Deadly Wuhan Coronavirus

AD1184

Celestial
Detailed timeline of the ups and downs of the "lab leak" theory.
Fact check: How the Wuhan lab-leak theory for pandemic origin suddenly became credible
By Glenn Kessler
The Washington Post

[...]

The Trump administration also sought to highlight the lab scenario but generally could only point to vague intelligence. The Trump administration’s messaging was often accompanied by anti-Chinese rhetoric that made it easier for skeptics to ignore its claims.

[...]
There was also the effect that Trump had on the left wing intelligentsia, which revelled in contradicting Trump. Anything that Trump espoused as a fact had to be false, in the view of the press and academia, for the very reason that it was Trump espousing it. We saw this elsewhere, for example, when Trump began promoting hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment and prophylaxis for Covid.

The press were very keen to point out that this was not so, even before there was good evidence either way. The Lancet even went to the extent of publishing a study purporting to demonstrate that HCQ was not effective, and potentially worsened Covid outcomes in patients, after a rushed peer review, and which turned out to be fraudulent. This fraudulent study was promoted far and wide by left wing media outlets in English-speaking countries. More recent evidence suggests that HCQ is not particularly good at treating Covid, but the lengths that the press went to discredit the mere idea of it were fairly extreme, and seemingly hinged on the fact that Trump was involved in the public awareness of HCQ.

OpEds chided against the irresponsible promotion of experimental medical treatments, while before the pandemic many of those same outlets were frequently heralding cannabis and cannabis oil products as some sort of miracle cure for all ailments despite scant scientific evidence, as part of the left's wider campaign to de-criminalize recreational cannabis use.
 
Last edited:

August

Metanoia
Coronavirus came from the Batcave.

Wuhan lab report ‘proves’ Covid came from bat cave, China claims | News | The Times

714a88b06d1e2b7c27d57094fa9d47a3
 

wwkirk

Divine
New York Times reporter apologizes for criticizing lab leak coronavirus theory as racist
Excerpt:
A New York Times global health reporter apologized Wednesday for tweets disparaging the coronavirus "lab leak" theory as implausible and racist.

"I deleted my earlier tweets about the origins of the pandemic because they were badly phrased. The origin of the pandemic is an important line of reporting that my colleagues are covering aggressively," reporter Apoorva Mandavilli wrote.

Mandavilli drew criticism Wednesday after she tweeted, "Someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots. But alas, that day is not yet here."

Note: The deleted racism accusations were recent, since the media about face.
I guess she didn't get the memo.
 

AD1184

Celestial
New York Times reporter apologizes for criticizing lab leak coronavirus theory as racist
Excerpt:
A New York Times global health reporter apologized Wednesday for tweets disparaging the coronavirus "lab leak" theory as implausible and racist.

"I deleted my earlier tweets about the origins of the pandemic because they were badly phrased. The origin of the pandemic is an important line of reporting that my colleagues are covering aggressively," reporter Apoorva Mandavilli wrote.

Mandavilli drew criticism Wednesday after she tweeted, "Someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots. But alas, that day is not yet here."

Note: The deleted racism accusations were recent, since the media about face.
I guess she didn't get the memo.
It feels somewhat of a vindication that mainstream media opinion has come around to how I thought about the matter since the start of the pandemic, when previously it was at odds. It is however unsettling the way these people's opinions conform to the latest groupthink. If an edict comes down from on high that opinions must change, then it is like flipping a light switch.

I would have felt better if Mandavilli had stuck to her guns in denouncing the lab leak theory as racist, even though I think her opinion on Wednesday was nonsense, and her stated opinion today is more reasonable. It rather shows that left wing persons in the media do not form their opinions freely according to reason, but decide what they should be based on their perception of what is acceptable among their fellow leftists, and in particular the leaders of the movement. Despite seeming so opinionated, those opinions are not really their own.

I felt similarly unsettled when mainstream opinion suddenly switched to favouring mask use to fight the pandemic, when I had been persuaded much earlier by my brother that they do actually do something.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
I felt similarly unsettled when mainstream opinion suddenly switched to favouring mask use to fight the pandemic, when I had been persuaded much earlier by my brother that they do actually do something.

Wearing a mask to fight the pandemic should have been common sense from day one for everyone, yet Fauci, a man in his position, waiting until March 2020 before recommending masks and at one point he even stated masks weren't necessary before he finally recommended them...

...
 

nivek

As Above So Below
UK Covid cases surpass 4,000 a day for first time since April 1

Coronavirus cases in the UK have risen by more than 4,000 for the first day in almost two months, as ministers warn the June 21 lifting of all restrictions is not guaranteed.

The latest Government figures show another 4,182 confirmed positive tests were logged over the latest 24 hour period, the biggest jump since April 1 and a 24 per cent increase on the previous seven day average. Cases on Thursday were also the highest since mid-April.


Meanwhile, the R number estimate - how many people a Covid-positive person goes on to infect - on Friday rose from 0.9-1.1 to 1.0-1.1.

It comes as scientists warn the next few weeks are crucial in determining whether the next stage of England’s roadmap can proceed.

This is despite fresh Public Health England data showing just three per cent of Indian variant infections were in people who had received both vaccine doses, with nearly 73 per cent of all cases in the completely unvaccinated.

Hours before the UK medicines regulator approved a fourth Covid-19 vaccine shown to work against all variants, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said on Friday "there's nothing in the data that suggests to me that we should move the day" of June 21.

But he warned: “I can't guarantee that on May 28, you will appreciate, I cannot guarantee that in three-and-a-half weeks' time."

.
 

wwkirk

Divine
Has any lawsuit of American citizens against any foreign country ever actually worked?...How could they get the accused into an American court?...

...
To my knowledge, it could be extracted from any assets the country happened to have in the US. But I don't know how successful collections have been.

For that matter, collecting in cases won against Americans don't always succeed either.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
COVID-19 'has NO credible natural ancestor' and WAS created by Chinese scientists who then tried to cover their tracks with 'retro-engineering' to make it seem like it naturally arose from bats, explosive new study claims

An explosive new study claims that Chinese scientists created COVID-19 in a Wuhan lab, then tried to cover their tracks by reverse-engineering versions of the virus to make it look like it evolved naturally from bats.

The paper's authors, British Professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr. Birger Sørensen, wrote that they have had 'prima facie evidence of retro-engineering in China' for a year - but were ignored by academics and major journals.

Dalgleish is a professor of oncology at St George's University, London, and is best known for his breakthrough creating the first working 'HIV vaccine', to treat diagnosed patients and allow them to go off medication for months.

Sørensen, a virologist, is chair of pharmaceutical company, Immunor, which developed a coronavirus vaccine candidate called Biovacc-19. Dalgleish also has share options in the firm.

The shocking allegations in the study include accusations of 'deliberate destruction, concealment or contamination of data' at Chinese labs, and it notes the silencing and disappearance of scientists in the communist country who spoke out.

The journal article, exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com and slated for publication in the coming days, is set to make waves among the scientific community, as the majority of experts have until recently staunchly denied the origins of COVID-19 were anything other than a natural infection leaping from animals to humans.

(More on the link)


.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Vietnam detects hybrid of Indian and UK COVID-19 variants

Authorities in Vietnam have detected a new coronavirus variant that is a combination of the Indian and UK COVID-19 variants and spreads quickly by air, the health minister said on Saturday.

After successfully containing the virus for most of last year, Vietnam is grappling with a spike in infections since late April that accounts for more than half of the total 6,713 registered cases. So far, there have been 47 deaths.

"Vietnam has uncovered a new COVID-19 variant combining characteristics of the two existing variants first found in India and the UK," Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said in a statement.

"The new variant is very dangerous," he added.

The Southeast Asian country had previously detected seven virus variants: B.1.222, B.1.619, D614G, B.1.1.7 - known as the UK variant, B.1.351, A.23.1 and B.1.617.2 - the "Indian variant".

Online newspaper VnExpress said Long had described the new variant as a hybrid of the Indian and UK variants.

"The new one is an Indian variant with mutations that originally belong to the UK variant," Long was quoted as saying, adding that authorities would soon announce the name and detailed characteristics of the newly discovered variant.

(More on the link)


.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine authorized for use in the U.K.

The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine has been authorized for emergency use by the U.K. medicines regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

The single-dose vaccine, developed by healthcare company J&J’s Janssen unit, has been shown to be 66% effective in preventing moderate-to-severe cases of COVID-19 in its late-stage trial.

“As Janssen is a single-dose vaccine, it will play an important role in the months to come as we redouble our efforts to encourage everyone to get their jabs and potentially begin a booster program later this year,” said health secretary Matt Hancock, in a statement on Friday.

The U.K. government said it has secured 20 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and that it would be made available later this year. The government noted that the vaccine can be stored at refrigerator temperatures, “making it ideal” for distribution to care homes and other locations.


.
 

AD1184

Celestial
Britain in early stages of third Covid wave, says government adviser

Due once again to a series of stupid decisions by the British government, we are at the start of a third wave of Covid. Allowing India to remain off the red list while the government conducted trade talks with them is chief among those bad decisions. Neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh both had lower rates of Covid, but both were put on the travel red list earlier than India, then the world's Covid capital. This put the new variant in a race with the vaccine in which it is now clear that the vaccine lost.

Britain now has the highest growing new case rate in Europe. A third wave is building, but the government is cowardly shying away from taking any action that would mitigate the spread. Eventually they are going to have to take action, but the longer they wait, the more severe the measures are going to have to be.

Last week, they were trying to weaselly institute informal local lockdowns by telling people that they should not travel into or out of badly affected areas. This was while they were also relaxing measures in those same areas and nationally. Cinemas had re-opened last weekend, and restaurants were allowed to have indoor dining from the 17th.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Due once again to a series of stupid decisions by the British government, we are at the start of a third wave of Covid. Allowing India to remain off the red list while the government conducted trade talks with them is chief among those bad decisions.

India is the major covid hotspot in the world right now, no country in their right mind should allow travelers to enter their countries from India...

...
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Last week, they were trying to weaselly institute informal local lockdowns by telling people that they should not travel into or out of badly affected areas. This was while they were also relaxing measures in those same areas and nationally. Cinemas had re-opened last weekend, and restaurants were allowed to have indoor dining from the 17th.

Thinking about this some, shouldn't restaurants be opened before any cinemas?...If I owned a restaurant I would be upset the government allows corporates (cinemas) to open and make money before the local people can open their restaurants...

Not being in the UK personally my opinion doesn't count for much but it seems Britain should have been as open as the US is right now given the vaccination campaign has been going on in earnest as it has here across the water...Honestly though in hindsight, I think every country should have done what Australia did and locked up their respective countries of outside travel immediately in the early part of last year...

...
 

nivek

As Above So Below
I think these people are taking this to the extreme and are out of touch with the reality of the situation...

 

nivek

As Above So Below
Maybe it should have been called the Wuhan Flu...lol

Speaking about name changes, here we go:


'It's the right thing to do': WHO renames COVID variants with Greek letter names to avoid confusion, stigma

The World Health Organization has created a new system to name COVID-19 variants, getting away from place-based names that can be hard to pronounce, difficult to remember, and stigmatize a specific country.

The new system, which was announced Monday, is based on the letters of the Greek alphabet. The United Kingdom variant, called by scientists B.1.1.7, will now be Alpha. B.1.351, the South Africa variant, will now be Beta and the B.1.617.2 variant discovered in India will now be known as Delta.

When the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet are used up, WHO will announce another series. "It's the right thing to do," said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco. It may also make countries more open to reporting new variants if they're not afraid of being forever associated with them in the mind of the public.

In a release. WHO said that while scientific names have advantages, they can be difficult to say and are prone to misreporting. "As a result, people often resort to calling variants by the places where they are detected, which is stigmatizing and discriminatory," WHO said.

It's also often wrong. Where a disease or virus is first discovered isn't usually where it actually first emerged. For example, the Spanish flu of 1918 is thought by some researchers to have actually first emerged in Haskell County, Kansas, or possibly in France.

In the case of the variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, where they are first identified depends more on how good the genomic surveillance system is in the area where the virus is present, not where the mutation appeared, said Gandhi.

The new WHO naming system was created in collaboration with experts and researchers who've been monitoring and assessing the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.

The established scientific nomenclature systems for tracking SARS-CoV-2 mutation will remain in use in the scientific community, WHO said. That includes the Pango system, from the Phylogenetic Assignment of Named Global Outbreak group, GISAID, the Global Initiative for Sharing All Influenza Data and NextStrain, a collaboration between researchers in Seattle and Basel, Switzerland.

The new WHO names are meant to be easier to remember and more practical for non-scientific audiences, as the virus lineage names do not trip off the tongue. For example, the variant discovered in the United States in March of last year is known as the B.1.427 to scientists.

Calling something "the South Africa variant" can make people fear anyone coming from South Africa, even when it's not clear the variant actually emerged there.

Not all geographic names are stigmatizing, said Ajay Sethi, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Here in Wisconsin, we have Lacrosse encephalitis virus, but no one ever stigmatizes Lacrosse, Wisconsin. And Norovirus is originally from Norwalk, Ohio, but people aren't afraid of Ohio," he said. But for SARS-CoV-2, which has caused such global devastation, names can have serious consequences. "It's always a good idea to have a name that is just a name," he said.

.
 
Top