All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (3 Viewers)

[Maxp]

I fear we are really going to be in a bad place due to the obvious cuts to the federal agencies that deal with infectious disease, but also the negative effect the Affordable Care act has had on non urban hospitals. Our front line defenses are ineffectual and our ability to treat the populous is probably at an all time low. Factor in the cost of healthcare and I can see our system crashing. What do you think about the politics of this virus?

 

[SaintForLife]

Yes... and that gain of function violated the terms of the grant. The NIH didn't fund gain of function research any more than I funded someone's drug habit because they used the $100 I loaned them for their power bill to buy cocaine instead.

Did the Wuhan Institute of Virology use funds from the NIH to do their gain of function research?

 

[cuddlemonkey]

Did the Wuhan Institute of Virology use funds from the NIH to do their gain of function research?

Did the NIH grant stipulate that WIV was not allowed to use it for gain-of-function research?

 

[bird]

Why did Trump pull the CDC team out of Wuhan?

 

[SaintForLife]

Did the NIH grant stipulate that WIV was not allowed to use it for gain-of-function research?

Ah I see. You are only interested in playing a semantics game.

Why do you think that the NIH was funding that research in Wuhan? Because their was a gain of function research pause in the US.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology had a history of doing gain of function research. If you want to be naive you can act like the NIH was surprised that WIV did gain of research with Covid.





"documents showed scientists had inserted new spike proteins into..bat coronaviruses."

Who still thinks it wasn't a lab leak?

 

[MT15]

Who still thinks it wasn't a lab leak?

Every scientist who studies viruses.

 

[SaintForLife]

Every scientist who studies viruses.

Name two of them.

What about the document I referenced above that showed "scientists had inserted new spike proteins into..bat coronaviruses." at Wuhan Institute of Virology?

 

[bird]

Name two of them.

What about the document I referenced above that showed "scientists had inserted new spike proteins into..bat coronaviruses." at Wuhan Institute of Virology?

Why did Trump pull the CDC team from Wuhan?

 

[MT15]

Name two of them.

What about the document I referenced above that showed "scientists had inserted new spike proteins into..bat coronaviruses." at Wuhan Institute of Virology?

I think you don’t understand anything about what you are talking about, and therefore it’s easy for you to be misled by people wishing to mislead you. People with a history of being dishonest, and you know they have that history yet you believe every thing they say.

 

[MT15]

Here’s a BBC article discussing the genetic clues that lead most scientists to think the virus came from the WuHan market. There are several scientists quoted in there. Slowly over the past year a scientific consensus is forming among virologists and genetic virologists that the market is the most likely source.

Have we found the 'animal origin' of Covid?

Genetic data released by China three years after it was gathered has provided 'the best evidence' of how the pandemic started, scientists say.

www.bbc.com

 

[cuddlemonkey]

Ah I see. You are only interested in playing a semantics game.

Why do you think that the NIH was funding that research in Wuhan? Because their was a gain of function research pause in the US.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology had a history of doing gain of function research. If you want to be naive you can act like the NIH was surprised that WIV did gain of research with Covid.





"documents showed scientists had inserted new spike proteins into..bat coronaviruses."

Who still thinks it wasn't a lab leak?

The semantics game of accurately stating the facts of the matter? I would much rather play that game than the conspiracy theory game.

 

[MT15]

This is a useful chart. While you cannot actually quantify viral load with rapid tests, there is absolutely a correlation between viral load and the test line darkness + rapidity of turning positive.

 

[SaintForLife]

I think you don’t understand anything about what you are talking about, and therefore it’s easy for you to be misled by people wishing to mislead you. People with a history of being dishonest, and you know they have that history yet you believe every thing they say.

I linked to an article referenced a document that the US has that showed "scientists had inserted new spike proteins into..bat coronaviruses." at Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Are you disputing the validity of that document?

What relevance does an article from March have in this discussion when we have current information from the government that contradicts your article?

 

[MT15]

I linked to an article referenced a document that the US has that showed "scientists had inserted new spike proteins into..bat coronaviruses." at Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Are you disputing the validity of that document?

What relevance does an article from March have in this discussion when we have current information from the government that contradicts your article?

Your article doesn’t contradict anything in my article. I will tell you again, you don’t know enough about viruses or spike proteins or anything else to be able to evaluate what you are being told by dishonest people.

Over the past year, a consensus is forming among virologists and especially among genetic virologists, that there was a natural origin for the novel SARS virus that emerged in 2019. The evidence is strong, from what I am seeing.

What you are being told is most likely either someone like yourself, who doesn’t understand this stuff, or someone intentionally trying to deceive people. There is some of both going on right now.

 

[SaintForLife]

Your article doesn’t contradict anything in my article. I will tell you again, you don’t know enough about viruses or spike proteins or anything else to be able to evaluate what you are being told by dishonest people.

Over the past year, a consensus is forming among virologists and especially among genetic virologists, that there was a natural origin for the novel SARS virus that emerged in 2019. The evidence is strong, from what I am seeing.

What you are being told is most likely either someone like yourself, who doesn’t understand this stuff, or someone intentionally trying to deceive people. There is some of both going on right now.

Nice talking points, but I'm ignoring your article because we have a government document that contradicts your article.

How could you act as if a government document showing that scientists in Wuhan did gain of function research doesn't contradict an article claiming it was zoonotic?

 

[MT15]

Nice talking points, but I'm ignoring your article because we have a government document that contradicts your article.

How could you act as if a government document showing that scientists in Wuhan did gain of function research doesn't contradict an article claiming it was zoonotic?

Because there is no genetic basis to compare the SARS Covid-19 virus to the viruses the scientists in Wuhan were working on. The Covid virus has a different genetic makeup.

Viral genetics studies that have been completed within the past year prove that the Covid virus didn‘t come from the lab.

 

[MT15]

How could you act as if a government document showing that scientists in Wuhan did gain of function research doesn't contradict an article claiming it was zoonotic?

Can you even define gain of function research? Do you know the purpose of it? Do you realize you can do gain of function research on any microorganism? Here is a good start to try to understand a little bit of what you are talking about, because at this point it’s pretty obvious you don’t know.

https://asm.org/ASM/media/Policy-and-Advocacy/HD-918-ASM-GoF-FactSheet-final.pdf

 

[MT15]

So I was talking with my brother tonight. He is a PhD scientist who runs a viral research lab at a major medical school. He doesn’t do research on corona viruses, but he has done enough reading on this to help clarify the situation. Here is what he knows:

1. There is zero evidence, and he was emphatic about this, that the SARS-Covid virus was genetically manipulated by humans. He says there is 100% agreement in the scientific community about this. This is based on genetic studies of the virus.

2. Therefore it either was a natural virus that passed into the human population in the market, or it was a virus collected from nature somewhere that escaped from the lab in an accidental event.

3. As he put it - it doesn’t really matter which one, because we know the virus wasn’t genetically manipulated by humans. And we cannot be sure at this point because the Chinese were not forthcoming in the beginning.

4. I told him I had read that scientists were leaning toward the animal source, and he reiterated that yes, it definitely had an animal source because it was a virus from nature whether it escaped the lab or jumped to humans from the market.

 

[MT15]

So I sure hope we can put these crazy conspiracy theories to rest. Jeesh.