On the Origins of Covid

[MrWookie]

The three laboratories in Wuhan working with either CoVs diagnostics and/or CoVs isolation and vaccine development all had high quality biosafety level (BSL3 or 4) facilities that were well-managed, with a staff health monitoring programme with no reporting of COVID-19 compatible respiratory illness during the weeks/months prior to December 2019, and no serological evidence of infection in workers through SARS-CoV-2-specific serology-screening

[anon10396289]

Essentially what you’re saying here is the Chinese government told the visiting WHO people that. Maybe some people find that compelling, who knows.

[MrWookie]

Oh, right, we should prioritize your evidence-free appeal to your own incredulity over a documented report prepared by relevant experts.

[anon10396289]

They weren’t allowed to examine any records or interview any lab workers. They’re literally just taking China’s word on all that:

What happened in Wuhan? Why questions still linger on the origin of the...

But again, if you agree that there needs to be an independent investigation into the origins of Covid, what the hell are we even arguing about?

[MrWookie]

@anon10396289

But again, if you agree that there needs to be an independent investigation into the origins of Covid, what the hell are we even arguing about?

Man, I have no idea!

@anon10396289

Pretty sure research into the mystery animal is what caused the virus to be passed to humans in the first place.

[anon10396289]

No, I mean you’re posting that snippet of the WHO report as if it is trustworthy and compelling. It would be if an independent investigation was actually able to do its own work and determine that was true. That isn’t what happened though.

[MrWookie]

OK, what evidence do you have either that the Chinese government is lying about this, or that it came from a lab breach specifically?

[anon10396289]

There isn’t any direct evidence of either of those things as far as I know.

[zikzak]

@j8i3h289dn3x7

Covid was a once a century black swan event. It had all the perfect attributes to become what it did. Really fucking contagious before symptoms start, and not so fucking deadly that it burns itself out too quickly. It’s right in the sweet spot for deadly global pandemic. Since Covid has drawn more attention to disease in general, there have been tons of stories like this about the next scary disease that’s about to come. The odds of any one of them becoming a global pandemic like Covid or worse are infinitesimally small. Like, yeah, we could get a once in a century plague two years in a row, and yeah, globalization has increased the chances of these types of events, but it’s still not particularly likely.

Almost every single word in this post is wrong. There have been 4 or 5 global pandemics just in the past 20 years. Something like what we’re experiencing now was widely predicted. More are expected. It is believed some of them will be much worse.

[j8i3h289dn3x7]

@zikzak

Almost every single word in this post is wrong. There have been 4 or 5 global pandemics just in the past 20 years. Something like what we’re experiencing now was widely predicted. More are expected. It is believed some of them will be much worse.

I am well aware that we have had lots of pandemics. But a pandemic that kills a percentage of the global population like COVId? The closest thing was Spanish flu 100 years ago.

[zikzak]

AIDS has killed more than 10 times as many people as Covid. It is the 4th deadliest plague in recorded human history.

[MrWookie]

Alright, so you’re 170 posts deep into this thread expecting to convince us that something for which you have no evidence is not merely a possibility or not conclusively ruled out but is in fact the most likely scenario, despite what more connected experts say?

[anon10396289]

I’ve said from the very beginning that there isn’t any direct evidence of a lab leak. And if you’re content to take the government of China’s word that there weren’t any cases of covid among the Wuhan lab staff, then no, I don’t expect to convince you of anything.

[MrWookie]

No, I already quoted for you what you said at the very beginning.

[anon10396289]

I don’t understand what you mean.

[Lawnmower_Man]

It’s also the deadliest plague in internet forum history. Just an all around terrible disease.

[CaffeineNeeded]

I don’t agree with this at first blush. There’s a big difference between SARS/MERS and COVID, which falls right into a sweet spot to spread everywhere. Last thing remotely like this was h1n1 in 2009, which was still orders of magnitude less. Last thing like this was in 1918, and people died then because we didn’t have oxygen available and WW1 stole a lot of resouces.

I think it’s fair to argue this is a black swan event.

[zikzak]

Do y’all just not know what the phrase “black swan event” means?

[MrWookie]

Your opening salvo was that the most probable cause was a lab leak, and that you had scientists (Redfeld, who is not credible, and some lady I’ve never heard of with a twitter thread) on your side to back you up. This open concession that you actually don’t have any evidence on your side is a fairly recent development, not something that happened “at the very beginning.”

Look, I don’t think there is a single person ITT who would hold the WHO report as gospel in the face of actual evidence of a lab leak. We’re just aghast at someone so cocksure of it based on nothing in his favor and at least some facially credible evidence the other way.

[CaffeineNeeded]

I’m not sure what you’re basing this on, but at a minimum you’re basing effects over decades vs one year of covid.