Consider yourself included in my apology/retraction! I remember you had posted that, and yes, I would count this as a hit for you also.
@jeanne-mayell this also happened to me - a knowing. I tried to share with a friend but they came at me with ‘the logic of how dirty those markets are’ and how officials looked into the Wuhan lab and concluded it didn’t start there. I didn’t know how to argue a ‘knowing’ but I figured it would eventually come out. The friend I trusted this with works as a civil servant and is highly intelligent with a healthy dose of cynicism towards countries with dictators … but alas. For me the logical answer was always the lab.
@laura-f It takes a big hearted person to admit they were wrong, especially in a public place.
Then there is this news about a Boston University lab creating a covid virus that is 80% lethal, as if we didn’t have enough apocalyptic events to worry about. This story has been widely reported around the world, but there remain many questions about this research. This Time Magazine article is the latest and most thorough update on the controversy.
https://time.com/6225643/lab-made-covid-19-virus-controversy/
@laura-f I remember our discussions at that time. I seem to recall saying it would not surprise me because they have been working on biochemical warfare for eons. Early examples were pox ridden blankets given to the Native Americans by the French, English fur traders and pilgrims. Then on to Tuskegee Experiment with syphilis. Mycoplasmas on military personnel , the Edgewood Arsenal on the military personnel in Maryland.
and then... there is this one : https://www.lymedisease.org/members/lyme-times/2019-summer-features/lyme-disease-biological-weapon/
That this is coming out now? Does not surprise me at the least.... had it come out then???? When the Pandemic began to rage??? I can only imagine the consequences and it makes me even more angry at the FPotus and his minions who choose to profit from it even as we were dying and being stacked like cordwood in tractor trailer trucks for mobile morgues.
Will we ever know the full truth of the matter... unlikely.... but I do hope the lessons learned help us ... in the next ones (Pandemics) that are coming. Remember how well prepared President Obama had left us? and how quickly FPotus dissembled that? https:/www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/trump-obama-coronavirus-pandemic-response
And I have every Faith and Hope that the Big Blue Wave calls an end to the dark and the waves of Light and recovery to attend to the real business of saving our planet and democracy and those that planted those seeds of destruction... reap what they have sown for there is no healing without accountability. Just ask Paul Pelosi.
I trust PNAS more than Vanity Fair when it comes to science. Keep an open mind folks: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2214427119
@bbmom2019 I am going to gently disagree with you on this hot topic. I respect and have enjoyed your wonderful posts. I also thank you with all my heart for sending me healing earlier this week. It just might be your healing prayer that gave me the energy to respond to your post this morning. So please feel my affection for you, when I disagree.
While I read and respect science, I have a healthy skepticism about everything mainstream, including biological research.
I don’t trust PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science) on this issue because they are invested in continuing the very research that causes animal viruses to leap to humans. They are scientists circling the wagons to keep their research going.
Whereas Vanity Fair published an independent study which was not invested in the mainstream science world’s need to keep this kind of dangerous virology research going.
Vanity Fair reported on an independent study that translated nuanced conversations going on between the Chinese Government and the lab in 2019. That study found an uptick in pressure for the lab to get research results, and then when the virus emerged in Wuhan, they found an uptick in directives to the lab warning about lab leaks.
Why haven’t other journalists reported on these Chinese conversations before? Because most of the investigation on the Wuhan lab was done by virologists, reporting about their own colleagues. Whereas the former state department specialist who did most of the study cited by Vanity Fair, has a unique ability to translate Chinese Communist Party’s "party-speak" in their conversations.
Why don’t I trust PNAS on this one?
Mainstream science, of which PNAS is a part, is invested in justifying the very work that shouldn’t be allowed on this planet: Gain of function work that virologists have been engaged in for decades. This is research that pushes the envelope on nature so they can just learn and learn and learn so much great stuff about viruses. That way, they claim, they will have a leg up on how to save people from these viruses should they ever happen in nature. But first, they, the virologists, get to play God and create these pathogens in nature. So, they create the pathogens, that have never existed in nature, then falsely claim that their labs never leak, which they do, (e.g., Ebola).
And if their work did indeed kill 635 million people, they are going to make sure the public never believes that their research caused it. So far, they have succeeded in snuffing each attempt to show that Wuhan lab created the epidemic. So this dangerous research can continue all over the world. Perhaps it is happening near some of you? Is there a medical school near you?
At Wuhan they’ve been doing bat virus research for decades with a sudden uptick in 2019, due to Party pressure, although they don’t tell us much about it. It’s shrouded in secrecy.
This is a virus that has been previously confined to bats for how long, a thousand years?
Once the novel coronavirus spread to the entire city, the virologists worldwide circled the wagons on their work. "They didn’t cause that problem!" they protested in every journal article. Their gigantic labs staffed by thousands of humans are impeccable, they insisted. Humans never make mistakes! Blah, blah, blah.
Well in the US where we actually study our leaks, we know that lab leaks have happened a lot. But in China there is no data. So are Chinese labs better run than the U.S.? And when the Chinese Communist Party starts heavily pressuring the labs to hurry up and get more results, as we now know they did in 2019, might those lab leaks happen more often?
In the Wuhan lab and in labs all over the world, including right here in my city of Boston, they are busy as bees genetically altering viruses. BTW, you only need a one semester course to become a certified lab rat (lab technician) here. I know some of these folks. Like all humans, they are subject to error.
In fact, at Boston University this past month, the news escaped that they were creating a new covid-19 that combined the original virus with the highly infectious Omicron. 80 percent of their mice died from it.
Although the news hit the airwaves, the university P.R. machine was busy denying it. Now the news has quieted and virology goes back to its old ways. And this dangerous research continues.
It needs to stop. We need to stop trusting that any and every kind of research is okay, just because scientists say it is okay.
@jeanne-mayell this!!! This!! Every.... single.....word... THIS!
@jeanne-mayell you are correct that we disagree. I’m skeptical of Vanity Fair because they aren’t scientific enough, and PNAS because they are too close to the science. I’m a scientist by background. I know folks of high integrity who are part of NAS, but people are people. Thus, I’ll keep an open mind.TBH, I would trust you & the folks on this site before anyone else.
@bbmom2019 I wasn't clear. Vanity Fair did not do any of the research. They simply reported it. Pro Publica, a reputable investigative journal, who use some of top investigative reporters in journalism, investigated it, together with months of research by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, both concluded “the COVID-19 pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident.”
It's likely we will never know what happened, given the secrecy of the Chinese government. But I am betting on human caused virus by scientists who spend their careers doing genetic manipulation of animal viruses. I believe it was an accident and that this kind of research is an accident waiting to happen that should be banned!
The ground-breaking part of this latest twist in the investigation came from a former state department operative, Toy Reid, a career specialist for the RAND Corporation and former political officer in East Asia for the US State Department. Reid was part of a nine-person investigative team tasked with finding the cause of the virus.
The only thing that bothers me about this research is that it was commissioned by a Republican Senator LOL. But there are still remaining in the Congress some reputable Republicans and Pro-Publica has excellent investigative integrity. They broke the story together with Vanity Fair who collaborated in reporting it. Vanity Fair had the ability over Pro-publica to send this story ricocheting through the airwaves.
For 15 months, Toy Reid used his skill translating Chinese Communist Party (CCP) party speak -- a veiled language used by party officials when talking about something potentially embarrassing — while reviewing troves of archives on the Wuhan Institute's website, according to the report.
So we need to stop focusing on Vanity Fair and keep the focus on independent investigations outside of the invested global scientific community, which is a vast group and is centered around the very sizable virology community. And we needed the kind of research Reid was able to do, to pierce the Chinese Community Party (CCP) secret language about what was happening in the Wuhan lab.
If you read what Toy Reid discovered about events unfolding in the fall of 2019 and what the CCP was telling the lab directors, there is a credible sign of a big coverup going on. Credible enough for the Senate Committee to conclude that the lab is most likely responsible for the novel coronavirus. Also they'd been pressuring the lab for months to hurry up their virology research, pushing them past their capacity to be careful.
I'm not a practicing scientist but I do have a Harvard University Masters in Public Health and did my work study on an antibiotics study at the Channing Lab of Harvard Medical School, long enough to see biased research that pandered to the sponsors, in spite of some great research also done there.
@bbmom2019, thank you for stimulating this conversation. Diversity of thought is the fertile ground we need here. Attaching a photo of the enormous Wuhan Institute of Virology. The more I read on this topic, the more I realize that more revelations will come out.
My favorite Chinese Communist Party message to the lab that Toy Reid translated was:
“once you have opened the stored test tubes, it is just as if having opened Pandora’s Box” adding “these viruses come without a shadow and leave without a trace”.
As the person who posted the link to the ProPublica article, just circling back to say that in the US in particular, science/medical education in public schools somewhat lacks (I should know, I only had to take Bio and Earth Science to get my HSD), so it is hard for many of us to discern truths and obfuscations in regard to scientific findings even when we can access the original data.
What convinced me was the translations. I excel at linguistics, and I understand the intricacies of translations. It was the translator who found the smoking gun. As @jeanne-mayell pointed out, the pressure the lab was under is clearly visible in the translations, as is the CCP's refusal to provide necessary safety equipment and/or monies to prevent such a thing from happening despite the scientists in Wuhan repeatedly pleading. And then the linguistic indicators that something very serious happened in the lab in early Fall of 2019, but in very couched language, as if they knew that one day someone would translate them and decode their true meaning.
I don't believe it was an act of bio-warfare. I do believe it was a chain of mistakes that snowballed into a pandemic, and possibly it may have been a warning of sorts from the Chinese scientists. Remember when Tylenol was poisoned in the US? People died. And now we all have impossible to open medicine caps. The prevailing theory is that it was a doctor or scientist who wanted to expose the dangers of poor packaging and labelling. It is entirely possible that the scientists in Wuhan, under hard pressure and without the resources they needed to protect the world from the viruses they were working on, decided to just let the chips fall where they may. Maybe they hoped global outrage would prevent this kind of pandemic in future.
While this article's findings are revelatory it seems to me that, while it helps to know what happened, this can happen again anywhere that science is underfunded and under appreciated (like in the US). And that's not even taking into account "bad actors" who are literally looking for ways to create bio-weapons to wipe out opposition to their authoritarian regimes.
This will happen again.
@jeanne-mayell The Republican senator who sponsored the research, Richard Burr of North Carolina, was somewhat less worse than some. He did not run for re-election this year, having been censured by his party for voting for impeachment of Trump. He also worked on healthcare and pandemic response things as senator so had some kind of background in the topic at hand.
Again, It Ain't Over Til It's Over:
Crusie Ship Docks in Sydney With 800 COVID Cases On Board
IMHO, giant cruise ships ought to go away, like forever. They are bad for the environment and for humans. They are each just a representation of greed to me.
@laura-f Hi, it’s feeling a bit deja vu here in Sydney, reminds us of The Ruby Princess docking and starting our Covid outbreak in 2020. We are also expecting a surge from the new variants this month as well. This time won’t be any lockdowns. We muddle on through.
After 2.5 years of avoiding it I managed to finally get Covid and thoughtfully infected my husband as well. Luckily we are mild, we have had 4 vaccinations all up each so I assume that helped. Another week and should be fine, just in time for my birthday.
Like the rest of the world will be glad when it has gone.
Regards to all
Hope you all feel better soon! Silver lining: you can wait 60-90 days before considering getting boosters.
As for COVID going away, it never will. Much like the Flu Pandemic of 1918-20 introduced flu to the whole world, same with COVID. It's here to stay. We can only hope that it evolves to be milder.
If you stopped masking, now might be a good time to put one back on.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Friday showed that the new subvariants — called BQ.1.1 and BQ.1 — have taken over BA.5. The two together make up around 44% of new Covid infections, whereas BA.5 makes up just 30%.
Both of the subvariants are considered sublineages of BA.5. But preliminary data suggests they are better at evading immunity from Covid vaccines, including the new boosters, or a previous Covid infection than past versions of omicron. That may give these subvariants higher transmissibility, which could fuel a rise in cases this winter.
Good grief! Will it ever end? I'm tempted to post a photo of Munch's painting "The Scream", but I feel too weary to do that ...
Well, I have a good supply of KN95 masks. Never stopped wearing them in public places like the grocery store, and am not about to stop now.
Thanks for keeping us updated, @lovendures. Knowledge is power!
An interesting study came out Thursday which measured how teen brains aged during the first year of covid. Children were already in a different study which was doing MRI images of their brains every 2 years when covid hit. The changes which occurred that first year of covid were dramatic. Their brains aged and changed by what appears to be stress.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/02/health/pandemic-teen-brains-stress-wellness/index.html