DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Covid Part XII

Your article is over 2 years old. You know, back when nothing was known about covid? To use that as "proof" of anything is only proof of .......well, I won't say it.

Here is something a little more recent. Like, today, recent.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/potential-lab-incident-fbi-director-001200264.html


FBI director Christopher Wray on Tuesday spoke publicly for the first time on the bureau's assessment that the COVID-19 virus "most likely" originated from a potential lab incident in Wuhan, China.

He also faulted the Chinese government in an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier for, he said, trying to thwart the work of U.S. agencies investigating the beginnings of the global pandemic.

"The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan," he said.

Wray's comments came after a report in the Wall Street Journal, not independently confirmed by ABC News, that a new Department of Energy assessment has found the virus was most likely the result of a lab leak in Wuhan, but it did so with "low confidence," compared with the FBI's "most likely" finding with "moderate confidence."
PHOTO: FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks during a press conference to announce an international ransomware enforcement action, at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2023. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
PHOTO: FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks during a press conference to announce an international ransomware enforcement action, at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, 2023. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

MORE: What the 'lab leak' theory report about COVID's origins does and doesn't mean

While the DOE assessment, which the New York Times reported was based on new intelligence, is in line with the FBI's, four other U.S. agencies believe the virus was a result of natural transmission and that the virus, known as SARS-CoV-2, jumped from animals to humans at a wet market. Two other agencies are undecided.

"The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan," Wray said.
PHOTO: This aerial view shows the P4 laboratory on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, May 27, 2020, in China's central Hubei province. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)
PHOTO: This aerial view shows the P4 laboratory on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, May 27, 2020, in China's central Hubei province. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

MORE: COVID's origins 'most likely' lab leak, agency reportedly says

"Let's step back for a second. You know, the FBI has folks agents, professionals, analysts, virologists, microbiologist, etc, who focus specifically on the dangers of biological threats, which include things like novel viruses like COVID and the concerns that they're in the wrong hands," he said, "some bad guys, a hostile nation state, a terrorist a criminal, the threats that those those could pose.

"So, here you're talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans, and that's precisely what that capability was designed for," he continued. "I should add that, that our work related to this continues. And there are not a whole lot of details I can share that aren't -- aren't classified," he told Baier.

You could intentionally leak it... I've read some conspiracy theories that felt it was an intentional leak for a variety of reasons... I also felt that was crap... figure it was an accidental lab leak..

The US funded the study of SARS at WIH through Grant R01AI110964 https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/AwardDetail?arg_AwardNum=R01AI110964&arg_ProgOfficeCode=104

3 lab researchers had Covid-19 before everyone in Nov of 2019. They went to the hospital where it started to spread. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/heal...ied-3-wuhan-lab-researchers-who-n1268327

it was likely an accidental infection from misuse/mishandling/malfunction of their PPE

j/c

Interesting. https://www.yahoo.com/news/4-major-mistakes-experts-made-143425916.html

Follow the money folks, follow the money.

Follow the science, Arch! Not the money!!

I agree with you.... I've always thought it was an accidental leak... from a lab where Fauci was funding gain of function research...

I also think Fauci forced many scientists to support suppressing that theory by controlling their funding...

CNN should be blasted for this controversial article! Not a damn thing has changed.:


They put this out to pacify republicans, and it probably just emboldens them to be more idiotic. I get that covid MAY have come from a lab in China. But there is still nothing definitive other than 'low confidence' guessing. :willy-nilly: So let's not get all willy-nilly I told you so over this garbage.

here was the Award information for Award Number: R01AI110964
https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/AwardDetail?arg_AwardNum=R01AI110964&arg_ProgOfficeCode=104

Project Summary: Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence Novel zoonotic, bat-origin CoVs are a significant threat to global health and food security, as the cause of SARS in China in 2002, the ongoing outbreak of MERS, and of a newly emerged Swine Acute Diarrhea Syndrome in China. In a previous R01 we found that bats in southern China harbor an extraordinary diversity of SARSr-CoVs, some of which can use human ACE2 to enter cells, infect humanized mouse models causing SARS-like illness, and evade available therapies or vaccines. We found that people living close to bat habitats are the primary risk groups for spillover, that at one site diverse SARSr-CoVs exist that contain every genetic element of the SARS-CoV genome, and identified serological evidence of human exposure among people living nearby. These findings have led to 18 published peer-reviewed papers, including two papers in Nature, and a review in Cell. Yet salient questions remain on the origin, diversity, capacity to cause illness, and risk of spillover of these viruses. In this R01 renewal we will address these issues through 3 specific aims: Aim 1. Characterize the diversity and distribution of high spillover-risk SARSr-CoVs in bats in southern China. We will use phylogeographic and viral discovery curve analyses to target additional bat sample collection and molecular CoV screening to fill in gaps in our previous sampling and fully characterize natural SARSr-CoV diversity in southern China. We will sequence receptor binding domains (spike proteins) to identify viruses with the highest potential for spillover which we will include in our experimental investigations (Aim 3). Aim 2. Community, and clinic-based syndromic, surveillance to capture SARSr-CoV spillover, routes of exposure and potential public health consequences. We will conduct biological-behavioral surveillance in high-risk populations, with known bat contact, in community and clinical settings to 1) identify risk factors for serological and PCR evidence of bat SARSr-CoVs; & 2) assess possible health effects of SARSr-CoVs infection in people. We will analyze bat-CoV serology against human-wildlife contact and exposure data to quantify risk factors and health impacts of SARSr-CoV spillover. Aim 3. In vitro and in vivo characterization of SARSr-CoV spillover risk, coupled with spatial and phylogenetic analyses to identify the regions and viruses of public health concern. We will use S protein sequence data, infectious clone technology, in vitro and in vivo infection experiments and analysis of receptor binding to test the hypothesis that % divergence thresholds in S protein sequences predict spillover potential. We will combine these data with bat host distribution, viral diversity and phylogeny, human survey of risk behaviors and illness, and serology to identify SARSr-CoV spillover risk hotspots across southern China. Together these data and analyses will be critical for the future development of public health interventions and enhanced surveillance to prevent the re-emergence of SARS or the emergence of a novel SARSr-CoV



https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Letter-to-NIH-Re.-EcoHealth-052821.pdf

This investigation is more urgent now considering the recent report that, according to U.S. intelligence sources, three researchers from the WIV became ill and sought hospital care in November 2019.7 Dr. Lauer’s letter suggests that the first cases of COVID-19 occurred even earlier—in October 2019. However, the CCP did not report any COVID-19 cases until December 2019. Based on this new timeline, it is likely COVID-19 was circulating worldwide three months before anyone outside of China was informed of its existence.



https://www.science.org/do/10.1126/...partial_email_transcripts.april_2020.pdf

There are now allegations that the current crisis was precipitated by the release from Wuhan Institute of Virology of the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. Given these concerns, we are pursuing suspension of Wuhan Institute of Virology from participation in federal programs.


April 24th email from Lauer to Daszak:
I am writing to notify you that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), an Institute with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), under the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) has elected to terminate the project Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence, funded under grant R01 AI110964, for convenience. This grant project was
issued under the authorization of Sections 201 and 405 of the Public Health Service Act as amended (42 USC 241 and 284). This grant was funded as a discretionary grant as outlined in the NIH Grants Policy
Statement which states that the decision not to award a grant, or to award a grant at a particular funding level, is at the discretion of the agency, in accordance with NIH’s dual review system.


Additional Info
https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/114270/documents/HHRG-117-GO24-20211201-SD004.pdf

https://theintercept.com/2022/01/20/coronavirus-research-china-ecohealth-fbi/


Trump started cutting fudingin

My article is about the science of why it came from animals. And if you actually bothered reading the thread, which you usually don't, you would know that it was stated that thee scientists were blatant liars from the very beginning. So now you wish to say something I posted about what scientists had to say, and still say BTW isn't relevant? And just to give a fair view of this entire thing instead of cherry picking which agencies agree with you, let's be honest for a change and show that the agencies investigating this don't agree......

Where Do Agencies Stand on the ‘Lab Leak’ Theory?

The Energy Department joins the FBI in supporting the theory that the virus accidentally emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

While the DOE came to its conclusion with “low” confidence, the FBI reached its conclusion in 2021 with “moderate” confidence. But The Wall Street Journal reported that the agencies reached their conclusions separately for different reasons.

Additionally, the Energy Department reportedly shared the information with other agencies, but none of them changed their own conclusions.

Four agencies and a national intelligence panel said they believe the pandemic likely started with natural transmission from animal to human.

The remaining two agencies, which include the CIA, are still undecided.

One thing that is generally agreed upon is that China did not manufacture the virus for use in warfare. The National Intelligence Council in 2021 reported that the intelligence community is in agreement that “the virus was not developed as a biological weapon.” The report also stated that the intelligence community “assesses China’s officials did not have foreknowledge of the virus before the initial outbreak of COVID-19 emerged.”

But it acknowledged that the intelligence community remains divided over COVID-19’s origin, noting that “China’s cooperation most likely would be needed to reach a conclusive assessment of the origins of COVID-19.”

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-...ded-over-covid-19-lab-leak-origin-theory

I mean if you really wish to post an objective look at "what's going on now."

There should and will be discussions of what went wrong.

The article does not go into the political mistakes that were made.

Hopefully we will do better next time.

The presentation is typical Fox.

the information I showed, explains why that is inaccurate.

all of my information came from .gov type sites vs opinion pieces.

The scientific explanation came from a scientist and not the government.

My 2¢…

I never cared where it came from. I only concerned myself with the response. Once I saw how that was (generally poorly) handled, I only then cared about how I personally responded.

The rest was speculation, political theater, and ultimately I knew it’d not change the overall outcome… widespread death.
It was up to me to not be a statistic. Monkey, bat, a lab leak… meh. Never mattered to me.
Frankly still doesn’t matter to me.

well, since we are going down this path....

What you have now said is... IF a scientist says it... it is factual?


that's a slippery slope!

Pretty much where I'm at. Trump made a big deal out of it being from Wuhan... OK,, fine. So what are you doing about it HERE and NOW> That's all I cared about at the time.

Now that things have calmed down a little, let's find out the origin and do what needs to be done. If it's found that it was done on purpose, there are going to be just about every country in the world lining up to deal with them for it. Exactly as it should be.

Not sure why we need hearings on this. What we really need is an undercover investigation that digs down deep, finds proof and then brings it to the world.

In general I agree with you... but if it did come from a lab leak where the US was funding gain of function research I think that brings up some ethical and process questions on if we should be funding that type of research in the first place and where there better processes that could have been in place to prevent it..

I also feel frustrated that if it did come from a lab, how some social media companies lambasted anyone who questioned the narrative that it was from the animal market..

but for most of the last 2 years I really only care about how it has affected me and how I personally wanted to respond...

However it started, I just pray that it doesn't happen again and if it does, we have a better global response...

If China had any wrong doing in this, they have had 3 years to destroy any evidence. What exactly do you think you're going to find?

Can I ask an honest question? Why does it matter if it was an accident? I can't stand China, but even I don't think they did this intentionally if they did it at all. I find it a bit suspicious that this comes out just as Xi is playing footsie with Putin. Zelensky called it out and told Xi to visit him and discuss his peace plan. Then suddenly, this drops, and it's saying, "We Feds think maybe it really was a lab in Wuhan after all; at least that's the only thing we can come up with since there is no evidence of origin whatsoever. But, just in case we mess around and go to the brink of war with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, we will need a fresh evil deed to piss off the rednecks and get them to sign up to be slaughtered. If you've been watching the last few months, MSM has featured the kind of stories about each that make Americans mad. So, for now, I honestly think we should all take any news like this with a heavy dose of skepticism. Be patient; Biden is getting far too many wins for this just to come out and land like this. I can't see why he would EVER have authorized this information to be released without a political reason. It looks bad on him, not just personally, but on his administration, his FBI, and our intelligence/law enforcement institutions. With American confidence in those institutions at an all-time low, why would Wray or Biden want this info put out? It makes ZERO sense to me; that's all I'm saying.

For me if it was a lab leak it brings up two main questions... should the US be funding gain of research in China (or at all). I honestly don't know, but I think it's worth the ethical debate

and two, if it was a leak then there should be an honest investigation to figure out the root cause of the leak and see if there needs to be steps taken to prevent a leak in the future...

I do agree with you that most Americans are trusting any part of our government right now....

I agree with this. Especially knowing that the information was already released in 2021. They had proof that the 3 lab techs got covid prior to anyone else having it in Oct/Nov of 2020.

Now, it has been re-weaponized for the political machine... Because Russia, China, Venezuela, NK, and a few others have been playing far too nice together for our comfort.

Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China have been playing war games for 2+ years now across the globe.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/1/russia-starts-war-games-with-china-and-other-ally-states Russia starts massive war games with China and other ally states

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-russia-china-to-run-war-drills-in-latin-america/ Iran, Russia, and China are gearing up to run a series of major war drills in Latin America in a show of force meant to signal how these militaries can reach the United States.

More slippery than trusting the government to tell you the truth?

You have made the claim that you use government sources. So are you saying that trusting what the government tells you is any less of a slippery slope?

I will say that I trust scientific research that are experts in this field more than I trust the government.

Just when you thought it was over...


New Evidence Supports Animal Origin of COVID Virus through Raccoon Dogs

Genetic sequences show evidence of raccoon dogs and other animals at the Wuhan market sites where SARS-CoV-2 was found in early 2020, adding to evidence of a natural spillover event

By Tanya Lewis on March 17, 2023

Scientists have uncovered new genetic evidence from the market in Wuhan, China, where COVID cases first clustered in late 2019. The findings add support to an animal origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. They were presented to an advisory group convened by the World Health Organization earlier this week.

Florence Débarre, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research discovered genetic sequences of the virus that researchers in China—led by George Gao, former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention—had uploaded to a public genomic database called GISAID. The sequences were subsequently taken down but not before several other researchers from different countries downloaded and analyzed them. Samples containing viral RNA, which had been collected at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in early 2020, also contained genetic material from raccoon dogs—a foxlike type of canid apparently sold at the market—as well as other animals. The genetic material came from the same areas of the market where SARS-CoV-2 was found, suggesting that the raccoon dogs may have been infected with the virus (possibly by other animals) and could have been the first to spread the virus to humans.

The virus sparked a global pandemic that has killed nearly seven million people, and debate has raged over whether it was caused by a natural spillover from wildlife to humans or a lab leak from a facility studying coronaviruses in Wuhan. The new evidence does not directly prove that SARS-CoV-2 jumped into humans from infected raccoon dogs, but it adds to a growing body of evidence in favor of a spillover from animals.

“These data do not provide a definitive answer to the question of how the pandemic began, but every piece of data is important in moving us closer to that answer,” said the World Health Organization’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a news briefing on Friday. The scientists who analyzed the data released a report on their findings on March 20.

Scientific American spoke with one of the researchers who analyzed the samples: Joel Wertheim, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, San Diego. He described the new discovery and explained what it adds to our understanding of COVID’s origins.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

What do the new findings show, and how do they fit into the broader context of the search for COVID’s origins?

First of all, I have been waiting to see these sequences for more than a year now, maybe two. And we have long thought that they would confirm the presence of susceptible hosts and the virus in the same place at the same time in the market.

So you were aware that these samples existed, but they weren’t publicly available?

Yeah, it seems that [the Chinese researchers have] done multiple sequencing runs on the samples. So I don’t know when these were produced.... We know that the Chinese [scientists] had older samples, based on [a] preprint from 2022. And we knew that those samples existed because of a leaked document from early 2020. [Editor’s note: This preprint is currently under review for possible publication.]

But that earlier preprint did not mention animal sequences, right?

Yeah, it specifically didn’t mention where the nonviral genetic material was from, aside from the samples that were from humans. I’ve long suspected that at least one of those points on their graph was from raccoon dogs. And lo and behold, it is.

How strong is the evidence now for a natural spillover as the origin of SARS-CoV-2?

Well, first, I’d like to just say that even before these data came out, the preponderance of scientific evidence has pointed to a natural zoonotic spillover [an animal disease jumping into humans] for quite some time. These new data are entirely consistent with that scenario. Now, what’s important here is that I think it’s a mischaracterization to say that these sequences show that raccoon dogs, or any other mammal host species, were infected with these viruses because all we’re showing is co-occurrence of genetic material from host environments. It’s not the same as swabbing a raccoon dog. And it’s not the same as watching a raccoon dog transmit a virus to a human—something, of course, we never see. We never get that level of evidence. But first and foremost, this is forensic evidence that these putative host animals were present at the market. There’s no more question about that. And they were there in the same place as the virus.

Now, clearly, some of these environmental samples have the virus in them because of infected humans. But it strains the imagination to say it was only humans who were depositing this virus all over places where susceptible hosts were and that this is just humans giving it to animals. Given everything else we know about the early days of COVID and everything we know about zoonotic viruses, this fits. Is this going to put the lab-leak conspiracy to bed? No. Nothing will ever do that. But I think this should help convince more reasonable scientists.

Can you address whether there is any evidence at all for the lab-leak hypothesis—at least, for the “good faith” version that views such a leak as some kind of accident?

The problem with the good faith version of a lab-leak hypothesis is that there isn’t a single one. There is a scientist who gets infected in the field, the scientist who gets infected in the lab by a virus that has yet to be described, the serial passage or gain-of-function weaponization—I mean, every single one of these lab-leak hypotheses are mutually incompatible with each other.

Looking at the viral genome, we don’t see anything suspicious with regard to [some] sort of lab manipulation; we really don't. The most charitable explanation here that’s still left is that you have some lab worker who gets infected with a virus that the lab has yet to characterize, brings it over to the Huanan market and deposits it there potentially multiple times, and then the animals that are being sold there get infected. And none of these lab workers transmit [the virus] to anyone who would help epidemiologists trace it back to them, nor do they end up being seroreactive [having antibodies to the virus indicative of previous infection] when tested later.

You are saying that chain of events seems unlikely. What do you make of the recent Department of Energy report that concluded “with low confidence” that a lab leak was the most likely origin?

I have no idea what was in the Department of Energy report. I can't comment in specifics about a report that hasn’t been described or that I’ve never seen. But I can’t imagine what real evidence they have. Especially now, in light of [the new animal evidence].

These early cases [were] linked to the market. Yeah, there was a lot of confusion. But once we sort of stripped away all of the supposition and the data that didn’t hold up to scrutiny, all that was left was the market. And everything that we’ve done since, from the geographical analyses to the genomic analyses to, now, the forensic genetic analysis—it all points to natural zoonosis at the market.

Regardless of the true origin of SARS-CoV-2, should we still be concerned about keeping labs secure to prevent possible leaks of deadly pathogens?

Of course. I don’t know any virologist who doesn’t take biosecurity seriously. But when talking about gain-of-function research and lab safety, that discussion should be decoupled from the discussions of COVID because they’re two different issues. The circumstances of the origin are unrelated, and it’s a mistake to conflate the two.

Getting back to the new genetic evidence, what information are you still hoping to glean from that in the coming weeks?

There’s genetic material from the [market] stalls that didn’t have SARS-CoV-2. I'd be very interested in seeing those. There are more genetic data from the market that haven’t been made available.... I think previous sequencing runs may still be out there, and I think that there’s an imperative to have those data shared with the entire group so that scientists of all stripes can come in and [study them].

Editor’s Note (3/21/23): This article has been updated after posting to note that the report on the new genetic sequences was released on March 20.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...gin-of-covid-virus-through-raccoon-dogs/

Not this again?

It was trapped in their masks.

Everyone needs a vacation, even the flu bug.

Or…. For those that didn’t get it the first thousand times it was explained…. The flu is far less transmissible than COVID. With everyone masked, social distancing, and/or isolating, the flu didn’t have the ability to be spread so widely.
This is pretty basic stuff.

Isolating and people actually washing their hands on the more regular.

In other news... rather quietly... the emergency is over.

Yes, the current strains are far less deadly and the death rate has declined dramatically because of that. That's great news for all of us.

Hell yeah. I think this is actually a pretty timely announcement. It seems safe to embrace the end of pandemic status, hopefully that holds true going forward.

Hopefully people are more self conscious and do a better job of protecting those around them after all this. Call off work when you’re sick. Don’t go out in public when you’re not feeling well. Etc. I like not having colds. I like not being sick.
Hopefully everyone is a little more conscientious about their personal responsibilities to society as a whole.

Who am I kidding?
One thing I’ve learned over the past handful of years, were a nation of narcissist. It won’t be long before we see more videos of people purposefully coughing on strangers. Murika!

You don't need to ask me twice

https://www.fda.gov/media/153947/download

Among participants 16 through 55 years of age, SAEs from Dose 1 up to the participant
unblinding date in ongoing follow-up were reported by 0.8% of BNT162b2 recipients and 0.9%
placebo recipients. In a similar analysis, in participants 56 years of age and older serious
adverse events (SAEs) were reported by 1.8% of BNT162b2 recipients and 1.7% of placebo
recipients who received at least 1 dose of BNT162b2 or placebo, respectively. In these
analyses, 58.2% of study participants had at least 4 months of follow-up after the primary series.
There were no notable patterns between treatment groups for specific categories of SAEs
(including neurologic, neuro-inflammatory, and thrombotic events) that would suggest a causal
relationship to BNT162b2. From Dose 1 through the March 13, 2021 data cut-off date, there
were a total of 38 deaths, 21 in the BNT162b2 group and 17 in the placebo group. None of the
deaths were considered related to vaccination.