All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (15 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?

 

[RobF]

Okay. I should have stated what I said differently.

Yes, you should, if by "differently" you mean "without wildly misrepresenting reality and showing all the reading comprehension skills of a three year old."

To that end, you should also read the post you replied to instead of just ignoring it, repeating yourself and dumping yet more tweets, the comments of which are all addressed by the posts you've ignored.

It makes literally no sense to reply to a post to suggest that new data couldn't have evolved their understanding when the post literally describes, with verbatim quotes, how and why that data would have done that.

I find it hard to believe that even someone without a scientific background or an understanding of the terms involved would struggle to understand how data that shows "that both cleavage site insertions and the full RBD exist in nature" would then lead to a position that "since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible" but if you simply don't understand that, feel free to bow out gracefully, rather than ignoring it and dumping yet more tweets.

 

[MT15]

SFL all of your tweet dumps are old news and speculative about motives of scientists. But you are ignoring the facts and data that has been shown to you over and over. The old crap just doesn’t matter because we now have a fairly decent idea about where the virus came from.

From the Johns Hopkins interview that was posted earlier:

“Three-quarters of the early cases had some association with the market and none had an association with the laboratory. Even though the market and the laboratory are both in Wuhan, they are in different parts of the city separated by a river.

There were also other indicators: There were two lineages—or two separate variants—of SARS-CoV-2 that were circulating in the early days of the pandemic. One of those became the pandemic [as we know it] and the other one died out.

But [the existence of two lineages] would mean that there would have to have been two introductions from a laboratory, versus an outbreak going on among animals and then spilling over multiple times to people.”

This is just a small part of the biological and genetic data people are trying to get you to see. It was extremely likely to have come from the Market and extremely unlikely to have come from the lab.

 

[SaintForLife]

Yes, you should, if by "differently" you mean "without wildly misrepresenting reality and showing all the reading comprehension skills of a three year old."

Oh you got me there. A 3 year old. What a clever insult.

To that end, you should also read the post you replied to instead of just ignoring it, repeating yourself and dumping yet more tweets, the comments of which are all addressed by the posts you've ignored.

It makes literally no sense to reply to a post to suggest that new data couldn't have evolved their understanding when the post literally describes, with verbatim quotes, how and why that data would have done that.

Those discussions where done AFTER the paper was already published so it's not relevant to the Natural Origins Paper.

Also, you ignored the fact that in response to their private messages being released they claimed that the Natural Origins Paper was an opinion paper and not a research study.

I find it hard to believe that even someone without a scientific background or an understanding of the terms involved would struggle to understand how data that shows "that both cleavage site insertions and the full RBD exist in nature" would then lead to a position that "since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible" but if you simply don't understand that, feel free to bow out gracefully, rather than ignoring it and dumping yet more tweets.

You are on a mighty high horse for ignoring my two points above in your lecture about how I'm a complete idiot.

I'm not sure why you want to defend scientists who were dishonest and corrupt in their coverup of the US funding and role in the gain of function research at Wuhan.

 

[MT15]

I'm not sure why you want to defend scientists who were dishonest and corrupt in their coverup of the US funding and role in the gain of function research at Wuhan.

So you are interpreting private conversations - or actually snippets of private conversations - in the worst possible light. Most people can read these snippets and understand them for what they are. They are frank discussions of what might be the political fallout and how to avoid creating even more animosity toward Asian people than Trump and the likes of the propagandists you follow had already stirred up. I remember several actual murders of just random Asian people trying to go about their business. Who in their right mind would want to contribute to more of that?

I know early in this thread there is an article about gain of function research and how the term has come to be misunderstood and misused as a sort of “bogeyman” by right wing media. It is still being misused today. It appears to me to be deliberate. RW media - the propaganda purveyors you follow anyway - need engagement from you. They need you to click and share and click some more. The best way to drive engagement is to sow outrage. The easiest people to outrage are those who are in a bubble and don’t read critically.

Unrelated but relevant example. I recently saw a bunch of tweets about now NY state was trying to FORCE Chick-fil-A to open on Sundays now. And how that’s just like the godless, authoritarian democrats to do this, and this proves that Christians are being actually discriminated against.

I thought - hmm, that doesn’t seem right. So I went and looked it up. Turns out it’s about rest stops on the NY Thruway, which only have one restaurant at each one. And NY State just told Chick-fil-A that if they want the contract to be the sole restaurant at some of those rest stops, they would have to be open 7 days because people will need hot food on Sundays too. That’s just a bit different, isn’t it?

If I didn’t read critically I would have reposted that here and railed against the “authoritarian” actions of NY State against a private corporation targeting them because of their religion. It wouldn’t have any resemblance to the truth, but you can still today find many people doing exactly that.

 

[RobF]

Oh you got me there. A 3 year old. What a clever insult.

It was descriptive. Case in point:

Those discussions where done AFTER the paper was already published so it's not relevant to the Natural Origins Paper.

They were before. Because February 25th is before March 17th.

Also, you ignored the fact that in response to their private messages being released they claimed that the Natural Origins Paper was an opinion paper and not a research study.

I ignored it because it's not a fact. It was published as correspondence in Nature Medicine in March 2020. That was not in response to messages being released in July 2023.

 

[MT15]

It’s simply not possible for a “paper” to be regarded as a research paper if it is an opinion piece or correspondence. Every single scientist knows the difference. The people who are trying to tell SFL that it was passed off as a research paper are lying or incredibly ignorant, take your pick. I did a search for research papers published in Nature in March 2020 and it didn’t come up. It was never “passed off” as research, although it does cite some research papers. It is clearly labeled as “correspondence”.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Over 200 active duty and retired service members are vowing to hold the Biden administration accountable for 'trampling' on their rights by enforcing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The mandate enacted in August 2021 led to the forced firing of over 8,000 service members who refused the shot on religious or medical grounds.

On New Year's Day, over 200 service members declared that they will do 'everything' in their power to get accountability since not a single leader has resigned or been held to account despite the rollback of the vaccine mandate last year.

In a letter obtained by DailyMail.com, the current and former troops accuse Biden's military brass of 'continuing to ignore' their pleas to correct the 'injuries and laws that were broken.'

They are threatening to even force Biden's top leaders to be brought out of retirement so they can be court-martialed and held to account.

'While implementing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, military leaders broke the law, trampled constitutional rights, denied informed consent, permitted unwilling medical experimentation, and suppressed the free exercise of religion,' the letter states.

It goes on to say both service members and their families were 'significantly harmed' and their 'suffering continues to be felt financially, emotionally, and physically.'

'Some service members became part of our ever-growing veteran homeless population, some developed debilitating vaccine injuries, and some even lost their lives,' the letter continues..............

MSN

 

[MT15]

This should go in the RWNJ thread, lol. Ask them all how many vaccines were mandated when they joined?

 

[faceman]

This should go in the RWNJ thread, lol. Ask them all how many vaccines were mandated when they joined?

Current Status of Vaccines for Military Personnel - Protecting Our Forces - NCBI Bookshelf

Department of Defense (DoD) administers 17 different vaccines, as outlined in the Joint Instruction on Immunizations and Chemoprophylaxis (Secretaries of the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Transportation, 1995), for the prevention of infectious diseases among military personnel, where appropriate. The vaccines are administered to military personnel on the basis of military occupation, the location of the deployment, and mission requirements.

 

[SaintForLife]

It was descriptive. Case in point:

You seem like the kind of guy who wears a mask in your car when you are by yourself.

They were before. Because February 25th is before March 17th.

It was first published February 17th on virological.org.

The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2

The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2 Kristian G. Andersen1,2*, Andrew Rambaut3, W. Ian Lipkin4, Edward C. Holmes5 & Robert F. Garry6,7 1Department of Immunology and Microbiology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA. 2Scripps Research Translational Institute, La Jolla, CA...

web.archive.org

I ignored it because it's not a fact. It was published as correspondence in Nature Medicine in March 2020. That was not in response to messages being released in July 2023.

Just a correspondence huh?

Former NIH director Dr Francis Collins:

Genomic Study Points to Natural Origin of COVID-19

No matter where you go online these days, there’s bound to be discussion of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Some folks are even making outrageous claims that the new coronavirus causing the pa…

directorsblog.nih.gov

Fauci called it a study as well:

 

[SaintForLife]

So you are interpreting private conversations - or actually snippets of private conversations - in the worst possible light. Most people can read these snippets and understand them for what they are. They are frank discussions of what might be the political fallout and how to avoid creating even more animosity toward Asian people than Trump and the likes of the propagandists you follow had already stirred up. I remember several actual murders of just random Asian people trying to go about their business. Who in their right mind would want to contribute to more of that?

That's another one of your favorite message board tactics. Claim that something was cherry picked or out of context and never say anything specific to show how it was cherry picked or out of context.

You want context? Here is a long and detailed timeline of events that includes emails, messages and documents.

Timeline: The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2

This timeline compiles numerous sources to covey the backstory of the enormously influential article, "The proximal origin of SARS-Cov-2".

usrtk.org

Take a look and see how nothing has been taken out of context if you are intellectually honest.

I know early in this thread there is an article about gain of function research and how the term has come to be misunderstood and misused as a sort of “bogeyman” by right wing media. It is still being misused today. It appears to me to be deliberate. RW media - the propaganda purveyors you follow anyway - need engagement from you. They need you to click and share and click some more. The best way to drive engagement is to sow outrage. The easiest people to outrage are those who are in a bubble and don’t read critically.

Actually the people who tried and are still trying to coverup or lie about the origins of Covid are the same people who have tried to call gain of function a bogeyman to deflect attention away from this discussion.

Gain of function research happened in Wuhan and we funded it. Fauci was aware.

 

[MT15]

The fact that you are quoting Kevin Bass is just hilarious.

and the origins correspondence does cite several actual research studies, so this whole issue is about as stupid as it can get.

It is listed in the actual magazine as “correspondence”. It is essentially a letter to the editor, although it is written by one of the actual scientists and has references that are actual research papers.

Just go to Nature and look at it and quit wasting our time on here with something as stupid as this.

 

[MT15]

That's another one of your favorite message board tactics. Claim that something was cherry picked or out of context and never say anything specific to show how it was cherry picked or out of context.

You want context? Here is a long and detailed timeline of events that includes emails, messages and documents.

Timeline: The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2

This timeline compiles numerous sources to covey the backstory of the enormously influential article, "The proximal origin of SARS-Cov-2".

usrtk.org

Take a look and see how nothing has been taken out of context if you are intellectually honest.


Actually the people who tried and are still trying to coverup or lie about the origins of Covid are the same people who have tried to call gain of function a bogeyman to deflect attention away from this discussion.

Gain of function research happened in Wuhan and we funded it. Fauci was aware.

No thanks I won’t be reading any more of your propaganda sources. I have read a couple of abstracts from actual papers - enough to know that, while there was at least some doubt about the origins at first, that has been largely settled by actual science. You know actual genetic data and actual scientific study of the first cases.

You can tilt at windmills and bay at the moon. And be convinced that 5 guys got together and made a conspiracy and they were able to fool every other scientist in the world. I will be living in reality.

So you can stop posting your nonsense on this subject.

 

[SaintForLife]

The fact that you are quoting Kevin Bass is just hilarious.

and the origins correspondence does cite several actual research studies, so this whole issue is about as stupid as it can get.

It is listed in the actual magazine as “correspondence”. It is essentially a letter to the editor, although it is written by one of the actual scientists and has references that are actual research papers.

Just go to Nature and look at it and quit wasting our time on here with something as stupid as this.

Collins and Fauci called it a research study. Now others say it's an opinion.

 

[MT15]

Collins and Fauci called it a research study. Now others say it's an opinion.

It referenced a whole bunch of research studies. What a stupid point to try to make.

 

[RobF]

You seem like the kind of guy who wears a mask in your car when you are by yourself.

I imagine I seem like all sorts of things to you, but since, at the moment, you can't appear to read, think straight, or keep track of a point from one post to the next, I don't think I'll be putting much weight into what you currently think I seem like.

It was first published February 17th on virological.org.

No. What you've linked to an archived version of there is a preprint - a draft. It's not the published version.

And you should know it's a draft. You've literally quoted multiple things yourself that explicitly describe it as such.

That's also why the live actual link - https://virological.org/t/the-proximal-origin-of-sars-cov-2/398 - clearly states:

"This paper has now been published here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 8.1k
The published version includes updates and corrections and should be considered the final version (it is also Open Access)."

It is also the updates and corrections that are under particular discussion here.

As I already said, the paper - the published in March 2020 paper - states:

"However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."

This statement is not in the preprint archived version. This is because it very clearly follows on from their discussion of data showing "that both cleavage site insertions and the full RBD exist in nature" in late February.

You're apparently now acknowledging that the data does, in fact, exist, after spending many posts just claiming it didn't, but you're now trying to claim it's irrelevant on the grounds that it wasn't included in a preprint of the paper written before they'd seen it.

But it makes literally no sense to say, effectively, "Why did they shift to saying this so strongly in this paper published in March 2020," and then, when you're clearly pointed to the discussion they had in February 2020 showing why they did, to link to an earlier version of the paper in which they didn't.

They didn't do it then because that was before. But the reason they did it after remains the same.

Which remains the basic fact that their views developed and the paper was written in line with their consideration of the data over time, as anyone reading the paper and transcripts can clearly see.

No bizarre, and increasingly ludicrous, conspiracy theories necessary.

Here's a tip: when you find yourself repeatedly denying the existence of something that clearly exists, and when you try to link to something from before an event to try to claim that the event didn't affect something after the event, then the conspiracy theory you've bought into is junk. Because if it wasn't, you wouldn't need to do such incredibly daft things to try to justify it.

Just a correspondence huh?

 

[MT15]

I just saw a statement from a guy on Twitter and it crystallizes conspiracy people.

“When you don’t understand anything, everything seems like a conspiracy.“

Boy does that ring true or what?

 

[SaintForLife]

I imagine I seem like all sorts of things to you, but since, at the moment, you can't appear to read, think straight, or keep track of a point from one post to the next, I don't think I'll be putting much weight into what you currently think I seem like.

Do you wear your mask when you are online?

No. What you've linked to an archived version of there is a preprint - a draft. It's not the published version.

And you should know it's a draft. You've literally quoted multiple things yourself that explicitly describe it as such.

That's also why the live actual link - https://virological.org/t/the-proximal-origin-of-sars-cov-2/398 - clearly states:

"This paper has now been published here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 8.1k
The published version includes updates and corrections and should be considered the final version (it is also Open Access)."

It is also the updates and corrections that are under particular discussion here.

As I already said, the paper - the published in March 2020 paper - states:

This is from the guy that Dragon posted and you referenced:

"However, since we observed all notable SARS-CoV-2 features, including the optimized RBD and polybasic cleavage site, in related coronaviruses in nature, we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."

This statement is not in the preprint archived version. This is because it very clearly follows on from their discussion of data showing "that both cleavage site insertions and the full RBD exist in nature" in late February.

You're apparently now acknowledging that the data does, in fact, exist, after spending many posts just claiming it didn't, but you're now trying to claim it's irrelevant on the grounds that it wasn't included in a preprint of the paper written before they'd seen it.

But it makes literally no sense to say, effectively, "Why did they shift to saying this so strongly in this paper published in March 2020," and then, when you're clearly pointed to the discussion they had in February 2020 showing why they did, to link to an earlier version of the paper in which they didn't.

They didn't do it then because that was before. But the reason they did it after remains the same.

Which remains the basic fact that their views developed and the paper was written in line with their consideration of the data over time, as anyone reading the paper and transcripts can clearly see.

No bizarre, and increasingly ludicrous, conspiracy theories necessary.

Here's a tip: when you find yourself repeatedly denying the existence of something that clearly exists, and when you try to link to something from before an event to try to claim that the event didn't affect something after the event, then the conspiracy theory you've bought into is junk. Because if it wasn't, you wouldn't need to do such incredibly daft things to try to justify it.

That's nice and all that they labeled it correspondence, but Collins and Fauci said it was a research study. For years the Proximal Origins paper was the final word on COVID, but now that their private messages have been exposed they say it's opinion.