The Coronavirus Thread

[Tero]

Just the facts, Cunt, just the facts:
Based on the retrospective analysis, starting from December 2019, the number of COVID-19 cases in Hubei (Wuhan) gradually increased, reaching 60 by 20 December and at least 266 by 31 December.

[Cunt]

So you are trying to say it came from a bat not native to the region, but from an area very close to a biolab that works with bat virus, and is resistant to transparency?

OK...

[JimC]

A careful analysis of the genetic material of the virus shows no evidence of the characteristic features of deliberate human alteration.

[Cunt]

A careful analysis of the genetic material of the virus shows no evidence of the characteristic features of deliberate human alteration.

A prominent biologist disagrees strongly with you. I will entertain both possibilities, but will also bear in mind who tries to represent the opinions of others fairly, and who calls them names.

[JimC]

A careful analysis of the genetic material of the virus shows no evidence of the characteristic features of deliberate human alteration.

A prominent biologist disagrees strongly with you. I will entertain both possibilities, but will also bear in mind who tries to represent the opinions of others fairly, and who calls them names.

It's not me that your "prominent biologist" is disagreeing with, but the informed opinion of real virologists. I can fairly be called a biologist, who studied frogs, but when I want the facts on an issue beyond frogs, I look for the consensus opinion of the true experts in the field.

[Cunt]

You are correct, he is more of a teacher/biologist/field researcher than lab virologist.

It's strange to me that you would resist listening in to a guy like that. I'm not going to try to make you, or try to change your mind. He might, as if you listened to him, you would likely understand the difference much better than me trying to ham-fistedly explain...

[JimC]

What part of "the informed opinion of real virologists" don't you understand?

[Cunt]

Why would you think I don't understand?

Oh, right, you won't listen to Weinstein, and must be making assumptions about what he said.

No problem, follow the science, JimC.

[pErvinalia]

Why would you think I don't understand?

Because you keep peddling alternative "science".

[JimC]

...purveyed by pseudo-scientists on the fringes of the internet...

[Cunt]

Why would you think I don't understand?

Because you keep peddling alternative "science".

Nope. I'm telling you what Weinstein said.

I'm not 'peddling' anything here, any more than you are. If either of us were peddling something, I would advise JimC to be overcautious about buying it, since we are, you and I, poor virologists.

Instead of embarrassing yourself by making claims about him that show only your ignorance, you might try checking him out. See if he really is spouting bullshit, or if that is just the way you treat any news you hear of from me.

[JimC]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/bill-mahe ... conspiracy

Back in April, Bill Maher went on a hysterical rant against China over the novel coronavirus. The Real Time host insisted that COVID-19 be called “the Chinese virus” because it originated in China, citing the Spanish flu as precedent (which did not come from Spain, unbeknownst to Maher); railed against the “PC Police” for refusing to let him and others call it “the Chinese virus,” even though hate crimes against Asian-Americans had risen to 100 cases a day at the time; and compared China’s wet markets, where he said the virus originated, to nuclear bombs.

Well, on tonight’s edition of his HBO show, Maher welcomed a pair of podcast hosts, the husband-and-wife duo of Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, to discuss the origins of COVID-19. Weinstein and Heying, for the uninitiated, are members of the so-called “intellectual dark web” who in 2017 both resigned from their posts as biology professors at Evergreen State College in protest of a minority-appreciation day, and have since whined about campus speech on a number of libertarian-leaning podcasts.

Maher proceeded to forward the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was man-made and somehow escaped from a lab in Wuhan.

“We’ve heard a lot recently about the fact that maybe the virus did start in a lab,” offered Maher. “Let’s talk about that—the fact that there is this lab, I think it’s the only one in the world quite like it, in Wuhan, where it started. It would almost be a conspiracy theory to think it didn’t start in a lab, right? And that theory was demonized at first—Oh, come on, that’s conspiracy thinking, that started in a lab. But it’s certainly 50-50, would you say that?”

“Oh, it’s far more likely than that,” replied Weinstein, adding that “it looked to be about 90 percent” probability that it originated in a lab. “We are so politicized and polarized and partisan now as a country that if the wrong guy proposed this to begin with—and for the half the country, it was the wrong guy—then the rest of the country says ‘no way, no how, we’re gonna call that a conspiracy theory,” added Heying.

Let’s unpack this a bit. The “wrong guy” Heying is referring to is likely alt-right gadfly Steve Bannon, whose anti-China group the Rule of Law Society produced a report alleging that the virus was not produced in nature and had escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This dubious “report,” which was again spread by Steve Bannon (and retweeted by Trump, and parroted by Tucker Carlson), was immediately shot down by prominent members of the scientific community.

“These two features of the virus, the mutations … of the spike protein and its distinct backbone, rules out laboratory manipulation as a potential origin for SARS-CoV-2,” explained Kristian Andersen, an associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research, who authored a paper debunking the Bannon theory in March. Andersen’s conclusion was backed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious-disease expert, who said all available evidence pointed to COVID-19 not originating in a Wuhan lab but in bats. And this month, Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a top virologist, released an article concluding that: “There is genetic evidence that SARS-CoV-2 has natural origins. There is no evidence to support a lab leak.”

So, you can either trust a comedian and a pair of culture-war-obsessed podcast hosts—who were biology professors and are not epidemiologists or virologists—or you can trust the scientific community.

[Tero]

Cunt, bats fly.

[JimC]

Cunt bats, fly!

[Tero]

Moving on from bats:
As researchers involved in the latest Nature study suggest in a SARS-CoV-2 explainer , the distinct ecological differences between bats and humans means it is likely that the novel coronavirus needed to pass through another mammal in order to "amplify," or further mutate, so that it could be transmitted to humans.
"The virus was probably unable to infect humans directly through bats, so it had to go through an intermediate animal to further mutate in order to infect humans," Xiang told DW. In the case of previous coronaviruses transmitted to humans, SARS and MERS, civets and camels acted as these intermediate hosts.

https://m.dw.com/en/coronavirus-from-ba ... a-52291570