Fauci is a very smooth political operator but there is a lot more there than meets the eye. He became the Democrats' favorite doctor when he artfully countered Trump's accusations against China last year and that criticism has given him a lot of cover for his real weakness in the Covid crisis, which is the fact that he is fatally comprom…
Fauci is a very smooth political operator but there is a lot more there than meets the eye. He became the Democrats' favorite doctor when he artfully countered Trump's accusations against China last year and that criticism has given him a lot of cover for his real weakness in the Covid crisis, which is the fact that he is fatally compromised in his objectivity.
Senator Rand's criticisms of him are essentially valid: he is, and has been, the beating heart of gain of function research in virology for many years. When domestic GOF research was shut down by Obama, he did an end run around these restrictions by funneling NIH money to Eco-Health (Peter Daszak's organization) which then channelled it to the Wuhan Lab. He is up to his eyeballs in creating this Frankenstein - as are, more widely, the majority of the virologists that work for, and with, the NIH - and he knows it. Virologists as a group realize that there would be overwhelming pushback against this kind of research, thereby jeopardizing their livelihood, if this catastrophe was pinned on them.
That someone with such conflicts of interest has been looked to as an objective source of information on the origins of this virus is just more evidence of the corrupt (or, to give them more credit than they deserve, childishly credulous) nature of today's MSM. Of course, the rot does not stop with the origin of the virus. More broadly, it goes to the role of Fauci in his drive for vaccinations when highly effective therapeutics are, and have been, available. Fauci's organization (NIH) hold patents on COVID vaccines and stand to benefit by their being promoted over other treatments. Now that people are starting to see the face behind the mask of this character, we should reassess his early dismissals of anti-viral therapeutics like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin (the latter is now being used on a massive scale in India, the WHO's objections notwithstanding; surprise, surprise: it is working).
Remember that under US law the 'Emergency Use Authorization' for these vaccines cannot be granted if there is an effective therapeutic available. Like hydroxychloroquine. Like ivormectin. Interested readers may find this short clip from Bret Weinstein's excellent Dark Horse podcast very informative: youtu.be/zfqxCkJw0Rk?list=PLCXya1JzWcnSCHNSipO8fWFonSWyyDQq5
And finally, for those who read French, I highly recommend the following two books which chronicle the corruption (and, frankly, criminal behavior) that has characterized the 'management' of this crisis: "Big Pharma Démasqué' by Xavier Bazin and "Aux Origines Du Mal" by Brice Perrier.
Apologies for this lengthy addendum, which is a summary of Nicholas Wade's excellent article on the origins of the virus. It is a long and technical piece which not everyone will have the time (or interest) to get through. But it is, in my view, essential to understanding why the lab origin hypothesis is probable, so here I provide the Cliff's Notes version.
He makes four key arguments for the lab leak hypothesis, some of which are a little abstruse to the non-scientific reader, but here they are:
1) The place of origin. If the virus had an animal origin there would be evidence of the virus in infected animals or humans outside of Wuhan, specifically in the region where these types of coronaviruses are known to come from. In a year of looking, no such evidence has materialized.
2) No evidence of gradual zoonotic mutation. In every other case of a virus making a jump from an animal host to a human host, it has gone through a process of evolutionary development which incrementally makes it more adapted to humans. This was the case for SARS and for MERS. In the case of COVID the virus emerged fully suited to human infection with no evidence of less successful antecedents.
3) The furin cleavage site. (Here we get technical.) The spike protein on the virus is composed of two separate sub-units, known as S1 and S2. Cleaving the spike protein into these two subunits is the key mechanism that allows the virus entry into a human cell. However it takes a specific enzyme on the surface of a cell to do this cleaving. There are many types of enzymes that can potentially cleave a protein, depending on the particular amino acids that comprise the protein. However only in humans is there the furin enzyme, which does its protein cutting thing in the presence of a specific amino acid sequence on the protein to be cleaved. COVID is the only coronavirus yet discovered that has this ‘furin cleavage site’ in its spike protein (between the S1 and S2 sub-units, naturally).
4) Human specific codons. (Here we get much more technical, so I will try to compress this a bit.) Proteins are simply chains of amino acids. Each amino acid is built from three units (nucleotides) of DNA, which are called codons. It turns out that there is more than one combination of the four DNA nucleotides (A, C, G, T) that produces the same amino acid. For example, the codons CGT and CGC both produce the amino acid arginine. But the key fact is that humans have a definite preference for a specific codon producing a given amino acid. It just so happens that in the furin cleavage site the codons that produce arginine are specific to humans and are very rare in the other parts of the coronavirus genome.
Re: Item 1 - Just wrong. There are closely related viruses as far as Vietnam. I don't have the cite at my fingertips, but I saw that one. This argument is also like the old "missing link" stories that aimed to prove humans weren't evolved from lesser primates because we couldn't find all of the steps. No, you can't expect to find all the steps as suggested. That's ridiculous nonsense. RNA viruses mutate like mad. Instead you use evolutionary trees, and look at the apparent rate of mutations. There are multiple hypotheses for how SARS-CoV-2 adapted to humans. One is a set of men who got very sick for quite a while. Immune compromised might be another. It is doubtful we will find anything crystal clear. Reality isn't like that.
Re: Item 2 - Just wrong. Wade is either grossly ignorant, or deliberately falsifying here. There is plenty of evidence of natural origin. Not hard to find such studies. Here's one.
(May 2020) A close relative of SARS-CoV-2 found in bats offers more evidence it evolved naturally.
Re: Item 3 - Just wrong. Furin is present and it's highly conserved in mammals. (May 2020) Structural and functional modelling of SARS-CoV-2 entry in animal models.
"... in a panel of animal models, i.e. guinea pig, dog, cat, rat, rabbit, ferret, mouse, hamster and macaque. Here we showed that ACE2, but not TMPRSS2 or Furin, has a higher level of sequence variability in the Spike protein interaction surface, which greatly influences Spike protein binding mode.... TMPRSS2 and Furin are sufficiently similar in the considered hosts not to drive susceptibility differences.
Re: Item 4 - Just wrong. There is NO SUCH THING as a human specific codon! There are mostly mild differences in the production of tRNA for different codons. But you can use a human sequence in E. coli, and vice versa. The codon optimization just gives you somewhat higher production, that's all. So no. This is just not true.
Bluntly put, Wade's article is utter garbage. Wade is not a scientist. The people pimping it (like Trish Wood) are not scientists. The whole business of "Wade's article" getting such intense press I find highly suspect. So should you. Don't be so damn gullible FFS!
I am not a scientist, just a reasonably bright guy that reads a lot, so this will have to be fought out by folks at a higher pay grade than me. Of course, the lab theory is not strictly a product of Mr. Wade. Nicholson Baker made a similar case in a New York Magazine article in January and there were folks that preceded him, going back the better part of a year (Josh Rogin, Saager Enjeti, Bret Weinstein, Matt Ridley, Crystal Ball, Steve Hilton, etc.) although they were largely met with derision from the MSM and the designated scientific establishment.
As I say, I am not a scientist and maybe you are. But now that the battle has been joined, let's hope that the experts - all of the experts - are allowed to get to the bottom of this thing.
I appreciate the considered response. I am a scientist. I have publications in epidemiology, (modeling and field), biodefense, terorrism, gene therapy (patents), and policy. I do vaccine development. I've got vaccines for Ebola, COVID-19, West Nile virus, Hanta, and a few others in the freezer.
All of the parties mentioned made their cases with innuendo, pointing to Chinese governmental behavior. None of them made a case worth a worn out t-shirt. I think it is all propaganda mixed with incompetent dabbling of the Dunning Kreuger variety. (Although the real Dunning Kreuger graph is much less damning than the meme variety.)
«1) The place of origin. If the virus had an animal origin there would be evidence of the virus in infected animals or humans outside of Wuhan, specifically in the region where these types of coronaviruses are known to come from. In a year of looking, no such evidence has materialized.»
* If it was man-made it could have been made somewhere else and deliberately or accidentally spread in Wuhan in order to cripple a key node of the chinese economy.
* If it was of natural origin it could also have started somewhere else and collected, selected, and deliberately spread in Wuhan.
Regardless of its origin, the big deal that the smear campaigns seems design to obfuscate is what happened after the Wuhan outbreak: the test-trace-isolate approach in China resulted in less than 5,000 deaths over a year in a population over 3 times larger than the USA one where there have been over 500,000 deaths, and this without mass lock-downs, or mass vaccination.
The fact that you use the phrase 'smear campaign' leads me to think that you take the current hard look at a possible lab leak to be an indictment of China. I don't see it that way - certainly not in my case at any rate. I would be far angrier with the hubris and duplicity of our medical authorities in funding this research (and then covering it up) than with the Chinese if an accidental lab leak had taken place.
You also use the phrase 'design(ed) to obfuscate' to characterize such an investigation. Again I disagree as to the motivation for finding out. If it was a lab leak then this has dramatic implications for whether this research should be done at all. Perhaps more importantly, it casts the credibility of Fauci and the medical research community more generally into question on all of the issues that it has opined on, most importantly those regarding vaccines, therapeutics, and confinement.
As to your points that speak to the virus having been hatched someplace else and then planted in Wuhan, I suppose anything is possible. This is the official Chinese position, or is at least one that they trot out periodically when they are feeling particularly defensive. More specifically, they have claimed that the virus was created in our bio lab at Ft. Detrick, MD and then deliberately released at the worldwide military games in Wuhan in the fall of '19 in order to sabotage the Chinese economy.
Godfree Roberts, who I believe lives in China and is quite sympathetic to the Chinese viewpoint, has also promoted this theory. Again, I suppose anything is possible but Occam's razor generally cuts in the right direction and with the most efficiency.
"resulted in less than 5,000 deaths over a year in a population over 3 times larger than the USA"
Regardless of the truth in those numbers, which is to say I doubt there's much, I've wondered why it was that China took such unprecedented steps to eradicate covid if its scientists weren't familiarized with it. Almost like its leading scientists knew exactly what it was (at the time).
«Regardless of the truth in those numbers, which is to say I doubt there's much»
Similar sickness and death rates have been reported by China-Taiwan, Korea-south, Kerala, New Zealand, Vietnam and Japan. It is shocking to imagine that they are all complicit with Chinese Communist Party. :-)
«I've wondered why it was that China took such unprecedented steps to eradicate covid if its scientists weren't familiarized with it. Almost like its leading scientists knew exactly what it was (at the time).»
The same approach with the same results was taken by China-Taiwan, Korea-south, Kerala, New Zealand, Vietnam and Japan. It is shocking to imagine that the leading scientists in those countries “knew exactly what it was”.
Or perhaps your comment is made entirely of handwaving smears.
You're ignoring how China led with its unprecedented steps and many other countries followed, including us, because, well, they were unprecedented.
But haven't you ever wondered why China locked down - and I mean *locked down*, China style - many of its major cities if covid wasn't killing its people? Or that China was deathly afraid of what it released. Or both?
«You're ignoring how China led with its unprecedented steps and many other countries followed, including us, because, well, they were unprecedented.»
That the steps were "unprecedented" seems to me pure hallucinatory smears, here is appropriately for this post some "fact checking", for example in strongly "anti-communist" China-Taiwan similar steps were not at all unprecedented, they were part of a plan:
“Authorities activated the island's Central Epidemic Command Center, which was set up in the wake of SARS, to coordinate between different ministries. The government also ramped up face mask and protective equipment production to make sure there would be a steady supply of PPE. The government also invested in mass testing and quick and effective contact tracing. Former Taiwanese Vice President Chen Chien-jen, who is an epidemiologist by training, said lockdowns are not ideal. Chen also said that the type of mass-testing schemes undertaken in mainland China, where millions of people are screened when a handful of cases are detected, are also unnecessary. "Very careful contact tracing, and very stringent quarantines of close contacts are the best way to contain Covid-19," he said.”
The "anti-communist" governments of China-Taiwan and Singapore accordingly took "unprecedented" measures that had been carried out in previous epidemics at the end of December 2020:
Taiwan has implemented more stringent inspection measures for inbound flights from Wuhan, China, following an outbreak of pneumonia in the city, according to the Centers for Disease Control under the Ministry of Health and Welfare Dec. 31, 2019.”
CCP welded shut doors of repeat offenders of its lockdowns. Entire cities were shut down. No biz, no mingling, no food except what the local govt had to offer. UNPRECEDENTED.
“In 1918, a San Francisco health officer shot three people when one refused to wear a mandatory face mask. In Arizona, police handed out $10 fines for those caught without the protective gear. But eventually, the most drastic and sweeping measures paid off. After implementing a multitude of strict closures and controls on public gatherings, St. Louis, San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Kansas City responded fastest and most effectively: Interventions there were credited with cutting transmission rates by 30 to 50 percent. New York City, which reacted earliest to the crisis with mandatory quarantines and staggered business hours, experienced the lowest death rate on the Eastern seaboard. [...]
By comparing fatality rates, timing, and public health interventions, they found death rates were around 50 percent lower in cities that implemented preventative measures early on, versus those that did so late or not at all. The most effective efforts had simultaneously closed schools, churches, and theaters, and banned public gatherings. This would allow time for vaccine development (though a flu vaccine was not used until the 1940s) and lessened the strain on health care systems.”
Is the National Geographic a "communist" mouthpiece that is out to lie about the “UNPRECENTED” idiocy of your hallucinations?
“When a flu outbreak at a nearby military barracks first spread into the St. Louis civilian population, Starkloff wasted no time closing the schools, shuttering movie theaters and pool halls, and banning all public gatherings. There was pushback from business owners, but Starkloff and the mayor held their ground. When infections swelled as expected, thousands of sick residents were treated at home by a network of volunteer nurses. Dehner says that because of these precautions, St. Louis public health officials were able to “flatten the curve” and keep the flu epidemic from exploding overnight as it did in Philadelphia.”
“From then on, Singapore's SARS death toll started rising with another four deaths reported by Mar. 31, 2003, according to MICA.
With deaths inducing panic among parents, and the virus spreading rapidly, the government announced the closure of schools on Mar. 27, 2003 — which happened to be during the March school holidays that year. From preschools to junior colleges, schools would remained closed till Apr. 6, 2003, though the period of closure was subsequently extended.
Following incidents of quarantined individuals breaking the requirement to stay at home, MOH announced on Apr. 10 that surveillance cameras would be placed in homes of those quarantined. The next day, Apr. 11, mobile thermal scanners were installed at Changi Airport. On Apr. 12, it was decided that those who flouted home quarantines would be required to wear electronic tags. Later that month, on Apr. 24, the penalties for breaking quarantine were stiffened — this included possible jail sentences for quarantine breakers and higher fines. On May 2, a 50-year-old was arrested and later jailed for breaking his quarantine order twice. [...] According to the WHO, dozens of police officers wearing surgical masks cleared the Pasir Panjang wholesale market of people on Apr. 19.
They also built barricades and prohibited people from entering.
It would later be announced that the vegetable market, Singapore's largest, would be closed for 10 days, though this was later extended to 15 days. And all this was because in the month of April, a vegetable seller who worked at the market had fallen ill.”
“March 24: The Infectious Diseases Act is invoked. About 740 people are home-quarantined for 10 days. [...] March 27: All schools are shut till April 6. Those who die of Sars must be cremated within 24 hours. [...] March 29: Temperature checks are introduced for all passengers entering Singapore through Changi Airport.”
Not quite, and anyhow other places occasionally: it takes time to prepare for mass testing and trace-isolate. The boast by the ex vice-president of China-Taiwan that no lock-down is ever needed is quite excessive. But there is a big difference between a mass lock-down of an entire country for a year and a some weeks in some place or another, that said the Wuhan metropolitan area has 10-11 million people, so it has more people than many countries.
“The Chinese city of Qingdao is testing its entire population of nine million people for Covid-19 over a period of five days. The mass testing comes after the discovery of a dozen cases linked to a hospital treating coronavirus patients arriving from abroad. In May, China tested the entire city of Wuhan - home to 11 million people and the epicentre of the global pandemic. The country has largely brought the virus under control. That is in stark contrast to other parts of the world, where there are still high case numbers and lockdown restrictions of varying severity. In a statement posted to Chinese social media site Weibo, Qingdao's Municipal Health Commission said six new cases and six asymptomatic cases had been discovered.”
BTW not everywhere, Bloomberg BusinessWeek has also reported that "communist" Minnesota has done a mass testing plan, even if not quite on such a large scale and speed as in other countries:
And that is the real story, not vaccinations, not lock-down, not masks, which are all distractions from the stark comparison between neoliberal countries and civilized countries. In the USA, UK, etc. the priority has been whichever policy impacted least the upper-middle and upper classes, and made the best marketing copy for "big pharma". It is not as if test-trace-isolate was unknown to "atlantic" epidemiologists, here are articles written early in 2020 be the UK Chief Medical Officer and Chief Science Officer:
“Sir Patrick Vallance says testing needs to be done at scale to find outbreaks and isolate people [...] Sir Patrick Vallance’s comments echo those of Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, who said a week ago that Germany “got ahead” in testing people for Covid-19 and that the UK needed to learn from that.”
Eventually, even Bloomberg BusinessWeek broke with the neoliberal ideology that not getting infected and not infecting others is a matter of individual choice:
“Better, Faster Testing Is the Path to an American Comeback
Imagine going safely to a bar, or a wedding, or parent-teacher night, without a vaccine. It’s still possible, if the U.S. can get its act together.”
On this the Democratic politicians and press have not at all criticized the Trump policies, have respected that neoliberal ideology, just arguing distractingly about how hard lock-downs should be and how fabulous "big pharma saviours of humanity" have been.
Yup, we are fuc..ing up there, too, and have been for decades - "reaching across the 'bipartisan' aisle" to achieve "bipartisan" consensus in the endeavor ...
What I think you may be missing that lockdowns are not uniformally bad in any circumstance, but that folks in lockdown should be provided with the means to satisfy their basic needs during those lockdowns. Sorry, a couple of $2000 checks ain't gonna cut it ...
That is a rather vague and difficult questions, because "outbreak" is not well defined: in China and elsewhere there are "outbreaks" of something almost every year, and SARS-2 symptoms, at least initially, can easily be mistake for something else, and many people infected with SARS-2 have no symptoms or trivial symptoms, so the SARS-2 outbreak in Wuhan could have started well before it got noticed and recognized as a new thing.
As to noticed and as a new thing, that was sometimes in December 2019. The official UK government timeline for example gives "end of December":
«On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) was informed of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China.»
The WHO statement has these details:
«Symptom onset of the 41 confirmed nCoV cases ranges from 8 December 2019 to 2 January 2020. No additional cases have been detected since 3 January 2020. The clinical signs and symptoms reported are mainly fever, with a few cases having difficulty in breathing, and chest radiographs showing invasive pneumonic infiltrates in both lungs.»
The WHO a few days later called it “Pneumonia of unknown cause – China”. Wikipedia has a 2019 timeline that says:
«Phylogenetics estimates that SARS-CoV-2 arose in October or November 2019. It is not known whether the virus itself evolved in wildlife populations or if its distinctive spike proteins were selected for after zoonotic transfer to humans. A September 2020 review noted "The possibility that the COVID-19 infection had already spread to Europe at the end of last year is now indicated by abundant, even if partially circumstantial, evidence", including pneumonia case numbers and radiology in France and Italy in November and December. RT-PCR (Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) testing of untreated wastewater samples from Brazil and Italy have suggested detection of SARS-CoV-2 as early as November and December 2019, respectively, but the methods of such sewage studies have not been optimised, many have not been peer reviewed, details are often missing, and there is a risk of false positives due to contamination or if only one gene target is detected. Antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain were reported in 111 (11.6%) of 959 asymptomatic participants in a lung cancer screening trial in Italy from September 2019, which the authors claim may indicate an earlier start to the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization stated it was reviewing the results, seeking verification of the neutralization results, and that "the possibility that the virus may have silently circulated elsewhere cannot be ruled out"»
In any case the timeline is an interesting detail for amusement, the real story is that the government of China-Taiwan and other thoroughly capitalist countries as well as as "communist" ones have had negligible sickness and deaths rates thanks to state funded and organized test-trace-isolate, with nearly no lockdowns and nearly no business or jobs losses, and are in no hurry to be guinea pigs for vaccines.
Yet every expert rubbished the lab leak hypothesis when it was first proposed. And all 17 of the WHO inspectors plus their 17 Chinese counterparts ranked it least likely.
Okay, so what are you proposing then? That the virus began naturally somewhere years ago; has been circulating but somehow not causing a detectable outbreak; somehow made its way to Wuhan in late 2019; and then started an outbreak there?
Is that your hypothesis? How many of those 17 WHO inspectors have ranked your hypothesis as likely? If you think it's significant that they ranked the lab leak hypothesis least likely, then surely you have to accept that it's significant if they didn't rank your hypothesis higher? Or is their opinion only relevent for hypotheses you don't like, but doesn't count when it's yours?
I admittedly haven’t read much on the lab origin stuff, as Wade’s article got just a *bit* too technical for me and my eyes glazed over, but has anybody reconciled the lab leak theory with claims based on analyzing sewage (I think?) and finding reason to believe the virus has been in USA/Europe for many months longer than initially believed? Can the two theories even coexist or are they in competition? I really haven’t looked much into either one but it seems like they both have their own set of implications that kind of compete with each other.
All valid hypotheses compete with one another to some extent. In the case of the Wuhan story, if you put the two major hypotheses respectively on a scale, the evidence is tipping in favor of a lab release. Give Wade's article another go; it's worth the effort.
Gotcha, I’ll give it another look, thanks. Sorry my question was vague and I probably shouldn’t have asked if they “compete” per se when I was really asking if they’re mutually exclusive. I’ll give Wade’s article that second look though and I imagine that will give me a different perspective regardless.
Faucci is an opportunist who has been milking the taxpayer for decades. The man should have retired at least a decade ago. He's almost 80 years old, fifteen years past the normal retirement age for Federal workers. He got into the health service as a means of avoiding military service in Vietnam (doctors were subjected to be drafted into one of the military services but they could join Public Health as an alternative.)
He turned 80 last December. I lost ALL respect for him the minute he flip flopped on the masks within a month in the spring of 2020. The truth will come out about the gain of function funding by Fauci via the NAIAD in the Wuhan lab and his connection to it all. He's lied and lied and lied. Just listen to Joe Rogin, WAPO editorial writer out with a new book, discussing it on the Megyn Kelly podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/covid-truth-on-wuhan-lab-herd-immunity-vaccines-variants/id1532976305?i=1000517073772
I agree with you on the conflict of interest point - but re vaccines, is it better to prevent a disease than to have to treat it .... The issue with these particular vaccines is another story, a patent story ...
One more comment since I did not pick up on the main point that you made until just now. You state that it is better to prevent a disease than to have to treat it. Right.
What I did not make clear in my prior posts is that ivermectin can be use not only to treat but also as a prophylactic - thus preventing someone from coming down with the disease in the first place. India is using it in this capacity - and Big Pharma is not pleased.
An important point that I did not make - thanks for the question.
Very interesting - just out of curiosity, are there any scientific reviews of the studies mentioned ...
How about side effects, immediate and long term ...
What it seems to me you are suggesting is that if we all took ivermectin, as prescribed, "until this thing blows over" (by Easter, maybe?), that we could forego masks and social distancing anywhere and everywhere.... Yes? No?
I don't take a doctrinaire stance on ivermectin one way or the other. It may well be the case that taking a course of ivermectin, as suggested by these doctors, is preferable to taking the new vaccines, the long term effects of which are anyone's guess.
Impressive - included a mechanism of action (I'm big on those :)) binding to ACE-2 receptors.
So, is that what you have been doing? How long would you continue?
As to long term effects - hmmm, if the vaccines produce only short term immunity, and the jury is still out on that, perhaps you might have an argument for preferring Ivermectin to them ...
I cannot do anything right in responding to you. :) I answered this question below in response to your last comment on the emergency authorization issue.
There is the prudence argument with respect to the vaccines. These are not ordinary vaccines in the sense of injecting a dead or attenuated virus into the body so as to trigger an ordinary immune response. None of the covid vaccines are in that category and the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines in particular use a cutting edge technology (MRNA encapsulated by a lipid envelope) never been tried before. Since these 'vaccines' rely on an entirely new and tested method to generate antibodies, the long term (even mid term) effects are undetermined at this point.
If someone could take the equivalent of aspirin (e.g. ivermectin) until this thing blows over as opposed to an untried therapy that operates at the RNA level, many would do so. Furthermore, the law mandates it: remember, if there is a viable therapeutic to treat an illness then such a 'vaccine' would be deemed too unproven to be permitted to be used.
Jamie Metzl, a member of the World Health Organization's International Advisory Committee on Human Genome Editing, has speculated that the coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China.
In 2015 Wuhan lab was studying " Zoonotic Transition" (Bats) how an animal virus penetrates a human cell.
Metzl, to his credit, has been saying this for a while. With respect to FB, they have gone from being the most tolerant of the tech platforms to being the most restrictive. Remember Zuckerberg's dismissal of the left's accusation that the Russians' manipulation of his platform was responsible for Trump's election in '16? Now FB will not even allow a recording of Trump's voice to be on the platform!
I am surprised that FB only removed your post and not you.
I only go to FB for family communication. I don't want to be tainted by misinformation. My husband who was a Progressive, but is waking up, can't believe he's being censored. When I complained about them doing it 2 years ago, he laughed at me.
Several are based on combining a basically harmless viruses with parts of the spike protein - the mRNA ones are new to vaccine application, I agree - and have several downsides, more expensive, double dose, excessive cold storage requirements, more expensive, etc - did you mean "tested" or "untested"
Don't think Ivermectin is the "equivalent" of aspirin - It is a pharmaceutical, and has side effects of it's own - it is used as a Rx for various conditions, not as a preventative - which is what you seem to suggest - "take it until this thing blows over" - potentially for years?
Kindly tell me, citation, "where if there is a viable therapeutic to treat an illness then such a 'vaccine' would be deemed too unproven to be permitted to be used."
I repeat - seems to me better to prevent than to have to treat ...
'Tested' should have been 'untested' - late at night and typing too fast.
Ivermectin seems to be remarkably safe for an effective anti-viral. The group headed by Paul Marik and Pierre Cory is probably the best source of information. Some links:
The Secretary may issue an authorization under this section with respect to the emergency use of a product only if, after consultation with the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, and the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (to the extent feasible and appropriate given the applicable circumstances described in subsection (b)(1)), the Secretary concludes—
(1)that an agent referred to in a declaration under subsection (b) can cause a serious or life-threatening disease or condition;
(2)that, based on the totality of scientific evidence available to the Secretary, including data from adequate and well-controlled clinical trials, if available, it is reasonable to believe that—
(A)the product may be effective in diagnosing, treating, or preventing—
(i)such disease or condition; or
(ii)a serious or life-threatening disease or condition caused by a product authorized under this section, approved or cleared under this chapter, or licensed under section 351 of the Public Health Service Act [42 U.S.C. 262], for diagnosing, treating, or preventing such a disease or condition caused by such an agent; and
(B)the known and potential benefits of the product, when used to diagnose, prevent, or treat such disease or condition, outweigh the known and potential risks of the product, taking into consideration the material threat posed by the agent or agents identified in a declaration under subsection (b)(1)(D), if applicable;
(3)that there is no adequate, approved, and available alternative to the product for diagnosing, preventing, or treating such disease or condition;
This is why I ask for citations - actual wording matters ...
So, in this case the wording says "The Sec. may issue an authorization only if ..... the Sec concludes .... there is no adequate alternative for ... preventing or treating such disease ... "
So the ? is has the Sec concluded that there IS such an available alternative ...
You can argue that he should have concluded this with regard to Ivermectin, but if he didn't, he was not precluded from issuing the EUA with regard to the vaccine ...
I am in the early stages of educating my doctor on ivermectin. So far I have not asked him for a prescription and am not yet sure that I will. But it is possible, however, once I get a little more familiar with the literature and let the idea sink in. Of course, there is then the challenge of seeing whether he has the latitude / courage to buck the received wisdom (and perhaps the dictates of his corporate practice guidelines) and prescribe it. In the meantime, my daily routine is to take a cocktail of vitamins and supplements (D, C, NAC, Quercetin, Zinc, EGCG, Turmeric, K) and hope for the best.
Although I have a residence in Pennsylvania I spend most of my time in Houston, where people are fairly relaxed about the disease. People still wear masks in stores, for example, but not outside - and pretty much everything is open. Within the last couple of days I have even seen people maskless in stores - it is only a matter of time down here. From what I hear from my friends up east however there is still a lot of fear in the air (and a lot of moral preening, frankly). Very different vibe in the City of Brotherly Love from the one in the Bayou City.
And there is the fact that, like a lot of people, I have a sneaking suspicion that I may have already had the disease. Around Thanksgiving in '19 I came down with a very sore throat, bad cough, and high fever (a little over 102). Was tested for flu and strep and both came back negative; and a fever is unusual for a common cold. Was down for about a week but isolated myself upstairs and rode it out. Downed a lot of EmergenC and Zinc throughout the week and recovered with no real aftereffects except for a morning cough, which has gradually gone away.
At the time, I went to a gym on a daily basis that had a very large native professional Chinese membership. The timing is a little off, since late November was fairly early on in the course of the disease, but who knows?
If we work under an assumption that the lab-leak theory is true (and there is no evidence, as I understand, of natural development and spread of this virus,) then it would make sense why Fauci was foisted upon us to take the heat for what he had a hand in creating. No one wanted this hot potato. And as a result of all the ass-covering of the last year+ (again, if the lab-leak theory is true,) the powers that be have worsened our collective health, nearly cratered our economy, funneled trillions more dollars to billionaires, and politicized public health to such a degree that effective future communication in this realm are severely damaged. I could not be more disgusted.
Plenty of evidence for natural. Zero for "lab leak". Here's what I replied to "ChesterView" above.
Re: Item 1 - Just wrong. There are closely related viruses as far as Vietnam. I don't have the cite at my fingertips, but I saw that one. This argument is also like the old "missing link" stories that aimed to prove humans weren't evolved from lesser primates because we couldn't find all of the steps. No, you can't expect to find all the steps as suggested. That's ridiculous nonsense. RNA viruses mutate like mad. Instead you use evolutionary trees, and look at the apparent rate of mutations. There are multiple hypotheses for how SARS-CoV-2 adapted to humans. One is a set of men who got very sick for quite a while. Immune compromised might be another. It is doubtful we will find anything crystal clear. Reality isn't like that.
Re: Item 2 - Just wrong. Wade is either grossly ignorant, or deliberately falsifying here. There is plenty of evidence of natural origin. Not hard to find such studies. Here's one.
(May 2020) A close relative of SARS-CoV-2 found in bats offers more evidence it evolved naturally.
Re: Item 3 - Just wrong. Furin is present and it's highly conserved in mammals. (May 2020) Structural and functional modelling of SARS-CoV-2 entry in animal models.
"... in a panel of animal models, i.e. guinea pig, dog, cat, rat, rabbit, ferret, mouse, hamster and macaque. Here we showed that ACE2, but not TMPRSS2 or Furin, has a higher level of sequence variability in the Spike protein interaction surface, which greatly influences Spike protein binding mode.... TMPRSS2 and Furin are sufficiently similar in the considered hosts not to drive susceptibility differences.
Re: Item 4 - Just wrong. There is NO SUCH THING as a human specific codon! There are mostly mild differences in the production of tRNA for different codons. But you can use a human sequence in E. coli, and vice versa. The codon optimization just gives you somewhat higher production, that's all. So no. This is just not true.
Bluntly put, Wade's article is utter garbage. Wade is not a scientist. The people pimping it (like Trish Wood) are not scientists. The whole business of "Wade's article" getting such intense press I find highly suspect. So should you. Don't be so damn gullible FFS!
Fauci is a very smooth political operator but there is a lot more there than meets the eye. He became the Democrats' favorite doctor when he artfully countered Trump's accusations against China last year and that criticism has given him a lot of cover for his real weakness in the Covid crisis, which is the fact that he is fatally compromised in his objectivity.
Senator Rand's criticisms of him are essentially valid: he is, and has been, the beating heart of gain of function research in virology for many years. When domestic GOF research was shut down by Obama, he did an end run around these restrictions by funneling NIH money to Eco-Health (Peter Daszak's organization) which then channelled it to the Wuhan Lab. He is up to his eyeballs in creating this Frankenstein - as are, more widely, the majority of the virologists that work for, and with, the NIH - and he knows it. Virologists as a group realize that there would be overwhelming pushback against this kind of research, thereby jeopardizing their livelihood, if this catastrophe was pinned on them.
That someone with such conflicts of interest has been looked to as an objective source of information on the origins of this virus is just more evidence of the corrupt (or, to give them more credit than they deserve, childishly credulous) nature of today's MSM. Of course, the rot does not stop with the origin of the virus. More broadly, it goes to the role of Fauci in his drive for vaccinations when highly effective therapeutics are, and have been, available. Fauci's organization (NIH) hold patents on COVID vaccines and stand to benefit by their being promoted over other treatments. Now that people are starting to see the face behind the mask of this character, we should reassess his early dismissals of anti-viral therapeutics like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin (the latter is now being used on a massive scale in India, the WHO's objections notwithstanding; surprise, surprise: it is working).
Remember that under US law the 'Emergency Use Authorization' for these vaccines cannot be granted if there is an effective therapeutic available. Like hydroxychloroquine. Like ivormectin. Interested readers may find this short clip from Bret Weinstein's excellent Dark Horse podcast very informative: youtu.be/zfqxCkJw0Rk?list=PLCXya1JzWcnSCHNSipO8fWFonSWyyDQq5
And finally, for those who read French, I highly recommend the following two books which chronicle the corruption (and, frankly, criminal behavior) that has characterized the 'management' of this crisis: "Big Pharma Démasqué' by Xavier Bazin and "Aux Origines Du Mal" by Brice Perrier.
Apologies for this lengthy addendum, which is a summary of Nicholas Wade's excellent article on the origins of the virus. It is a long and technical piece which not everyone will have the time (or interest) to get through. But it is, in my view, essential to understanding why the lab origin hypothesis is probable, so here I provide the Cliff's Notes version.
He makes four key arguments for the lab leak hypothesis, some of which are a little abstruse to the non-scientific reader, but here they are:
1) The place of origin. If the virus had an animal origin there would be evidence of the virus in infected animals or humans outside of Wuhan, specifically in the region where these types of coronaviruses are known to come from. In a year of looking, no such evidence has materialized.
2) No evidence of gradual zoonotic mutation. In every other case of a virus making a jump from an animal host to a human host, it has gone through a process of evolutionary development which incrementally makes it more adapted to humans. This was the case for SARS and for MERS. In the case of COVID the virus emerged fully suited to human infection with no evidence of less successful antecedents.
3) The furin cleavage site. (Here we get technical.) The spike protein on the virus is composed of two separate sub-units, known as S1 and S2. Cleaving the spike protein into these two subunits is the key mechanism that allows the virus entry into a human cell. However it takes a specific enzyme on the surface of a cell to do this cleaving. There are many types of enzymes that can potentially cleave a protein, depending on the particular amino acids that comprise the protein. However only in humans is there the furin enzyme, which does its protein cutting thing in the presence of a specific amino acid sequence on the protein to be cleaved. COVID is the only coronavirus yet discovered that has this ‘furin cleavage site’ in its spike protein (between the S1 and S2 sub-units, naturally).
4) Human specific codons. (Here we get much more technical, so I will try to compress this a bit.) Proteins are simply chains of amino acids. Each amino acid is built from three units (nucleotides) of DNA, which are called codons. It turns out that there is more than one combination of the four DNA nucleotides (A, C, G, T) that produces the same amino acid. For example, the codons CGT and CGC both produce the amino acid arginine. But the key fact is that humans have a definite preference for a specific codon producing a given amino acid. It just so happens that in the furin cleavage site the codons that produce arginine are specific to humans and are very rare in the other parts of the coronavirus genome.
These are the technical arguments upon which Wade’s lab origin hypothesis rests. I find them compelling, particularly the last two points. The full paper can be found here: thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ and I recommend it highly.
Re: Item 1 - Just wrong. There are closely related viruses as far as Vietnam. I don't have the cite at my fingertips, but I saw that one. This argument is also like the old "missing link" stories that aimed to prove humans weren't evolved from lesser primates because we couldn't find all of the steps. No, you can't expect to find all the steps as suggested. That's ridiculous nonsense. RNA viruses mutate like mad. Instead you use evolutionary trees, and look at the apparent rate of mutations. There are multiple hypotheses for how SARS-CoV-2 adapted to humans. One is a set of men who got very sick for quite a while. Immune compromised might be another. It is doubtful we will find anything crystal clear. Reality isn't like that.
Re: Item 2 - Just wrong. Wade is either grossly ignorant, or deliberately falsifying here. There is plenty of evidence of natural origin. Not hard to find such studies. Here's one.
(May 2020) A close relative of SARS-CoV-2 found in bats offers more evidence it evolved naturally.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200511142202.htm
Re: Item 3 - Just wrong. Furin is present and it's highly conserved in mammals. (May 2020) Structural and functional modelling of SARS-CoV-2 entry in animal models.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-72528-z
"... in a panel of animal models, i.e. guinea pig, dog, cat, rat, rabbit, ferret, mouse, hamster and macaque. Here we showed that ACE2, but not TMPRSS2 or Furin, has a higher level of sequence variability in the Spike protein interaction surface, which greatly influences Spike protein binding mode.... TMPRSS2 and Furin are sufficiently similar in the considered hosts not to drive susceptibility differences.
Re: Item 4 - Just wrong. There is NO SUCH THING as a human specific codon! There are mostly mild differences in the production of tRNA for different codons. But you can use a human sequence in E. coli, and vice versa. The codon optimization just gives you somewhat higher production, that's all. So no. This is just not true.
Bluntly put, Wade's article is utter garbage. Wade is not a scientist. The people pimping it (like Trish Wood) are not scientists. The whole business of "Wade's article" getting such intense press I find highly suspect. So should you. Don't be so damn gullible FFS!
Thanks for the detailed reply.
I am not a scientist, just a reasonably bright guy that reads a lot, so this will have to be fought out by folks at a higher pay grade than me. Of course, the lab theory is not strictly a product of Mr. Wade. Nicholson Baker made a similar case in a New York Magazine article in January and there were folks that preceded him, going back the better part of a year (Josh Rogin, Saager Enjeti, Bret Weinstein, Matt Ridley, Crystal Ball, Steve Hilton, etc.) although they were largely met with derision from the MSM and the designated scientific establishment.
As I say, I am not a scientist and maybe you are. But now that the battle has been joined, let's hope that the experts - all of the experts - are allowed to get to the bottom of this thing.
I appreciate the considered response. I am a scientist. I have publications in epidemiology, (modeling and field), biodefense, terorrism, gene therapy (patents), and policy. I do vaccine development. I've got vaccines for Ebola, COVID-19, West Nile virus, Hanta, and a few others in the freezer.
All of the parties mentioned made their cases with innuendo, pointing to Chinese governmental behavior. None of them made a case worth a worn out t-shirt. I think it is all propaganda mixed with incompetent dabbling of the Dunning Kreuger variety. (Although the real Dunning Kreuger graph is much less damning than the meme variety.)
Citation date for Item 3's cite should be (sept 2020)
Trish Wood did an excellent deep-dive interview with the author of this article on her podcast, Trish Wood Is Critical.
«1) The place of origin. If the virus had an animal origin there would be evidence of the virus in infected animals or humans outside of Wuhan, specifically in the region where these types of coronaviruses are known to come from. In a year of looking, no such evidence has materialized.»
* If it was man-made it could have been made somewhere else and deliberately or accidentally spread in Wuhan in order to cripple a key node of the chinese economy.
* If it was of natural origin it could also have started somewhere else and collected, selected, and deliberately spread in Wuhan.
Regardless of its origin, the big deal that the smear campaigns seems design to obfuscate is what happened after the Wuhan outbreak: the test-trace-isolate approach in China resulted in less than 5,000 deaths over a year in a population over 3 times larger than the USA one where there have been over 500,000 deaths, and this without mass lock-downs, or mass vaccination.
The fact that you use the phrase 'smear campaign' leads me to think that you take the current hard look at a possible lab leak to be an indictment of China. I don't see it that way - certainly not in my case at any rate. I would be far angrier with the hubris and duplicity of our medical authorities in funding this research (and then covering it up) than with the Chinese if an accidental lab leak had taken place.
You also use the phrase 'design(ed) to obfuscate' to characterize such an investigation. Again I disagree as to the motivation for finding out. If it was a lab leak then this has dramatic implications for whether this research should be done at all. Perhaps more importantly, it casts the credibility of Fauci and the medical research community more generally into question on all of the issues that it has opined on, most importantly those regarding vaccines, therapeutics, and confinement.
As to your points that speak to the virus having been hatched someplace else and then planted in Wuhan, I suppose anything is possible. This is the official Chinese position, or is at least one that they trot out periodically when they are feeling particularly defensive. More specifically, they have claimed that the virus was created in our bio lab at Ft. Detrick, MD and then deliberately released at the worldwide military games in Wuhan in the fall of '19 in order to sabotage the Chinese economy.
Godfree Roberts, who I believe lives in China and is quite sympathetic to the Chinese viewpoint, has also promoted this theory. Again, I suppose anything is possible but Occam's razor generally cuts in the right direction and with the most efficiency.
Precisely the point - whether GOF research should be done at all ...
"resulted in less than 5,000 deaths over a year in a population over 3 times larger than the USA"
Regardless of the truth in those numbers, which is to say I doubt there's much, I've wondered why it was that China took such unprecedented steps to eradicate covid if its scientists weren't familiarized with it. Almost like its leading scientists knew exactly what it was (at the time).
«Regardless of the truth in those numbers, which is to say I doubt there's much»
Similar sickness and death rates have been reported by China-Taiwan, Korea-south, Kerala, New Zealand, Vietnam and Japan. It is shocking to imagine that they are all complicit with Chinese Communist Party. :-)
«I've wondered why it was that China took such unprecedented steps to eradicate covid if its scientists weren't familiarized with it. Almost like its leading scientists knew exactly what it was (at the time).»
The same approach with the same results was taken by China-Taiwan, Korea-south, Kerala, New Zealand, Vietnam and Japan. It is shocking to imagine that the leading scientists in those countries “knew exactly what it was”.
Or perhaps your comment is made entirely of handwaving smears.
You're ignoring how China led with its unprecedented steps and many other countries followed, including us, because, well, they were unprecedented.
But haven't you ever wondered why China locked down - and I mean *locked down*, China style - many of its major cities if covid wasn't killing its people? Or that China was deathly afraid of what it released. Or both?
«You're ignoring how China led with its unprecedented steps and many other countries followed, including us, because, well, they were unprecedented.»
That the steps were "unprecedented" seems to me pure hallucinatory smears, here is appropriately for this post some "fact checking", for example in strongly "anti-communist" China-Taiwan similar steps were not at all unprecedented, they were part of a plan:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/29/asia/taiwan-covid-19-intl-hnk/
“Authorities activated the island's Central Epidemic Command Center, which was set up in the wake of SARS, to coordinate between different ministries. The government also ramped up face mask and protective equipment production to make sure there would be a steady supply of PPE. The government also invested in mass testing and quick and effective contact tracing. Former Taiwanese Vice President Chen Chien-jen, who is an epidemiologist by training, said lockdowns are not ideal. Chen also said that the type of mass-testing schemes undertaken in mainland China, where millions of people are screened when a handful of cases are detected, are also unnecessary. "Very careful contact tracing, and very stringent quarantines of close contacts are the best way to contain Covid-19," he said.”
The "anti-communist" governments of China-Taiwan and Singapore accordingly took "unprecedented" measures that had been carried out in previous epidemics at the end of December 2020:
https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=2,6,10,15,18&post=168773
“Publication Date: January 02, 2020
Taiwan has implemented more stringent inspection measures for inbound flights from Wuhan, China, following an outbreak of pneumonia in the city, according to the Centers for Disease Control under the Ministry of Health and Welfare Dec. 31, 2019.”
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/ministry-of-health-issues-advisory-on-viral-pneumonia-outbreak-in-chinas-wuhan
“Travellers arriving at Changi Airport from Wuhan to undergo temperature screening after pneumonia outbreak
Published Jan 2, 2020, 9:01 pm SGT”
CCP welded shut doors of repeat offenders of its lockdowns. Entire cities were shut down. No biz, no mingling, no food except what the local govt had to offer. UNPRECEDENTED.
“Entire cities were shut down. No biz, no mingling, no food except what the local govt had to offer. UNPRECEDENTED.”
Further fact checking of this moronic handwaving hallucination with a simple web search returns for example:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/
“In 1918, a San Francisco health officer shot three people when one refused to wear a mandatory face mask. In Arizona, police handed out $10 fines for those caught without the protective gear. But eventually, the most drastic and sweeping measures paid off. After implementing a multitude of strict closures and controls on public gatherings, St. Louis, San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Kansas City responded fastest and most effectively: Interventions there were credited with cutting transmission rates by 30 to 50 percent. New York City, which reacted earliest to the crisis with mandatory quarantines and staggered business hours, experienced the lowest death rate on the Eastern seaboard. [...]
By comparing fatality rates, timing, and public health interventions, they found death rates were around 50 percent lower in cities that implemented preventative measures early on, versus those that did so late or not at all. The most effective efforts had simultaneously closed schools, churches, and theaters, and banned public gatherings. This would allow time for vaccine development (though a flu vaccine was not used until the 1940s) and lessened the strain on health care systems.”
Is the National Geographic a "communist" mouthpiece that is out to lie about the “UNPRECENTED” idiocy of your hallucinations?
Here is another source:
https://history.com/news/spanish-flu-pandemic-response-cities
“When a flu outbreak at a nearby military barracks first spread into the St. Louis civilian population, Starkloff wasted no time closing the schools, shuttering movie theaters and pool halls, and banning all public gatherings. There was pushback from business owners, but Starkloff and the mayor held their ground. When infections swelled as expected, thousands of sick residents were treated at home by a network of volunteer nurses. Dehner says that because of these precautions, St. Louis public health officials were able to “flatten the curve” and keep the flu epidemic from exploding overnight as it did in Philadelphia.”
I don't think your comparing today's CCP to America 100 years ago is the win you think it is.
«I don't think»
I have been fact checking that! :-) Here is one more fact check:
«comparing today's CCP to America 100 years ago»
What about Singapore, with a hard-right anti-communist government, a little over 15 years ago?
https://mothership.sg/2020/02/sars-wuhan-outbreak-explained/
“From then on, Singapore's SARS death toll started rising with another four deaths reported by Mar. 31, 2003, according to MICA.
With deaths inducing panic among parents, and the virus spreading rapidly, the government announced the closure of schools on Mar. 27, 2003 — which happened to be during the March school holidays that year. From preschools to junior colleges, schools would remained closed till Apr. 6, 2003, though the period of closure was subsequently extended.
Following incidents of quarantined individuals breaking the requirement to stay at home, MOH announced on Apr. 10 that surveillance cameras would be placed in homes of those quarantined. The next day, Apr. 11, mobile thermal scanners were installed at Changi Airport. On Apr. 12, it was decided that those who flouted home quarantines would be required to wear electronic tags. Later that month, on Apr. 24, the penalties for breaking quarantine were stiffened — this included possible jail sentences for quarantine breakers and higher fines. On May 2, a 50-year-old was arrested and later jailed for breaking his quarantine order twice. [...] According to the WHO, dozens of police officers wearing surgical masks cleared the Pasir Panjang wholesale market of people on Apr. 19.
They also built barricades and prohibited people from entering.
It would later be announced that the vegetable market, Singapore's largest, would be closed for 10 days, though this was later extended to 15 days. And all this was because in the month of April, a vegetable seller who worked at the market had fallen ill.”
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/sars-in-singapore-timeline
“March 24: The Infectious Diseases Act is invoked. About 740 people are home-quarantined for 10 days. [...] March 27: All schools are shut till April 6. Those who die of Sars must be cremated within 24 hours. [...] March 29: Temperature checks are introduced for all passengers entering Singapore through Changi Airport.”
That was all "UNPRESIDENTED"! :-)
Huh? Initially the entire Hubei province was shut down ...
Not quite, and anyhow other places occasionally: it takes time to prepare for mass testing and trace-isolate. The boast by the ex vice-president of China-Taiwan that no lock-down is ever needed is quite excessive. But there is a big difference between a mass lock-down of an entire country for a year and a some weeks in some place or another, that said the Wuhan metropolitan area has 10-11 million people, so it has more people than many countries.
For an idea of the approach taken:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54504785
“The Chinese city of Qingdao is testing its entire population of nine million people for Covid-19 over a period of five days. The mass testing comes after the discovery of a dozen cases linked to a hospital treating coronavirus patients arriving from abroad. In May, China tested the entire city of Wuhan - home to 11 million people and the epicentre of the global pandemic. The country has largely brought the virus under control. That is in stark contrast to other parts of the world, where there are still high case numbers and lockdown restrictions of varying severity. In a statement posted to Chinese social media site Weibo, Qingdao's Municipal Health Commission said six new cases and six asymptomatic cases had been discovered.”
So we fu...d up there, too ...
«So we fu...d up there, too ...»
BTW not everywhere, Bloomberg BusinessWeek has also reported that "communist" Minnesota has done a mass testing plan, even if not quite on such a large scale and speed as in other countries:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-01-14/covid-testing-minnesota-is-the-best-state-for-checking-for-coronavirus
“The U.S. Needs More Covid Testing, and Minnesota Has Found a Way Get everybody in an entire state to spit into a tube? You betcha.”
So if only Minn. could figure out a way to get everyone to properly mask up ...
«So we fu...d up there, too ...»
And that is the real story, not vaccinations, not lock-down, not masks, which are all distractions from the stark comparison between neoliberal countries and civilized countries. In the USA, UK, etc. the priority has been whichever policy impacted least the upper-middle and upper classes, and made the best marketing copy for "big pharma". It is not as if test-trace-isolate was unknown to "atlantic" epidemiologists, here are articles written early in 2020 be the UK Chief Medical Officer and Chief Science Officer:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/14/england-coronavirus-testing-has-not-risen-fast-enough-science-chief
“Sir Patrick Vallance says testing needs to be done at scale to find outbreaks and isolate people [...] Sir Patrick Vallance’s comments echo those of Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, who said a week ago that Germany “got ahead” in testing people for Covid-19 and that the UK needed to learn from that.”
Eventually, even Bloomberg BusinessWeek broke with the neoliberal ideology that not getting infected and not infecting others is a matter of individual choice:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-10-01/coronavirus-pandemic-how-the-u-s-can-implement-rapid-covid-testing
“Better, Faster Testing Is the Path to an American Comeback
Imagine going safely to a bar, or a wedding, or parent-teacher night, without a vaccine. It’s still possible, if the U.S. can get its act together.”
On this the Democratic politicians and press have not at all criticized the Trump policies, have respected that neoliberal ideology, just arguing distractingly about how hard lock-downs should be and how fabulous "big pharma saviours of humanity" have been.
Yup, we are fuc..ing up there, too, and have been for decades - "reaching across the 'bipartisan' aisle" to achieve "bipartisan" consensus in the endeavor ...
What I think you may be missing that lockdowns are not uniformally bad in any circumstance, but that folks in lockdown should be provided with the means to satisfy their basic needs during those lockdowns. Sorry, a couple of $2000 checks ain't gonna cut it ...
When was the Wuhan outbreak?
That is a rather vague and difficult questions, because "outbreak" is not well defined: in China and elsewhere there are "outbreaks" of something almost every year, and SARS-2 symptoms, at least initially, can easily be mistake for something else, and many people infected with SARS-2 have no symptoms or trivial symptoms, so the SARS-2 outbreak in Wuhan could have started well before it got noticed and recognized as a new thing.
As to noticed and as a new thing, that was sometimes in December 2019. The official UK government timeline for example gives "end of December":
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wuhan-novel-coronavirus-background-information/wuhan-novel-coronavirus-epidemiology-virology-and-clinical-features
«On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) was informed of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China.»
The WHO statement has these details:
«Symptom onset of the 41 confirmed nCoV cases ranges from 8 December 2019 to 2 January 2020. No additional cases have been detected since 3 January 2020. The clinical signs and symptoms reported are mainly fever, with a few cases having difficulty in breathing, and chest radiographs showing invasive pneumonic infiltrates in both lungs.»
The WHO a few days later called it “Pneumonia of unknown cause – China”. Wikipedia has a 2019 timeline that says:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_2019
«Phylogenetics estimates that SARS-CoV-2 arose in October or November 2019. It is not known whether the virus itself evolved in wildlife populations or if its distinctive spike proteins were selected for after zoonotic transfer to humans. A September 2020 review noted "The possibility that the COVID-19 infection had already spread to Europe at the end of last year is now indicated by abundant, even if partially circumstantial, evidence", including pneumonia case numbers and radiology in France and Italy in November and December. RT-PCR (Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) testing of untreated wastewater samples from Brazil and Italy have suggested detection of SARS-CoV-2 as early as November and December 2019, respectively, but the methods of such sewage studies have not been optimised, many have not been peer reviewed, details are often missing, and there is a risk of false positives due to contamination or if only one gene target is detected. Antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain were reported in 111 (11.6%) of 959 asymptomatic participants in a lung cancer screening trial in Italy from September 2019, which the authors claim may indicate an earlier start to the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization stated it was reviewing the results, seeking verification of the neutralization results, and that "the possibility that the virus may have silently circulated elsewhere cannot be ruled out"»
In any case the timeline is an interesting detail for amusement, the real story is that the government of China-Taiwan and other thoroughly capitalist countries as well as as "communist" ones have had negligible sickness and deaths rates thanks to state funded and organized test-trace-isolate, with nearly no lockdowns and nearly no business or jobs losses, and are in no hurry to be guinea pigs for vaccines.
But you have done so well, you don't need the vaccine! Cheers!
Yet every expert rubbished the lab leak hypothesis when it was first proposed. And all 17 of the WHO inspectors plus their 17 Chinese counterparts ranked it least likely.
It also requires the virus to be able to time travel, since it was circulating in the USA 3-5 years ago. https://johnmenadue.com/who-had-covid-first/
Okay, so what are you proposing then? That the virus began naturally somewhere years ago; has been circulating but somehow not causing a detectable outbreak; somehow made its way to Wuhan in late 2019; and then started an outbreak there?
Is that your hypothesis? How many of those 17 WHO inspectors have ranked your hypothesis as likely? If you think it's significant that they ranked the lab leak hypothesis least likely, then surely you have to accept that it's significant if they didn't rank your hypothesis higher? Or is their opinion only relevent for hypotheses you don't like, but doesn't count when it's yours?
The Wade article is innuendo with zero scientific content
What specific points do you object to and what is your background?
He's MarkS from last week under a new sock puppet name but still pretending to be a scientist.
See above. I responded to you. Wade's article is drivel.
PhD microbiology. Vaccine research and development. Epidemiology papers. Chapters in West Point sponsored books on biodefense and terrorism.
And you? What is yours?
Okay, then show them to me.
I admittedly haven’t read much on the lab origin stuff, as Wade’s article got just a *bit* too technical for me and my eyes glazed over, but has anybody reconciled the lab leak theory with claims based on analyzing sewage (I think?) and finding reason to believe the virus has been in USA/Europe for many months longer than initially believed? Can the two theories even coexist or are they in competition? I really haven’t looked much into either one but it seems like they both have their own set of implications that kind of compete with each other.
All valid hypotheses compete with one another to some extent. In the case of the Wuhan story, if you put the two major hypotheses respectively on a scale, the evidence is tipping in favor of a lab release. Give Wade's article another go; it's worth the effort.
It was a great article. Gain of function is reminiscent of Frankenstein. Just smaller
Or much larger, if total damage is taken into consideration. :)
True. I meant the organism, not the end results. I would gladly join a mob to hunt down Fauci though!!
I knew what you meant. Hence the smiley. :)
Gotcha, I’ll give it another look, thanks. Sorry my question was vague and I probably shouldn’t have asked if they “compete” per se when I was really asking if they’re mutually exclusive. I’ll give Wade’s article that second look though and I imagine that will give me a different perspective regardless.
Faucci is an opportunist who has been milking the taxpayer for decades. The man should have retired at least a decade ago. He's almost 80 years old, fifteen years past the normal retirement age for Federal workers. He got into the health service as a means of avoiding military service in Vietnam (doctors were subjected to be drafted into one of the military services but they could join Public Health as an alternative.)
He turned 80 last December. I lost ALL respect for him the minute he flip flopped on the masks within a month in the spring of 2020. The truth will come out about the gain of function funding by Fauci via the NAIAD in the Wuhan lab and his connection to it all. He's lied and lied and lied. Just listen to Joe Rogin, WAPO editorial writer out with a new book, discussing it on the Megyn Kelly podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/covid-truth-on-wuhan-lab-herd-immunity-vaccines-variants/id1532976305?i=1000517073772
He lied about AZT as well didn't he ?
He sure did!
I agree with you on the conflict of interest point - but re vaccines, is it better to prevent a disease than to have to treat it .... The issue with these particular vaccines is another story, a patent story ...
One more comment since I did not pick up on the main point that you made until just now. You state that it is better to prevent a disease than to have to treat it. Right.
What I did not make clear in my prior posts is that ivermectin can be use not only to treat but also as a prophylactic - thus preventing someone from coming down with the disease in the first place. India is using it in this capacity - and Big Pharma is not pleased.
An important point that I did not make - thanks for the question.
Studies re its efficacy re prevention?
Here is a link that might help: covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/FLCCC-IVERMECTIN-Summary.pdf
Very interesting - just out of curiosity, are there any scientific reviews of the studies mentioned ...
How about side effects, immediate and long term ...
What it seems to me you are suggesting is that if we all took ivermectin, as prescribed, "until this thing blows over" (by Easter, maybe?), that we could forego masks and social distancing anywhere and everywhere.... Yes? No?
I don't take a doctrinaire stance on ivermectin one way or the other. It may well be the case that taking a course of ivermectin, as suggested by these doctors, is preferable to taking the new vaccines, the long term effects of which are anyone's guess.
As for scientific studies, this may be of help: https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FLCCC-Ivermectin-in-the-prophylaxis-and-treatment-of-COVID-19.pdf
Good luck!
Impressive - included a mechanism of action (I'm big on those :)) binding to ACE-2 receptors.
So, is that what you have been doing? How long would you continue?
As to long term effects - hmmm, if the vaccines produce only short term immunity, and the jury is still out on that, perhaps you might have an argument for preferring Ivermectin to them ...
So, no masks, no vaccine? Only Ivermectin?
I cannot do anything right in responding to you. :) I answered this question below in response to your last comment on the emergency authorization issue.
Ok, you answered the question from the above post in a response to an unrelated post, below ....
Correct
There is the prudence argument with respect to the vaccines. These are not ordinary vaccines in the sense of injecting a dead or attenuated virus into the body so as to trigger an ordinary immune response. None of the covid vaccines are in that category and the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines in particular use a cutting edge technology (MRNA encapsulated by a lipid envelope) never been tried before. Since these 'vaccines' rely on an entirely new and tested method to generate antibodies, the long term (even mid term) effects are undetermined at this point.
If someone could take the equivalent of aspirin (e.g. ivermectin) until this thing blows over as opposed to an untried therapy that operates at the RNA level, many would do so. Furthermore, the law mandates it: remember, if there is a viable therapeutic to treat an illness then such a 'vaccine' would be deemed too unproven to be permitted to be used.
WHO Adviser Says It's 'Likely' Coronavirus Leaked from Lab ...
https://news.yahoo.com/adviser-says-likely-coronavirus-leaked-200153962.html
Jamie Metzl, a member of the World Health Organization's International Advisory Committee on Human Genome Editing, has speculated that the coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China.
In 2015 Wuhan lab was studying " Zoonotic Transition" (Bats) how an animal virus penetrates a human cell.
When I posted this on FB it was REMOVED.
CDC said only 6% of Covid deaths were ONLY COVID.
Metzl, to his credit, has been saying this for a while. With respect to FB, they have gone from being the most tolerant of the tech platforms to being the most restrictive. Remember Zuckerberg's dismissal of the left's accusation that the Russians' manipulation of his platform was responsible for Trump's election in '16? Now FB will not even allow a recording of Trump's voice to be on the platform!
I am surprised that FB only removed your post and not you.
I only go to FB for family communication. I don't want to be tainted by misinformation. My husband who was a Progressive, but is waking up, can't believe he's being censored. When I complained about them doing it 2 years ago, he laughed at me.
Several are based on combining a basically harmless viruses with parts of the spike protein - the mRNA ones are new to vaccine application, I agree - and have several downsides, more expensive, double dose, excessive cold storage requirements, more expensive, etc - did you mean "tested" or "untested"
Don't think Ivermectin is the "equivalent" of aspirin - It is a pharmaceutical, and has side effects of it's own - it is used as a Rx for various conditions, not as a preventative - which is what you seem to suggest - "take it until this thing blows over" - potentially for years?
Kindly tell me, citation, "where if there is a viable therapeutic to treat an illness then such a 'vaccine' would be deemed too unproven to be permitted to be used."
I repeat - seems to me better to prevent than to have to treat ...
'Tested' should have been 'untested' - late at night and typing too fast.
Ivermectin seems to be remarkably safe for an effective anti-viral. The group headed by Paul Marik and Pierre Cory is probably the best source of information. Some links:
covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/i-mask-plus-protocol/
covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FLCCC-Alliance-I-MASKplus-Protocol-ENGLISH.pdf
covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/FLCCC-IVERMECTIN-Summary.pdf
Sorry, again I did not respond to one of your questions. :)
The emergency use authorization question is answered in the second paragraph on this page: www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/mcm-legal-regulatory-and-policy-framework/emergency-use-authorization
But if you want the actual act language, here it is (from https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/21/360bbb-3):
(c)Criteria for issuance of authorization
The Secretary may issue an authorization under this section with respect to the emergency use of a product only if, after consultation with the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, and the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (to the extent feasible and appropriate given the applicable circumstances described in subsection (b)(1)), the Secretary concludes—
(1)that an agent referred to in a declaration under subsection (b) can cause a serious or life-threatening disease or condition;
(2)that, based on the totality of scientific evidence available to the Secretary, including data from adequate and well-controlled clinical trials, if available, it is reasonable to believe that—
(A)the product may be effective in diagnosing, treating, or preventing—
(i)such disease or condition; or
(ii)a serious or life-threatening disease or condition caused by a product authorized under this section, approved or cleared under this chapter, or licensed under section 351 of the Public Health Service Act [42 U.S.C. 262], for diagnosing, treating, or preventing such a disease or condition caused by such an agent; and
(B)the known and potential benefits of the product, when used to diagnose, prevent, or treat such disease or condition, outweigh the known and potential risks of the product, taking into consideration the material threat posed by the agent or agents identified in a declaration under subsection (b)(1)(D), if applicable;
(3)that there is no adequate, approved, and available alternative to the product for diagnosing, preventing, or treating such disease or condition;
This is why I ask for citations - actual wording matters ...
So, in this case the wording says "The Sec. may issue an authorization only if ..... the Sec concludes .... there is no adequate alternative for ... preventing or treating such disease ... "
So the ? is has the Sec concluded that there IS such an available alternative ...
You can argue that he should have concluded this with regard to Ivermectin, but if he didn't, he was not precluded from issuing the EUA with regard to the vaccine ...
I am in the early stages of educating my doctor on ivermectin. So far I have not asked him for a prescription and am not yet sure that I will. But it is possible, however, once I get a little more familiar with the literature and let the idea sink in. Of course, there is then the challenge of seeing whether he has the latitude / courage to buck the received wisdom (and perhaps the dictates of his corporate practice guidelines) and prescribe it. In the meantime, my daily routine is to take a cocktail of vitamins and supplements (D, C, NAC, Quercetin, Zinc, EGCG, Turmeric, K) and hope for the best.
Although I have a residence in Pennsylvania I spend most of my time in Houston, where people are fairly relaxed about the disease. People still wear masks in stores, for example, but not outside - and pretty much everything is open. Within the last couple of days I have even seen people maskless in stores - it is only a matter of time down here. From what I hear from my friends up east however there is still a lot of fear in the air (and a lot of moral preening, frankly). Very different vibe in the City of Brotherly Love from the one in the Bayou City.
And there is the fact that, like a lot of people, I have a sneaking suspicion that I may have already had the disease. Around Thanksgiving in '19 I came down with a very sore throat, bad cough, and high fever (a little over 102). Was tested for flu and strep and both came back negative; and a fever is unusual for a common cold. Was down for about a week but isolated myself upstairs and rode it out. Downed a lot of EmergenC and Zinc throughout the week and recovered with no real aftereffects except for a morning cough, which has gradually gone away.
At the time, I went to a gym on a daily basis that had a very large native professional Chinese membership. The timing is a little off, since late November was fairly early on in the course of the disease, but who knows?
My response was specifically directed at your claim that an EUA was not authorized by regulation ....
If we work under an assumption that the lab-leak theory is true (and there is no evidence, as I understand, of natural development and spread of this virus,) then it would make sense why Fauci was foisted upon us to take the heat for what he had a hand in creating. No one wanted this hot potato. And as a result of all the ass-covering of the last year+ (again, if the lab-leak theory is true,) the powers that be have worsened our collective health, nearly cratered our economy, funneled trillions more dollars to billionaires, and politicized public health to such a degree that effective future communication in this realm are severely damaged. I could not be more disgusted.
Plenty of evidence for natural. Zero for "lab leak". Here's what I replied to "ChesterView" above.
Re: Item 1 - Just wrong. There are closely related viruses as far as Vietnam. I don't have the cite at my fingertips, but I saw that one. This argument is also like the old "missing link" stories that aimed to prove humans weren't evolved from lesser primates because we couldn't find all of the steps. No, you can't expect to find all the steps as suggested. That's ridiculous nonsense. RNA viruses mutate like mad. Instead you use evolutionary trees, and look at the apparent rate of mutations. There are multiple hypotheses for how SARS-CoV-2 adapted to humans. One is a set of men who got very sick for quite a while. Immune compromised might be another. It is doubtful we will find anything crystal clear. Reality isn't like that.
Re: Item 2 - Just wrong. Wade is either grossly ignorant, or deliberately falsifying here. There is plenty of evidence of natural origin. Not hard to find such studies. Here's one.
(May 2020) A close relative of SARS-CoV-2 found in bats offers more evidence it evolved naturally.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200511142202.htm
Re: Item 3 - Just wrong. Furin is present and it's highly conserved in mammals. (May 2020) Structural and functional modelling of SARS-CoV-2 entry in animal models.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-72528-z
"... in a panel of animal models, i.e. guinea pig, dog, cat, rat, rabbit, ferret, mouse, hamster and macaque. Here we showed that ACE2, but not TMPRSS2 or Furin, has a higher level of sequence variability in the Spike protein interaction surface, which greatly influences Spike protein binding mode.... TMPRSS2 and Furin are sufficiently similar in the considered hosts not to drive susceptibility differences.
Re: Item 4 - Just wrong. There is NO SUCH THING as a human specific codon! There are mostly mild differences in the production of tRNA for different codons. But you can use a human sequence in E. coli, and vice versa. The codon optimization just gives you somewhat higher production, that's all. So no. This is just not true.
Bluntly put, Wade's article is utter garbage. Wade is not a scientist. The people pimping it (like Trish Wood) are not scientists. The whole business of "Wade's article" getting such intense press I find highly suspect. So should you. Don't be so damn gullible FFS!
I cannot disagree with you.