What are you saying PP?
That this is bullshit - a conspiracy?

It seems to me to be entirely in line with everything that was already understood about these viruses.
Exactly - except just further down down that track in proving it all.

Coronavirus live in bats, and other animals - Fact
Those coronavirus infected bats are all over SEA - fact
The viruses are all a little bit different. Some are closer to Covid -19 than others.
By doing this genic work we can understand how, when and where the different viruses evolved.
This is entirely relevant to finding out the history of Covid -19. Fact fact fact.

Bats fly. Dead bats get imported to China from SEA.
People travel from SEA to China. Viruses mutate and change.
Fact fact fact.

So why are you surprised with this stuff? And so sceptical.
Honest question, not starting a brawl.

i agree with everything you say
i don't think it's a huge revelation that these kinds of viruses are all around, especially in bat populations
though i will say, afaik, bats don't fly from yunan or cambodia to wuhan
earlier in the year i also put 'lab release' at 'possible, but not the most likely'

but since then we've had almost no progress on tracing the actual 'jump', or any detailed tracing to 'patient 0'
and we have almost no apparent serious effort from china in doing so, and little international cooperation
indeed they appear quite adversarial
various other circumstantial details have also come to light since then
and we are now in the midst of what appears to be a coordinated media campaign to place the origin of the virus outside china
eg, shi zhengli now claims it could have arrived on imported food packaging
seriously, with a straight face?
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/ ... 5/120.full

of course experts are going to go by their experience of previous diseases 'jumping' in natural settings
and dismiss a lab-accident scenario, which wouldn't reflect well, after all

as i said in the post before, it's about balancing the evidence
and for me, it now tilts firmly toward an accidental lab release, and china cover-up

the cynicism is due to this current media campaign, coinciding with the who visit
and i fully expected cambodia amongst others to be used to help muddy the waters

WHO investigator says China 'withheld data'

The WHO team are currently at the end of their investigation mission in Wuhan

One of the investigators examining the origins of the pandemic has said China refused to give raw data on its early cases to the World Health Organization (WHO) team.

"That's standard practice for an outbreak investigation," Dominic Dwyer, an Australian infectious diseases expert, told the Reuters news agency earlier today.

He added that, despite repeated requests, the WHO-led team was only given a summary of the data on more than 170 cases they were interested in from an early outbreak in Wuhan in December 2019.

Mr Dwyer said the motive for withholding the raw data was a matter of speculation. "Whether it's political or time or it's difficult... I don't know," he said.

China has insisted it was transparent with the investigators, whose initial findings could be published next week.

Taken from BBC but can't get a link as its on the live news feed.

SternAAlbifrons wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 7:00 pm (nb, imo. Although political issues will certainly arise from this investigation - if we use this primarily as a China bashing opportunity, we will not learn what we need to in order to deal with the next one.
Especially if our mind is already made up.
The purpose of this scientific investigation is for the world's health and security - Not politics

It's both depressing and entirely predictable that despite your request, over 50% of the posts in this thread are lazy conspiracy theories and political posturing.

lol ^^ ...always was and forever shall be.

Yeah Nerd, it bugs me too when Science is bent out of shape by politics and ideology.
On the other hand - that was always going to happen with issue.
Political and ideological interests quite validly will flow from this investigation - BUT, the investigation, its limitations methods and findings, need to be rigorously and objectively examined with the Left-brain, the analytical/logical side, before we start our political position-taking and posturing.

Humankind's need to prepare for the next inevitable animal virus cross-over is far more important than bending the facts to support reasons to go to war with China. for example
Besides, those of us who have been predicting exactly this, including the bit about bats, for 20/30 years are genuinely interested in the process. I am not a scientist but i can promise you that the scientists are absolutely dedicated to finding out as much as they possibly can. totally objectively.
"The facts, Maam, just gimmie the facts" is the creed they live by.

As for the investigation - there were obviously huge limitations due to China's uncooperativeness, but i have not read enough about the process and its findings to make an informed judgement myself just yet.

nerdlinger wrote: ↑Sun Feb 14, 2021 12:33 am It's both depressing and entirely predictable that despite your request, over 50% of the posts in this thread are lazy conspiracy theories and political posturing.

As if it matters what's happening in this thread...

White House Criticizes WHO’s Covid Study After Reports China Withheld Data

The Biden administration has “deep concerns” about a World Health Organization probe into the origins of Covid-19, and is demanding the Chinese government release more data on the pandemic to international researchers, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Saturday — a statement echoing Trump-era complaints.

In a statement released days after WHO investigators said the coronavirus probably originated in animals, rather than in a laboratory in China, Sullivan said the White House has questions about how the organization reached some of its early findings.

Sullivan called on China to offer up data from the coronavirus outbreak’s early days, and he demanded the country avoid interfering in the WHO’s ongoing investigation into the virus (the organization is expected to release its final findings in the next few weeks). Sullivan’s comments come after State Department spokesperson Ned Price on Tuesday said U.S. officials need to review data for China before settling on a theory for where the coronavirus came from, telling reporters “we want to see that for ourselves.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2 ... hheld-data

nerdlinger wrote: ↑Sun Feb 14, 2021 12:33 am It's both depressing and entirely predictable that despite your request, over 50% of the posts in this thread are lazy conspiracy theories and political posturing.

you're the lazy one, labeling anything that isn't a simplistic 'bat bit farmer' a conspiracy

there are many questions that need answers, and it looks like this mission will not answer them
but perhaps there may be clues in what evidence they were unable to obtain, and the reasons why

we all want evidence, and facts, and at a bare minimum, co-operation and transparency from china
but until there is a fairly conclusive story
people will speculate based on what evidence there is, and what is missing, or withheld

I was on the WHO's Covid mission to China, here's what we found
Dominic Dwyer via The Conversation

No, it didn’t originate in Wuhan’s wet market, but it could have been spread by frozen food. Here is what we learned from Phase 1 of the investigation
Mon 22 Feb 2021 07.02 GMT

As I write, I am in hotel quarantine in Sydney, after returning from Wuhan, China. There, I was the Australian representative on the international World Health Organization’s (WHO) investigation into the origins of the Sars-CoV-2 virus.

Much has been said of the politics surrounding the mission to investigate the viral origins of Covid-19. So it’s easy to forget that behind these investigations are real people.

As part of the mission, we met the man who, on 8 December 2019, was the first confirmed Covid-19 case; he’s since recovered. We met the husband of a doctor who died of Covid-19 and left behind a young child. We met the doctors who worked in the Wuhan hospitals treating those early Covid-19 cases, and learned what happened to them and their colleagues. We witnessed the impact of Covid-19 on many individuals and communities, affected so early in the pandemic, when we didn’t know much about the virus, how it spreads, how to treat Covid-19, or its impacts.

We talked to our Chinese counterparts – scientists, epidemiologists, doctors – over the four weeks the WHO mission was in China. We were in meetings with them for up to 15 hours a day, so we became colleagues, even friends. This allowed us to build respect and trust in a way you couldn’t necessarily do via Zoom or email.

This is what we learned about the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
Full article here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... t-we-found

no evidence

pretty much sums up the mission

but in that case, why is the ridiculous frozen food theory even mentioned?
there's no evidence for it at all
in fact several studies show that contact-transmission is extremely unlikely

the fact there is so little (available) evidence speaks for itself
we know through published papers that the lab were working on these kinds of viruses
but apparently they sequenced ratg13 but couldn't replicate it?
you only need a bat

in fact this report seems a little bizarre
this is the same guy that said china were withholding data last week
but now he tells us about the real humans working on this in china, and that they became friends
followed by a bunch of parroted cpp talking points

there is apparently no evidence for any of the theories

we're led to believe that frozen food could be a vector
that covid19 was circulating in europe before appearing in wuhan
that cambodian bats could have had covid
that it transitioned from bats to humans via an unidentified intermiary animal

there is just zero evidence for any of the above

yet we're told 'lab escape' is 'extremely unlikely'
based on what?
that there's no evidence?
that the folks there are all good eggs?

so here's my conspiracy of the day

the who team daren't say anything bad, because their new friends might be executed

chinas outrageous lack of access, bullying of dissent, pat excuses, comical alternate theories, are all diplomatic code for:
we know we fucked up
you know we fucked up
we know you know we fucked up

but don't you dare say a thing, or there will be . . . consequences
and everyone is sort of playing along, for now

trololol