uncadonego on 11/1/2021 at 23:36
Thanks! :D
Gryzemuis on 12/1/2021 at 00:49
No idea what I was saying, or to whom. I wasn't drunk, I swear.
Pyrian on 12/1/2021 at 02:15
I am hesitant to make conclusions based on single (or even a handful of) findings - especially given that they're apparently mass-testing samples. False positives are a thing.
faetal on 12/1/2021 at 10:06
I'm always cautious of making grand conclusions on the basis of single articles rather than a collective body of work.
Single papers presented as conclusive generally comes from conclusion shopping from loaded search terms.
AS far as I know, there is (
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03402-1) a team of scientists funded by the WHO which will be looking into this.
I think the (
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9) current front runner theory is that the virus originated in bats (known coronavirus reservoirs) and maybe passed to humans via something like pangolins, expedited by rural market practices.
I will be surprised if this changes
much, since it was expected way back in (
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2176051/) 2007 that coronaviruses could be a time bomb due to the unchecked incubation in bat populations giving it all the opportunity needed to keep thriving and mutating.
One very important thing to note from the Nature paper:
Quote:
Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.
I think we can be relatively confident in this due to the absence of any manipulation markers in the viral genome. Human gene engineering is not sophisticated enough to insert / modify genes without leaving a trace.
Don't we already have a coronavirus thread?
SubJeff on 12/1/2021 at 15:14
I'll tell you what - I don't see much chat about the rioters/protestors and Covid spread. There must have been.
Also faetal, I'd already read/heard that several groups couldn't find any markers of human manipulation of the Covid virus. But at least one said the same as you - that we don't have the tech - but with the caveat that if it WERE manipulated it would be by someone waaaay ahead of the game :p
Briareos H on 12/1/2021 at 15:22
@SubJeff I don't know about the rioters but two officials at the Capitol have tested positive (
https://jayapal.house.gov/2021/01/11/covid-test/) after being locked for hours with Republicans who refused to wear masks.
Cipheron on 14/1/2021 at 05:34
Quote Posted by SubJeff
I'll tell you what - I don't see much chat about the rioters/protestors and Covid spread. There must have been.
Also faetal, I'd already read/heard that several groups couldn't find any markers of human manipulation of the Covid virus. But at least one said the same as you - that we don't have the tech - but with the caveat that if it WERE manipulated it would be by someone waaaay ahead of the game :p
Too far ahead of the game. Also, one key bit of logic is a problem. This stuff is almost identical to naturally occurring bat viruses:
(
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0092_article)
Quote:
SARS-CoV-2 showed high genome sequence identities (87.6%-87.8%) to SARSr-Rp-BatCoV-ZXC21/ZC45, detected in Rhinolophus pusillus bats from Zhoushan, China, during 2015 (6). A closer-related strain, SARSr-Ra-BatCoV-RaTG13 (96.1% genome identity with SARS-CoV-2), was recently reported in Rhinolophus affinis bats captured in Pu'er, China, during 2013
Ok, so let's review the logic. They did some engineering on a bat virus, got it to infect humans *without* also having humans test subjects, all to make a super-virus, but one that doesn't show any actual signs of anyone tampering with it. Making the actual virus is next-level, being able to know *what to make* is several levels above that. We can't even consistently predict what simple molecules will do to people, let alone how to engineer a super-virus from scratch in a lab.
However, if the above is true, then why on Earth would they have started with a bat virus when they could have just used human viruses as the basis and pulled the same shit? It would have been far easier. Secret bioweapon labs are full of stuff that's actually toxic to humans and they want to work out how to weaponize that stuff. Nobody is interested in diseases that *don't* infect humans and want to work out how to make them do that. Anyone sensible trying to make super-coronavirus wouldn't start with a *bat* virus, they'd start with a human coronavirus then attach some kind of payload to that.