It didn't escape from a lab.

Scientists did a deep dive on the elements of this bug, and a lab technician would not have designed a virus in the way Covid operates.

Check the fascinating research below.


Link

Is there an article that explains why they think it came from a lab?

I thought I read that it wasn't that it was made in a lab, but rather the infected bat was in the lab and met Patient Zero there.

I would like the details, I just haven't seen much about it other than rumors about "Sources".

I think the source for that was apparently there is a biological or bio-weapons testing facility on a few miles from a large wet market. One of the theories short of the Chinese purposefully releasing the virus is that there may have been mishandling, an accident, or an animal escaping then making its way to the market and it spreading from there.

I've also heard a theory that with poor sanitization and so many different species in such close proximity, all sorts of crazy diseases are created in those kinds of markets.

This is the only article I saw:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/coronavirus-wuhan-lab-china-compete-us-sources

It seems to imply they were doing research. Not that they tried to create a virus.

A month ago, I recounted on this forum, a convo I'd had with my best friend. Ex-military (Col. USAF) Medical Services Specialist. He now heads up Pharm Services at the Dayton VA. He was read in on this weeks before most of us. He knew what the numbers would look like. This dude who has seen in-country service in Iraq, Afghan, and North Africa

"M-Dawg: was this engineered in a lab?"

His answer: "B- we aren't even a 10th of the way towards being able to engineer something like this. This thing is from Nature. It's too perfect to have been made by us dumbasses."

Mark has the data to support such a statement. The real data. He was months ahead of what we're now experiencing. I was only weeks ahead- and only because he's blood- and an instant resource.


Your post supports my convo with my best bud. He would never lie to me, and that's why I can support the message/veracity of the article.

Thanks for posting this.

Time will tell.


Talk about interfering with elections. LOL

We all know what happened here. Some are just happy it did, well, except for the ones who died or will, and their families.


Just look at the numbers of people infected to the population size.


It doesn't add up. This was released. A deliberate attack.

Of course we won’t need proof right? Just suggesting this makes it true. Pfft

Mr pffft will once again be proven right in regards to what’s really important ...

China allowed no one from Wuhan to travel outside of Wuhan into other parts of china ... meanwhile allowing all flights to depart from Wuhan to ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD ...

And thats what really matters here and is the reason were where were at today ...

Look out! There is a run on tin foil! Labs and Bats and China Bad, oh my... smh

This is nature culling the herd. For all we know this thing was frozen in ice for a million years or mutated from a different strand last year... ANYONE suggesting they read or saw proof of anything else needs to check their sources.

This is more my issue, it's really irrelevant how it was created, China allowed millions of people to leave the country while seeing first hand people pilling up in the mourges.

Like I understand the notion that we are the leaders of the world and we should have had more infrastructure to deal with this stuff, especially in places like NYC. The things that absolutely disgust me are that the Orange man bad crew is so quick to come to China's defense at every turn, immediately parroting their [censored] statistics on "no more new cases" to make orange man look bad. Focusing on irrelevant obscure remarks.

Here are the facts as I see them.

• It was CHINA that messed up and China that reacted horribly to this virus.
• Left media, dem senators and the dem presidential candidate at a minimum insinuated the president was racist for considering travel bans.
• ALL media were on record downplaying it as the flu, left and right.
• Fear mongering body counts of 2 million people, no matter what model, is a bad model.
• Despite cries of racism on banning travel....it is proven that only proved to have slowed the travel ban which was 100% the right thing to do. You can make a direct correlation to "Xenephobia" claims to actual deaths.
• Despite Trumps childish pettiness, he is right to show the media their own words. The "how dare he show us videos of ourselves" is a ridiculous notion that makes me hate the media.
  

I often disagree with Bill Maher but he crushed this bit.




Here are some receipts:


















Was this country unprepared when they should have been, I would say yes. Does that buck ultimately stop with Trump, absolutely. Is giving all the governors and mayors of these liberal strongholds that are most affected a pass enraging, absolutely. Is seeing the same liberal strongholds now forming a faction together also enraging, yes.

This had been a partisan pissing match from DAY ONE. Trump should have banned travel in January and just let people call him a racist. Bill Deblasio should be charged criminally for going on TV and telling people it's fine and they should go out to bars. Despite all of that and taking all of it into account, the actions that happened after we knew what it was was pretty solid.....28k deaths? from 2 million, then from 200k, then from 100k then from 60k.

The projections prove it out, while we may not have been as prepared as we should have been, it was handled pretty well across partisan lines.

I honestly don't know who did what.. But there is time to deal with that.

What we need to do now is test, test, test.

We have a population of what, 330 million or so.. Thus far we have tested 3 million.

That's just unacceptable. More tests probably mean more positive tests.. Is it better to hide our heads in the sand, or better to know and react properly?

Also, all this talk about how we've reached the plateau, How do they know with so few tested?

I think part of it is numbers. Just think about the math involved here.

Even if they could manufacture 1 million tests a day, it would take almost a year to have enough to test everyone in the US.

I recall seeing something a couple weeks ago about 1 manufacture THINKS they can produce 50,000 test a day.

I think many people forget (Not necessarily you Daman) this part of the equation when questioning why more people aren't tested.

A lot of it is just plain availability to produce the tests.
That's not even getting to the variable of how many of those tests can be processed once used. Which I recall I saw somewhere that it was one lab stated they could process 2,000 tests a day.


It does seem we are finally getting ability to test more and get results quicker, so I expect to see an exponential increase in numbers tested in the coming weeks. But the start up has been slow, as could be expected for something unknown/

That article just said that creating a virus was unlikeley. It didn't mention the cultivation and propogation of an existing virus. This requires living cell hosts, such as live animals or cultured cells....which the lab in Wuhan that conducted virus experiments utilized. The lab is actually called "Wuhan Institute of Virology". I don't think it's a tin foil hat situation to recognize that this lab is in the same town where COVID-19 originated.
http://english.whiov.cas.cn/

Even this liberal rag feels there's reason for concern:

washingtonpost.com

By
Josh Rogin
Columnist
April 14, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Two years before the novel coronavirus pandemic upended the world, U.S. Embassy officials visited a Chinese research facility in the city of Wuhan several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats. The cables have fueled discussions inside the U.S. government about whether this or another Wuhan lab was the source of the virus — even though conclusive proof has yet to emerge.

In January 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing took the unusual step of repeatedly sending U.S. science diplomats to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which had in 2015 become China’s first laboratory to achieve the highest level of international bioresearch safety (known as BSL-4). WIV issued a news release in English about the last of these visits, which occurred on March 27, 2018. The U.S. delegation was led by Jamison Fouss, the consul general in Wuhan, and Rick Switzer, the embassy’s counselor of environment, science, technology and health. Last week, WIV erased that statement from its website, though it remains archived on the Internet.

What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington. The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.

The Chinese researchers at WIV were receiving assistance from the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch and other U.S. organizations, but the Chinese requested additional help. The cables argued that the United States should give the Wuhan lab further support, mainly because its research on bat coronaviruses was important but also dangerous.

As the cable noted, the U.S. visitors met with Shi Zhengli, the head of the research project, who had been publishing studies related to bat coronaviruses for many years. In November 2017, just before the U.S. officials’ visit, Shi’s team had published research showing that horseshoe bats they had collected from a cave in Yunnan province were very likely from the same bat population that spawned the SARS coronavirus in 2003.

“Most importantly,” the cable states, “the researchers also showed that various SARS-like coronaviruses can interact with ACE2, the human receptor identified for SARS-coronavirus. This finding strongly suggests that SARS-like coronaviruses from bats can be transmitted to humans to cause SARS-like diseases. From a public health perspective, this makes the continued surveillance of SARS-like coronaviruses in bats and study of the animal-human interface critical to future emerging coronavirus outbreak prediction and prevention.”

The research was designed to prevent the next SARS-like pandemic by anticipating how it might emerge. But even in 2015, other scientists questioned whether Shi’s team was taking unnecessary risks. In October 2014, the U.S. government had imposed a moratorium on funding of any research that makes a virus more deadly or contagious, known as “gain-of-function” experiments.

As many have pointed out, there is no evidence that the virus now plaguing the world was engineered; scientists largely agree it came from animals. But that is not the same as saying it didn’t come from the lab, which spent years testing bat coronaviruses in animals, said Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley.

“The cable tells us that there have long been concerns about the possibility of the threat to public health that came from this lab’s research, if it was not being adequately conducted and protected,” he said.

There are similar concerns about the nearby Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab, which operates at biosecurity level 2, a level significantly less secure than the level-4 standard claimed by the Wuhan Insititute of Virology lab, Xiao said. That’s important because the Chinese government still refuses to answer basic questions about the origin of the novel coronavirus while suppressing any attempts to examine whether either lab was involved.

Sources familiar with the cables said they were meant to sound an alarm about the grave safety concerns at the WIV lab, especially regarding its work with bat coronaviruses. The embassy officials were calling for more U.S. attention to this lab and more support for it, to help it fix its problems.

“The cable was a warning shot,” one U.S. official said. “They were begging people to pay attention to what was going on.”

No extra assistance to the labs was provided by the U.S. government in response to these cables. The cables began to circulate again inside the administration over the past two months as officials debated whether the lab could be the origin of the pandemic and what the implications would be for the U.S. pandemic response and relations with China.

Inside the Trump administration, many national security officials have long suspected either the WIV or the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab was the source of the novel coronavirus outbreak. According to the New York Times, the intelligence community has provided no evidence to confirm this. But one senior administration official told me that the cables provide one more piece of evidence to support the possibility that the pandemic is the result of a lab accident in Wuhan.

“The idea that it was just a totally natural occurrence is circumstantial. The evidence it leaked from the lab is circumstantial. Right now, the ledger on the side of it leaking from the lab is packed with bullet points and there’s almost nothing on the other side,” the official said.

As my colleague David Ignatius noted, the Chinese government’s original story — that the virus emerged from a seafood market in Wuhan — is shaky. Research by Chinese experts published in the Lancet in January showed the first known patient, identified on Dec. 1, had no connection to the market, nor did more than one-third of the cases in the first large cluster. Also, the market didn’t sell bats.

The Opinions section is looking for stories of how the coronavirus has affected people of all walks of life. Write to us.

Shi and other WIV researchers have categorically denied this lab was the origin for the novel coronavirus. On Feb. 3, her team was the first to publicly report the virus known as 2019-nCoV was a bat-derived coronavirus.

The Chinese government, meanwhile, has put a total lockdown on information related to the virus origins. Beijing has yet to provide U.S. experts with samples of the novel coronavirus collected from the earliest cases. The Shanghai lab that published the novel coronavirus genome on Jan. 11 was quickly shut down by authorities for “rectification.” Several of the doctors and journalists who reported on the spread early on have disappeared.

On Feb. 14, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a new biosecurity law to be accelerated. On Wednesday, CNN reported the Chinese government has placed severe restrictions requiring approval before any research institution publishes anything on the origin of the novel coronavirus.

The origin story is not just about blame. It’s crucial to understanding how the novel coronavirus pandemic started because that informs how to prevent the next one. The Chinese government must be transparent and answer the questions about the Wuhan labs because they are vital to our scientific understanding of the virus, said Xiao.

We don’t know whether the novel coronavirus originated in the Wuhan lab, but the cable pointed to the danger there and increases the impetus to find out, he said.

“I don’t think it’s a conspiracy theory. I think it’s a legitimate question that needs to be investigated and answered,” he said. “To understand exactly how this originated is critical knowledge for preventing this from happening in the future.”

U.S. senator Chis Murphy D.Conn. stated to Anderson Cooper that this covid 19 has nothing to do with China and blames the pandemic on Pres. Trump.
Man the haters on the left will stoop to any low .


J\C, FYI

...and this thread started off soooooo well.

Have fun believing nonsense and conspiracy theories. I'm done in this thread.

So knowing it was coming in January and doing nothing to ramp up testing and PPE production until March has nothing to do with the death toll?

Got it.

Boo frickin'hoo. Somebody disagreed with you and you run away. Did you read the article I posted? It didn't come from infowars.

Says the dude that is absolutely certain this did not come from a lab. As if he somehow has boot on the ground in China and witnessed it first hand. Anyone claiming they know for certain is a hack.

Talking out of both sides of his mouth to meet his partisan hackery.

"It didn't escape from a lab"

(paraphrasing) "It couldn't have been created in a lab"


Two entirely different things he is trying to lump as one to defend.....China???? It absoluetly could have been an organic virus that they found and were testing, mutated and spread, like why the hell would you even try to deny it?

You do understand that just throwing out an accusation with no basis in fact is no different, right? I mean anyone can make up anything and just spout off about it. You get that, right?

I'm not picking on anyone, I'm just saying that until more,,LOTS MORE folks are tested, thinking about opening up the country to commerce and normal life isn't very bright.

The problem with testing is that BOTH sides dropped the ball. Ohio has the capacity to test all the tests that are sent to them. BUT let me repeat BUT the state can't get enough swabs, or solution to run the tests. Kinds like I was yelling about a few years ago that the government is not ready for problems. We need swabs.... sorry they only make those overseas. We need solution... sorry they only make that overseas. Like I said years ago. This country has gone to hell because we quit manufacturing things ourselves and let other countries take our jobs just to save a few cents for corporations.

Yeah... so let’s get these business open anyway as fast as possible without wide scale testing Pfft fat trump

If only we had started ramping up production a month earlier.....

You do understand what the letters in FEMA stand for, right? Federal Emergency Management Agency.

There is no ESHTFFTA. Each State Has To Fend For Themselves Agency.

We have all 50 states bidding against each other AND FEMA for supplies. Driving the prices up for every state competing for those supplies. And if what you say makes sense, then why were WE shipping supplies to China?

U.S. exported millions in masks and ventilators ahead of the coronavirus crisis

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/inve...rus/5109747002/

Trump administration sent protective medical gear to China while he minimized the virus threat to US

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/29/opinions/...llah/index.html

“On February 7, the WHO warned about the limited stock of PPE. That same day, the Trump administration announced it was sending 18 tons of masks, gowns and respirators to China.”

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/20...ective-equipme/

Then we were told, "Nobody could have seen this coming".

Come on man.

To me, the Federal Government is completely out of their league and it's not getting any better.


This is a massive problem that requires massive amounts of cooperation and planning.

To me, the only way that can be done is people who operate in massive scale.


Essentially, we need a General George Marshall type to be running this operation. Someone in the military who deals with this kind of stuff. Massive supply chains. Massive amounts of ordering. Massive amounts of shipping and coordinating.



This is going to require logistical work, supply chain (and production) work, and medical work. We can't open the Government (which is going to have to happen at some point), until testing is widespread. Hopefully everyone here understands why that's necessary. Yet, we're nowhere near that even happening. Data and planning are what's going to defeat this thing until we have effective treatments/vaccines.

We don't have the data and we don't have the logistics figured out right to make this happen.


I'm not sure how the people that Trump's bring in are going to help. We need like SupplyChain Specialists, deals with manufactures, the logistics folks that work for Amazon and Walmart, and obviously we need doctors.

Our last three four or five Presidents as well as those in government dropped the ball on this. You can't blame this crap on one President. They are ALL to blame on both sides. Don't let your hatred of one side blind you to the facts bro.

Also don't think I don't blame Trump and our government in standing for some of this mess, because IMO they are guilty as well.

I think it's probably a bioweapon and if it's not? It'll do until one comes around.

Actually, no. I don't see why you have to wait until testing is widespread. Once you have a consistent, reliable flow of testing you'll be able to start to identify trends and can make timely decisions based on that.

Being fair isn't allowed in this Forum.

Mandatory testing? Voluntary testing? What do you do with people who test negative? Are they supposed to stay on lock down until a) they contract it naturally and develop an immunity? or b) until a vaccine is created? Then what? Do you make the vaccine mandatory?

I guess if we're going to keep it locked down then we're going to keep locked down. I'm just curious to know if those in favor of locking it down will accept the increase in suicides, overdoses, crime, civil unrest, etc as the cost of that or if they'll deflect and add them to the list of things orange man bad should have prevented.

The real problem is this: the country has shut down. That is not sustainable.

Test everyone? That's great. Until tomorrow. Test me today, and I'm clean? Cool. Next day? I could be positive.

I can only speak for myself, but I think we should continue to lock down. My fear is that folks will dismiss the dangers of the virus as it continues to flatten and then it will rise again.

As far as suicides, overdoses, civil unrest, etc goes.........get a grip. I'm not having any issues w/being locked down. It isn't ideal, but it is reality. I deal w/it and make the best of the situation that I can. I sure as hell am not thinking about suicide. ODing, committing crimes, or causing civil unrest...LOL.

Then again, I am not a Millennial.

That's exactly my point.

It's not a bioweapon.

We've been battling coronaviruses for the last 20+ years. Their signature: jumping from other species to infect humans.

SARS jumped from Civet cats.
MERS jumped from Dromedary camels.
and now CoVID-19, presumably from bats.

Coronavirus is a huge family. And we know that there are a large number of viruses being carried by other species that haven't (yet) jumped to humans. As surveillance improves, more of these viruses will be identified. A ton of them will be of the coronavirus variety.

And the most likely reason for these recently becoming more prevalent is the destruction of natural habitats and human overpopulation. Nature's checks and balances.

But the lab and eating bats origin rumors make it so much easier to hate on China.

I don’t need any more reason to hate China. They are a completely corrupt.

Yes.
This.

And a host of other contributing factors, most of which were prompted by the things we do.

The trend is pretty clear: novel viral strains are going to become an increasingly frequent feature of modern life.

'Tip of the iceberg': is our destruction of nature responsible for Covid-19?

As habitat and biodiversity loss increase globally, the coronavirus outbreak may be just the beginning of mass pandemics

Mayibout 2 is not a healthy place. The 150 or so people who live in the village, which sits on the south bank of the Ivindo River, deep in the great Minkebe Forest in northern Gabon, are used to occasional bouts of diseases such as malaria, dengue, yellow fever and sleeping sickness. Mostly they shrug them off.

But in January 1996, Ebola, a deadly virus then barely known to humans, unexpectedly spilled out of the forest in a wave of small epidemics. The disease killed 21 of 37 villagers who were reported to have been infected, including a number who had carried, skinned, chopped or eaten a chimpanzee from the nearby forest.

I travelled to Mayibout 2 in 2004 to investigate why deadly diseases new to humans were emerging from biodiversity “hotspots” such as tropical rainforests and bushmeat markets in African and Asian cities.

It took a day by canoe and then many hours along degraded forest logging roads, passing Baka villages and a small goldmine, to reach the village. There, I found traumatised people still fearful that the deadly virus, which kills up to 90% of the people it infects, would return.

Villagers told me how children had gone into the forest with dogs that had killed the chimp. They said that everyone who cooked or ate it got a terrible fever within a few hours. Some died immediately, while others were taken down the river to hospital. A few, like Nesto Bematsick, recovered. “We used to love the forest, now we fear it,” he told me. Many of Bematsick’s family members died.

Only a decade or two ago it was widely thought that tropical forests and intact natural environments teeming with exotic wildlife threatened humans by harbouring the viruses and pathogens that lead to new diseases in humans such as Ebola, HIV and dengue.

But a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity’s destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases such as Covid-19, the viral disease that emerged in China in December 2019, to arise – with profound health and economic impacts in rich and poor countries alike. In fact, a new discipline, planetary health, is emerging that focuses on the increasingly visible connections between the wellbeing of humans, other living things and entire ecosystems.

Is it possible, then, that it was human activity, such as road building, mining, hunting and logging, that triggered the Ebola epidemics in Mayibout 2 and elsewhere in the 1990s and that is unleashing new terrors today?

“We invade tropical forests and other wild landscapes, which harbour so many species of animals and plants – and within those creatures, so many unknown viruses,” David Quammen, author of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Pandemic, recently wrote in the New York Times. “We cut the trees; we kill the animals or cage them and send them to markets. We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host. Often, we are it.”

Increasing threat

Research suggests that outbreaks of animal-borne and other infectious diseases such as Ebola, Sars, bird flu and now Covid-19, caused by a novel coronavirus, are on the rise. Pathogens are crossing from animals to humans, and many are able to spread quickly to new places. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that three-quarters of new or emerging diseases that infect humans originate in animals.

Some, like rabies and plague, crossed from animals centuries ago. Others, such as Marburg, which is thought to be transmitted by bats, are still rare. A few, like Covid-19, which emerged last year in Wuhan, China, and Mers, which is linked to camels in the Middle East, are new to humans and spreading globally.

Other diseases that have crossed into humans include Lassa fever, which was first identified in 1969 in Nigeria; Nipah from Malaysia; and Sars from China, which killed more than 700 people and travelled to 30 countries in 2002–03. Some, like Zika and West Nile virus, which emerged in Africa, have mutated and become established on other continents.

Kate Jones, chair of ecology and biodiversity at UCL, calls emerging animal-borne infectious diseases an “increasing and very significant threat to global health, security and economies”.

Amplification effect

n 2008, Jones and a team of researchers identified 335 diseases that emerged between 1960 and 2004, at least 60% of which came from animals.

Increasingly, says Jones, these zoonotic diseases are linked to environmental change and human behaviour. The disruption of pristine forests driven by logging, mining, road building through remote places, rapid urbanisation and population growth is bringing people into closer contact with animal species they may never have been near before, she says.

The resulting transmission of disease from wildlife to humans, she says, is now “a hidden cost of human economic development. There are just so many more of us, in every environment. We are going into largely undisturbed places and being exposed more and more. We are creating habitats where viruses are transmitted more easily, and then we are surprised that we have new ones.”

Jones studies how changes in land use contribute to the risk. “We are researching how species in degraded habitats are likely to carry more viruses which can infect humans,” she says. “Simpler systems get an amplification effect. Destroy landscapes, and the species you are left with are the ones humans get the diseases from.”

“There are countless pathogens out there continuing to evolve which at some point could pose a threat to humans,” says Eric Fevre, chair of veterinary infectious diseases at the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Infection and Global Health. “The risk [of pathogens jumping from animals to humans] has always been there.”

The difference between now and a few decades ago, Fevre says, is that diseases are likely to spring up in both urban and natural environments. “We have created densely packed populations where alongside us are bats and rodents and birds, pets and other living things. That creates intense interaction and opportunities for things to move from species to species,” he says.

Tip of the iceberg

“Pathogens do not respect species boundaries,” says disease ecologist Thomas Gillespie, an associate professor in Emory University’s department of environmental sciences, who studies how shrinking natural habitats and changing behaviour add to the risk of diseases spilling over from animals to humans.

“I am not at all surprised about the coronavirus outbreak,” he says. “The majority of pathogens are still to be discovered. We are at the very tip of the iceberg.”

Humans, says Gillespie, are creating the conditions for the spread of diseases by reducing the natural barriers between host animals – in which the virus is naturally circulating – and themselves. “We fully expect the arrival of pandemic influenza; we can expect large-scale human mortalities; we can expect other pathogens with other impacts. A disease like Ebola is not easily spread. But something with a mortality rate of Ebola spread by something like measles would be catastrophic,” Gillespie says.

Wildlife everywhere is being put under more stress, he says. “Major landscape changes are causing animals to lose habitats, which means species become crowded together and also come into greater contact with humans. Species that survive change are now moving and mixing with different animals and with humans.”
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Gillespie sees this in the US, where suburbs fragment forests and raise the risk of humans contracting Lyme disease. “Altering the ecosystem affects the complex cycle of the Lyme pathogen. People living close by are more likely to get bitten by a tick carrying Lyme bacteria,” he says.

Yet human health research seldom considers the surrounding natural ecosystems, says Richard Ostfeld, distinguished senior scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. He and others are developing the emerging discipline of planetary health, which looks at the links between human and ecosystem health.

“There’s misapprehension among scientists and the public that natural ecosystems are the source of threats to ourselves. It’s a mistake. Nature poses threats, it is true, but it’s human activities that do the real damage. The health risks in a natural environment can be made much worse when we interfere with it,” he says.

Ostfeld points to rats and bats, which are strongly linked with the direct and indirect spread of zoonotic diseases. “Rodents and some bats thrive when we disrupt natural habitats. They are the most likely to promote transmissions [of pathogens]. The more we disturb the forests and habitats the more danger we are in,” he says.

Felicia Keesing, professor of biology at Bard College, New York, studies how environmental changes influence the probability that humans will be exposed to infectious diseases. “When we erode biodiversity, we see a proliferation of the species most likely to transmit new diseases to us, but there’s also good evidence that those same species are the best hosts for existing diseases,” she wrote in an email to Ensia, the nonprofit media outlet that reports on our changing planet.

The market connection

Disease ecologists argue that viruses and other pathogens are also likely to move from animals to humans in the many informal markets that have sprung up to provide fresh meat to fast-growing urban populations around the world. Here, animals are slaughtered, cut up and sold on the spot.

The “wet market” (one that sells fresh produce and meat) in Wuhan, thought by the Chinese government to be the starting point of the current Covid-19 pandemic, was known to sell numerous wild animals, including live wolf pups, salamanders, crocodiles, scorpions, rats, squirrels, foxes, civets and turtles.

Equally, urban markets in west and central Africa sell monkeys, bats, rats, and dozens of species of bird, mammal, insect and rodent slaughtered and sold close to open refuse dumps and with no drainage.

“Wet markets make a perfect storm for cross-species transmission of pathogens,” says Gillespie. “Whenever you have novel interactions with a range of species in one place, whether that is in a natural environment like a forest or a wet market, you can have a spillover event.”

The Wuhan market, along with others that sell live animals, has been shut by the Chinese authorities, and last month Beijing outlawed the trading and eating of wild animals except for fish and seafood. But bans on live animals being sold in urban areas or informal markets are not the answer, say some scientists.

“The wet market in Lagos is notorious. It’s like a nuclear bomb waiting to happen. But it’s not fair to demonise places which do not have fridges. These traditional markets provide much of the food for Africa and Asia,” says Jones.

“These markets are essential sources of food for hundreds of millions of poor people, and getting rid of them is impossible,” says Delia Grace, a senior epidemiologist and veterinarian with the International Livestock Research Institute, which is based in Nairobi, Kenya. She argues that bans force traders underground, where they may pay less attention to hygiene.

Fevre and colleague Cecilia Tacoli, principal researcher in the human settlements research group at the International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED), argue in a blog post that rather than pointing the finger at wet markets, we should look at the burgeoning trade in wild animals.

“It is wild animals rather than farmed animals that are the natural hosts of many viruses,” they write. “Wet markets are considered part of the informal food trade that is often blamed for contributing to spreading disease. But … evidence shows the link between informal markets and disease is not always so clear cut.”

Changing behaviour

So what, if anything, can we do about all of this?

Jones says that change must come from both rich and poor societies. Demand for wood, minerals and resources from the global north leads to the degraded landscapes and ecological disruption that drives disease, she says. “We must think about global biosecurity, find the weak points and bolster the provision of health care in developing countries. Otherwise we can expect more of the same,” she adds.

“The risks are greater now. They were always present and have been there for generations. It is our interactions with that risk which must be changed,” says Brian Bird, a research virologist at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine One Health Institute, where he leads Ebola-related surveillance activities in Sierra Leone and elsewhere.

“We are in an era now of chronic emergency,” Bird says. “Diseases are more likely to travel further and faster than before, which means we must be faster in our responses. It needs investments, change in human behaviour, and it means we must listen to people at community levels.”

Getting the message about pathogens and disease to hunters, loggers, market traders and consumers is key, Bird says. “These spillovers start with one or two people. The solutions start with education and awareness. We must make people aware things are different now. I have learned from working in Sierra Leone with Ebola-affected people that local communities have the hunger and desire to have information,” he says. “They want to know what to do. They want to learn.”

Fevre and Tacoli advocate rethinking urban infrastructure, particularly within low-income and informal settlements. “Short-term efforts are focused on containing the spread of infection,” they write. “The longer term – given that new infectious diseases will likely continue to spread rapidly into and within cities – calls for an overhaul of current approaches to urban planning and development.”

The bottom line, Bird says, is to be prepared. “We can’t predict where the next pandemic will come from, so we need mitigation plans to take into account the worst possible scenarios,” he says. “The only certain thing is that the next one will certainly come.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...aoe#maincontent

Next you'll be telling us man has an impact on climate change.....

U guys will believe/say anything to pin as much of this on trump as u can ...

China’s lied every step of the way on this and now u and the rest of the TDSer’s are blaming it on natures checks and balances as opposed to the testing the Chinese were doing in their lab ...

Wuhan testing lab = natures checks and balances ...

0+ 0 is once again a major problem ...

How long before this rabbit hole turns into trump causing this by pulling out of the Paris hose the USA Climate accord ..... its only a matter of time until y’all get there ..

That was a very interesting article. I don't agree w/the conclusion on the Wet Markets, but I agree w/what most of what the article is saying.

A lot of different thoughts danced into my thoughts as I read the article, but I will just share a couple of them.

--A long time ago, I was watching an animated movie or show centered around the Beatles. In it, there was this dinosaur who ate plants, other animals, etc. Each time it would eat, the creature would go larger and the environment would shrink. It eventually devoured the entire environment and was left all on it's own. It was looking around for more to consume, and lo and behold, his swinging tail caught his eye. He then devoured that, and of course, himself.

The message from that animated piece and this article is clear. Man's desire to consume his environment to feed his insatiable need instead of living as a part of the land will eventually destroy him.

--The second thing is a quote from a book I am currently reading. The author is Chris Bohjalian and the story begins in Vietnam, where the US used Agent Orange to destroy large portions of the forest to aide in the battles. It talks about some of the consequences of such acts. The story moves on and there is talk about infectious diseases. I found this quote interesting and it ties in w/something that was mentioned in the article.

The quote is: "Let's face it, in all of human history, the most effective delivery vehicle for mass death ever to exist on earth has been--wait for it--the rat.

Expecting facts, not conspiracy theories or guess work is not anti Trump, it's anti stupid. There are republican outlets reporting the 'lab' theory as fact right now, and it is nothing more than unconfirmed speculation at this point.

US explores possibility that coronavirus spread started in Chinese lab, not a market

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/15/politics/us-intelligence-virus-started-chinese-lab/index.html

Also, creating unnecessary conflict with China before this is properly investigated is nothing more than a reactionary fool's errand. Now if any of the allegations against China or the WHO pan out as verifiable facts that prove they are at fault, I'll be right there with you calling for some sort of action.

I hope you can stop feeling sorry for Trump long enough to wrap around that.

yeah unlike the USA, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Brazil, Pakistan, Afghanistan...shall I go on?

Lay off the guy. He just tried to add to much detail because he knew he would be attacked for saying his piece. I got you Pdawg!



Fixed it for ya bro

Can't speak for Bush 1 or Clinton or for that matter Reagan.

But in 2005 Bush made it clear that we aren't prepared for anything like we are experiencing today. So he started this entire pandemic team approach and set it up,..

Obama didn't kill it as many claim, in fact he enhanced it.

It turns out, maybe not enough

But this president virtually killed the entire pandemic team..All our preparation down the tube..

So please, don't even begin to tell me we can't trace our inability to move quickly to address this Virus... we had things in place, but this damn fool pulled the plug on it.

Remember he said, " I'm a business man, I don't like it when people are sitting around doing nothing"

That's what he thought,,, He thought they were doing nothing.

Trying to protect or defend this president and his cronies is a foolish pursuit.

You must have missed this part Gramps

j/c:

COVID-19 Is A Man-Made Virus: HIV-Discoverer Says "Could Only Have Been Created In A Lab"

https://www.zerohedge.com/health/covid-1...een-created-lab

It's a funny thing. I show you proof Trump sent tons of PPE supplies to China AFTER he knew the virus was coming. And this is all you got?

Have you been listening to anything he has said. "When I became president the cupboard was bare". Yet he watched tons of supplies ship off to China. And now we're supposed to blame others for it? That's pretty rich Bud.

Obviously the man who is quoted is highly credible. . . the article, not so much if at all. It jumps to and states as fact a conclusion. However in reading the article there is no quote that states as such.

One short quote:

""In a challenging question Dr Jean-François Lemoine inferred that the coronavirus under investigation may have come from a patient who is otherwise infected with HIV.""

Then this quote which doesn't seem to be giving us much context:

"""No," says Luc Montagnier, "in order to insert an HIV sequence into this genome, molecular tools are needed, and that can only be done in a laboratory.""

I'd say Montagnier is speculating that it possibly came from a lab IF certain things about the virus turn out to be true.

I think there'd be much more wide spread coverage of what this Nobel Prize winner said if he was claiming something as definitive.

After 911 there were all kinds of bs conspiracies.

My sister retired from Cleveland Clinic. She knows and worked with Dr. Fauci. She spent 40 years in infectious disease and has a law degree.

She told me there is now way covid 19 came from a lab.

Kellyanne Conway: "this is version 19 of the virus".

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020...ek-in-politics/

Brilliant Kellyanne mouthpiece of the "Brat".

March anything out there and people will jump on.

Yesterday, the New Yorker's Borowitz reported that Kellyann Conway tested positive for IQ-19.

Zero Hedge? Yikes!

Over time, Zero Hedge expanded into non-financial analysis,[c] advocating what CNN Business called an anti-establishment and conspiratorial worldview, and which has been associated with alt-right views,[5][13] and a pro-Russian bias.[14][15][16][1] Other sources describe Zero Hedge as libertarian.[4][5] Zero Hedge's non-financial commentary has led to a number of § Site bans by various global social media platforms, some of which have been overturned (e.g. 2019 Facebook ban),[17] while others remain (e.g. 2020 Twitter ban).[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Hedge

j/c:

Lead researcher at Wuhan virus lab warned that SARS-like coronavirus outbreaks linked to bats could happen in China almost a year before COVID-19 hit the city

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...na-January.html

That's priceless = Thank you.

Yes but we live in the age where people are their own experts and declare a verdict based on nothing more than their gut. Your sister and her 40 years of experience with infectious diseases and working alongside Fauci will just make her a target for undermining and attack if she has a different opinion than the Trump faithful. And yes the same does happen in reverse - there are leftist people too that would attack and undermine people offering differing opinions. But I think for myself it's on display with Trump in more than any other group. . . . just revisit how Mueller - a lifelong Republican who has served his country as a Marine and within the Government after being appointed by Bush, with honor ... and was greatly respected by ALL - was systematically attacked by Trump and his cronies. It's definitely part of Trump's play book.

Perfect Clem

And Obama warned us about something like this happening in 2015.



But I mean nobody could have seen this coming, right?

Classic.

Precisely.

He spoke well, not like (you know).

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1018646

https://www.google.com/amp/s/hongkongfp....anmen-massacre/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes...chools.amp.html

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguar...anslation-bible

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/...property-theft/

Just a few recent examples of Chinese corruption. Now is this where I twist your words and say you support this stuff?

Your last link.

China stealing intellectual property. Does anyone remember a thread about this from several months ago?

The trade war with china? Trump had the nerve to stand up to china, and hit them where it hurt: Food.

As I said back then, I had spoken personally with a member of a u.s. ag. commission who had traveled to China, Australia, and several countries in s. America.

The trade war was about protecting the u.s. It was about short term pain, for long term gain.

Soybeans? People on here were blaming trump like crazy for hurting the farmers, especially bean farmers.

Guess what? Just like I said back then, china can't do without our beans, and lo and behold, the u.s. started selling beans to argentina (I think that was the country - I may be off), who proceeded to process the beans, and ship them to china.

china can't do without our beans. They have people, and livestock, to feed.

China also is about as trustworthy as a clinton.

If anyone believes their self reported numbers on covid deaths, they are delusional. The U.S. is currently doing their best to determine where the virus started. A lab in Wuhan is the center of the attention.

The gov't. in china doesn't care about their 1.3 billion citizens, so losing a million or 5 million was no big deal. The gov't. cares about power and influence, so killing people in other countries is no big deal to them either.

The U.S. hurt china with the trade war. China has retaliated with a virus that has stopped the u.s. economy. I have no doubt that's what it is, and there may be some nefarious other actors involved. The chinese gov't. doesn't care about deaths.

Don't you mean about as trustworthy as a Trump?

How much grain has China bought so far?

So now you're resorting to saying China attacked us with the virus?

Based on what?

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/03/.../6341584998222/

https://www.world-grain.com/articles/13446-china-purchases-us-grain

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-th...ices-2020-01-16

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...ts-of-u-s-wheat That one is from January, so....

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...ns-to-argentina

This link verifies what I stated about Argentina buying our beans, to process, and ship to china.




As for your second to last question? Do the math. The trade war has hurt china - a lot.

Your last question? Common sense.

j/c:

You know.................y'all drive me nuts at times.

Clem, an intelligent poster, makes a post about the things we do as humans that are unleashing viruses. I think.......man, that is a talking point. A damn good talking point.

Milk, who is another intelligent poster, posts a very good article on man's influence on unlocking and spreading these deadly viruses. Damn..........that is a helluva great talking point. It was a great building block on Clem's post. There were a ton of things to consider, contemplate, and address.

I tried to talk about those things w/some anecdotal quips. Just to get people to think. Hoping to spark further conversation.

And what follows? "Trump is to blame." Followed by "No, he is not."

You freaking guys are incapable of having an intellectual conversation and instead regurgitate the same crap over and over and over no matter what the topic is.

Our planet is under attack and you are still concentrating on political preferences and ingrained opinions instead of looking for solutions to solve the freaking problem!!!

I want to add to that last post.

I am sorry if I sounded mean. That wasn't my intent. Y'all just frustrate me w/this stupid blame game thing. What does that solve?

Anyway, before Pit or someone says this is the Political forum and what's wrong w/discussing political ideas in here.....I want to ask and say this.

--Why must political conversations be confrontational?

--What is wrong w/recognizing what was wrong, but then focusing our attention on how to find solutions to the problem rather than fixating on which side is to blame?

Come on, guys. We are citizens of the world. It's in our best interests to work together.

Yet you failed to show me where any of the other presidents set us up with supplies PPE's, respirators, or anything else we need. You only Blame Trump (which I agree deserves blame just like the others)

j/c:

I'm wondering about a few things, such as:

1. Do people believe that infectious diseases are going to increase as we forward in time? [See Clem's post and Milk's supporting article for clarification.]

2. Do people believe that man's ravaging of our forests and the the animals/plants induce and stimulate the growth of these viruses?

3. For those of you who say "yes" to the first two questions, I ask this: What can we do to help w/the problem?

3a. Do you think getting into heated political discussions where we blame the other side will do any good?

3b. If you dismiss point 3a, what is it that we can do in order to invoke change? I will throw a couple of things out there in point 4, if you are still w/me.

4. I try to examine what has worked in the past to solve societal problems. There are hundreds of examples, but I will just point to one as a reference point. In the early 20th century, Child Labor reached its peak. Reforms were eventually written into law that changed Child Labor Laws. How did this occur? Photos of disgusting child labor practices were popularized. Articles, books, poems, songs were written. The general population was horrified and spoke up. They wrote to their local congressmen. They demanded reform. Committees were founded to study the problem and while it took a long time, new laws were eventually passed.

5. I am saying that instead of bickering w/one another about who deserves blame and pointing fingers like emotional children, we demand reform. We write. We educate. We don't stop until we produce change. We beat them w/intelligence and resolve. We do so because it is the right thing to do.

That's my political commentary.

You really avoided anything that I said. What changed? They were buying grain before. Are they suddenly paying more for it now? I don't think so. Are they buying more of it than they were before? Not that the links you provided have shown.

So how did we "win"?

Here's what I blame Trump for. He KNEW it was coming and did NOTHING to ramp up production of PPE or ventilators for between 6 and 8 weeks later. That was valuable time lost.

Now you go ahead and try and compare that to everyone else who didn't have a virus of this magnitude breathing down their necks and on the way to our shores if you like. Ignore that the very man in charge, knowing it was coming did NOTHING to help prepare for it if you like. But that's BS.

I have no idea why you keep coming here and reading this forum since it always seems to upset you.

If you think some of us are going to listen to trump's hatred and rage against anyone who disagrees with him and then play Kumbaya you would be wrong.

It's BS to ignore that the others did nothing.

Did Trump screw up.... like I have said over, and over, and OVER yes he sure as hell did. I have never said otherwise. Why is it so hard for you to admit that past Presidents and our government did as well. They just all kept kicking it down the line hoping that it didn't happen on their watch.

Who's fault is it that the states can't get more of the reaction/reactive agent that our Federal Government controls. Is it all Trumps fault? All the CDC's fault? All our Governments fault? The FDA's fault? Everybody could be doing more testing but it's all being bogged down by red tape.

I've been thinking about this a lot bro. I'm not sure we should blame Trump for his inaction. He's too stupid to wrap around it without somebody dragging him to the conclusion that it was serious. There are plenty around him that failed in that, but Trump maybe not so much. With his one track "how does this affect me" factless mind, it's really not surprising that he failed to act until it was on his doorstep. That's also why we are seeing his MAGAt minions act out like the world is ending over the shutdown right now, it negatively affects Trump's reelection hopes... In that world, Trump trumps everything, especially common sense and personal responsibility.

Yeah, every other president watched a virus headed straight for us and waited six weeks to do anything.

Under a national emergency order that red tape can be cut. It's as if it doesn't exist. Let me guess, you believe it has nothing to do with the fact that the Trump administration has botched anything and everything that resembles logistics?

I guess if you believe everything Trump says at his briefings you might think the way you do. But according to Trump, in his own words on March 6th, “Anybody that wants a test can get a test. That’s what the bottom line is,”

It seems he has no clue what you're talking about while you try to compare him to others that didn't screw up when a virus like this was staring them right in the face.

I understand what you're saying, but who made the decision to hire all of those he has surrounded himself by? Remember, "I only hire the best people"?

He has fired anyone who has disagreed with him and replaced them with nothing but yes men. No, he owns it.

1st off bro I have said over, and over Trump screwed things up. Now since you want to ignore that fact and keep crying about Trump have at it. I'm done. It's not worth wasting my time over. You don't want to hear it. You also want to ignore the truth that others failed to act as well. That has ZERO do do with Trumps failures. That's a whole other subject that you want to ignore. Now have at it I won't reply in this thread again.

That's like saying presidents before JFK failed to address the Cuban missile crisis.

Trump team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook

The 69-page document, finished in 2016, provided a step by step list of priorities – which were then ignored by the administration.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/trump-coronavirus-national-security-council-149285

There was a plan in place which he ignored.

Now you can say and I would agree that supplies were not in place for a pandemic. But how does that excuse waiting for weeks on end to start ramping up the supply chain? How does that explain ignoring the playbook in place to respond to such a thing?

The only thing you can say is that we didn't have enough supplies in place to fight a pandemic. The problem is there was enough time to beef up those supplies before the virus actually hit us hard.

Other people aren't president now and much of this could have been mitigated much better.

And let's be honest here. Trump's claim is, "When I took over the cupboards were bare". He had well over three years to stock those cupboards.

Personally I want to see that which is banned, what they don't want me to see, but that's just me.

From what I’ve heard, best case scenario late fall, early winter vaccine. Time to manufacture microscopes, and pay college interns for their processing power and insight.

Figure it out, I know you’re smart enough.

The only people I see pointing fingers and deflecting responsibility is trump himself and then his supporters parrot his idiotic accusations against previous administrations and other countries. Pffft the trump era.

All anyone needs to do is watch a couple of those daily briefings and the point would be clear to them. Between patting himself on the back, blaming Democrats, attacking the press and giving corporate endorsements, he says little else. The only time we get any real information is if he can be quiet long enough to let Fauci or Birx speak. It's nothing more than campaign rallies paid for by the deaths of American people.

Just one simple example. He actually blamed the governors for not using the testing supplies available. He keeps saying there are plenty of testing supplies.

Each day, including today, De Wine explains there are only enough tests available to test those with the most severe symptoms. The man divides everything from federal government verses state and local government to supporting social discourse when supporting protestors. And to top it all off, the states where he is supporting the protestors? They don't even qualify under the White Houses OWN guidelines to begin opening up their economy.

Yeah, but let's not say anything.....

False conclusion.
It wasn't CREATED in a lab. That is not the same thing as "didn't escape from a lab"


None of what you shared says that it wasn't a natural virus in a sloppily run lab and escaped.

j/c:

Wuhan laboratory scientists 'did absolutely crazy things' to alter coronavirus and enabled it to infect humans, Russian microbiologist claims

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...oronavirus.html

Now people are listening to the Russians who are trying to start squabbles between the U.S. and China?

The guy saying this seems to have credentials. Should we just ignore what he has to say because he's Russian?

unless we get independent corroboration from someone reputable and impartial, yes

Even if we had hard proof China made it in a lab, so what? What are we going to do, go to war? Nope. Sanctions? Ineffective. UN Resolution? Big whoop. I'd like to think it's naturally occuring, but I wouldn't put it past some nutjob developing it as a weapon. Or studying it for pandemic prevention and screwing up.

I'd be more inclined to ignore it because story came from a tabloid, not because the guy is Russian. He does have credentials.

I'd just about bet a paycheck that it WAS someone studying it in a lab and screwed up, and that's how it made it to that market and how it got out. Or, there was no market at all and it was just a convenient cover story.

As for whether or not it was manipulated.... I'll trust Clem's guy that it isn't until a more credible voice tells me not to.

That's why you haven't seen me post much during this thread's most recent turn. There is nothing much to really add. Facts aren't debatable. And when it comes to threads like this, I will only deal in facts and raw 411.

_______________


Mark and me are Brothers. We're family.

If he heard/knew something new, I'd be informed at the same time as those people who share his last name and bloodline. To date, he's not said otherwise to any of us.
If he said something, I'd relay it to you all... because we are all in this together.

Here's a quote from him, as best as I can recall. It's from a phone call a few weeks ago, so 'll not be able to reconstruct the quote, word-for-word- but I can certainly reconstruct his spirit/message:



CoVID-19 is the latest version of SARS, MERS, Swine/Avian Influenza and Ebola. These viruses are jumping species at an unprecedented rate not because of some modern-day man-made mutation, but because it was bound to happen- as Mankind dug deeper into the Natural World in search of resources.

These viruses are infecting us with more frequency, because we are increasingly coming into contact with species/vectors who never before were coming into contact with Humans.

"Our Shrinking World" is now killing us, as Mankind expands his reach into new earthly realms.

This was not only predictable... it was already predicted, a decade ago.

When scientists are ignored, preventable mishap soon follows.

.02

So............what can we do about it? I tried to talk about it on another thread or maybe this one......but, it was ignored.

Instead, we got the typical Trump is to blame for everything or those defending Trump.

So again, what can we do to stop this issue? I tried to post some ideas, but not one person commented on that. Freaking sheep get on my nerves and are nothing more than want to be pigs.

Yes, a Floyd reference. LOL

I'm not sure that there is anything we can do about it.

I've been railing against the tide of anti-intellectuallism we're now seeing for more than 40 years.

I am fresh out of ideas.
And I'm old AF.

I want someone else to grab the baton, and run the next leg of this relay race.

No, it is adapting us and weeding us as it has for all of history.
This is nothing new, it's just new to us.

In a generation, maybe two at most, this will be just another cold. The incredibly large percentage of the population that doesn't get sick at all, and the second largest chunk that only gets mild cases will go on to create generations of people that are relatively unaffected by this one. And then the next one will come along.

I hate to speak for Clem, but when he talks about a "shrinking world," I believe he is referring to how man has ravaged the planet and continues to invade our forests and jungles. As we continue this assault on nature, we are unleashing the pathogens from the animal kingdom that are known to spread infectious diseases to humans.

Think about it. We destroy their environment and we come into contact w/them as they search for new habitats. They carry the diseases and are then looking for a new host. We have become the host. I think the thought process is that we are not just dealing w/this particular virus, but instead new infectious diseases are going to continue to be unleashed across the globe.

I know exactly of what he speaks, and it's not killing us... well, it's not killing us off, which is how I read it.

Yes, some of us are dying, but the race is simply going to evolve from this as we have for all of history.

Until we unleash the one that does kill us off. Or the one that mutates us.

Well..... that's life. Literally.

Lots of species came and went before us... why would we be any different?

Opposable thumbs, that's why we should be different. We aren't some rodent infestation rooting out grubs around the world. We are fully capable of understanding the impact of our actions.

and on some level, that could well be our undoing

I think unleashing infectious diseases onto the world is killing us off. Many experts predict that more and more of these viruses are going to occur due to man "shrinking the world."

There's worries that superbugs such as different viruses or bacteria may be contained in thawing permafrost.

This will be another issue sparked by climate change.

It shouldn't surprise anyone... that's been the case with pretty much every new area explored. Human history is a book of these events..... and yet, we march on.

I feel the "shrinking world" comment pertains more to frequent international travel. With having a global economy and people having more expendable income, international travel has become more and more a common practice.

As such, viruses are certainly spread across the globe at an alarming rate compared to a century ago or even decades ago. If we look at covid 19 many people are asymptomatic and it can take weeks to actually show symptoms for those who do. As such, by the time it's diagnosed, it's already been exposed in nations all around the globe. I could certainly be mistaken but that's the way I took it.

Pigs just flew.

That makes sense. I think it could be both.

I do know that most of these infectious diseases come from animals. We destroy their environments in the name of "progress." They need to find a new host. Thus, they come into contact w/more humans. Additionally, as you said, people travel more and that helps spread the diseases.

I think this is an important topic for world leaders t address. Some very intelligent people, as in scientists and doctors, are predicting the escalation of infectious diseases due to what we are doing to the environment.

Most of us are intelligent enough to know the importance of being clean and healthy. You sweat. So, you shower. You eat and sleep. So, you brush your teeth. Your hair gets oily. You wash it. You gain weight. You exercise and change your diet.

It's common sense.

I think that same common sense should be given to protecting the planet we live on. I am not a tree hugger or a crazed animal rights dude. But, I am intelligent enough to know that continuing to ravage our forests and jungles to make more money is only going to lead to more problems. The occurrence and spreading of infectious diseases is just one of those issues. The scary thing is that it is deadly.

Will they be giving you frequent flier miles for that?

Crap.............this is probably going to get dumb again.

Much like you I am not a tree hugger or a crazed animal rights dude.

But I do have grandchildren and at the rate man is raping our planet, my concern is about their future.

I just called. They said no, since it only happens once every 2, or 10 years - that I agree with you. I'll have to pay.

I'm not going to help you trash another thread with your personal stalking mission. Have at it.

Uh............it was a joke.

jc

Why scientists are suddenly more interested in the lab-leak theory of Covid's origin

Gottlieb says there's growing circumstantial evidence that Covid may have originated in a lab


A year ago suggesting this got you labeled as a nutjob conspiracy theorist. Now the experts(the people everyone said to trust) feel this warrants more investigation. I agree with Gottlieb that we'll probably never know for sure.

Ahhhh...so a year later we are now interested in reviewing it further.

Pretty convenient.

It's unfortunate that the media and social media decided that they should be the ones to interpret science that their employees don't understand and label dissenting opinions as conspiracy theories. When they did that, a lot of scientists had to be very careful with what they said publicly because they have their reputations on the line and it could destroy their career to be labeled as a conspiracy theorists.

The evidence really hasn't changed a lot since last spring, but we are finally able to talk about it now. A few brave scientists spoke out early, but their findings/opinions were squashed/disregarded by the mainstream. Where papers like the "Pangolin Paper" were moved to print in a matter of weeks, despite lacking any chain of evidence, other papers that provided evidence of a lab origin were rejected outright by journals or held in preprint for over 6 months.

Recently, Science, the most prestigious scientific journal, published a letter calling for additional investigation into the lab leak theory.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6543/694.1.full
Most notable among it's authors is Ralph Baric, who happens to the one of the top Caronavirus experts in the world and a collaborator with Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Institute of Virology

That being said, there won't be any useful investigations carried out. Any evidence that could have implicated the WIV in either leaking or creating the virus has long since been destroyed. If evidence existed in nature, it would long since have been discovered. SARS and MERS origins evidence was found in a matter of months after a tiny fraction of the number of animal samples that have been taken for Covid.

Knowing how the Chinese operate, I'd be willing to bet they destroyed the evidence before the rest of the world even knew about COVID.

i thought we been established that china covered it up?

they had their incederaries going 24/7. i thought it was common knowledge they falsified their deaths and what caused it?

Growing circumstancial evidence?

There's concern grizly bears are attacking housewives at Yellowstone park,

Personally I've never seen or heard of Bears attacking Massai Warriors at Yellowstone Park but Massai Warriors are known to carry 8 foot long spears that they chuck at wildlife in the African wilds while protecting herds.

Yellowstone Housewives are known to carry Nikon Cameras and a sense of entitlement.

The Evidence is circumstancial, so no wonder Science can't catch on,
Aren't scientists grand.

I think covid started here in North America. My theory is that it came from the drilling of oil sand and got sold and shipped to China by Koch Industries and accidentally released by the lab at the oil refinery in wuhan. And it was a fascist troglodyte ancestor of Donald J. Trump who put it there... smh

We all know it supposedly started in Wuhan, and it killed an ton of people there. And we also know how fast it spread among our own population in crowded cities and worked its way out to the rural towns and villages. Everybody in the world has had some sort of covid-19 experience, why would china be any different? Dictatorships are not going to admit loss or defeat by a virus! Look how our would-be dictator acted... So yes, I don't think China is telling the whole truth, but I also don't think it was intentional or an attack on us.

When he said Trogloyte, I thought he said Trilobite,
obviously his argument went completely off the rails of believability at that point.

Since I consider many of his expressed opinions in line with Russian centric thinking I wouldn't consider him to consider it as an attack.

You could argue, we have been lucky with plagues, it was about 100 years since the last one.

We lacked leadership and direction during a global pandemic, the cost was 525,000 Americans. Since day 1, tUSA has had a disjointed approach to this war.

We were never rowing in the same direction, and the cost was lives. Don’t act like this is over either.

No, it's not over ...182,887 Americans have died from COVID-19 since President Joe Biden took office.

So basically he has as much blood on his hands as President Trump. Blood is blood, right?

The fact is neither do. China is to blame. But, it's been too long to find all the facts that have long been covered up and destroyed. While we were busy pointing fingers in this country, China was smiling. They got exactly what they wanted.

LOL...I was called crazy

Not true - though I see your agenda.

If Trump had listened to the science, not down played the virus, not knowingly and purposefully lied about the virus which he is on record as admitting - then it would have changed the entire response from a large part of the American population and there would have been less spread, less cases and less deaths. You can't quantify it - but it's factual that Trump downplayed the virus and that many of his base embraced that attitude and as a result didn't take the virus seriously or refused to embrace the precautions.

As for your belief this was a deliberate scheme by China - I'll agree to disagree. I will say that the science does not appear to have changed - the science that indicates this came from a lab is not more compelling than it was. But it needs to be investigated to the fullest extent even if it is to put a greater % accuracy on where/how CV-19 came to be. The better you can clarify any piece of information the better.

We had a leader more interested in blaming China than actually dealing with the virus here. That was my beef. If it came from China, fine. But priority one should have been doing everything we could do to put up a United front to keep it from spreading in this country. Instead we got an idiot standing at a podium saying it was going to ‘magically disappear’. Those were his words! He was a MORON OF EPIC PROPORTIONS.

This was his approach instead….

donny: China is to blame. We need to be upset with them for unleashing this virus on the world.
Sane people: that’s fine but there’s many sick people in our country. What are we going to do to keep the virus contained?

donny: They wouldn’t be sick if it weren’t for China.
Sane people; That’s fine but they’re sick and dying and seems to be getting worse.

donny: It’ll go away in the spring when the sun comes out. If China hadn’t created this we wouldn’t be having this problem. It’s China’s fault. They need investigated.
Sane people: It’s now spread to every major city and the deaths seem to be coming faster. Is there a plan?

donny: It’s a hoax…. A China hoax… why aren’t you mad at China?
Sane people: my family is sick and I’m losing people I know.

donny; Damn China! We should all be mad at them. Why aren’t you more mad at China? Have you tried drinking bleach?
Sane people: This is getting worse and worse. I’m now sick and I’ve lost loved ones.

donny: I hate China. Stick a lightbulb up your butt?

NOPE, you don't get to do that. They are nowhere near the same because Biden never ignored the threat, Biden never dismissed the threat as fake news, Biden never tried to make it go away with lies to the people, and Biden never rushed "opening back up" before the vaccine and some modicum of safety despite republican governors jumping the gun.

So don't compare Biden's seemingly empty suit to Trump's proven empty head. The rationale, the reasoning, the choices and the underlying reasons for their actions are nowhere near the same. And I think both made mistakes, but the intentions and reasons couldn't be more different.

Timeline...



Impeachment was a dire distraction from coronavirus for Trump administration: Devine

By Miranda Devine

April 1, 2020



It’s obvious the Democrats’ impeachment obsession was a damaging distraction for President Trump, as Mitch McConnell says. That was the whole point of it.

But what we now know is the corona­virus outbreak emerged right in the middle of the impeachment. The administration was distracted at a crucial time.

“I think it diverted the attention of the government, because everything every day was all about impeachment,″ the Senate majority leader said Tuesday.

The Democrats’ motive was to weaken the president before the election and hamper his ability to implement his agenda. It wasn’t about principle or the national interest. It was a trivial game to enhance their electoral prospects and appease their Trump-hating base.

Even Democrats like Andrew Cuomo said as much. Back in September, the New York governor blamed “leftist” Democrats and described the inquiry as a “governmental shutdown.”

“It’s a long and unproductive road. Where does it go ultimately? Nowhere . . . The problem with that is it means nothing else is really going to get done of substance between now and then, and we have so many real issues to deal with.”

Truer words were never spoken.

Less than eight weeks later, on Nov. 17, a 55-year-old man became the first confirmed case in China of the novel coronavirus, according to the South China Morning Post.

Public impeachment hearings had begun three days earlier and dominated the media.

The timeline is instructive.

On Dec. 1, the next confirmed patient in China fell ill.

On Dec. 13, the House Judiciary Committee approved two articles of impeachment.

Three days later, a 65-year-old man was admitted to hospital in Wuhan with a lung infection.

On Dec. 18, Democrats in the House of Representatives impeached Trump.

On Dec. 29, Dr. Ai Fen, the head of emergency at Wuhan Central Hospital, alerted her superiors to seven cases of unexplained pneumonia. She was reprimanded and silenced, according to “60 Minutes Australia.”

On Jan. 1, eight Chinese doctors who had posted information about the illness on social media were detained, and laboratories were ordered to destroy virus samples.

On Jan. 3, Li Wenliang, a Wuhan ophthalmologist, was forced to sign an official confession that he had spread false “rumors” about the virus. He would later die of the illness.
see also



China’s coverup was in full swing.

On Jan. 6, John Bolton announced he was prepared to testify at Trump’s impeachment trial, and the media went into overdrive.

The next day, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel warning about “pneumonia of an unknown etiology” in Wuhan.

On Jan. 14, the World Health Organization, doing China’s bidding, tweeted that Chinese authorities “have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.”

On Jan. 15, after a one-month delay, Nancy Pelosi used gold pens to sign the impeachment articles and led a ceremonial procession to deliver them to the Senate.

The next day, the impeachment trial — presided over by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts — began.

On Jan. 20, the first US coronavirus case was reported, in Washington state.

On Jan. 22, opening arguments against Trump began in the Senate.

On Jan. 25, the State Department prepared to evacuate US citizens from Wuhan.

The next day, Bolton accused Trump of saying he would withhold military aid from Ukraine unless it investigated Joe Biden. Less prominent were five cases of coronavirus in the United States.

On Jan. 30, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised the Chinese government for “extraordinary measures it has taken to contain the outbreak. [It] is very impressive . . . China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response.”

It sure was.

On Jan. 31, Trump closed the US border to China and quarantined US citizens returning from Hubei province for 14 days, the first time such measures had been taken since 1969.

Dr. Anthony Fauci would later say the travel ban was crucial in slowing the spread of the virus.

But at the time, it was slammed by WHO and China as racist. Biden called Trump a “xenophobe.”

If anything, as a China hawk who believes in border security, Trump was ahead of the Democrats and media who now blame him for the outbreak.

Asked Tuesday if impeachment had distracted him, the president mused aloud, “I certainly devoted a little time to think about it, right.

“[But] I don’t think I would have done any better had I not been impeached . . . I don’t think I would have acted any faster.”

The president doesn’t want to admit it, but there had to be a price for the time and energy the administration and Congress wasted fighting over impeachment. The media was consumed by it and little attention was paid to the catastrophe unfolding in Wuhan.

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx this week pointed out that if medical experts were slow to comprehend the threat, it was because “we were missing a significant amount of the data” from China.

We can all play the partisan blame game but that only lets the real culprit off the hook; it is the Chinese Communist Party, whose deceptions cost at least two crucial months and unleashed a pandemic.

https://nypost.com/2020/04/01/impeachment-a-dire-distraction-from-coronavirus-for-trump-devine/

hard to argue it didn't hurt the process.

Well then maybe the dumb A.Hole shouldn't have done something that deserved impeachment. Maybe he should have simply complied with the process or just ignored it. And out of Trump Maniac Ego and the Impeachment - the moronic denial and ego had a bigger impact by a factor or many hundreds.

But hey - don't let that stop y'all from the distractions. We know the GOP is the party of non-accountability.

In that whole giant article, one small bit SHOUTS out

The democrats' motive was to weaken the president... and
.. It wasn't about principle or the national interest.

This ^

This has been the problem for 25 years, much longer actually. The democrats tell people who they are and people don't take them at their word for how bad they are for the country.

FDA: Lab leaks happen all the time.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/former-fda-commissioner-lab-leaks-covid-19-origin-scrutiny

Here are a few other headlines by this writer:

It's been a year of Antifa and unchecked anarchy: Devine May 30th
Enough of Fauci’s lies!: Devine May 26th
Vance is targeting Trump but praised him in a 2016 letter: Devine MaY 26TH
Hunter Biden's Ukraine salary was cut two months after Joe Biden left office May 26th
'Dad will be there': Hunter Biden brought veep Joe to dinner with shady business partners May 26th
Nancy Pelosi doesn't care about the truth: Devine May 23rd
‘Saint’ Fauci a lying sinner: Devine May 19th

Are we beginning to see the pattern yet? smh, next.

https://nypost.com/author/miranda-devine/ ~ source

When all you have is people like this woman and Andy Ngo, well you just don't have much do ya? But kep trying because it's good entertainment.

Wow that's Cra Cra!

Imagine Faux News putting out a red meat article enraging the base... good thing that never happens.

Or ... maybe Trump shouldn't have done something that deserved impeachment, and he should have left the process to run out without interfering with it .... I mean, sure we know you are a Trump puppet fed by his crazy lies and think the election was stolen and that the Ninja's in AZ will find Bamboo to prove everything, but that doesn't mean Trump should have been allowed to threaten our allies if they didn't attempt to nobble his political opponent. . . Talking about that particular lie - STILL no evidence from Trump or Guiliani about Hunter despite them digging and even having Hunter's laptop (allegedly).

But carry on.

j/c:

Liberal media FINALLY admit they made a mistake dismissing Wuhan Lab leak theory just because Trump backed it: Washington Post, New York Times and ABC pundits say some 'have egg on their face'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...y.html#comments

""He noted that the idea was widely dismissed at the time, but now 'serious people are saying it needs a serious inquiry.'

New York Times reporter David Leonhardt also said on CNN that he thinks people 'leapt to dismiss' the theory too quickly because it was being espoused by then-President Trump and Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who has also said that the 2020 election was stolen.

'I think a lot of people on the political left and people in the media made this mistake and said 'Wow, if Tom Cotton is saying something it can't be true,' Leonhardt said. 'Or they assumed that. And that's not right.

'Tom Cotton does deal in misinformation about things like election fraud, he's said some things that are just wrong,' Leonhardt continued. ""

Couple of serious points if you wanted to be serious about this:

1. Because the known liar lies and deflects so much - his opinion about a topic was met with prejudice? Shocking no-one.

2. Serious people are saying it needs to be investigated - NOT BECAUSE IT IS ANY MORE LIKELY THAN BEFORE, AND NOT BECAUSE THERE IS NEW EVIDENCE .... THEY have stated the desire to more accurately dismiss one potential option. Knowing for certain the origin of the virus is important and at present is unknown and us speculation. Investigating and possibly eliminating one theory helps the overall picture.

They definitely covered up the seriousness. I was specifically talking about the origin.

J/C - general thought. Why is this being drawn on political lines again?

I will just say that Trump has said so many things that were wrong, even if this one is right, you have the boy crying wolf scenario.

Love that the Left are so afraid of Tom Cotton running in 2024 that they are already trying to make him into "Trump Jr."

Except, you know, that Tom Cotton is actually smart, and knows how to come up with innovative legislation and ideas.

SO you admit that Trump is a dummy... Cool

I think Donald Trump is probably a lot smarter than you in many ways, and that isn't a knock on you, so lets keep things real.

You and your kind are sitting here openly admitting that Trump can't walk and chew gum at the same time...... "The impeachment stopped him from addressing Covid." And then turn around and say he's smart.

Maybe he will just disappear as the weather gets warmer.

I am not saying anything of the sort. You and your kind are the ones who think we are.

Only a simpleton would equate dealing with impeachment to walking or chewing gum.

You are smarter than that, so maybe try to act like it.

Thanks

You are still just making excuses why Trump said and did dumb things during Covid. Does going through the impeachment process make you stupid too?

May 2018
The Trump Administration disbands the White House pandemic response team.

July 2019
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency left the post, and the Trump Administration eliminated the role.

Jan. 22, 2020
“We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”

Jan. 24, 2020
Trump praises China’s handling of the coronavirus: “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”

Feb. 2, 2020
“We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

Feb. 10, 2020
“I think the virus is going to be—it’s going to be fine.”

Feb. 10, 2020
“Looks like by April, you know in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”

Feb. 25, 2020
“I think that's a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”

Feb. 26, 2020
“The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”

Feb. 26, 2020
“We're going very substantially down, not up.”

Feb. 26, 2020
“Well, we're testing everybody that we need to test. And we're finding very little problem. Very little problem.”

Feb. 26, 2020
"This is a flu. This is like a flu."

Feb. 27, 2020
“It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”

March 2, 2020
“You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?” [Trump to health officials who answered "No."]

March 4, 2020
“If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.”

March 5, 2020
“I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work.”

March 6, 2020
“Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.”

March 6, 2020
“I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”

March 7, 2020
“No, I’m not concerned at all."

March 9, 2020
During a news conference, White House officials said the U.S. will have tested one million people that week and thereafter would complete 4 million tests per week. By the end of the week, the CDC had only completed a paltry 4,000 tests.

March 10, 2020
“Just stay calm. It will go away.”

March 11, 2020
“It goes away…. It’s going away. We want it to go away with very, very few deaths.”

March 12, 2020
"You know, you see what's going on. And so I just wanted that to stop as it pertains to the United States. And that's what we've done. We've stopped it."

March 13, 2020
“I don’t take responsibility at all.”

March 14, 2020
“I’d rate it a ten,” [Trump’s rating of his coronavirus response]

March 15, 2020
“This is a very contagious virus. It’s incredible. But it’s something that we have tremendous control over.”

March 16, 2020
“Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment-try getting it yourselves,”

March 20, 2020
“I say that you're a terrible reporter, that's what I say. I think it's a very nasty question, and I think it's a very bad signal that you're putting out to the American people." [Response to reporter’s question: "What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?"]

March 29, 2020
“Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000?”

March 30, 2020
"Stay calm, it will go away. You know it -- you know it is going away, and it will go away, and we're going to have a great victory."

April 1, 2020
"They have to treat us well, also. They can't say, 'Oh, gee, we should get this, we should get that." [Trump's response to governors who were pleading for medical gear and ventilators to treat surging coronavirus hospitalizations]

April 3, 2020
“I’m feeling good. I just don’t want to be doing -- somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful resolute desk, the great resolute desk, I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know, somehow I don’t see it for myself. I just don’t. Maybe I’ll change my mind.”

April 6, 2020
“LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL!”

April 7, 2020
"So, you know, things are happening. It's a -- it's -- I haven't seen bad. I've not seen bad."

April 9, 2020
“I couldn’t have done it any better,” [When asked if his coronavirus response could have been better]

April 13, 2020
“But I guess I'm doing OK, because, to the best of my knowledge, I'm the President of the United States, despite the things that are said."

April 14, 2020
“Enough!” [When a reporter questioned his claim that his authority as president is “total”]

“When somebody’s the president of the United States, the authority is total.”

April 22, 2020
“If [coronavirus] comes back though, it won’t be coming back in the form that it was, it will be coming back in smaller doses that we can contain…. It’s also possible it doesn’t come back at all.”

April 23, 2020
"I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that."

“So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether its ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said, that hasn't been checked but you're gonna test it. And then I said, supposing it brought the light inside the body, which you can either do either through the skin or some other way…”

April 27, 2020
"I can't imagine why," [Trump’s response to the influx in poison control calls about disinfectant]

April 29, 2020
“It’s gonna go away, this is going to go away.”

May 3, 2020
“Look, we're going to lose anywhere from 75,000, 80,000 to 100,000 people,”

May 5, 2020
“There’ll be more death, that the virus will pass, with or without a vaccine. And I think we’re doing very well on the vaccines but, with or without a vaccine, it’s going to pass, and we’re going to be back to normal,”

May 8, 2020
“This is going to go away without a vaccine. It is going to go away. We are not going to see it again.”

May 9, 2020
“This is going to go away without a vaccine.”

May 11, 2020
“Coronavirus numbers are looking MUCH better, going down almost everywhere. Big progress being made!”

May 11, 2020
“We have met the moment and we have prevailed,”

May 15, 2020
“Vaccine or no vaccine, we’re back. And we’re starting the process. In many cases, they don’t have vaccines and a virus or a flu comes and you fight through it.

May 16, 2020
“We’ve done a GREAT job on Covid response, making all Governors look good, some fantastic (and that’s OK), but the Lamestream Media doesn’t want to go with that narrative, and the Do Nothing Dems talking point is to say only bad about “Trump”. I made everybody look good, but me!”

May 19, 2020
“When we have a lot of cases, I don't look at that as a bad thing, I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing,...Because it means our testing is much better. I view it as a badge of honor, really, it's a badge of honor.”

June 15, 2020
“At some point this stuff goes away and it’s going away.”

June 17, 2020
“It’s fading away. It’s going to fade away.”

June 18, 2020
“And it is dying out. The numbers are starting to get very good.”

June 23, 2020
"It's going away,"

June 25, 2020
“Coronavirus deaths are way down. Mortality rate is one of the lowest in the World. Our Economy is roaring back and will NOT be shut down. “Embers” or flare ups will be put out, as necessary!”

July 19, 2020
“I think we have one of the lowest mortality rates in the world”

June 30, 2020
The U.S. has just 4% of the global population, but 25% of global coronavirus cases and the second-highest death rate per capita.

July 21, 2020
"You will never hear this on the Fake News concerning the China Virus, but by comparison to most other countries, who are suffering greatly, we are doing very well - and we have done things that few other countries could have done!”

July 28, 2020
"He's got this high approval rating. So why don't I have a high approval rating with respect -- and the administration -- with respect to the virus?" (Trump referring to Anthony Fauci)

Aug. 3, 2020
"I think we are doing very well and I think ... as well as any nation,"

Aug. 3, 2020
“Right now I think it’s under control.”

Aug. 5, 2020
“It will go away like things go away”

Aug. 31, 2020
"We've done a great job in Covid but we don't get the credit."

Sept. 10, 2020
“We've possibly done the best job” “We have rounded the final turn” “I think that we've probably done the best job of any country”

Sept. 14, 2020
Trump was asked if he is afraid of Coronavirus risk at his rallies: “I’m on a stage, it’s very far away, so I’m not at all concerned.”

Sept. 21, 2020
"We're rounding the corner," "With or without a vaccine. They hate when I say that but that's the way it is. ... We've done a phenomenal job. Not just a good job, a phenomenal job. Other than public relations, but that's because I have fake news. On public relations, I give myself a D. On the job itself, we take an A+."

Sept. 23, 2020
"I think we’re rounding the turn very much."

Oct. 10, 2020
"But it’s going to disappear; it is disappearing."

Oct. 19, 2020
"People are saying whatever. Just leave us alone. They’re tired of it. People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots...Fauci is a nice guy. He’s been here for 500 years."

https://doggett.house.gov/media-center/blog-posts/timeline-trump-s-coronavirus-responses

There's a lot more at the link but I just posted some of the highlights. Or lowlights as the case may be. He wasn't warning the American people to wear masks or social distance. He only downplayed the severity of Covid.

I guess according to you all you have to do in order to create a lying moron is to add an impeachment. Most people don't buy such BS.

#cultoftrump #factsnevermattered

Nobody is going to read that list, so why bother?

No doubt lot's of things went wrong. They started going way wrong after the Dems complained when President Trump wanted to shut down air traffic to many countries. Had he done that from the beginning, things may have been different.

Probably not. Things went south all over the globe.

I don't expect people like you to read it. It may force you to actually consider the possibility of accountability. Something the Republican party and its supporters have decided to abandon. His lies, his delusional statements and the fact he never tried to get the American people to take the measures necessary to help keep infections and deaths to a minimum.

It seems to be far more popular to your and you ilk to say since someone else started a fire, that should excuse the fire department of doing nothing but standing by and watching it burn. People can see through that BS.

It would be interesting to see what Clinton was able to do and not do during his impeachment.

In a fashion, Hitler was smart.. Smart enough to con half of Germany and kill the other half?

Let me save you time,, YOU DID NOT SAY THAT....You just defend a person that is JUST LIKE HITLER...so I drew that that comparison.

On Memorial Day I watched a series on the History Channel about the World Wars. It chronicled how WWI started and led to WWII. It included how Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin came to power. Trumps behavior comes straight from their playbook. THe only difference is that after Hitler, mussolini, and Stalin riled up the masses to storm the government they went with them and led them. Trump was too much of a P---- to do that. Instead he ran back to the WH to hide and left his followers out to dry.

That's one of your dumbest posts ever, and that's saying a lot.

Really, which part wasn't true.... This I gotta hear

What a crock of horse manure. A bunch of spurious "facts" to an ominous sound track and "Democrats" in bold font splashing across the screen.

Zero substance, zero meaning, zero exoneration or excusing of Trump. Deflection, deflection, deflection. It's the only thang you got, we know.

Trump was just like Hitler? Expound on that stupidity, please.

Actually, in some thread at one time I did say Hitler had to be a smart person. Smart people don't always have to do good things and only dumb people do bad things.

But president Trump wasn't like Hitler. If he was, he would have rounded you up and gassed you.

Like I said earlier, maybe we need to try to do a better job of keeping things real in this forum. We have never had a President "JUST LIKE HITLER", thank-you.

Maybe you need to go talk to a few holocaust survivors to see what they think. I am sure they can set you straight.

90% of libtard posts are hyperbole

You would hope so.

Not true,, What's true is that most of what Liberals say go in one ear and out the other of conservatives without registering a real thought

If you notice all Eve does is trash talk without adding any substance. It's from the Trump playbook.

That's funny.

Comedy is subjective. A lack of objectivity? Not so much.

An excellent read on how the virus was traced back to Wuhan and the strange events associated with information provided, or not provided by China.

It is much to long to post, so the link will have to do.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolog...R?ocid=msedgntp

Surprised there hasn't been some discussion on Fauci and his emails.

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/graphi...nts/7510491002/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57336280

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/02/politics/anthony-fauci-emails/index.html

I only read the BBC link. I wasn't a fan of the flip-flopping either, but I thought the last part about those emails being something of an inkblot test was very clever.

Clever and 100% spot on.

I think the flip flopping and adaptation to new information and new popular consensus was expected/normal given what we were facing. I didn't expect him or anyone to stand up and say "we're just guessing here but ....".

Guess I have always held the belief masking wearing helps protect others from breathing in your exhaled particles. Given a good fit and 2 or 3 layers... I still *assume* that to be true.

Maybe I'm looking at this wrong, but masks have been around for a LONG time, as has the airborne virus. Other countries have the blueprint out there for the ins/outs of masking. So someone like Fauci changing his tune like he did seems weird to me.

Yeah, I know.. Thats the sign of a person that has Trump Syndrome.... The only thing she can do is yell, scream and holler and name call....

and accurate

I'd have to look and see what his emails say and what he said publicly and the timing - specifically on masks. But to be honest I am not that motivated I guess I should also be more interested to know what they are advocating in places like India recently where things spiked... or if they even have the ability to wear adequate masks?

…she says unironically in a very ironically hyperbolic post…

It's worth pulling apart and posting. EVERYBODY should read this...


Exclusive: How Amateur Sleuths Broke the Wuhan Lab Story and Embarrassed the Media
Rowan Jacobsen 18 hrs ago


For most of last year, the idea that the coronavirus pandemic could have been triggered by a laboratory accident in Wuhan, China, was largely dismissed as a racist conspiracy theory of the alt-right. The Washington Post in early 2020 accused Senator Tom Cotton of "fanning the embers of a conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked by experts." CNN jumped in with "How to debunk coronavirus conspiracy theories and misinformation from friends and family." Most other mainstream outlets, from The New York Times ("fringe theory") to NPR ("Scientists debunk lab accident theory"), were equally dismissive. (Newsweek was an exception, reporting in April 2020 that the WIV was involved in gain-of-function research and might have been the site of a lab leak; Mother Jones, Business Insider, the NY Post and FOX News were also exceptions.) But in the last week or so, the story has burst into the public discourse. President Joe Biden has demanded an investigation by U.S. intelligence. And the mainstream media, in an astonishing about-face, is treating the possibility with deadly seriousness.

The reason for the sudden shift in attitudes is clear: over the weeks and months of the pandemic, the pileup of circumstantial evidence pointing to the Wuhan lab kept growing—until it became too substantial to ignore.

The people responsible for uncovering this evidence are not journalists or spies or scientists. They are a group of amateur sleuths, with few resources except curiosity and a willingness to spend days combing the internet for clues. Throughout the pandemic, about two dozen or so correspondents, many anonymous, working independently from many different countries, have uncovered obscure documents, pieced together the information, and explained it all in long threads on Twitter—in a kind of open-source, collective brainstorming session that was part forensic science, part citizen journalism, and entirely new. They call themselves DRASTIC, for Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19.

For a long time, DRASTIC's discoveries stayed confined to the strange world of Twitter, known only to a few nerdy followers. The sleuths ran into a fair number of dead ends, got into the occasional spat with scientists who disagreed with their interpretations, and produced a firehose of reporting. Gradually, the quality of their research and the rigor of their thinking drew a larger following, including many professional scientists and journalists.

Thanks to DRASTIC, we now know that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had an extensive collection of coronaviruses gathered over many years of foraging in the bat caves, and that many of them—including the closest known relative to the pandemic virus, SARS-CoV-2—came from a mineshaft where three men died from a suspected SARS-like disease in 2012. We know that the WIV was actively working with these viruses, using inadequate safety protocols, in ways that could have triggered the pandemic, and that the lab and Chinese authorities have gone to great lengths to conceal these activities. We know that the first cases appeared weeks before the outbreak at the Huanan wet market that was once thought to be ground zero.

None of this proves that the pandemic started in the Wuhan lab, of course: it's entirely possible that it did not. But the evidence assembled by DRASTIC amounts to what prosecutors call probable cause—a strong, evidence-based case for a full investigation. It's not clear that the best efforts of the U.S. and other nations to investigate the lab-leak hypothesis will ever turn up unequivocal evidence one way or another, at least without the full cooperation of China, which is unlikely.

But if they do, this small, motley group of amateur sleuths will have broken what may be the biggest story of the 21st century.

This is how they did it.


Strange coincidences

The young Indian man who calls himself The Seeker is in his late-20s, lives somewhere in eastern India, and uses a piece of tribal art from his home region of West Bengal for his Twitter logo, he said via email. His career has been a melange of architecture, painting, and filmmaking—a khichdi, his mother and sister call it, meaning a stew of disparate ingredients that adds up to something surprising and delightful. A voracious autodidact, he'd become an expert at searching the back alleys of the web, far beyond the well-lit places patrolled by Google, for information on whatever topic interested him. He often posted on Reddit, where he had accumulated a massive 750,000 karma points. That's all The Seeker revealed to Newsweek through email and messaging; he maintains his anonymity.

Like most people following the news back when the pandemic started, The Seeker initially believed that the virus had jumped from wild animals to humans at a Wuhan wet market. (On March 27 he tweeted, "Nobody wants to see their parents or grandma and grandpa die over a stupid virus from an exotic animal market.") He believed this because that's what the mainstream press told him, and the mainstream press believed it because that is what a handful of scientists had said.

Chief among these scientists was a biologist named Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit research group that ran a large international program to survey natural pathogens with the potential to cause a pandemic. Daszak had been collaborating for years with Shi Zhengli, the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and a renowned bat virologist. Daszak co-authored nearly a dozen papers with Shi and funneled at least $600,000 of U.S. government grants her way.

When the pandemic happened to break out on the doorstep of the lab with the largest collection of coronaviruses in the world, fueling speculation that the WIV might be involved, Daszak and 26 other scientists signed a letter that appeared in The Lancet on February 19, 2020. "We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin," it stated.

We now know, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request, that Daszak orchestrated the letter to squelch talk of a lab leak. He drafted it, reached out to fellow scientists to sign it, and worked behind the scenes to make it seem that the letter represented the views of a broad range of scientists. "This statement will not have the EcoHealth Alliance logo on it and will not be identifiable as coming from any one organization or person," he wrote in his pitch to the co-signatories. Scientists whose work had overlapped with the WIV agreed not to sign it so they could "put it out in a way that doesn't link it back to our collaboration."

At the time, however, there was no hint of Daszak's organizing role. The letter helped make Daszak a ubiquitous presence in the media, where he called a lab-leak "preposterous," "baseless," and "pure baloney." He also attacked scientists who published evidence pointing to the lab. Part of the reason the lab theory made no sense, he argued, was because the Wuhan lab wasn't culturing any viruses remotely similar to SARS-CoV-2. (Daszak has not responded to Newsweek's request for comment.)

For a long time, Daszak was astonishingly influential. Few in the media questioned him or pointed out that his career and organization would be deeply damaged if it turned out his work had indirectly played a role in the pandemic. His unwitting accomplice was Donald Trump, who embraced the theory, turning what should have been a scientific question into a political one.

When the Trump administration canceled EcoHealth Alliance contracts that would have spent millions on new virus research, 60 Minutes ran a segment that painted Daszak as a martyr to the right-wing conspiracy machine. For right-thinking people everywhere, it seemed like an easy call: The enemy of my enemy is my friend: thus, the lab-leak theory is bunk.


A Whiff of Censorship

By early 2020, The Seeker was beginning to question that viewpoint. He had begun to interact with people who were poking holes in the conventional wisdom.

One important piece was an extensive Medium post by the Canadian longevity entrepreneur Yuri Deigin that discussed RaTG13, a virus Shi Zhengli had revealed to the world in a February 3 paper in the journal Nature. In that paper, Shi presented the first extensive analysis of SARS-CoV-2, which had seemed to come from nowhere—the virus was unlike any that had been seen before, including the first SARS, which had killed 774 people from 2002 to 2004. In her paper, however, Shi also introduced RaTG13, a virus that is similar in genetic makeup to SARS-CoV-2, making it the only known close relative at the time.

The paper was vague about where RaTG13 had come from. It didn't say exactly where or when RaTG13 had been found, just that it had previously been detected in a bat in Yunnan Province, in southern China.

The paper aroused Deigin's suspicions. He wondered if SARS-CoV-2 might have emerged through some genetic mixing and matching from a lab working with RaTG13 or related viruses. His post was cogent and comprehensive. The Seeker posted Deigin's theory on Reddit, which promptly suspended his account permanently.

That early whiff of censorship piqued Seeker's curiosity, so he read more of the Twitter group's ideas. "I found a lively group of people eager to debate and explore the topic," he told Newsweek by email.

It was an eclectic group. There were entrepreneurs, engineers, and a microbiologist from the University of Innsbruck named Rossana Segreto. None of them had known each other in advance; they gravitated to the forum after independently concluding that the conventional wisdom of the origins of COVID-19 didn't make sense. Conversations were kept on track by a wisecracking coordinator living somewhere in Asia who went by the pseudonym Billy Bostickson, and whose Twitter icon was a cartoon of a beat-up lab monkey.

The Seeker fit right in. "They helped me catch up on the debate, and I started to educate myself," he says. "Before I knew it, I got hooked into the mystery." He was driven in part by curiosity, but also by a growing sense of civic duty. "COVID has taken the lives of countless people and devastated so many others. But it has also left so many clues that haven't been followed up. Humanity deserves answers."

The Seeker and the rest of the group became increasingly convinced that RaTG13 might hold the key to some of those answers. In a crackling thread, half a dozen participants hashed out its mysteries, combing the internet and the WIV's previous papers for clues.

If there is a moment when the DRASTIC team coalesced into something more than its disparate parts, it would be this thread. In real time, for all the world to see, they worked through the data, tested various hypotheses, corrected each other, and scored some direct hits.

The key facts quickly came together. The genetic sequence for RaTG13 perfectly matched a small piece of genetic code posted as part of a paper written by Shi Zhengli years earlier, but never mentioned again. The code came from a virus the WIV had found in a Yunnan bat. Connecting key details in the two papers with old news stories, the DRASTIC team determined that RaTG13 had come from a mineshaft in Mojiang County, in Yunnan Province, where six men shoveling bat guano in 2012 had developed pneumonia. Three of them died. DRASTIC wondered if that event marked the first cases of human beings being infected with a precursor of SARS-CoV-2—perhaps RaTG13 or something like it.

In a profile in Scientific American, Shi Zhengli acknowledged working in a mineshaft in Mojiang County where miners had died. But she avoided connecting it to RaTG13 (an omission she had made in her scientific papers as well), claiming that a fungus in the cave had killed the miners.

That explanation didn't sit well with the DRASTIC group. They suspected a SARS-like virus, not a fungus, had killed the miners and that, for whatever reason, the WIV was trying to hide that fact. It was a hunch, and they had no way of proving it.

At this point, The Seeker revealed his research powers to the group. In his online explorations, he'd recently discovered a massive Chinese database of academic journals and theses called CNKI. Now he wondered if somewhere in its vast circuitry might be information on the sickened miners.

Working through the night at his bedside table on phone and laptop, fueled by chai and using Chinese characters with the help of Google Translate, he plugged in "Mojiang"—the county where the mine was located—in combination with every other word he could think of that might be relevant, instantly translating each new flush of results back to English. "Mojiang + pneumonia"; "Mojiang + WIV"; "Mojiang + bats"; "Mojiang + SARS." Each search brought back thousands of results and half a dozen different databases for journals, books, newspapers, master's theses, doctoral dissertations. He combed through these results, night after night, but never found anything useful. When he ran out of energy, he broke for arcade games and more chai.

He was on the verge of calling it quits, he says, when he struck gold: a 60-page master's thesis written by a student at Kunming Medical University in 2013 titled "The Analysis of 6 Patients with Severe Pneumonia Caused by Unknown Viruses." In exhaustive detail, it described the conditions and step-by-step treatment of the miners. It named the suspected culprit: "Caused by SARS-like [coronavirus] from the Chinese horseshoe bat or other bats."

The Seeker dropped the link, without fanfare, on May 18, 2020, then followed up with a second thesis from a PhD student at the Chinese CDC confirming much of the information in the first. Four of the miners had tested positive for antibodies from a SARS-like infection. And the WIV had been looped in to test samples from them all. (Shortly after The Seeker posted the theses, China changed the access controls on CNKI so no one could do such a search again.)

If a SARS-like virus had emerged in 2012, had been covered up, and the WIV had been sending people back to the mine to forage for more samples and bringing them back to Wuhan, that should have been front-page news the next day. Instead, not a single story appeared for weeks. A few stories appeared in the UK, including a feature in the Sunday Times. The U.S. media took a pass.

"I was definitely expecting it to blow up all over the news," The Seeker admits. "The general lack of interest in facts or reason surprised me. And it still perplexes me that even with all their resources, the corporate investigative media is lagging terribly."

Within days, DRASTIC managed to locate the coordinates of the mysterious Mojiang mine, but it would not catch the attention of the media until late 2020, when a race to get there began. The first attempt was by the BBC's John Sudworth, who found his path blocked by trucks and guards. (Sudworth would soon be forced to leave China because of his reporting.) The AP tried around the same time, with no better luck. Later, teams from NBC, CBS, Today, and other outlets also found their way blocked by trucks, trees, and angry men. Some were told that it was dangerous to proceed because of wild elephants. Eventually, a Wall Street Journal reporter reached the entrance to the mine by mountain bike—only to be detained for five hours of questioning. The mine's secrets remain.


A Huge Sudoku Puzzle

Although the Moijang mine revelation in May 2020 got nowhere in the media, it attracted new members to DRASTIC, which was able to expand its intelligence gathering to cover everything from viral genetics to biolab safety protocols. On May 21, 2020, Billy Bostickson dubbed the group "DRASTIC Research." He also began organizing the team into subgroups to focus on different aspects of the case. Soon, they were regularly posting discoveries that made lab involvement seem more likely.

A key team member was Francisco de Asis de Ribera, a Madrid data scientist who excels at mining big data sets. Over the years, the WIV had published a huge amount of information about its virus-hunting projects in different outlets and formats. Ribera began assembling it all into "a huge Sudoku puzzle," searching for places where he could fill in some of the blanks, slowly assembling a comprehensive map of the WIV's entire virus program. He and The Seeker made a formidable team, The Seeker unearthing new pieces of the puzzle and Ribera fitting them into place. ("I have always seen myself and Francisco as playing Detective McNulty and Detective Freamon from The Wire," The Seeker joked to Newsweek in one message.)

Ribera was responsible for solving another piece of the RaTG13 puzzle. Had the WIV been actively working on RaTG13 during the seven years since they discovered it? Peter Daszak said no: they had never used the virus because it wasn't similar enough to the original SARS. "We thought it's interesting, but not high-risk," he told Wired. "So we didn't do anything about it and put it in the freezer."

Ribera disproved that account. When a new science paper on genetics is published, the authors must upload the accompanying genetic sequences to an international database. By examining some metadata tags that had been accidentally uploaded by the WIV along with its genetic sequences for RaTG13, Ribera discovered that scientists at the lab had indeed been actively studying the virus in 2017 and 2018—they hadn't stuck it in a freezer and forgotten about it, after all.

In fact, the WIV had been intensely interested in RaTG13 and everything else that had come from the Mojiang mineshaft. From his giant Sudoku puzzle, Ribera determined that they made at least seven different trips to the mine, over many years, collecting thousands of samples. Ribera's guess is that their technology had not been good enough in 2012 and 2013 to find the virus that had killed the miners, so they kept going back as the techniques improved.

He also made a bold prediction. Cross-referencing snippets of information from multiple sources, Ribera guessed, in a Twitter thread dated August 1, 2020, that a cluster of eight SARS-related viruses mentioned briefly in an obscure section of one WIV paper had actually also come from the Mojiang mine. In other words, they hadn't found one relative of SARS-CoV-2 in that mineshaft; they'd found nine. In November 2020, Shi Zhengli confirmed many of DRASTIC's suspicions about the Mojiang cave in an addendum to her original paper on RaTG13 and in a talk in February 2021.

Of course, the only reason Ribera has had to perform such Sherlockian feats is because the WIV has not shared the data investigators have asked for. The WIV maintained a database on its website with all the data on the viruses in its collection, including the many unpublished ones, but that page on its website has been empty for some time. When asked about the missing database in January 2021, Shi Zhengli explained that it had been taken offline during the pandemic because the WIV web server had become the focus of online attacks. But once again, DRASTIC poked holes in this explanation: the database was taken down on September 12, 2019, shortly before the start of the pandemic, and well before the WIV would have become a target.

Other databases yielded other clues. In the WIV's grant applications and awards, The Seeker found detailed descriptions of the Institute's research plans, and they were damning: Projects were underway to test the infectivity of novel SARS-like viruses they'd discovered in human cells and in lab animals, to see how they might mutate as they crossed species, and to genetically recombine pieces of different viruses—all being done at woefully inadequate biosecurity levels. All the elements for a disaster were on hand.

Of course, that is not proof that a disaster took place. Barring unlikely eyewitness testimony, we may never have that. But all the evidence DRASTIC has produced points in the same direction: The Wuhan Institute of Virology had spent years collecting dangerous coronaviruses, some of which it has never revealed to the world. It was actively testing these viruses to determine their ability to infect people, as well as what mutations might be necessary to enhance that ability—likely with the ultimate goal of producing a vaccine that would protect against all of them. And the ongoing effort to cover this up implies that something may have gone wrong.


Going Mainstream

By early 2021, DRASTIC had produced so much information that no one could keep up, not even its own researchers, so they launched their own website as a repository. The site contains enough science papers, Twitter threads, translations of Chinese documents and links to articles to keep a curious gumshoe busy for months.

Increasingly, those gumshoes are professional journalists and scientists. "Rossana Segreto and Yuri Deigin are my heroes," says the writer Nicholson Baker, who published an influential feature on the lab-leak theory in New York magazine. "They combed through the research and made inspired connections and uncovered crucial pieces of the story that needed to be told. Same goes for Mona Rahalkar and Billy Bostickson. Crowd-sourced scientific muckraking."

The UK journalist Ian Birrell concurs. "There is no doubt their collective efforts...have been crucial in challenging both China and the scientific establishment to ensure the lab leak theory is properly investigated," he wrote in Unherd. "It has been fascinating to see, in the course of my investigations over the past year, how this group of activists—in tandem with a few brave scientists—has forced the lab leak hypothesis from the shadows."

One of those scientists was Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard who recognized the value of the information DRASTIC was producing and began to interpret it for scientists and nonscientists alike in crisp explainers on Twitter that made her a star science communicator. Chan acknowledged the group's accomplishments in a long thread on Twitter. "Without the work done by the DRASTIC team, I don't really know where we would be today with the origins of covid-19," she wrote, adding, "The work of these outsiders...has had a measurable impact on the scientific discourse."

That scientific discourse jumped tracks on January 6, 2021, when the University of Washington virologist Jesse Bloom, one of the country's most respected COVID-19 researchers, became the first major scientific figure to publicly legitimize DRASTIC's contributions. "Yes, I follow the work," he tweeted, sending tremors through the scientific establishment. "I don't agree [with] all of it, but some parts seem important & correct." Bloom singled out Mona Rahalkar's paper on the Mojiang mine, then added that in the early days of the pandemic, "I thought lab escape very unlikely. Based on subsequent work, I now say quite plausible."

Other scientists pressured Bloom to reconsider, but he held his ground, and the wall of silence began to crumble. In May, 17 scientists from Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and other leading institutions, including Chan, joined Bloom in a letter in Science calling for a thorough investigation of the Wuhan lab.

On nearly the same day, The Seeker struck again. Visiting a database hosted by China's Ministry of Science and Technology, he searched for all theses supervised by Shi Zhengli. Boom. Three hits. "I got it on my first try," he says. "Not sure why no one else thought of this before, but I guess no one was looking."

If there had been any remaining doubt about the WIV's pattern of deception, these new theses put it to rest. They indicated that the WIV researchers had never believed a fungus had killed the Mojiang miners, contradicting Shi's remarks in Scientific American and elsewhere. In fact, WIV researchers had been so concerned about a new SARS-like outbreak that they'd tested the blood of neighboring villagers for other cases. And they had known the genetic sequences for the eight other SARS-like viruses from the mine—which could have helped researchers to understand more about SARS-CoV-2 in the early days —long before the pandemic started, and had kept the information to themselves, until DRASTIC called them out.

Within days of the new revelations and the Science letter, more academics, politicians and even the mainstream media began to take the lab-leak seriously, culminating on May 26 when President Biden ordered U.S. intelligence agencies "to redouble their efforts to collect and analyze information that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion." Biden promised that "the United States will also keep working with like-minded partners around the world to press China to participate in a full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation and to provide access to all relevant data and evidence."

So far China has been ice-cool to the suggestion. It may never cooperate with an investigation. But it's now clear that the question of whether a biolab could have caused this pandemic—and could cause the next—is going to be explored in a way that might never have happened if a radical and decentralized group of outsiders hadn't challenged the status quo.

That's a lesson The Seeker won't soon forget. "I no longer see science as an exclusive domain," he wrote to Newsweek. "Everyone can make a difference."

It's a great article and read and well written.

It is wholly inconclusive - other than the fact that China has not been honest or transparent from the beginning. Shocking no-one. There are several important parts they mention - many of which highlight that no-one knows, and the theory is no more than plausible.. not probable, plausible. For myself I've never dismissed the idea it may have come from a lab - or from nature. We don't know. What I do not believe is that virus was engineered and then released on the world as part of a plan to tilt world power/influence.

With regard to China preventing access to some of the data DRASTIC located and researched - I have to believe that all of that data would have been scrapped and is now available somewhere, by both Drastic and other countries etc.

That is absolutely wild.

Besides the facts and timeline, there is a "whole lotta smoke" pointing to a cover-up. So then you just have to ask why... What's to cover-up if there is nothing to hide and all of this just happened naturally?

Oh for sure. Especially as the Chinese are normally SO transparent.

As I said - great read. It makes a case for plausibility.

If covering stuff up is an indication of Guilty and good enough for you to convict, then Trump was guilty twice and should have been impeached twice.

Again with Trump?

Well you yourself said you don't read articles so it can't change your opinion. That's what happens when you never search out what's going on in the world around you. You never have any facts to base your opinions and views on. At that point it's "feelings and what you want to believe" that dictate your world view.

Uh.............I said I don't read articles?

Can you show me that post?

Now, if I have to disable my adblocker, no, I don't read those.

Perhaps you have me confused with someone else?

Maybe it's just that you gave someone crap about posting articles. You know, where much of the information we learn comes from. That did tend to give me the idea that you didn't think using information such as articles to form opinions was useful.

Fascinating read. That DRASTIC group reminds me of Bellingcat.

Vanity Fair published a story today on the same issue that may be even more comprehensive. Great read, too.

Link to article in the tweet....

Well, it had been three or four posts since the last whataboutism...

Counting this post, I've posted 11 times in this thread that goes back well over a year.

I've never once said I don't read articles, and not once did I say anything about others posting articles.

Just as damion, you are all bark and no bite. He can't answer a simple question, and you make stuff up. You say it often enough you think you can make people believe it.

You have nothing to stand on here when you say I don't read links, or when you say I give people crap about posting articles.

Classless.

Not for nothin', but I think it was Ballpeen who said he didn't follow links to articles because they were only used to bolster a person's p.o.v.

Thank you. But I'm sure pit will be back to say he was right. Even though he was wrong. And he sure as hell won't admit he was wrong. He may try, but his excuse will somehow blame someone else.

Just like obsessive compulsive dog blames me for him getting banned. Dude can't even own up to his own posting and .............blames me.

To the degree that there is a cover-up in China, I assume that it is primarily a small group within the WIV and CCP that actually have access to the more sensitive information. They are probably very compartmentalized just like our government. I don't think it is some giant CCP cover-up.

Another reason that it is so hard to get at some of this past data is that it was written in Mandirin. So most of the scientists looking for this data have no idea how to find it and read it. That's why the person that goes by the handle "The Seeker" has been so important. He is clearly fluent in Mandirin. Most likely, he is inside of China, which is why he needs to remain anonymous.

I have a conspiracy theory that I made up.

If you google "China Nuclear War" there are a ton of acticles from both the left and the right that says China is ramping up their military to prepare for nuclear war with us.

So I cant imagine why we would have a war with them since we depend on each other economically.

Well, I find it hard to believe that covid is the only virus they engineered in the lab. What if they made a way more lethal version to set loose in the world. So everyone will die and they can take over the planet.

Here's one I made up,,, Trump removed our scientists from their watchdog role in China... These were our people that were there to watch out for this type of thing...

Oh,, wait, that's not made up... Maybe that's why he's blamed for the virus here in the US

Thats a TDS post right there. Sorry to hear you are obsessed.

It amazes me that 5 months into Biden's term, the left is STILL talking trump while ignoring everything under biden.

It just shows me some people don't care about the country, they care about a party.

Poor, poor arch.

The Republican politicians that conservatives like you voted for are STILL talking about trump.

This is one of the oddest talking points this year. Republicans won’t shut up about Trump. Fox News and the right wing media won’t shut up about trump. Trump won’t ever shut up about himself.

Yet when any of us somehow acknowledge his existence, we’re the problem?

The republicans who THIS year say that trump still controls the entire freaking party catches no heat from Arch, but us commoners discussing it is what triggers him.

This is just further proof that there’s is a huge disconnect between conservative America and the majority of the country.

Scratch that; huge disconnect between conservative America and the majority of the freaking planet. Cause clearly they aren’t living in the same reality the rest of us are.

I can only speak for myself. Trump is not the president, nor will he ever be. To lump me in with lunatics..............well, I'll defend myself.

You voted side by side with the lunatics.

Twice.

What did you expect?

QFT ... but "Truimp's living in your head rent free" is the new dog whistle / trolling card. Gets played over and over.

As for ignoring everything Biden does? No - I guess you should say the Trump supporters past and present are failing in THEIR effort and attention to Biden because there is no discussion about Biden generated from them, as there should be if they were serious about discussing issues. The closest we got was a list of real world issues (calling them Biden's scandals ) facing America with a throw away line to the effect that Biden doesn't even know these things are going on.

So do tell us. What has Biden done to address those issues. Aside from passing the buck to Harris, who hasnt done anything.

Please enlighten us.

trump IS living in your head, rent free. I'm sorry you can't see it.

How's biden doing, or do you not want to discuss that?

You aren't very good at this are you.



Stick to trolling. It's less embarrassing.

Can you form words to answer my question?

So, nothing about biden. Just laughy things?

Ohhhhh - you suddenly after months of posting tripe crap, want to have a R E A L discussion? LMFAO. Suddenly your penchant for trolling, spewing crap and disappearing is going to change? Man you CAN be funny sometimes.

So the answer is No.

What is it you want to talk to about Biden?

See that's the point - that's what you are not doing very well with here.

Your trolling and your quips about Trump are just that - trolling. There is no discussion about why or how anyone is wrong when they have shown you multiple times why and how Trump is entirely relevant to some discussions about the GOP and the opposition party to BIDEN.... you don't debate you just parrot that one line. It's not a winning stance.

As for Biden - if you are unhappy with something, make a case for it. Tell us what he did wrong, what he should have done, who out there is leading and has a better solution that Biden is ignoring ... you know ... YOU bring something to the table and start the ball rolling.

"Your not very good at this" comment is exactly because you have not offered anything about Biden. Open a new topic - find what he needs to be castigated for and write something. Pointing at me or any other poster and saying "whatabout Biden" and "your not talking about the current POTUS" doesn't cut the mustard.

j/c:

REVEALED: State Department staff warned officials NOT to investigate Wuhan lab's gain-of-function research because it would 'open a can of worms' and expose US funding

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...h.html#comments

Sharp as ever Eve. Sharp as Ever.

Hey maybe you can make up some crap and say I am afraid to debate you - or maybe you can accept that you have a history of not engaging in meaningful dialogue, trolling, spewing crap and then disappearing.

Anyone else think it is odd that we all new about, heard about and it was big news that the USA funded work at the lab?

I mean the Vanity Fair report and the MSN report on DRASTIC was enlightening - but this seems like a contrived headline from a UK rag that is less about news than sensationalism. Articles from last May about the financing:

https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/why-would-the-us-have-funded-the-controversial-wuhan-lab/

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsod...-and-coronaviru

It was a simple question. I see you cant answer it.

Make up crap? Like damian did? Or like pit did?

There is no meaningful dialogue with you, pit, demon, obsessive or any others of your ilk.

There is NO discussion at all.

Just like gas prices. And we get some dillweed saying it isn't Biden's fault. I agree, it's not his fault. It's the gov't. fault as refineries have to make different gasses based on the time of year. Also, summer is a higher usage time of year. But it sure as F'ng hell didn't stop the libs on here when Bush was president. They (maybe you?) blamed Bush and his big oil buddies for the rising cost of gas. Dumbest thing ever, other than reading damian's posts.

But, politics. Sides. I do laugh at the liberal posters and their ignorance of what was posted when a republican was president. The same things they bitched about now get poo pooed away.

I can put my hand on my heart and let you know I have never blamed any POTUS for the price of gasoline. Never say never - but I don't foresee a situation where I believe that will change.

The rest? I disagree. But that's no shock.

Interesting that you seem to be continuing to ignore all the valid points about why and how Trump is still the most central and influential person within the GOP. And also not raised any talking points you want to discuss about Biden.

Interesting how you ignore my overall point - because it DID happen.

Trump is a nothing to me at this point, just as he is to most, regardless of what your choice of media says.

For my own purposes, I wish your post had stopped at "thank you." I then could have written back, saying, "no need to thank me for saying what I remember seeing."
And that would have been that.
Cool.

The remainder of your post has content that is based strictly upon what's brewing between the two of you. I have a real problem with that, because you couched your post about Pit as having a conversation with me. As a result, my name is now attached to a critique of Pit that I did not make. I made one factual statement directly to him to set the facts, and now I'm dragged all up I'm in the middle of y'all's stink.

Stink from which I have remained conspicuously absent for months.
By choice.
And discipline.


You used me like a tool to troll other posters. Without my consent.
I won't soon forget this.





*EDIT: I better fkng NOT see any "like" clicks on this post, either- or you can join him in my crosshairs.

TDS is made up. It doesn't exist in any text book.. Only in the small minds of those that can't explain Trump without belittling others.

Wake up

Show me what I made up.. Come on Arch,, Show me..

Well said. The people most obsessed with Trump are 'those guys' in the GOP. Plus, blaming the previous guy is not new. We were hearing all about Obama for dang near Trump's whole term.

For someone as sensitive as yourself, you sure do like poking the bear. This never ends well for you so I have no idea why you wish to continue it. But I am happy to oblige. After how touchy and sensitive you were in the everything else forum, I had decided to handle you with kid gloves so as not to hurt your poor little feelings any longer. You're obviously someone who can't take a joke and gets defensive at the drop of a hat.

I already treat the "everybody deserves a trophy crowd" as delicately as I can. Adding your name to the list wouldn't have been that hard. But since you can't seem to keep my name out of your mouth, good luck moving forward.

Did you hit reply to the wrong person here in this thread, or is this a response to a comment of mine in a different thread?

Yep, I replied to the wrong poster. It was meant for arch.

Exactly, and now maybe a large portion of the media will stop writing it off as a conspiracy theory and start digging for the truth. As you said, where there is smoke, there is usually something there. Now is not the time to call this the end of the story. This is where it starts.

All aspects of the media should have been on this a year ago.

Follow the bouncing ball here. Save your bickering.

At the risk of a whataboutism and being labeled again ---

The "smoke" regarding a handful of circumstantial evidence over the Lab theory is good enough to have y'all ready to convict.

But the mountains of evidence of unprecedented foreign interaction, engagement and interference in the Election - the continued lying by those involved. The getting caught in a lie, coming up with a new lie and getting caught again - the russian agents who were talking to multiple parts of the campaign .... none of THAT smoke allegedly even justified the GOP appointing a Republican to investigate it all ??

Yeah - makes sense I guess.

What about the UFOs??

More smoke that has nothing to do with the covid cover-up... Unless, of course, the aliens planted the virus in that Wuhan lab (I mean, it's possible, let's ask Fauci). Why don't we just discuss that in this thread as well.

OH NO YOUR ON TO US.

Still waiting? Tick Tock

I am not talking about convicting anybody. Hold in contempt possibly.

I am also discussing this topic. I am not trying to compare this conversation to any others.

j/c:

Head Of WHO Origin Investigation Team Admits Communist China Ordered Them What To Write In Report

https://summit.news/2021/08/13/head-of-w...rite-in-report/

No kidding.


Well, the source won't be good enough and the writer clearly has an agenda...at least that is what Wynken, Blynken, and Nod are going to say.

I'd have said it, but you beat me to it!

I'm going to make a comment, and I hope it doesn't get taken the wrong way.

Some cultures tend to be not so great when it comes to accountability. I can understand being understanding and flexible when working internationally, but there are situations where this type of thing just isn't acceptable.

That is infuriating. I really can’t stand China’s government.

So far I see it as some evidence that it could have either been a lab leak or came from animals but nothing that totally connects the dots as to which one.

I doubt we’ll ever be able to fully tell with conviction, but knowing their track record of honesty and accountability, I can’t help but maintain a high level of both skepticism and cynicism.

I understand that. That's why if one stops to think about it, that very same logic applies to our own government. As a matter of fact, that applies to most governments around the globe. I just think we've been programmed to focus on it more in other governments than our own.

I mean starting in our public education system we are taught about the propaganda permeated by other governments while purposefully leaving out that our own government is capable and quit willing to do the same thing.

Yep, we don't know and probably never will. But I would absolutely believe China over Trump and the Trumpians, they are liars to the man. Here's why I don't get all this it came from a Chinese lab hoopla: it's well known they have an infectious disease lab there that messes with these sorts of thing and it also appears that this lab was also tied to Dr. Fauci knowing about it... if this is an internationally used lab for virologists, why would they lie about something nasty escaping?

C'mon bro, wake up. There are lies on top of lies on top of lies. The lies are steeped in absolute fact and well documented in a succinct timeline. Don't make it a Trump thing, has nothing to do with Donnie.

Sad.

I wonder if anybody has asked the Shadow the question on how covid started?

So what? This is a distraction technique used by right wingers. Always want to point out blame instead of finding the solution.

After we get it under control, there will be plenty of time to catch the bad guys.

Having said that, there is reason to believe that someone put this out there on purpose.. but now is not the time to concentrate on that,, now is the time to concentrate on the health of the worlds citizens..

We all know that eventually, the truth will come out.. when it does, that's the time to attack who brought it about if indeed someone did this on purpose.

Not sure about the "distraction technique" other than to slam one side for no real reason... the rest of your post, I can't really understand.

So, you're saying that we don't have the resources as a country of 300M to fight the virus while getting to the bottom of the cause? Those things have to be done separately with one before the other? It's almost as if you're saying don't try to find the truth, it will come out in it's own due time, is that what I'm reading?

We apparently can't adequately fight the virus regardless, so this might be a poor example.

The police don't wait to investigate a murder until after the person has been buried and the family has had time to grieve.

Depending on who they are and where they live, sometimes they don't really want to investigate them at all. Often times it's not an intensive investigation at all. In this case, it would solve the question that has impacted nearly everyone on our planet is some form or fashion.

Actually I don't know of anyone who doesn't want to get to the bottom of it.

There is a lab in Wuhan that studies and manipulates covid viruses.
A worldwide pandemic of a never before seen covid virus breaks out in Wuhan.
If you believe that to be a coincidence,then I have a large section of the Brooklyn Bridge for sale,cheap,give me a call before it's gone.

I don't see any convincing evidence in either direction. How much more of a worldwide pandemic is this than the Spanish Flu of the early 20th century?

You need to get out of your basement and go outside for awhile.
You are having trouble grasping the obvious.

I do not stay in the basement. I also do not try to make assumptions when the evidence isn't clear.

Ten thousand comedians out of work and you're here trying to be funny. You have failed in your attempt.

It was completely accurate, not meant to be funny.

Get back to the basement now.

I'm sure your basement is too stocked with end of days provisions for you to allow anyone else in. It must get lonely for you.

I know you are but what am I?

Grab an MRE and relax.

Horrible comp... But hey if you wanna do it at the same time,, Great,, just don't be dumb enough to use one to excuse the other. Kinda like this: Trump handled things poorly,,, But but, the Chinese did it!

One shouldn't distract from the other.. But that's the way Trumpians want it to go.

I don’t want to make this a Trump vs Chinese government thing. Both are incredibly and shamelessly self-interested. I actually err on the side of the Chinese being at fault. They are secretive and manipulative in ways that continually astound me. That being said, I don’t want that bias to be my conclusion as I want to see how the facts lay out.

Really? I thought we were leaning pretty heavily towards poor containment practices allowing the 'rona to escape from that lab, and China covering it up.

I guess that depends on who you consider "we" to be. I am leaning more in that direction with the more evidence I see unfolding. But leaning in one direction or the other isn't a clear cut conclusion.

It's a perfect analogy. World investigative agency's aren't looking in to the science or political handlings of the crisis.

They need to be laser focused in China. The President is finding out that China is eating our lunch...Cone on, man! LOL

Do you really think a mostly closed society like China is ever going to let the "fully story" out. Get real. AND, how many conspiracy theories are there so far from the "free world", US among that group....we'll NEVER have the "real story". Peace.

Robert Redfield recently wrote this for the WSJ. If I was to guess, I would say our intelligence community knows a few things that the rest of us don't right now.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wuhan-virol...rus-11629037765

The World Needs to Know What Happened at the Wuhan Lab
Was the coronavirus manipulated to infect humans? If so, that will inform our response.
By Robert Redfield and Marc Siegel
Aug. 15, 2021 3:34 pm ET

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wasn’t allowed to visit the city of Wuhan, China, or the Wuhan Institute of Virology in early 2020. We’ve been trying to find out why ever since. Had we encountered transparency rather than stonewalling, it wouldn’t have been necessary to put together the circumstantial pieces of the puzzle on our own.

On Sept. 12, 2019, coronavirus bat sequences were deleted from the institute’s database. Why? It changed the security protocols for the lab. Why? It put out requests for more than $600 million for a new ventilation system. What prompted this new need?

In January 2020 two hypotheses emerged about the origin of the novel coronavirus: that it began in a bat, then infected another animal before spreading to humans in a Wuhan “wet market,” where wild animals are sold for meat; or that it emerged from the Wuhan laboratory. The wet-market story was pushed by the Chinese CDC and the World Health Organization. Public-health leaders argued that Covid-19 was like SARS and MERS, earlier coronaviruses that emerged from bats and spread through an intermediate animal.

But neither of those viruses has ever evolved to the point where it can transmit efficiently from one human to the next. There have been fewer than 10,000 cases of each virus world-wide since SARS was discovered in 2003 and MERS in 2012. What virus comes out of a bat cave and infects humans by the millions? It’s not biologically plausible. If instead it evolved slowly over many years in nature, how come no one knew of it?

One of the lab theories hypothesizes that SARS-CoV-2 was manipulated or “taught” to infect humans. Imagine several viruses being run through humanized mice (grafted with human tissue and immune cells) to test their ability to infect human tissue. Notably, SARS-CoV-2 includes a kind of cleavage site that allows its spike protein to change its orientation and dock more easily with a human cell.

This hypothesis bears investigation, especially since no new information has emerged in the past 18 months to support the natural-origin theory. Meantime, a growing body of circumstantial evidence supports the lab-leak theory, including information reported by the U.S. State Department that employees of the Wuhan lab were becoming sick with Covid-like symptoms in the fall of 2019.

A virus with a head start in becoming acclimated to humans likely has an easier time evolving to increase transmission. Hence the variants, which seem more effective than anything nature usually delivers on its own. In the months ahead we may have another variant that is even more contagious than Delta, that makes people sicker and—in the worst-case scenario—that eludes vaccines.

The story of SARS-Cov-2 started long before January 2020. We believe the virus was most likely uncontained in a laboratory where it was being worked on, and that it escaped unintentionally. A Harvard study of satellite images revealed a shutdown of traffic around the Wuhan lab in the late summer and early fall of 2019. Weeks later, in late September, the hospital parking lots were filling up.

There were hallmarks of scientific arrogance and failures in the containment system. China’s CDC initially appeared to be out of the loop but later became a key messenger, selling the natural-origin and wet-market theory. Another apparent misdirection was several key scientists’ insistence on a narrow definition of “gain of function” research to include remodeling, overt bioengineering, shaping or constructing a virus. As far as we’re concerned, if a virus is taught to or evolves in a lab to infect human tissue more efficiently, that’s gain of function.

Beyond the responsibility to tell the truth, there is the global need to know what we are dealing with because it affects how we approach the problem. Physicians on the front lines were ambushed from the beginning as the novel pathogen was spreading through communities asymptomatically and causing an unexpected inflammatory response in blood vessels and major organs. Now variants are emerging rapidly that continue to change the game. All this is in keeping with a virus that more likely jumped from a bat to a lab, not to a rat or a rabbit.

We need a comprehensive bipartisan investigation into the origin of Covid-19. Until then, we call for a world-wide moratorium on gain-of-function research while authorities develop a clear and careful policy to help prevent the next pandemic.

Dr. Redfield, a virologist, served as CDC director, 2018-21. Dr. Siegel is a clinical professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Health, a Fox News medical correspondent, and author of “COVID: The Politics of Fear and the Power of Science.”

j/c:

NIH ADMITS to funding gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at China's Wuhan lab despite Dr. Fauci repeatedly insisting to Congress that it did not happen

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...naviruses-Chinas-Wuhan-lab.html#comments

That liar needs to be fired.

That article will probably be the last you read of it.

among scientists working with the virus,, they have known this for many months.

The majority of humans would love to be vaccinated, Americans apparently know more.