COVID-19 (Coronavirus) discussion

Rroff said:
COVID can also infect 50+ non-human species, most of which a similar trend towards an Omicron like variant has been observed separate to the changes in human variants. Though also in white-tailed deer they've sustained one of the early variants, which has been virtually extinct since late 2020 in humans - which is one of the nastier variants in humans so would not want to see that jump back if resistance to other variants allowed it to reacquire dominance.

That said we've seen COVID seem to pause and then suddenly appear past roadblocks albeit saying it like that tends to imply a sentience which isn't there. So I wouldn't count on it running itself into a dead end.



More people at work than not now are just writing off, what is probably COVID, as a cold and not testing. Annoys me a bit because at least 2 people have brought what is almost certainly COVID into the workplace though fortunately hasn't spread much - only 2-3 people seem to have caught whatever it is from them.
Click to expand...
our work still insist on testing twice a week.
I don't get it. For some reason some people not doing it, despite work handing out free tests AND offering full pay if off with covid and don't even take it out of our 7 self cert days a year if you provide image of work issued positive covid test .
 
Last edited:
So the thing that made the most obvious sense, that the virus with signs of gain-of-function research that was discovered next to a lab that carries out gain-of-function research, did infact come from said lab, is true, who'd have thunk it eh?

The lab was part funded by the US. With funding re-established by Fauci after being cut under Obama I believe.

It's amazing that there isn't more drive to get the full truth, millions dead, economies severely damaged, ongoing health issues for millions, knock-on effects on diagnosis etc etc.
 
Minusorange said:

wow
Click to expand...
godinman said:
So the thing that made the most obvious sense, that the virus with signs of gain-of-function research that was discovered next to a lab that carries out gain-of-function research, did infact come from said lab, is true, who'd have thunk it eh?

The lab was part funded by the US. With funding re-established by Fauci after being cut under Obama I believe.

It's amazing that there isn't more drive to get the full truth, millions dead, economies severely damaged, ongoing health issues for millions, knock-on effects on diagnosis etc etc.
Click to expand...

Both of you need to read the small print. The FBI's conclusion is not yet confirmed, and the Energy Department's conclusion (which agrees with the FBI) is 'low confidence.' Four other intelligence agencies still agree that the virus originated in the wild, and two more are undecided.

Whatever the case, these facts remain:

* the virus is not man-made
* the virus has no signs of gain of function
* if it did escape from a lab, this was not intentional
* the lab did not receive funding from the US for gain of function research
* it did receive some funding from the US for other research, but this was approved by a committee, not simply rubber-stamped by Fauci (he has no power to make unilateral funding decisions)
* some of the funding came from the National Institutes of Health, while other funding came from EcoHealth Alliance, a private company
 
Minusorange said:

wow
Click to expand...
When the theory first came out, it was interesting to watch how hard some people shut down the very notion that this could have come from a lab, and dimissing it as a conspiracy theory. Well investigations start from theories/hunches. So we will see where it goes from here.

What is very interesting is that not only did the FBI publicly announce this investigation but they are already publicly stating what they believe is the most likely outcome of this investigation. Either they have some information that is incomplete but gives them a strong level of confidence, or the FBI has truly lost the plot. I don't see a middle ground here.

Another point of note is the line

... US government and close foreign partners...
Click to expand...

I wonder how many other agencies are involved and if they will come out in solidarity with the FBI or wait till they have a higher level of confidence in their conclusion.


As for whether or not the US actually funded gain of function research. It is an argument of semantics from what I've seen. One side says the research doesn't strictly match the definition of gain of function research, therefore it is not gain of function research and the other side saying it matches 5 out 8 points so close enough. Its merely a distraction to look for a nice easy buzzword to call it.

I'll just leave these links here,
www.bbc.co.uk

Coronavirus: Was US money used to fund risky research in China?

What's the row about virus research in China between a prominent Republican and Dr Anthony Fauci?
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
 
Chuk_Chuk said:
When the theory first came out, it was interesting to watch how hard some people shut down the very notion that this could have come from a lab
Click to expand...

Was interesting how people bought into the Chinese [probably] sponsored scientific articles arguing as to how this couldn't be a lab leak or man made or manipulated virus because of reasons where they ring fenced the possibilities. I got a lot of **** for trying to point it out originally...

Personally at this point I won't take a firm stance as to the origins - but there are big gaping holes in even the closest possible explanations which need resolving before we can accept any explanation - there are several aspects which make no sense from an intentional design perspective but that doesn't rule out incompetence, accidents or someone with some kind of understanding or insight previously unknown, etc. etc. but likewise there are significant issues with natural explanations with even high 90% matches having problems like the differences would take a minimum of around 35 years to happen naturally but without any intermediate signs which we would normally be able to trace - though not impossible they've been missed very unlikely, etc. etc.

EDIT: One thing I will say though, though at this point I have no way to prove it, some relevant documents published online linking an Italian research institute to this pandemic mysteriously disappeared without trace in the early days of the pandemic - more likely they were covering their own backs to prevent a witch hunt, etc. but still - I also have no idea how much of their work was theoretical vs practical though they do have a biosafety containment level 3 facility and access to SARS-CoV (Urbani) samples and had links to the facility in Wuhan.
 
Last edited:
I firmly believe a lot of the argument against it being a lab leak in China comes from politically minded globalists who are loathe to see their dreams of international utopia shattered by large swathes of the world setting themselves against China over this. The almost hysterical denial of the Wuhan lab being the source seems to have an undeniable corollary with those who have an anti nationalistic, globalist dream to support.
 
I wouldn't like to say either way where it came from for sure.
the fact that the lab was working on Corona viruses (with a view to vaccine making.... I don't believe deliberate release or bioweapon claims for one second) means you have to admit it looks suspicious..... Add to that given the sequencing which has been done one would have thought a fairly confident map of its evolution and the jump point from which animal made it into human would have been found by now. that it hasn't again does point to possible tinkering imo.

OTOH past coronavirus outbreaks have been due to wet markets and everyone knows it was only a matter of time before another event happened... and there was also a massive wet market in Wuhan which iirc early infected people had visited.

so could be either. we may never know for sure.. the truth is. whilst it is human nature to want to find someone to blame it doesn't really make much difference now. it's not like assigning the blame helps get over it.
IF it came from a lab I expect they will know and hopefully they have tightened up their SOPs to make sure it does not occur again.
 
It's all very hazy memory now ~3 years on, but I vaguely recall Italy being way ahead on the Covid curve compared to other western countries, in the early weeks of the pandemic.

My god, where did that 3 years go?!
 
Last edited:
bigmike20vt said:
it's not like assigning the blame helps get over it.
Click to expand...
I agree which is why I didn't care in the early days of the pandemic because the information wasn't pertinent to solving the immediate crisis.

However it does help with preventing future pandemics or finding the best ways to respond.

If this is from a lab then tighter controls and measure can be brought in.

But if it is from the wild, then it is humbling and scary to know that even with all our technology, nature can still grind the entire global economy to a halt and bring us to our knees. For all we know nature could be cooking something even more nasty for us.
 
bigmike20vt said:
Add to that given the sequencing which has been done one would have thought a fairly confident map of its evolution and the jump point from which animal made it into human would have been found by now. that it hasn't again does point to possible tinkering imo.
Click to expand...

Not so much, no.

The fact is that we have very poor sampling of viruses in the probably source populations, and even if we had good sampling it'd be very difficult to precisely determine the origin. None-the-less the data we do have is entirely consistent with a natural origin, there is nothing about SARS-CoV-2 that needs to be explained by the introduction of laboratory intervention.
 
UTmaniac said:
It's all very hazy memory now ~3 years on, but I vaguely recall Italy being way ahead on the Covid curve compared to other western countries, in the early weeks of the pandemic.

My god, where did that 3 years go?!
Click to expand...
Ahead of the curve in what way?
What I remember of Italy was them having a horrendous death tally early on and the speculation was down to their population being significantly older than other countries.
 
sidimmu said:
Ahead of the curve in what way?
What I remember of Italy was them having a horrendous death tally early on and the speculation was down to their population being significantly older than other countries.
Click to expand...

I did wonder if I had phrased that post decently... From memory, Italy endured mass infection; hospitals at breaking point; deaths etc. from Covid earlier than the rest of Europe and western countries.

They were 3+ weeks ahead of UK while Boris dithered and delayed, before clearing hospital beds of elderly patients (without testing them iirc)... Who then infected their care homes, causing awful infection and death numbers among some of the most vulnerable UK citizens. :(
 
Last edited:
UTmaniac said:
I did wonder if I had phrased that post decently... From memory, Italy endured mass infection; hospitals at breaking point; deaths etc. from Covid earlier than the rest of Europe and western countries.

They were 3+ weeks ahead of UK while Boris dithered and delayed, before clearing hospital beds of elderly patients (without testing them iirc)... Who then infected their care homes, causing awful infection and death numbers among some of the most vulnerable UK citizens. :(
Click to expand...
Ah right, yeah we're both on the same page.
I guess I hear "ahead of the curve" and think people are talking positively for some reason :D
 
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was a lab leak. I don't trust China having high level biolabs as their history of safety screwups is about as long as the average till receipt full of 500 coupons you get. They just cannot be trusted with these things. Didn't they also let SARS escape umpteen times, and we were just lucky that SARS can't spread worth a damn?
 
Last edited:
sidimmu said:
Ahead of the curve in what way?
What I remember of Italy was them having a horrendous death tally early on and the speculation was down to their population being significantly older than other countries.
Click to expand...

Italy have a generally older population than much of europe and also inter-generational homes.

It was also not well understood at the start just how fast covid spread and how deadly it was, particularly to the over 70s.

Spain had the same problem and suffered equally badly early on.

They are now both middle of the pack for covid mortality in Europe.

By contrast, central and Eastern Europe largely dodged high deaths early on, but got battered in later waves.
 
UTmaniac said:
I did wonder if I had phrased that post decently... From memory, Italy endured mass infection; hospitals at breaking point; deaths etc. from Covid earlier than the rest of Europe and western countries.

They were 3+ weeks ahead of UK while Boris dithered and delayed, before clearing hospital beds of elderly patients (without testing them iirc)... Who then infected their care homes, causing awful infection and death numbers among some of the most vulnerable UK citizens. :(
Click to expand...
Yup.

Italy was hit very hard very early, and I remember watching with horror what was going on in the news.
Meanwhile rather than take steps to try and prevent the spread, or prepare for it our government just sat on it's hands and did it's best to avoid doing anything, or IIRC banning people coming in from China, but allowing people to come in via third party countries and allowing people to continue to go to and from the hotspots in Italy with no warnings/testing/suggestions they should isolate.
It was I would have said, almost criminally negligent that they basically did nothing officially in that period to prepare for the inevitable.


Part of the reason I remember it so well is that in our house we were making plans for a potential lockdown/reducing the risk to my father, and having to tell my sister that we were going to stop having people in the house and my sister not understanding why (IIRC we told her about week before my Birthday) as she'd not got a clue about what was going on, and still didn't at the end of that March when the official lockdown came in.
 
Werewolf said:
Yup.

Italy was hit very hard very early, and I remember watching with horror what was going on in the news.
Meanwhile rather than take steps to try and prevent the spread, or prepare for it our government just sat on it's hands and did it's best to avoid doing anything, or IIRC banning people coming in from China, but allowing people to come in via third party countries and allowing people to continue to go to and from the hotspots in Italy with no warnings/testing/suggestions they should isolate.
It was I would have said, almost criminally negligent that they basically did nothing officially in that period to prepare for the inevitable.
...
Click to expand...

At the end of February, the risk of transmission from overseas travel was clear and understood. There were some exciting projections doing the rounds, even then.

That borders remained open as long as they did was idiotic, at best.

I still fume when I think of that ****bag on the news moaning he was quarantined on his return from skiing.
 
Last edited:
the thing which blew my mind was, much of europe was in lockdown.......... but we decided to have a champions league match at anfield!.

yes it was outdoors i guess, but still massively close proximity and there was still presumably large parts that were inside whilst you got to your seat (to be fair only been to anfield once and it was over 25 years ago so am guessing, but certainly old trafford has indoor parts to get to your seat)

NOTE
whilst i love to blame the scousers for a lot ;) just to be clear i am not blaming liverpool FC for this... any decision to postpone would have to have come from above.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom