faetal on 22/9/2021 at 19:02
Seems no one is capable of understanding the difference between live viruses and pseudoviruses.
Anyone want to explain specifically what the supposed risk was here?
The only one I can see if the researchers exposing themselves to bat coronaviruses.
Protein containing nanoparticles can not modify bat coronaviruses to infect humans
Well, potentially the occasional virion, if it picked up a chimeric spike protein, could by some fluke enter a human cell, but it would reproduce to create bat coronavirus.
Likewise, the phrase:
Quote:
“Peter Daszak and the EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) proposed injecting deadly chimeric bat coronaviruses collected by the Wuhan Institute of Virology into humanised and ‘batified' mice, and much, much more.”
Appears to be referring to the document nbore posted, obtained via the FOI request, which only refer to using
pseudovirus, which is not capable of infecting or reproducing.
And this is ignoring all of the context - of course bat coronaviruses warrant study for potential to infect humans - this was seen as a pressing concern 14 years ago after SARS: (
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2176051/)
I guess the Telegraph is becoming more and more like a tabloid over time...
Starker on 22/9/2021 at 19:53
Yeah, I would have expected something like this from the New York Post or Daily Mail.
faetal on 22/9/2021 at 21:56
It's galling how people seem to think that repeating the phrase "gain of function" enough times makes them seem like they understand how gene engineering and viruses work.
Cipheron on 23/9/2021 at 01:53
Those research proposals we had the link for before were about experiments with modified Sars-1 type viruses. But Covid-19 isn't closely related to those.
So that's a big gap in the claims, since you'd basically have to have had an experimental strain that's 99.9% current Covid to do the 'gain of function' thing to. But nobody's been able to find another virus in any research samples that's anywhere near that close.
Also: consider this, some people say it's too much of a coincidence that there's a virology lab near the wet market. But think of it this way, coincidences work both ways. If there really WAS an outbreak at the virology lab, AND it was already fully human-transmissable at this point then it wouldn't have needed to spread **to the wet market** rather than anywhere else. And if it went the 25 km straight from the lab to the wet market, then that implies that some high-level biosafety lab employees were shopping at a wholesale live animal market that was noted for being very unsanitary. Which seems pretty unlikely, given that those lab employees are probably very aware of contamination both into and out of the lab.
Anyway, as for "coincidence", people forget it's easy to see a pattern if you're looking for one and don't really care what you find: basically you find two things, find a common feature, then retro-actively claim that's what you were looking for. And Wuhan is a very large city: it has a metro area of 19 million people, which puts it at New York sized. It's just not a "coincidence" to find at least one lab doing high-level medical research in a city of that size. And it's not like the lab *only* researches coronaviruses, so they're basically discounting that the lab researches diseases of all types, and the regional coronaviruses are just one of them, for the very reason that they're a regional threat.
Also, one of the claims in recent articles is asking why the Chinese government didn't announce it straight away. And the fact that they tried to keep it quiet during the initial outbreak / control measures must prove they have something to hide. Unfortunately for that line of proof: that's exactly what the Chinese government did in 2002. It took them more than 3 months after the first patient died in the 2002 SARS outbreak to even inform the WHO.
Pyrian on 23/9/2021 at 02:55
It is a sad fact that governments covering up epidemics seems to be more the norm than the exception. ("Spanish Flu" is called "Spanish Flu" because Spain was the country that admitted the problem, not because they originated it.)
Cipheron on 23/9/2021 at 03:25
Quote Posted by Pyrian
It is a sad fact that governments covering up epidemics seems to be more the norm than the exception. ("Spanish Flu" is called "Spanish Flu" because Spain was the country that
admitted the problem, not because they originated it.)
I mentioned that because recently I saw a "proof" in one of the articles and it was saying the Chinese were slow to report Covid-19 when they've been so quick in the past, but you can check and they were always slow to announce and got criticized for it. So it's not actually evidence for or against, and that's just people retroactively changing history because they want to push a narrative. That's why you always go back and read up on anything people claim yourself.
However I'm pretty sure if Trump had his way the USA would have pretended there's no virus too. He certainly wanted that, basically if you don't test people then the "numbers" would be better, according to him.
What really sickens me however is the douchebags who claim Dr Fauci made the virus so he could become famous or something.
faetal on 23/9/2021 at 07:48
Quote Posted by Cipheron
Those research proposals we had the link for before were about experiments with modified Sars-1 type viruses.
Were they live viruses? Can you tell me which page that info is on?
Seems nuts that any lab anywhere would modify a live virus to be more infective to humans.
I only saw mention of pseudovirus.
Cipheron on 23/9/2021 at 09:52
Quote Posted by faetal
Were they live viruses? Can you tell me which page that info is on?
Seems nuts that any lab anywhere would modify a live virus to be more infective to humans.
I only saw mention of pseudovirus.
I didn't make any claims about modifying viruses to be more infective to humans, my point was that the grants were related to SARS specifically. I said this because of nbohr's link
(
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/not-od-15-011.html)
Quote:
NIH will continue to accept new applications for research projects involving gain-of-function studies, including those that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the resulting virus has enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility (via the respiratory route) in mammals
Basically my point it's that it's a stretch to think this is a smoking gun. There's a big difference between research related to known viruses vs thinking they made modifications to some random shit someone found in a cave somewhere. No amount of jiggery is going to turn SARS into Covid-19.
And anyway, this just says that NIH is willing to *look* at the research applications. There's one issue however, it's the fact that THIS is the document that's being offered as proof, instead of the actual research applications themselves. That is actually evidence in favor of the idea that there were in fact no relevant research proposals. Otherwise people would have linked those documents, and not this one.
lowenz on 23/9/2021 at 09:53
Quote:
Also, one of the claims in recent articles is asking why the Chinese government didn't announce it straight away. And the fact that they tried to keep it quiet during the initial outbreak / control measures must prove they have something to hide. Unfortunately for that line of proof: that's exactly what the Chinese government did in 2002. It took them more than 3 months after the first patient died in the 2002 SARS outbreak to even inform the WHO.
That's the problem of EVERY government as an institution.
Quote:
It is a sad fact that governments covering up epidemics seems to be more the norm than the exception. ("Spanish Flu" is called "Spanish Flu" because Spain was the country that admitted the problem, not because they originated it.)
It's literally.....
physiological. That's how the "state" works.