Dr. Fauci “not convinced” coronavirus developed naturally

[Dwarvenhobble]

Tariffs are the cost of doing business with a state. We can import tax and tariff and duty the shit out of China no problem; those are purely domestic policies. But the crowd screaming for reparations of the type we got out of Germany after both wars seem to be glossing over the whole fighting and winning a war first part of how that worked.

Well it'll be taken out of them by way of sanctions. Especially considering they chose to do some profiteering during the pandemic in some pretty underhanded ways.
E.G.
Holding supplies to ransom
Deliberately delivering substandard supplies
Taking aid gifts and turning round to sell them to other countries in need rather than pass on the good will.
Refusing to shut down flights because it would impact their economy a bit thus helping spread the virus to make sure not just China got hit by it.

 

[Agema]

Also, does it just apply to covid? Do other nations have to pay reparations for problems they've caused? Destabilising the Middle East, or producing greenhouse gases, say?

Probably should, but won't.

Some Pacific countries like Vanuatu will probably be underwater in less than a century. I have no idea how you can put a price on sinking someone's whole island chain beneath the waves, but I'm pretty sure all they'll get is evacuation and the offer of refugee accommodation in a poverty line urban housing estate.

I think this was one of the moments I really developed my hatred of libertarianism. Their breezy argument that people should be held liable for the harms they inflict on others, but conveniently no-one could ever be held individually liable for this sort of damage, so conveniently enough, they profit from burning a trillion barrels of oil with total impunity, despite destroying the homes of millions.

The simple word for such people is "cunts".

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Probably should, but won't.

Some Pacific countries like Vanuatu will probably be underwater in less than a century. I have no idea how you can put a price on sinking someone's whole island chain beneath the waves, but I'm pretty sure all they'll get is evacuation and the offer of refugee accommodation in a poverty line urban housing estate.

I think this was one of the moments I really developed my hatred of libertarianism. Their breezy argument that people should be held liable for the harms they inflict on others, but conveniently no-one could ever be held individually liable for this sort of damage, so conveniently enough, they profit from burning a trillion barrels of oil with total impunity, despite destroying the homes of millions.

The simple word for such people is "cunts".

I mean if you want to go that way we can do that too.......

Report: China emissions exceed all developed nations combined

The country is responsible for 27% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Trunkage]

I mean if you want to go that way we can do that too.......

Report: China emissions exceed all developed nations combined

The country is responsible for 27% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report.

www.bbc.co.uk

Yes, yes burn China down. They're the most evilest. If we just got rid of them, the world would be perfect. Thanks for your exact same input

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Yes, yes burn China down. They're the most evilest. If we just got rid of them, the world would be perfect. Thanks for your exact same input

Hey it's not my fault reality has a sense of comedic irony. I'm just the one pointing it out

 

[Phoenixmgs]

No, I think Fauci is within reason.

Let's take the UK, which we must suspect has had a similar number infected to the USA, and has a similar number of people vaccinated (total vaccinations very similar, although the UK has more people with one shot out of two, and fewer with both). So infections in the UK should be going down, right? Er, no. Infections have actually gone up about 25% since relaxation of social controls in early May. That's pretty interesting, given over 50% of the population should be largely immune due to vaccination, plus all those naturally infected.

Also, there's a great deal of misunderstanding and general dickheadery going on. Let's imagine that "herd immunity" were reached at 50% of the population having been infected. So, the infection rate should decrease overall. Okay, fine. But when that herd immunity kicks in, the R rate is (theoretically) going to be ~0.99: actually, a very substantial number of people can still get infected, and the rate of decline of the disease is very slow. Also, we're talking about national; what this conceals is that there are likely to be localised areas where there isn't herd immunity where the infection can still propagate strongly.

Of course, if one understands R rate, this is in practice measured by infection rates. So of course you can have a national R rate under 1, until the disease hits a localised pocket with low rates of immunity, at which point infections rise rapidly that could send the R rate over 1. So this is why it gets complicated: national vaccination rates do not actually tell us whether certain subgroups of the population are safe.

So when we think about the task of the guy who is trying to ensure the continued survival, health and wellbeing of US citizens, his job is to encourage vaccination and take a caution-first approach to the data likely to save lives. Naturally, all the forces of Fauci-haters will disagree: the resentful Trumpistas who can't forgive him for disagreeing with their cult leader, the anti-vaxxers, the capitalists who want everything opened so they can earn more money, and the "But mah freedom!!!" brigade who think other people dying is a worthwhile sacrifice so they can eat inside at a restaurant and not have the inconvenience of wearing a mask (because a facemask is SO much of a burden). Obviously, these people will reach around for anything and everything to diss Fauci, because they have other objectives than the survival, health and wellbeing of Americans. Some of them get to write columns for national newspapers to spread their disagreement. And all the other ones will nod sagely at this article telling them what they want to believe, praising it to high heaven for being "correct" and Fauci "wrong", because mostly they don't have the faintest fucking idea, but they want to believe what they want to believe.

The point is herd immunity has been almost certainly reached. And you don't need X amount vaccinated for herd immunity, that's makes no sense, you need X amount IMMUNE for herd immunity. That's why Fauci is wrong and everyone that keeps ignoring natural immunity. It hasn't nothing to do with politics or not liking someone and liking someone else, it's just the facts. Fauci and the horrid messaging has done more for the anti-vax argument than anti-vaxxers themselves could ever do. So someone is vaccinated and immune and they still have to do all these restrictions? So why get vaccinated to begin with? That's like the worst messaging possible. And Fauci did such a great job by not reallocating ANY of the 2020 budgeting of NIH to actually do studies on covid and answer questions everyone wanted answers to.

This is the pride of a stopped clock on being right two times a day.

It's not that you actually knew anything, you made some guesses and got lucky on a few. This is like the pricks who boasted they predicted the financial crash in 2007, but who turned out to have also predicted financial crashes in 2004, 2001, 1997, 1992 - they just predict financial crashes all the time based on poor understanding and bad principles, and then congratulate themselves when finally dumb luck means one actually happens.

How long will covid-19 immunity last, short or long? This is a 50:50 chance to be right. There's no kudos for being right unless you have a good reason for why it will be right, and honestly, you know pretty much nothing. You can pick some papers that supported your point of view, but the fact you don't really understand what they say and just ignored all the ones that didn't agree with you means you guessed, and no-one deserves special plaudits for calling a coin-toss.

One can point out your claims on many "treatments" - hydroxychloroquine, quercetin, zinc, vitamin D, and very likely soon ivermectin, where you were just wrong. You have numerous wrong, overoptimistic statements on herd immunity: for instance last year claimed New York must be close to herd immunity, and were promptly proven wrong in the end of year surge. In fact, your hit rate is not at all good. You are just selectively remembering the things you guessed right.

This is not unusual. In fact, it's how tarot and horoscopes work: lashings of cognitive bias to ignore all the wrong stuff and cling to the right stuff.

I didn't make any fucking guesses, that's the fucking point. I followed what the science and experts in the field said and shocker if you listen to them, you end up being right a lot of the time.

There is not one fucking shred of any evidence even HINTING at immunity being short-lived. It's not some 50/50 chance, it's like 99.999999% chance immunity is long lasting. I'm really fucking tried of you saying I cherry-pick stuff that I want to hear because that's not fucking true. There is literally nothing to read that points to short-lived immunity.

B/T cells don't fade after 8 months.

Science | AAAS

science.sciencemag.org

Experts are now thinking that covid immunity is life long in fact.

Had COVID? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime

People who recover from mild COVID-19 have bone-marrow cells that can churn out antibodies for decades, although viral variants could dampen some of the protection they offer.

www.nature.com

You literally have no proof that none of those treatments don't work. Talk about only reading the stuff you want to read, that's you. You still cite HCQ mortality rates that don't make sense when the total mortality of HCQ is higher because they gave way higher doses to people in ICUs of it when you're not supposed to do that. Remove those HCQ deaths of people that shouldn't have gotten it, then it's not higher. I'll just give people lethal doses of tylenol and call it's total mortality higher, that's not science.

I never claimed New York was close to herd immunity, I've said that last April, 20% of NYC already had it but that's not close to herd immunity. Someone else had the thought that 80% of the population was somehow already naturally immune and that getting to 20% infected meant basically everyone was immune, that wasn't me and I argued against that because it didn't make any sense.

 

[Silvanus]

You literally have no proof that none of those treatments don't work.

You still don't have proof that eating wasps doesn't work, need I remind you.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Isn't it? Let's have a think about that.

At the most basic face value of official figures, the USA does appear better. There's a current estimated death rate of 1873 / million in the USA to 1826 / million in the UK. So, er, congratulations on that 2.5% improvement, although bear in mind as deaths in the UK from covid have all but stopped (~0.1 / million / day) and the US is still dying at over 1.5 / million / day, the end margin is going to be rather narrower.

Next, let's bear in mind that word "estimated". Different countries have different ways of measuring and recording, and many covid-19 deaths are likely unrecorded, or some non-covid-19 deaths recorded as covid-19 deaths. In an extreme case, Belgium's way of recording covid-19 deaths is so broad that it has official figures reckoned around 50% higher than if it recorded them more like France, UK or USA. On the other extreme, Russia is under-recording covid-19 deaths to the tune of maybe half the reality. That puts that 2.5% into context: basically, nothing. Smaller than the statistical noise.

We also need to consider things like that rate of spread of disease relates to population density: more people in a smaller area, faster spread. (I stress that lower pop density does not protect in the long run - the same proportion are likely to contract the illness, it just takes longer to happen). The UK has a pop density of ~280 / km2. The USA has a pop density in the region of 30 / km2. This should - in theory - mean that with all else equal the USA should be "behind" the UK in infections and thus deaths. So with that sort of context, the fact that there is rough equivalence suggests maybe the UK did a slightly better job of disease control. Although contextually, both countries were poor compared to (for instance) Germany and the Netherlands, and abysmal compared to the likes of South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

The end conclusion is that it is totally unclear whether the USA or UK has done worse. But we can absolutely conclude that both have done very badly.

Finally, there is little that is less edifying than a country that has heavily ballsed-up its disease control making feeble claims that some other country did worse. I find the slightly pathetic attempt to claim associated one-upmanship via national performance risible. Sorry to hurt your feelings by saying the USA was shit, but unfortunately for you I don't have anything like the same feeling of vicarious inferiority that my own country was also shit; although you should have gathered this given I've been extremely open over the months about just how poor the UK's response was.

In a way, the answer to this is "you do you". I hope the UK will learn from this and do better next time. I read a lot of Americans, and I don't have as much confidence the USA will because it seems to have many more people such as yourself who resent, downplay, and resist infection control measures. So I guess you guys can just go and die in heaps next time and find some other place to compare yourselves favourably to in order to pretend it's not as bad as all that.

Again, you're using all these data points wrong. Yes, the general US population may seem low but the vast majority of the population lives in urban areas with much higher population density than that average. There's tons of basically unoccupied land in the US, I drove from Chicago to Colorado about a month back and over 90% of the drive is looking at unoccupied land. The amount of elderly or the general level of health would be far better things to look at. It has nothing to do with one-upmanship, I couldn't really care less if the US did better than the UK but I hate the narrative that the US did so horridly but other similar wealthy developed countries (with more public welfare programs) did just about as good (some worse, some better). Just maybe there actually wasn't that much that could be done after the fuck-up of having a major first wave and the virus being to widespread to control.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Again - read carefully, when I say that video is dishonestly edited. Try finding a full one.

Fauci says that the funding to Wuhan was not for gain of function experiments. In other words, he is saying that funding went to Wuhan, but he's disputing Paul's implications about what it was used for. Paul then again tackled the general issue of whether the USA should have funded research there. Fauci points out that given the emergence of SARS from bats nearly 20 years ago, it was deemed responsible to get information about these SARS viruses. These bats and the local expertise are in China. In other words, he is again implicitly agreeing that US government money went to Wuhan, and explaining why.

The accusations in that video or from you are not fair or accurate.

* * *

Fauci points out that grants have progress reports and so on, and the progress reports can account for the research done in Wuhan with NIH funds. Paul sort of rolls back after the meeting in an interview with a much looser claim: some argument that money can be shunted around, so even if the NIH money was used to do certain research, some of it could have been sequestered or shuffled around to support gain of function research outside of the immediate grant aims. Well, okay. But the logical end point of this line of argument is the USA should not fund any research in China because the Chinese may misuse the funds.

Now, that's a valid policy decision. But it needs to be considered with all the relevant downsides: what goes on in Chinese research will become more opaque to the USA, there can be no technological collaboration, and if shit does go down in China and get to the USA (such as a novel pathogen), the USA is going to be even more dependent on what information China chooses to release to it than it is now, because it has cut itself off from other access.

It's also an inconsistent and ineffectual policy, because the majority of US research goes on in corporations, not government. Those companies then interact with China, invest in China, do research in China, get China to manufacture their designs, and at every step add to Chinese capabilities and research, by a lot. It is frankly bizarre to get pissy about the NIH kicking a few hundred thousand to China, when the USA via the private sector is pouring staggering billions, if not trillions into China. If I were an American worried about China, I know what I'd be most worried about. But let's see alleged libertarian Rand Paul argue to cease trade with China.

I don't care how you edit the video, the question Paul asked at the end was if money was sent to that lab and Fauci didn't answer it plain and simple. I realize all of Paul's talk before the question was about gain of function. And, it's hardly a "gotcha" moment by any means. In how Fauci worded his question he never does say that money was sent to the lab, which was the fucking question. It's just one of the very many times where Fauci won't directly answer questions. The better example was Fauci saying it's still not safe for vaccinated people to unmask, which was bullshit.

If this sorta line of questioning was done in court (as a Judge will make you answer the question yes or no), you'd actually be able to have the conversation Paul was probably wanting to have. You ask if money was sent to the lab, Fauci says yes, then Paul asks if money went to funding gain of function, Fauci says no, then Paul asks if it's possible the lab used that money on gain of function. Then, you have the policy conversation you're alluding to. And no, working with corporations and government is one-in-the-same with regards to China. China has whatever control they want to have over their companies.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

You still don't have proof that eating wasps doesn't work, need I remind you.

Do you have 100s of studies about eating wasps? If you have 100s of studies on something and you still don't have the answer that means you don't have proof it doesn't work.

 

[Trunkage]

Hey it's not my fault reality has a sense of comedic irony. I'm just the one pointing it out

Oh good. Now we know you dont know what irony is

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Oh good. Now we know you dont know what irony is

I do.

Agema was on about climate change and other things to try and imply that either action shouldn't be taken against China because other countries do bad things too or just to generally deflect blame from China.

The thing he chose to focus on being the impact of climate change and pollution.

Thus reality created

a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result.

where by doing as Agema wanted would still mean going mainly after China which is not what Agema likely meant lol

 

[Silvanus]

Do you have 100s of studies about eating wasps? If you have 100s of studies on something and you still don't have the answer that means you don't have proof it doesn't work.

I don't have proof it doesn't work, that's true.

But I'd want proof it does, not just the absence of disproof. But that's just me! If the absence of disproof is good enough for you, by all means, enjoy your wasps.

 

[Agema]

The point is herd immunity has been almost certainly reached.

And I say again: cases in the UK are rising. It is a reasonable assumption that the UK and USA have had roughly the same number of infected (similar number of deaths), and they have about the same number vaccinated. So how it this possible if herd immunity has been achieved?

I didn't make any fucking guesses, that's the fucking point. I followed what the science and experts in the field said and shocker if you listen to them, you end up being right a lot of the time.

Yes, you did guess. Because you didn't read all the science and there was no consensus amongst the experts. You read some stuff and believed it because you wanted to.

There is not one fucking shred of any evidence even HINTING at immunity being short-lived. It's not some 50/50 chance, it's like 99.999999% chance immunity is long lasting. I'm really fucking tried of you saying I cherry-pick stuff that I want to hear because that's not fucking true. There is literally nothing to read that points to short-lived immunity.

You're boasting about your predictions, here. You can't claim that what you didn't know at the time informed your prediction.

You literally have no proof that none of those treatments don't work.

Ah yes: "I said these drugs worked, and the persistent failure to show they do means I'm not wrong".

 

[Agema]

I don't care how you edit the video, the question Paul asked at the end was if money was sent to that lab and Fauci didn't answer it plain and simple. I realize all of Paul's talk before the question was about gain of function. And, it's hardly a "gotcha" moment by any means. In how Fauci worded his question he never does say that money was sent to the lab, which was the fucking question. It's just one of the very many times where Fauci won't directly answer questions. The better example was Fauci saying it's still not safe for vaccinated people to unmask, which was bullshit.

If this sorta line of questioning was done in court (as a Judge will make you answer the question yes or no), you'd actually be able to have the conversation Paul was probably wanting to have. You ask if money was sent to the lab, Fauci says yes, then Paul asks if money went to funding gain of function, Fauci says no, then Paul asks if it's possible the lab used that money on gain of function. Then, you have the policy conversation you're alluding to. And no, working with corporations and government is one-in-the-same with regards to China. China has whatever control they want to have over their companies.

Paul got the answers he was asking for. He had an agenda, wanted to attack and grandstand for image, so he got pushback. That's the way it works, the way it always works. If he wanted nice, reasonable answers out of Fauci, he could have asked them nicely. But he's aiming to imply the US government funded China making a bioweapon for politics. He can fuck right off.

 

[Agema]

Again, you're using all these data points wrong.

Really? Then how did you make any claim about who was better or worse in the first place?

I hate the narrative that the US did so horridly but other similar wealthy developed countries...

The USA did do badly. Really badly.

Excluding Belgium (for reasons discussed above), the only worse developed countries by official figures are the UK (marginally), Italy and San Marino - the latter of course being a few acres in the middle of Italy, and Italy was first in the firing line, before the rest of Europe or the USA. We then get Spain, Portgual and France (~10% lower), and then it's over 20% lower to the likes of Sweden.

 

[Generals]

Yes, yes burn China down. They're the most evilest. If we just got rid of them, the world would be perfect. Thanks for your exact same input

It's a litteral Fascist state. The world wouldn't be perfect but it most certainly would be better.
Funny how Israel is getting insulted left and right for killing hundreds of palestinians but China released a pandemic which killed millions and this while they are carrying out a genocide against their muslim minority and we are not allowed to hate the country? Yes China is the country which currently deserves to burn the most and the fact they actually ended up stronger as a consequence of the pandemic they unleashed on this world is disgusting. This is like WW2 but with a Nazi victory.

 

[Agema]

It's a litteral Fascist state. The world wouldn't be perfect but it most certainly would be better.
Funny how Israel is getting insulted left and right for killing hundreds of palestinians but China released a pandemic which killed millions and this while they are carrying out a genocide against their muslim minority and we are not allowed to hate the country? Yes China is the country which currently deserves to burn the most and the fact they actually ended up stronger as a consequence of the pandemic they unleashed on this world is disgusting. This is like WW2 but with a Nazi victory.

That's "literal" in the modern sense of meaning "figurative". China is definitely not a fascist state, although it's certainly authoritarian.

 

[Gordon_4]

It's a litteral Fascist state. The world wouldn't be perfect but it most certainly would be better.
Funny how Israel is getting insulted left and right for killing hundreds of palestinians but China released a pandemic which killed millions and this while they are carrying out a genocide against their muslim minority and we are not allowed to hate the country? Yes China is the country which currently deserves to burn the most and the fact they actually ended up stronger as a consequence of the pandemic they unleashed on this world is disgusting. This is like WW2 but with a Nazi victory.

See you on the front lines then.

 

[SilentPony]

It's a litteral Fascist state. The world wouldn't be perfect but it most certainly would be better.
Funny how Israel is getting insulted left and right for killing hundreds of palestinians but China released a pandemic which killed millions and this while they are carrying out a genocide against their muslim minority and we are not allowed to hate the country? Yes China is the country which currently deserves to burn the most and the fact they actually ended up stronger as a consequence of the pandemic they unleashed on this world is disgusting. This is like WW2 but with a Nazi victory.

Who said you couldn't hate China? Don't hate Chinese people, they're just a race, they had nothing to do with it. But the Chinese government? Yeah, that's perfectly fine to hate. Chinese wet markets? Hate 'em. Chinese indifference to unsanitary conditions? Hate 'em! The Chinese market for rhino horn and elephant tusk based off thousand year old superstitions that it makes your dick bigger and gives you sons? Hate hate hate.
But just like an individual Chinese person? Or even just the populace in general? They ain't done shit. Its almost all the super rich, and corrupt nature of their Government.