COVID-19 Research, Drug trials and Pathophysiology

The link is to a continuation of Crichton's lecture. Your sloppy work is becoming tedious.
As for Spencer, your anti-religious bigotry has no place here.

 

Fact CheckerAnalysis
A timeline of how the Wuhan lab-leak theory suddenly became credible
By Glenn Kessler

 

". . . . The charge? That the NIH funded “gain of function” research at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology that genetically modified bat viruses to become more lethal and easier to transmit.

The reality? In the aftermath of the SARS-CoV-1 outbreak in 2003 — which emerged from bats — the NIH funded studies to sample and investigate bat viruses in China. It would have been odd to do such work in, say, Luxembourg, given that the guilty bats originated in China. As part of these experiments, viruses were tested to determine whether various spike proteins from existing bat viruses could infect human cells. That is very different from modifying these viruses to become more transmissible or deadly (which is the formal definition of “gain of function” research).

Fine points are generally lost on committed fabulists. But this distinction is not fine. There is a large scientific and ethical distinction between genetic techniques that test the properties of pieces of viruses such as the spike protein that occur in nature, and modifying viruses to become more transmissible or virulent in humans. And we know from laboratory analysis that none of the coronavirus work done under NIH funding corresponds to the novel coronavirus as it actually emerged.

The very limited amount of “gain of function” research funded by NIH generally happens in the United States, under the strictest controls. The terms of the grant in China did not permit such research. The charge that the United States funded the creation of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid-19, is categorically false. Claiming otherwise is a despicable calumny. . . ."

The right is dwelling on slanderous myths about the origins of covid-19

• By Michael Gerson

 

WHO Quietly Corrects Its Own Misinformation
Dissident scientists spent a year convincing the World Health Organization that the virus that causes COVID-19 spreads through the air.

 

Top U.S. health official calls for follow-up investigation into pandemic’s origins
The theory that the coronavirus came from a lab in Wuhan, China, has gained traction amid criticism of an international probe and reports that several workers there were ill in November 2019 — weeks before the virus was officially identified.
By Yasmeen Abutaleb, Shane Harris and Ben Guarino

• Analysis: How the Wuhan lab-leak theory suddenly became credible

 

Interesting read. Still very little more than circumstantial evidence and opinion.
No one claiming it was a bio weapon, some speculating it was lab accident.

 

The point is not that the lab-leak theory has been proven, but that it is not to be ruled out.

 

Agreed. Though I doubt it can ever be 'ruled out'

 

the problem is do they have name of these workers? whos the contact etc, anyone can write something about worker been ill without anything to back it up. details, details, devils is in the details.

 

This is an excellent review, regardless of which theory you find most attractive.
The Sudden Rise of the Lab-Leak Theory

Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New Yorker

 

More speculation.

 

A journalist feeding frenzy has begun.
Three Huge Coincidences Foster the Lab-Leak Theory

Nick Walsh, CNN

 

Like the guy said in the movie: "There will be blood."

U.S.
The Guardian
If the Wuhan lab-leak hypothesis is true, expect a political earthquake

 

Every major country in the world are carrying out the same work as in the Wuhan lab with just the same risks

 

Which has nothing to do with the point of the article.

 

What do you think was the point of the article?

 

". . . . Because if the hypothesis is right, it will soon start to dawn on people that our mistake was not insufficient reverence for scientists, or inadequate respect for expertise, or not enough censorship on Facebook. It was a failure to think critically about all of the above, to understand that there is no such thing as absolute expertise. Think of all the disasters of recent years: economic neoliberalism, destructive trade policies, the Iraq War, the housing bubble, banks that are “too big to fail,” mortgage-backed securities, the Hillary Clinton campaign of 2016 — all of these disasters brought to you by the total, self-assured unanimity of the highly educated people who are supposed to know what they’re doing, plus the total complacency of the highly educated people who are supposed to be supervising them. . . . "

 

It’s a blog

Remember what I said about World view bias???

 

He says after list a swathe of politically motivated rubbish

 

Does it matter?

It is now loose and thanks to some monumental screw ups with basic public health messaging it is mutating all on its own

 

You seem to struggle to separate opinion and evidence.

 

Right, so this is about your search for confirmation bias in order to support the endless threads you start about climate change denial?
Experts can't be trusted etc.

 

Dispute the data or remain silent.

 

Well, no.

 

Yes, it matters.