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Fox State Media : Virus escaped a Wuhan lab

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I believe it's more likely that the US military DID create this virus and DID spread it into China.
Our little old military just LOVES playing war games and exploring new ways to kill people WITHOUT the need of bombs and bullets. Most of this desire or necessity began immediately after WWII where America and her allies may have won in the end but at an astronomically high price.
THAT RISK, the military decided, could never be allowed to happen again.
Never again to get that close to losing the entire ball game.
And thus, say hello to germ-warfare as never imagined before.
New and better ways to kill people.
Or, to kill YOU OWN PEOPLE if and when necessary.

So, thanks to that germ-warfare, they had already created "the virus". In a lab, and sitting on a shelf.
If people only knew the nasties contained within those jars sitting on those germ-warfare shelves, people would crap their pants.
SO you think HIV was scary? Coronavirus was scary? You ain't seen nothing yet. You can't begin to imagine all the nasties contained within those jars. And... new jars of nasties are being added to those germ-warfare shelves every day.
But the funny thing..... most all of their little war-game nasties in those jars tend to target the immune system. The HIV virus did exactly that, and now this Coronavirus is even more of a targeted creation.

Imagine, a man-made virus that so efficiently targeted the immune system of the most vulnerable? The elderly, the physically handicapped, the disabled, people that continue to financially drain society. Now, just imagine being able to trim away those physically vulnerable people, and to lessen the financial burden upon society. Well, no need to imagine, it is here today. The beast is called "The Coronavirus: version Corvid-19". Jar ID 74619999.
No folks, this deadly virus shit never just happens. Not in this time and not with this technology. This is no fluke nor some unforeseen. HIV was a man-made virus used to target a sector of society. Covid-19 is a man-made virus as well, developed in the same method as HIV to target a sector of society by once again targeting the immune system.
And while they are at it.... BLAME CHINA.

Look at those most vulnerable and at those most paying the ultimate price, the price of death...
The Nursing Homes.
And what do we have within nursing homes? The discarded of society. The financial drain on society. Those who can no longer take care of themselves, and families that can no longer take care of their relatives. In America we discard so many things and everyone wants an easy less stressful life. Taking care of a senior citizen in the home can be extremely stressful and costly to the family and extremely frustrating for the family to take on that role of care giver. Most if not all of American youth, the kids of those senior citizens within nursing homes, are not willing to take on that burden of care giver. In this life of go go go, having to stop and attend to grandma in the home is not acceptable for American youth. They have places to go, friends to meet, fun times to be had, so having an old lady in the house that messes her pants is not exactly the life millennials envisioned.
As America fears the coronavirus, little concern has been given to those paying the price, those elderly within the nursing homes. Oh sure, people are A LITTLE concerned, but not that much.

No, this latest Coronavirus did not just happened. Again, this was definitely a well planned undertaking. The creation and use of a man-made virus solely to target the old and the sick. To free up the financial burden upon social security, medicare, medicaid, disability, those costly safety-nets. The only shocker here is not that a government and especially the American government could and would do this to its own people, the shocker should be that people refuse to believe their own government could and would do this. Well kiddies, governments can do this and they will do this, and... they will repeat this in the future whenever necessary.
We're talking YOUR GOVERNMENT, this Donald Trump government. Beginning to see the trend here?

WHY do you think Donald Trump and the republicans suddenly cared not about exploding the national debt? And WHY do you think that as Donald Trump hands out all of this money to the people and to small businesses, giving away that doesn't appear to bother them? Typically, republicans are very very picky with taxpayer money, yet now suddenly they give away that money with a smile? As if they know, they know.... that a lot of old people are about to die thus no longer relying on SS checks, no longer relying medicare payments, no longer relying government money. THEY KNEW, THEY KNEW, Donald Trump's government knew that a massive financial shift was about to take place within America. A massive financial shift courtesy of yet another the post WWII germ-warfare man-made virus.
Do you REALLY believe these things JUST HAPPEN?
Come back to reality.
No shit.
Well you were starting to get a bit nutty yourself. You might want to remove that splinter from your eye.
 
Google maps says the market & the institute of virology are several miles apart across a river-


13 of the first 45 confirmed cases had no link to the seafood market. This has been known from the start. There should be no confidence that the seafood market is the source.
 
I really hate the habit of promoting theories via youtube videos. Not that everything on Youtube is mad or poor-quality, I've seen decent things on there, but I have multiple objections to watching such stuff.

Firstly every nutter I've encountered pushing unpleasant theories (e.g. Infowars-type stuff) will tell me to watch it on YouTube. It has bad associations, there's a lot of crap on there. And I think there's a reason for that - people use video presentations to try and hide the weakness of their arguments by using rhetorical tricks, plus YouTube do less content-policing that most platforms (hence there's music on there that has been taken down everywhere else by the aggressive recording industry! So YouTube's lack of standards are not entirely a bad thing!) Such videos may also be aimed at people who never read anything.

Secondly there is just something a bit arrogant and aggressive about telling people to sit and watch a video, as opposed to presenting arguments in text. It's hard to explain why, but making someone watch your video is putting them in a one-down position.

Thirdly it's inconvenient and time-consuming.

I have the same problem with non-political things, e.g. when seeking some bit of technical information it's annoying as hell when someone insists on putting it in a video so they can indulge their need to pretend to be a wacky TV presenter, rather than just telling you in written words what you want to know.

edit - I'm not suggesting that is 'your' video. But I really would much rather see the arguments being made in text form.
China has already shut down the laboratory web site that was featured in Matt's video.
 
Yes, but so what? Are you saying no humans ever come in contact with bats or with that possible intermediate host that your quote mentions, anywhere in the world? That particular market may not have traded in bats, but others did.
The market linked to a cluster of early cases was blamed. It seems that seafood market never had bats. A significant portion of the early cases could not be linked to the seafood market.

All over the world people are coming in contact with parts of the natural world that they previously did not, and the degree of international travel and interconnectedness is greater than ever.
The bats with a similar strain that were collected by the lab and studied live in cave systems over 900km from the market in question. Large colonies in caes and trees. They would not find a suitable habitat anywhere near the market in question. Wuhan is a huge urban area and it's unlikely that these kinds of bats would naturally interact with people in Wuhan. I'm just saying there's nothing to indicate the seafood market was the origin, but the lab is absolutely a possibility. People who say the seafood market is "more likely" are basing this on...what exactly?

Whether this outbreak had any connection to an accident in a lab still seems to me to be a secondary issue.
Determining the origin really is fairly important - especially if we find it was mishandled in a lab and accidentally infected someone. The world would need to take steps to ensure this can't happen again in the same way.
 
The market linked to a cluster of early cases was blamed. It seems that seafood market never had bats. A significant portion of the early cases could not be linked to the seafood market.

You are missing my point, though. I'm not debating the question of the lab in this particular incident. My point is that this sort of thing can happen anyway, so we need to be able to respond to it. Even if it were proven to have come from a lab, and if it could somehow be ensured that such a thing never happened again, I don't think that would reduce the total risk of such a pandemic occurring by very much, because there's already a large risk of it happening naturally (e.g. from those markets that _do_ sell bats).

Also, there seems to be a lot of confused and directly-contradictory information out there about the origin of this, including evidence both for and against the lab theory (I might try and compile the articles presenting evidence each way, many of which seem to directly contradict each other). To me it mostly just highlights how little we really know about medical questions. I've always felt that the medical profession have a tendency to over-estimate how much they understand about the human body and diseases. In general I think we aren't as scientifically advanced as we imagine we are.

Again, I don't 100% rule-out the possibility of a lab accident (though I do think a deliberate release is too insane to be believable), I just think it's not the primary concern at the moment
 
13 of the first 45 confirmed cases had no link to the seafood market. This has been known from the start. There should be no confidence that the seafood market is the source.

The seafood market is demonstrably the epicenter of the spread. How it came to be there is as yet unknown.
 
The market linked to a cluster of early cases was blamed. It seems that seafood market never had bats. A significant portion of the early cases could not be linked to the seafood market.


The bats with a similar strain that were collected by the lab and studied live in cave systems over 900km from the market in question. Large colonies in caes and trees. They would not find a suitable habitat anywhere near the market in question. Wuhan is a huge urban area and it's unlikely that these kinds of bats would naturally interact with people in Wuhan. I'm just saying there's nothing to indicate the seafood market was the origin, but the lab is absolutely a possibility. People who say the seafood market is "more likely" are basing this on...what exactly?


Determining the origin really is fairly important - especially if we find it was mishandled in a lab and accidentally infected someone. The world would need to take steps to ensure this can't happen again in the same way.
"It seems"
"Just as likely"
"I'm just saying"
"Unlikely"

As a skeptic, I find your arguments as believabl as the typical pseudoscientific claims often made for health reasons.
 
This WaPo link was in OP's Fox article. This makes more of a case that the virus could have come from the Wuhan lab.

State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses

Yeah per something I read on Fox they were clear it wasn’t meant to be a weapon. Theory was either some people in a remote area caught it and it was being studied but proper controls were not in place and a dude studying it was exposed then exposed a bunch of people in wuhan.
Not completely a crazy idea, seems worth looking into however I don’t get how that changes anything. Wether it came from a wet market or weird Chinese eating habits or some random animal event doesn’t really matter much at this time.
 
"It seems"
"Just as likely"
"I'm just saying"
"Unlikely"

As a skeptic, I find your arguments as believabl as the typical pseudoscientific claims often made for health reasons.

As a "skeptic," why aren't you looking at both possibilities with skepticism?

"The bats carrying CoV ZC45 were originally found in Yunnan or Zhejiang province, both of which were more than 900 kilometers away from the seafood market. Bats were normally found to live in caves and trees. But the seafood market is in a densely-populated district of Wuhan, a metropolitan of ~15 million people. The probability was very low for the bats to fly to the market. According to municipal reports and the testimonies of 31 residents and 28 visitors, the bat was never a food source in the city, and no bat was traded in the market. There was possible natural recombination or intermediate host of the coronavirus, yet little proof has been reported."

Also 13 of the earliest known cases could not be linked to the seafood market at all. Kinda strange that you would latch on to only one origin possibility. I'm open to any evidence implicating the seafood market. The only information I have is there was a cluster of infections from there, at the same time as other infections that couldn't be linked to the location. People speculated that infected bats were sold at the seafood market. Witnesses and investigators said there were no bats. Maybe they're wrong. Anyway, there's no reason to assume the seafood market is the source. There are some reasons to suggest it wasn't.
 
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I'm "ragging on" youtube videos in general to explain why I don't care to watch it. No 'pretence' involved (wherein lies the pretence?)

If the theory is well-substantiated, then show me somewhere explaining it in text form. And maybe I might at some point read it. Though I've already said why I'm not convinced that the precise origin of the outbreak is a critical issue, as opposed to how we respond to it.

Note that I wrote this response in words, I didn't record a video of me giving it!

Youtube videos generally fall in to 2 categories.
1. Educational where they come from established sources, backed by hard facts. By nature, the video is not important. The underlying facts are.
2. Entertainment. Facts are not important. The video is. "Hey everybody!!! Lets listen to this stranger's anecdotes and opinions and see if it gets you all tingly inside!!!"

Any post that has "Watch this video and you will be SHOCKED!!! " or "Watch this video if you want to know more" usually tend to be posts that can be ignored. Supporting that notion is the gigatons of study into the impact of imagery and media and all that "social science bullshit" that Anandtech forum members like to make fun of. Maybe because those fields of study document how easily manipulated the big ballers of Anantech are to mass media.

Also supporting that through anecdotal evidence that 96.9999% of video posted on this sub forum where the video is being advertised as "informational" are posted by a small subset members. Those video's are usually bullshit videos that do not stand up to any level of scrutiny.

However, 65% of videos posted as entertainment are usually pretty entertaining.

Idea's worth discussing or debating are always best using mouth or keyboard in a good old back and forth.

Instead of Muse getting pissy about someone not watching a random video from youtube, why wouldn't Muse just simply use his own words to discuss the topic he want to discuss?

This post brought to you by "procrastinating on something i should be doing" so please pardon grammar, quality and taste.
 
13 of the first 45 confirmed cases had no link to the seafood market. This has been known from the start. There should be no confidence that the seafood market is the source.



I've read several medical research articles on the beginning of the virus and was unable to determine the location demographics of the 13 except that they were in Wuhan which is a large city with large districts. I did find that the first case was not linked to the market. Two out of three of the next set of reported cases also had no link to the market.




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The notion that the virus escaped from the lab *is* conspiracy theory, plain & simple. The notion that WHO engaged in some conspiracy with the Chinese is the same-


I really hate Wapo's paywall!

Care to summarise the factual points being made there?

I think the WHO is a mixed bag. The degree of praise they lavished on China didn't do their credibility a lot of good with me. But they did try and get Western governments to take this seriously, and were mostly ignored, for their pains.

All international organisations are going to be mixed bags, because none of them have their own army, they have to keep all those self-serving national governments sweet.
 
I really hate Wapo's paywall!

Care to summarise the factual points being made there?

I think the WHO is a mixed bag. The degree of praise they lavished on China didn't do their credibility a lot of good with me. But they did try and get Western governments to take this seriously, and were mostly ignored, for their pains.

All international organisations are going to be mixed bags, because none of them have their own army, they have to keep all those self-serving national governments sweet.

Article says that numerous US CDC officials - infectious disease experts - were working at the WHO in January on Coronavirus response when the WHO allegedly bought into China's apparent soft-pedaling of the virus. And also that CDC officials were working directly in China as well.
 
There is such a lot of contradictory claims about the topic. There are clearly photographs out there of bats being sold at other markets, but not at that one. There are claims about genetic analysis of the virus implying that it can't be 'man made' and that it does, or does not, show signs of having reached humans via other species than bats, which may, or may not, include pangolins. Apparently biolabs engage in something called 'gain of function' experiments, which sound to me like disasters waiting to happen! But I've also seen it claimed that the Wuhan lab specifically did not engage in those particular sorts of experiments.

I've seen clearly qualified (and sane) experts say that they don't consider it impossible that it leaked from a lab, just less-likely than a natural origin, but that the whole issue of the origin will take time to sort out.

I don't know how a layperson with just an internet connection is supposed to be able to come to any conclusion about this. But to me the lab question seems a secondary issue from how we deal with pandemics in general.
 
I really hate Wapo's paywall!

Care to summarise the factual points being made there?

I think the WHO is a mixed bag. The degree of praise they lavished on China didn't do their credibility a lot of good with me. But they did try and get Western governments to take this seriously, and were mostly ignored, for their pains.

All international organisations are going to be mixed bags, because none of them have their own army, they have to keep all those self-serving national governments sweet.

Some quotes-

This is not merely a falsehood. This is a damnable and murderous lie.
As Trump surely knows, and as I have learned from people with knowledge of the situation who spoke to me on the condition of confidentiality, 15 officials from his administration were embedded with the WHO in Geneva, working full time, hand-in-glove with the organization on the virus from the very first day China disclosed the outbreak to the world, Dec. 31. At least six other U.S. officials at WHO headquarters dedicated most of their time to the virus, and two others worked remotely with the WHO on covid-19 full time. In the weeks that followed, they and other U.S. government scientists engaged in all major deliberations and decisions at the WHO on the novel coronavirus, had access to all information, and contributed significantly to the world body’s conclusions and recommendations.
Everything that the WHO knew, the Trump administration knew — in real time. As congressional investigators who requested WHO documents and communications are now learning, senior Trump administration officials — Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Robert R. Redfield Jr., Anne Schuchat, Ray R. Arthur and Jeffrey McFarland; the National Institutes of Health’s Anthony S. Fauci and H. Clifford Lane, and many others — consulted with the WHO throughout the crisis.

Almost immediately after China disclosed the outbreak, I’m told, 15 CDC officials at the WHO headquarters began working on covid-19 and other U.S. officials there were reassigned to the outbreak from their work on Ebola. U.S. officials participated in person in the twice-daily meetings of the WHO’s emergencies division. In addition to top-level conversations involving Redfield and Fauci, which would be expected, other Trump administration scientists were in all “incident-management” meetings and participated in the WHO’s pandemic “expert network.” They participated in a teleconference between top WHO officials in Geneva and the WHO’s regional and national offices. When the WHO formed its “emergency committee” in January to fight the virus, Martin Cetron, the CDC’s head of quarantine and global migration, was on it. Schuchat, the CDC’s No. 2 official, and Lane, a Fauci deputy, were on the WHO’s “Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards.” Others worked with the WHO group coordinating research on therapeutics, diagnostics and vaccines. This is as it should be: The CDC and NIH experts did their job. It’s Trump who didn’t.

Trump is actually worsening the pandemic for domestic political purposes. Whatever it takes to win re-election. It's monstrous.
 
Did you ever get to the part where the Chinese govt. sponsored terrorists were responsible for the virus's introduction and spread in the U.S.?

Ok, ok....
So, I put one conspiracy theory out there (earlier post).
Your idea of Chinese govt sponsored terrorist inside the U.S. is only another theory.
Get this... my Trumpie family in fact believes that "Chinese govt sponsored terrorist inside the U.S." theory.
THIS is what THEY believe:
THEY BELIEVE that the virus was made in China with the sole purpose to destroy world economies country after country.
Not only to destroy the U.S. economy, but also to destroy economies within Europe, Canada, Russia, Africa, etc etc.

THEY BELIEVE (the Trumpies) that China DID NOT send-out Chinese govt sponsored terrorist per se, they believe that China simply put infected Chinese citizens onto airplanes with destinations all over the world. Vacation destinations. And thus THAT was how China purposely spread the virus around the world. Not with using Chinese govt sponsored terrorist but with using happy Chinese vacationers. And so... THAT is what many Trumpies now believe.

AND, AND, AND....
Just recently on CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network) old Pat Robertson himself personally repeated that very same conspiracy (or maybe it was Pat who originated that conspiracy?). But Pat just recently did in fact promote that very same conspiracy on air, saying the Chinese govt created the virus to destroy world economies, and then spread the virus by sending out Chinese citizens around the world.

So.... you have the conspiracy that I posted (earlier), and THIS conspiracy from the Trumpies which is fully supported by Pat Robertson. That "Chinese govt sponsored terrorist" theory is becoming THE CONSPIRACY THEORY OF THE DAY for many Christians, and only because Pat Robertson has now endorsed that conspiracy. AND.... we all know the incredible power of TV EVANGELISTS over Donald Trump's Christian base. THUS.... you can bet that soon DONALD TRUMP HIMSELF will be touting this exact same conspiracy theory, so don't be surprised when Donald Trump does.

DID CHINA DO IT?
DID AMERICAN MILITARY DO IT?
DID PAT ROBERTSON DO IT?

So many conspiracies out there, but I would put my money on our own U.S. government germ-warfare theory if I believed in conspiracy theories.
The bottom line..... people still just can not believe germs can have a mind of their own or spread from country to country just by itself. People must believe some dark evil human involvement was responsible, not fate alone.
If one puts aside all of the conspiracy theories the probable truth is what you have left. That being... our world of today is extremely mobile. Anyone can wake up on Americas West Coast, have lunch on Americas East Coast, and enjoy dinner in France. And.... if they fly the red-eye they can wake-up back again on Americas West Coast right back at home.

A highly mobile world along with high technology most likely spread this deadly virus. Airplanes and speed spread this virus. An highly mobile humanity moving so fast it's almost as if people can be in two places at once. And, with carrying the virus with them.....
 
I really hate Wapo's paywall!

Care to summarise the factual points being made there?

If you have ublock origin browser addon and open it in a private window, it circumvents the article limit.

NYT is even easier, just press stop on your browser before a full page load. You get the article before the paywall kicks in 😀
 
If you have ublock origin browser addon and open it in a private window, it circumvents the article limit.

NYT is even easier, just press stop on your browser before a full page load. You get the article before the paywall kicks in 😀

I have a script-blocker, but I find it a right pain in the way some pages seem to have a hundred scripts running and you have to work out by trial-and-error which is the one single one that is actually necessary to get the page to work!
 
Surprised you guy are still talking about a GOP planted conspiracy theory.

All you are doing is providing Trump and the GOP with the "People are saying...", "People are talking about..." talking points. Talking points based on a plant in the news cycle.
 
Surprised you guy are still talking about a GOP planted conspiracy theory.

All you are doing is providing Trump and the GOP with the "People are saying...", "People are talking about..." talking points. Talking points based on a plant in the news cycle.
You're the conspiracy theorist here.

China's CCP manipulated the (complicit) WHO and bullshitted the world long before Trump and company finally realized it. I've been saying this throughout January. Trump has no excuse for being slow and stupid.
 
But Trump's gonna win.

How? Blame China. Cut visas of Chinese coming to America! MAGA!

They'll be the Mexicans of 2016 and his voters just gobble it up.

Hate is so simple its stupid and it works.

If Trump wins 2020 ill start getting prepared for the fall of the west.
 
THEY BELIEVE that the virus was made in China with the sole purpose to destroy world economies country after country.
Not only to destroy the U.S. economy, but also to destroy economies within Europe, Canada, Russia, Africa, etc etc.

I shouldn't even bother to respond to such lunacy, but if people are actually believing it, it says just how far gone some of the US public is.
The idea that the rulers of a country whose prosperity, and consequent political stability is so dependent on the global economy, would hatch a plot to destroy that economy...is beyond insane. Either the entire Chinese elite have lost their minds or those in the west who believe that have. Deciding which I suppose is best left as an exercise for the reader.
 
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