all actually happened, unfortunately.

There was never anything wrong with thinking that covid probably had a zoonotic origin. The overwhelming majority of "new" diseases start that way, so your prior should have always been that this pandemic was the same. But in a healthy media environment, you could have updated those priors to account for

• There's a virus research lab right there.
• The lab studies this exact type of virus.
• Viruses have escaped from research labs many times in the past.
• Researchers associated with this lab proposed creating basically this type of virus in a grant application that was rejected.
• The State Department warned the US that this lab was cutting corners on safety well before the pandemic started.
• Three people working with SARS-live bat coronaviruses fell ill with SARS-like respiratory infections literally days before the start of a SARS-like pandemic.
• Nobody disputes that the SARS-like pandemic started within miles of said lab with said researchers.

The problem is that this stuff was mostly kept from you. Or it was treated as some sort of misinformation and you would get intellectual cooties if you entertained any of these data points. The people who did that did so because it was in their professional interests for you to think that virology research is a-okay as-is and we shouldn't take too hard a look at how NIH is working.

If you're not mad about that, no problem. But let's do keep in mind what the "crap" is here. The misinformation was coming from inside the house, and we know that now.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

The "sick researchers" thing is important by the way.

It's easy for "lab accident" people to explain why there were so many cases near that wet market. A researcher got infected, went to the market (probably asymptomatic at this point, not even knowing that they're infected), and kicked this thing off. A nice, simple, parsimonious explanation. If the sick researcher had stopped off at Wal Mart instead, we'd be looking in vain for evidence of racoon dogs at Wal Mart. Patient Zero was the researcher, and the wet market was just a super-spreader event, which we know were pretty common with covid.

How do the "wet market" people explain the sick researchers? Is the explanation that they didn't have covid-19? There just so happened to be a little mini-influenza outbreak in the SARS bat coronavirus lab and that outbreak just coincidentally happened right before the SARS bat coronavirus outbreak? Really?

Or is that these bat coronavirus researchers had the remarkable misfortune of being the very first people to catch this particular bat coronavirus from racoon dogs in the wet market? That would be a coincidence on par with having the CEO of Tylenol being the first guy to get once of those Tylenol capsules that was laced with cyanide just by randomly picking a bottle off the shelf at CVS. Come on.

At this point, I would need somebody trustworthy to come out and say "these sick researchers didn't exist -- that was just a lead that didn't turn out to amount to anything." Assuming they're real, that's a link in the chain that confirms the lab-accident story about as strongly as it could possibly be confirmed.

 

[The Commish]

Clear as mud.

US intelligence report on COVID-19 origins rejects some points raised by lab leak theory proponents

A new U.S. intelligence report rejects several points raised by those who argue COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab.

apnews.com

Does this mean we are finally beyond the "it was created in a lab" crap that was prominent when this whole thing started?

It probably wasn't "created" in a lab like a bioweapon, but it is extremely likely that it did escape from WIV accidentally. The people who told you that this was a racist conspiracy theory were lying to you, and they colluded to suppress this story. That all actually happened, unfortunately.

There was never anything wrong with thinking that covid probably had a zoonotic origin. The overwhelming majority of "new" diseases start that way, so your prior should have always been that this pandemic was the same. But in a healthy media environment, you could have updated those priors to account for

• There's a virus research lab right there.
• The lab studies this exact type of virus.
• Viruses have escaped from research labs many times in the past.
• Researchers associated with this lab proposed creating basically this type of virus in a grant application that was rejected.
• The State Department warned the US that this lab was cutting corners on safety well before the pandemic started.
• Three people working with SARS-live bat coronaviruses fell ill with SARS-like respiratory infections literally days before the start of a SARS-like pandemic.
• Nobody disputes that the SARS-like pandemic started within miles of said lab with said researchers.

The problem is that this stuff was mostly kept from you. Or it was treated as some sort of misinformation and you would get intellectual cooties if you entertained any of these data points. The people who did that did so because it was in their professional interests for you to think that virology research is a-okay as-is and we shouldn't take too hard a look at how NIH is working.

If you're not mad about that, no problem. But let's do keep in mind what the "crap" is here. The misinformation was coming from inside the house, and we know that now.

The two most likely possibilities of crossover were always through lab experimentation or interaction with an animal in some form. It's well over 95% probable it was one of those two. Does it matter which one? I don't think so because both happen often and the reality is, we know the Chinese government isn't going to cooperate in a way to let us know for certain. Most of the world understood that and was puzzled by the ignorance coming out of the US and its "leadership" about this whole "created in a lab" thing. That was flat-out stupid. But that didn't stop it from being bought hook/line/sinker. Many STILL hold it as a possibility. What made it worse was the conflation of "from a lab" and "created in a lab". I've never had an issue with individuals who think it likely crossed to humans while researching. That's a reasonable guess as is thinking it came from a wet market as is thinking it came from a bat bite/poop etc. I DO have a problem with that very popular narrative at the time of "created in a lab".

I have no love loss for the CDC and FDA through this entire thing. They fumbled more times than we can count starting right out of the gate assuming that the average person understands the very basics of viruses and the immune system.

 

[Whyatt]

I don’t understand why anyone would have a problem with the “created in a lab“ narrative. This is the basis of gain-of-function research. The US has known that this was possible since the start of the pandemic. This information has been suppressed for the reasons Ivan has shared.

A source told
@thetimes
that two US collaborators of the Wuhan Institute of Virology said the Wuhan scientists had put furin cleavage sites into SARS-like viruses in 2019.

Link

 

[The Commish]

I don’t understand why anyone would have a problem with the “created in a lab“ narrative. This is the basis of gain-of-function research. The US has known that this was possible since the start of the pandemic. This information has been suppressed for the reasons Ivan has shared.

A source told
@thetimes
that two US collaborators of the Wuhan Institute of Virology said the Wuhan scientists had put furin cleavage sites into SARS-like viruses in 2019.

Link

Because there is ZERO meaningful evidence to support it. That's why. And "gain of function research" <> "created in a lab"...far more accurate to say "modified in a lab" to describe gain of function (which happens all over the world in labs every single day....likely going on as we converse back and forth about it here)

 

[LawFitz]

I don’t understand why anyone would have a problem with the “created in a lab“ narrative.

It's the same for every one of the conspiracy facts. People have an extreme reluctance to accept that they have been fooled by the machine.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

I don’t understand why anyone would have a problem with the “created in a lab“ narrative.

It's the same for every one of the conspiracy facts. People have an extreme reluctance to accept that they have been fooled by the machine.

I think this has a lot to do with it. Nobody likes being played for a fool, and certainly nobody likes to think of themselves as a fool. Lots of people would rather come up with post hoc rationalizations to convince themselves that they weren't conned than to just acknowledge that they were conned and move on. Con men take advantage of this tendency, and sociologists have written about it -- here's a really memorable and well-known article on the topic.

The situation we find ourselves in is distressing. If you had told me in 2018 say that the US government would actively censor a hugely-significant true story (not involving nuclear subs or troop movements or something), would collude with both legacy media and social media to do so, and that they would get enthusiastic compliance from nearly every media outlet almost without exception, I would have dismissed you out of hand. That doesn't happen in the US. China, sure. Russia, of course. The UK or Canada, maybe. But we have the first amendment and a press that prides itself on being a watchdog. No way does something like that happen here.

But of course it happened here.

I get that it's more soothing to think that this is still a conspiracy theory somehow, and that a magic racoon dog will show up to save the day. But really that ship has sailed. Even if we learned with 100% certainty tomorrow that covid definitely emerged from the wet market thanks to unsanitary conditions, we would still be left with the knowledge that we are living under an authoritarian-ish government with a very compliant pro-state media, and that we can't rely on the first amendment or the courts to sort this out. That sucks, but hey at least we know. This same government was in charge in 2018 and none of us knew that. Or at least I sure didn't.

Edit: Well, the Goffman article is paywalled and I can't find a free version anywhere, so here's a New Yorker article discussing the issue in the context of psychics.

 

[The Commish]

I don’t understand why anyone would have a problem with the “created in a lab“ narrative.

It's the same for every one of the conspiracy facts. People have an extreme reluctance to accept that they have been fooled by the machine.

I think this has a lot to do with it. Nobody likes being played for a fool, and certainly nobody likes to think of themselves as a fool. Lots of people would rather come up with post hoc rationalizations to convince themselves that they weren't conned than to just acknowledge that they were conned and move on. Con men take advantage of this tendency, and sociologists have written about it -- here's a really memorable and well-known article on the topic.

The situation we find ourselves in is distressing. If you had told me in 2018 say that the US government would actively censor a hugely-significant true story (not involving nuclear subs or troop movements or something), would collude with both legacy media and social media to do so, and that they would get enthusiastic compliance from nearly every media outlet almost without exception, I would have dismissed you out of hand. That doesn't happen in the US. China, sure. Russia, of course. The UK or Canada, maybe. But we have the first amendment and a press that prides itself on being a watchdog. No way does something like that happen here.

But of course it happened here.

I get that it's more soothing to think that this is still a conspiracy theory somehow, and that a magic racoon dog will show up to save the day. But really that ship has sailed. Even if we learned with 100% certainty tomorrow that covid definitely emerged from the wet market thanks to unsanitary conditions, we would still be left with the knowledge that we are living under an authoritarian-ish government with a very compliant pro-state media, and that we can't rely on the first amendment or the courts to sort this out. That sucks, but hey at least we know. This same government was in charge in 2018 and none of us knew that. Or at least I sure didn't.

Edit: Well, the Goffman article is paywalled and I can't find a free version anywhere, so here's a New Yorker article discussing the issue in the context of psychics.

Thankfully, I can't really speak to what our media machine said through this whole fiasco. Disengaging from it in 2014 was the best thing I ever did for my mental health. I will point out, that disengagement actually began it's wheels in motion 10-11 years earlier during the Iraq/WMD debate. The things you say here are pretty much the things a handful of us were saying then. That is to say, there is a group of people who came to these realizations of our government and media machine then, well before COVID. And to be honest, it's quite baffling to me more people haven't seen it. Our media hasn't been the bold for most of my adult life (I'm 48...49 next month) and it really went downhill when 24 hour "news" became a thing. I guess the silver lining here is that more people, like yourself, are starting to see it for what it is.

 

[The Commish]

Perspective of what researchers and vaccine makers were up against early on in the covid saga

Dispatch 14: Covid Crystal Ball

On today’s episode, doctors witness the worldwide pandemic playing out in a single human body.

radiolab.org

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Here's a good retrospective analysis on the partisan divide on covid policy. The reason why I recommend sticking a pin in this article is because it serves as a good reminder of the fact that red and blue states behaved nearly identically throughout 2020, and the outlier states didn't have much in common with one another politically, culturally, or geographically. The red-blue split on covid didn't really occur in earnest until after vaccines were rolled out.

It's the NYT so the author has to include some self-congratulatory disclaimers at the end to soothe their reader base, but the rest of this piece is really good.

I'd be fascinated to know what the deal with New Mexico was. I was down there visiting my daughter in late 2021 and was kind of surprised that they still had mask mandates in place. I didn't realize that their stay-at-home order lasted six months longer than literally every other state. That's pretty wild, and it would be interesting to know how that happened and why. NM is not a highly-ideological one-party state like CA or FL or NY, and you wouldn't expect them to get really weird on this, or anything. (Edit: Before somebody mentions the Navajo, every western state has a bunch of tribal communities, not just NM. That's not a good explanatory variable.)

 

[Doug B]

I'd be fascinated to know what the deal with New Mexico was. I was down there visiting my daughter in late 2021 and was kind of surprised that they still had mask mandates in place.

Louisiana's mask mandate ended in March 2022, FWIW.

 

[The Commish]

Here's a good retrospective analysis on the partisan divide on covid policy. The reason why I recommend sticking a pin in this article is because it serves as a good reminder of the fact that red and blue states behaved nearly identically throughout 2020, and the outlier states didn't have much in common with one another politically, culturally, or geographically. The red-blue split on covid didn't really occur in earnest until after vaccines were rolled out.

It's the NYT so the author has to include some self-congratulatory disclaimers at the end to soothe their reader base, but the rest of this piece is really good.

I'd be fascinated to know what the deal with New Mexico was. I was down there visiting my daughter in late 2021 and was kind of surprised that they still had mask mandates in place. I didn't realize that their stay-at-home order lasted six months longer than literally every other state. That's pretty wild, and it would be interesting to know how that happened and why. NM is not a highly-ideological one-party state like CA or FL or NY, and you wouldn't expect them to get really weird on this, or anything. (Edit: Before somebody mentions the Navajo, every western state has a bunch of tribal communities, not just NM. That's not a good explanatory variable.)

Did you happen to catch the Reveal post I put here several weeks ago? IMO, it was really well done as well. I can't get to this article, but if you caught my post, I'm wondering if you noticed any interesting differences in perspective between the two.

 

[Doug B]

Perspective of what researchers and vaccine makers were up against early on in the covid saga

Dispatch 14: Covid Crystal Ball

On today’s episode, doctors witness the worldwide pandemic playing out in a single human body.

radiolab.org

Since this is audio only, I need to remember to kick this off in the car later on.

 

[Doug B]

Here's a good retrospective analysis on the partisan divide on covid policy.

Note for others: This article was paywalled when I first opened it, but was readable after refreshing the page. I think the NYT has some articles that are free to the public, but they still want you to see the subscription banner before you read. Since the banner has no Close button or X or anything, you have to hit Refresh to see the article in full.

 

[Scoresman]

Here's a good retrospective analysis on the partisan divide on covid policy.

Note for others: This article was paywalled when I first opened it, but was readable after refreshing the page. I think the NYT has some articles that are free to the public, but they still want you to see the subscription banner before you read. Since the banner has no Close button or X or anything, you have to hit Refresh to see the article in full.

Also, a lot of times with the paywall banners you can hit the escape key a split second after the page refreshes, it prevents the banner from loading.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Here's an easy way to handle paywalls: https://archive.ph/

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Here's a good retrospective analysis on the partisan divide on covid policy. The reason why I recommend sticking a pin in this article is because it serves as a good reminder of the fact that red and blue states behaved nearly identically throughout 2020, and the outlier states didn't have much in common with one another politically, culturally, or geographically. The red-blue split on covid didn't really occur in earnest until after vaccines were rolled out.

It's the NYT so the author has to include some self-congratulatory disclaimers at the end to soothe their reader base, but the rest of this piece is really good.

I'd be fascinated to know what the deal with New Mexico was. I was down there visiting my daughter in late 2021 and was kind of surprised that they still had mask mandates in place. I didn't realize that their stay-at-home order lasted six months longer than literally every other state. That's pretty wild, and it would be interesting to know how that happened and why. NM is not a highly-ideological one-party state like CA or FL or NY, and you wouldn't expect them to get really weird on this, or anything. (Edit: Before somebody mentions the Navajo, every western state has a bunch of tribal communities, not just NM. That's not a good explanatory variable.)

Did you happen to catch the Reveal post I put here several weeks ago? IMO, it was really well done as well. I can't get to this article, but if you caught my post, I'm wondering if you noticed any interesting differences in perspective between the two.

I missed it. Could you repost or link back to it?

 

[Doug B]

Here's a good retrospective analysis on the partisan divide on covid policy. The reason why I recommend sticking a pin in this article is because it serves as a good reminder of the fact that red and blue states behaved nearly identically throughout 2020, and the outlier states didn't have much in common with one another politically, culturally, or geographically. The red-blue split on covid didn't really occur in earnest until after vaccines were rolled out.

I disagreed with the author a bit here:

If you recall the endless social media videos of arguments over masking policies in Walmarts and Whole Foods, it may be hard to believe that surveys show only a small partisan gap on the issue through 2020. And yet, according to a large survey conducted by Pew in August 2020, 92 percent of Democrats said they had worn a mask when in stores and other businesses all or most of the time over the previous month, and 76 percent of Republicans said the same. (The gaps widened considerably over the next six months.)

In August 2020, a self-identified Republican was roughly 3 times more likely to not mask in public than a self-identified Democrat. IMHO, that's not a small partisan gap -- that difference is and was significant.

Anecdotal memory: In summer 2020, around here (N.O. suburbs), it seemed like lack of mask-wearing correlated with minority status (and thus, to presumed self-identification as Democrats). Fast forward to June 2023 -- masking locally is rare, if not gone ... but when you do see mask-wearing today, it's correlated again with minority status.

 

[The Commish]

Here's a good retrospective analysis on the partisan divide on covid policy. The reason why I recommend sticking a pin in this article is because it serves as a good reminder of the fact that red and blue states behaved nearly identically throughout 2020, and the outlier states didn't have much in common with one another politically, culturally, or geographically. The red-blue split on covid didn't really occur in earnest until after vaccines were rolled out.

It's the NYT so the author has to include some self-congratulatory disclaimers at the end to soothe their reader base, but the rest of this piece is really good.

I'd be fascinated to know what the deal with New Mexico was. I was down there visiting my daughter in late 2021 and was kind of surprised that they still had mask mandates in place. I didn't realize that their stay-at-home order lasted six months longer than literally every other state. That's pretty wild, and it would be interesting to know how that happened and why. NM is not a highly-ideological one-party state like CA or FL or NY, and you wouldn't expect them to get really weird on this, or anything. (Edit: Before somebody mentions the Navajo, every western state has a bunch of tribal communities, not just NM. That's not a good explanatory variable.)

Did you happen to catch the Reveal post I put here several weeks ago? IMO, it was really well done as well. I can't get to this article, but if you caught my post, I'm wondering if you noticed any interesting differences in perspective between the two.

I missed it. Could you repost or link back to it?

*** OFFICIAL *** COVID-19 CoronaVirus Thread. Fresh epidemic fears as child pneumonia cases surge in Europe after China outbreak. NOW in USA

When I got my colonoscopy at hospital two weeks ago nobody was wearing masks including doctors and nurses That’s terrible, considering the potential for aerosolized fecal matter during that procedure. Lmao I'm not talking about DURING the procedure That you know of.

forums.footballguys.com

Ignore the thumbnail.....has nothing to do with my post and I don't know how to fix that......hahahaha

 

[Nathan R. Jessep]

New data: Paxlovid may help high-risk vaccinated adults ages 50 and under, but not patients with asthma or those without serious medical conditions.

Should vaccinated adults ages 50 and under who get Covid-19 take Paxlovid? That was what I wanted to know. Last year, I’d started to notice that young, healthy, and vaccinated people were taking the drug frequently, even though it had only ever been

insidemedicine.substack.com

TL;DR: New data: Paxlovid may help high-risk vaccinated adults ages 50 and under, but not patients with asthma or those without serious medical conditions.

study: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advanc...ccessKey=ed207e77-3e01-412a-bbb6-c61414553d3f

Conclusion​

NMV-r use in vaccinated adults aged 18-50, especially with serious comorbidities, was associated with reduced all-cause hospital visits, hospitalization, and mortality in the first 30 days of Covid-19 illness. However, NMR-r in patients without significant comorbidities or with only asthma/COPD had no association of benefit. Therefore, identifying high-risk patients should be a priority and avoid over-prescription should be avoided.​

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

What are the numbers looking like out there right now?

Anecdotally, I am still seeing more cases than I have since the fall.

My sister took paxlovid for some reason (not sure why), and sure enough she now has a rebound case.

 

[Doug B]

What are the numbers looking like out there right now?

What part of the country are you in?

Even vague stabs at COVID case numbers are no longer really possible. Wastewater data, however, shows mild recent increases in all of the US except the Northeast (click on the "Last 6 Weeks" to see recent effects). You can also scroll down and maybe see wastewater data for your immediate area if your local wastewater system is participating in the COVID data collection.

To check out COVID hospitalizations in you area, scroll down to the US map and zero in on your county. COVID hospitalizations are pretty much low coast to coast.

Worldometers is still good for COVID death figures, though figures are only good up until about a month ago -- newer figures tend to be adjusted several times until they get to be roughly 4-6 weeks old. Still, COVID death rates in the US were, as of about a month ago, lower than are during the worse end of flu seasons.

 

[Doug B]

@Leeroy Jenkins , you had posted about a local uptick in COVID cases in your orbit. Have all or most of those people's COVID cases run their course by now? Know anyone that was bad off from a recent case of COVID?

...

I thought this was interesting. We've heard about deer catching and spreading COVID amongst themselves. We've also known that humans and deer can spread it to each other, cross-species. What's weird, though, is cross-species spread without contact -- people not around deer catching deer-incubated sequences (at least if I'm reading the article correctly).

Deer spread COVID to humans multiple times, new research suggests

Researchers also found humans have likely spread the virus to deer at least hundreds of times.

www.cbsnews.com

From the article:​

​

Several of these viruses appear to still be mutating and spreading between deer, including the Alpha, Gamma, and Delta variants of concern that drove an increase in deaths earlier in the pandemic, long after these lineages were subsumed by the wave of Omicron variants that continue to dominate nationwide.​

​

Eighteen of the samples had no "genetically close human SARS-CoV-2 sequences within the same state" reported, foiling efforts to track down a precursor variant in humans.​

​

"Overall, this study demonstrated that frequent introductions of new human viruses into free-ranging white-tailed deer continued to occur, and that SARS-CoV-2 VOCs were capable of persisting in white-tailed deer even after those variants became rare in the human population," the study's authors wrote.​

​

Three had mutations that match a distinctive pattern of first spilling over from a human to deer, and then later another so-called "spillback" from deer back into humans. Two of these spillback variants were in North Carolina and one was in Massachusetts.​

​

An investigation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was able to track down three people who were infected by a variant with this hallmark deer mutation, as well as a handful of zoo lions who were also infected by the same strain. ​

​

None of the humans said they had close contact with either deer or the zoo.​