Dr. Fauci “not convinced” coronavirus developed naturally

[Silvanus]

well there's plenty of trackers who use the official numbers

Cases, Data, and Surveillance

Cases, data, and surveillance to track and analyze COVID-19.

www.cdc.gov

Right, but the CDC relies on local reporting.

Data on the COVID-19 website and CDC’s COVID Data Tracker are based on the most recent numbers reported by states, territories, and other jurisdictions. Data are dependent on jurisdictions’ timely and accurate reporting.

This is how "official" data is collected. No Federal agency is in charge of actually harvesting it; they rely on local jurisdictions.

So when you say, "central government [...] passing results on to the state", you've got it backwards. The state collects the data; that data then becomes the basis for the Federal government's stats (and the CDC's stats).

So, of course the Federal government's stats are going to reflect the stats reported by the state. They get them from the state.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Right, but the CDC relies on local reporting.



This is how "official" data is collected. No Federal agency is in charge of actually harvesting it; they rely on local jurisdictions.

So when you say, "central government [...] passing results on to the state", you've got it backwards. The state collects the data; that data then becomes the basis for the Federal government's stats (and the CDC's stats).

So, of course the Federal government's stats are going to reflect the stats reported by the state. They get them from the state.

So why would the lady in question still use those figures for her supposedly more accurate and truthful dashboard again?

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Too bad, it's getting treated as such. And unless better evidence comes to light, it will remain a conspiracy theory.

When 2 very respected people, former CDC Director (who got death threats for backing the lab theory) and Dr. Marty Makary (who's been right on just about everything regarding the pandemic) say it's most likely the virus did come from a lab, it's hardly a conspiracy theory. That's just 2 that I know of. And Fauci said it's possible that the virus is man-made, let alone just an lab accident. It's no longer treated as a conspiracy theory, but that fact that is was sheds tons of light on the censorship of information that is happening.

Per se, it is a plausible if low probability hypothesis.

But outside the actual science, it's about 50% political football and 50% conspiracy theory. You take a look at the sorts of things people are saying, latching onto, the people getting heavily involved, it has all the trappings if conspiracy theory.

So far, Fauci's email are all one big, steaming heap of nothingburger, hyped up by a) conspiracy theorists, b) Sinophones and c) Trumpistas (i.e. Republicans) out for revenge on Fauci and turn him into a scapegoat to cover their cult leader's incompetence.

Nope.

Firstly, because it never was quelled. Secondly, because wanting to believe there is co-ordination where there is really just randomness, coincidence and natural consequence is pretty much what conspiracy theory is.

See above.

I don't care what republicans or democrats are saying, the email is there.

It was quelled, it was banned on Facebook and editors of publications weren't allowed to run stories on it. There was at least some coordination. If you get a few very big and reputable "influences", you don't need much more. You can't even talk about kids not masking on Youtube without it getting removed for crying out loud.

Right, but the CDC relies on local reporting.

This is how "official" data is collected. No Federal agency is in charge of actually harvesting it; they rely on local jurisdictions.

So when you say, "central government [...] passing results on to the state", you've got it backwards. The state collects the data; that data then becomes the basis for the Federal government's stats (and the CDC's stats).

So, of course the Federal government's stats are going to reflect the stats reported by the state. They get them from the state.

So then if you changed the numbers, the local jurisdictions would know...

 

[tstorm823]

So when you say, "central government [...] passing results on to the state", you've got it backwards. The state collects the data; that data then becomes the basis for the Federal government's stats (and the CDC's stats).

This is not correct. The counties collect the data, each of which publishes their own data and reports to state agencies above them. The state publishes the combined data sets from the counties and reports to the federal government. The CDC puts together the data from the counties and the states. In order to fudge their outward facing numbers, Florida would have to at minimum coordinate with county level officials, and then for the story of asking the dashboard manager to change the numbers to be plausible, they'd have to be showing both data sets to that person, who has to then somehow know that the one that checks out with other sources is fraudulent.

Edit: they collect by "jurisdictions" rather than just counties, because some city governments are big enough to have their own officials. But it's mostly by county.

 

[Generals]

So guilty until proven guilty. Got it. Fuck off with that shit.

Silly response, why is the bat guilty until proven innocent? Fuck off with that shit.
The point of people who don't want to blindly play China's game is that the origin is not determined and therefor a lab leak being the origin of the pandemic is a possibility. If China wants to get rid of this possibility it should cooperate and provide actual evidence it did originate from somewhere else.

 

[Generals]

These are not intended to be comprehensive, and some overlap:

1) The Wuhan Institute of Virology is a major research centre. There may be stuff going on there China does not want anyone to know about, because it is commercially or - worse - national security sensitive. Bioweapon research is not impossible, or other things that might not look good, such as being unethical in other countries. Then there are new technologies, market products, etc. it wants to be ahead on and exploit. Thus there may be lots of reasons China does not want to give foreign investigators access to WIV that have nothing to do with covid-19.

Unless I am mistaken China is not only hiding information about the lab. It's also hiding information about the first Covid patients.
And those pathetic excuses can go in the garbage bin, the lab was built with the help of the French with an agreement French scientists would have occasional access to the lab and its research. You now: a win-win cooperation. However since it was built and China didn't need French expertise and money the cooperation pretty much halted and French scientists were always given bogus excuses as to why it was never the time to come over there. Lying profiteurs.

2) China stands all sorts of risks of looking bad, even if covid-19 was not a lab leak. Investigators could well compile report that has the potential to make China or the CCP look deficient in some way - even at the bottom end: infection control, hygeine, healthcare, you name it.

They were deficient and this total lack of cooperation is in itself a deficient behavior on their part. So they are looking deficient to prevent them to look deficient in some other way.

3) China fundamentally, in every respect imaginable, rejects external scrutiny. China's conduct here is absolutely consistent with how it treats external scrutiny in any other respect- utter opposition. It rebukes countries for their way their free presses choose to report on China. It pretty bans people from entering just for talking to the Dalai Lama.

Off course it wants to do Fascist things to its population without being called out for it. But here they caused the deaths of 3 millions across the globe. This is no longer a "domestic issue" as they often like to respond when facing external scrutiny. And let's not forget that very often they reject scrutiny to avoid criticism so clearly they believe the WHO investigation would lead to criticism. Criticism which is necessary to ensure this doesn't happen again.

4) No country likes external scrutiny and avoids it wherever possible. It is arguably a form of loss of sovereignty, which countries guard jealously. The only reason there's a UN inspector been within hundreds of miles of any Iranian power plants is that a lot of powerful countries pressured it into a deal. The only countries that accept external scrutiny are ones pushed into it, or at so much risk of embarrassment if they don't that it's a lesser evil. China is too big to push, and has too little to gain given it's in the doghouse globally for letting covid-19 loose whether it was natural or not.

When you cause the death of more than 3 million people across the globe you lose any right to deny external scrutiny.
And I beg to differ, plenty of western nations continuously accept external scrutiny from international organisations.

You just imagine a global pandemic that first arose in Tennessee. Do you think the USA would give the WHO free access, or do you think they'd tell the WHO to fuck right off, they've got their own internal investigation capabilities, thanks. My guess is the latter is more than a little plausible, especially depending on who's running the USA at the time. I can quite bet you, the entire right wing half of the USA would be frothing with fury at the sheer impudence of these grubby foreign interlopers from the WHO to even suggest that they should be allowed to judge the glorious US of A, that it was a plan to fit-up, embarrass and weaken the USA in front of the world.

I do believe the USA would be a lot more transparent. Maybe not if someone like Trump happened to be the president. And I would be just as pissed at the USA and demand the same type of transparency if it decided to hide a lot of relevant information from the world as to why they all got f*cked big time.

5) The CCP fundamentally likes control. It wants to control what it's country does, what it's people think about the country, and what the rest of the world thinks about China. It mortally fears and resents criticism, especially internally from the Chinese themselves, and values stability. Remember that when covid-19 arose, it criminally charged its own citizens for talking about the new disease publicly. At the point it gives free rein to the WHO, it surrenders control. It is not what the CCP does.
* * *
So, to answer any question like "Why would China refuse a WHO investigation if it had nothing to hide", the answer is simply that China's longstanding record of attitude and actions strongly suggest it would refuse a unconstrained external investigation on basic principle, irrespective of what the findings would be.

This may all be correct, but right now the ball is on their side. If they don't want others to believe they are hiding a lot of information because they are hiding something sinister all they need to do is share more information with the WHO to help scientists determine the true origin of Covid-19. And considering this pandemic has caused massive human and financial damage on a global scale it's their responsibility to do so.

 

[Agema]

When 2 very respected people, former CDC Director (who got death threats for backing the lab theory) and Dr. Marty Makary (who's been right on just about everything regarding the pandemic) say it's most likely the virus did come from a lab, it's hardly a conspiracy theory.

Your ability to wildly overrate media-friendly doctors ahead of genuine experts is truly depressing.

I don't care what republicans or democrats are saying, the email is there.

It's a totally meaningless email. A scientist emailed Fauci saying he was glad Fauci disagreed with the lab leak hypothesis, and Fauci replied to say thanks.

It was quelled, it was banned on Facebook and editors of publications weren't allowed to run stories on it. There was at least some coordination. If you get a few very big and reputable "influences", you don't need much more. You can't even talk about kids not masking on Youtube without it getting removed for crying out loud.

I think you'll find if anyone did the the "banning" of running the story in news meda, it was the editors. That is, after all, what editors do.

The lab leak was brought up early. In fact, Chinese citizens suggested publicly it long before anyone in our countries did. It then rolled along for a while, the scientists appeared to be generally against, the intelligence services had nothing to add, so it ran out dropped out of notice, as you'd expect. Media will not keep reporting for months on a topic with no new information when there's a constant stream of new stuff to cover. That's a major reason it disappeared.

Where it stayed in notice mostly comes down to Donald Trump trying to whip up anti-China sentiment and cover his own incompetent arse from the USA's covid-19 death toll. This is therefore no particular merit, as Trump is a famous liar with zero credibility in most of the media, and it was treated as nothing but a politicised heap of garbage. Complicating that also is that a substantial amount of the "lab leak" stuff early on was wild, extreme misinformation. (Has everyone forgotten about "Plandemic" and 5G phone masts already?) This nonsense had two effects: firstly it wrecked the public credibility of the lab leak hypothesis generally, secondly, it made people very worried about giving platforms to conspiracy theory cranks spreading panic and misinformation, who also tend to attack vaccines, masks, social distancing, and a whole load of other important public health measures. Plus, as stated, racist attacks on Asian people.

And when you put all this together you start to see simple, common sense reasons why a lot of media and other people decided the lab leak hypothesis was not a place to go.

It's inevitable it would come back. It's too big an unknown, and investigations have been ongoing so bits of information will trickle through to generate novelty and make it worthwhile covering again. And now there's less need to fend off a storm of batshit paranoia and public panic, it can be discussed a little more calmly and reflectively. And sure, the conspiracy theorists are having fun again as they get some more publicity now.

 

[gorfias]

And the other shoe drops https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...-lockdown-had-little-effect-virus-infections/

snip due to errors

I recall the articles scoffing at the idea that this came from a lab.
There is a much more easy to understand reason to downplay this information as much as possible: our ruling globalist elites do not want sanctions on China, even though there should be a lot.
Sure, let's say this is an accident. Suppose a Chinese military member fell asleep and falls on a red button, launching a nuclear annihilation of Japan. Everyone knows, for the sake of argument, that it was an accident. You can't just drop it.
Covid is a WMD that was unleashed on the world. The Chinese hid this fact as long as possible. Human. Like someone hitting and running when drunk driving and accidentally killing a pedestrian. You still need to sanction a driver like that when the driver is caught. And China? They should be in one hell of a lot of trouble.

 

[Buyetyen]

When 2 very respected people, former CDC Director (who got death threats for backing the lab theory) and Dr. Marty Makary (who's been right on just about everything regarding the pandemic) say it's most likely the virus did come from a lab, it's hardly a conspiracy theory. That's just 2 that I know of. And Fauci said it's possible that the virus is man-made, let alone just an lab accident. It's no longer treated as a conspiracy theory, but that fact that is was sheds tons of light on the censorship of information that is happening.

"Possible" is not a synonym for "certain." And no, this is not evidence of censorship.

If China wants to get rid of this possibility it should cooperate and provide actual evidence it did originate from somewhere else.

That's not how causality works. Again, your logic is "guilty until proven guilty," but I've learned not to expect better from certain people.

 

[Trunkage]

That's not how causality works. Again, your logic is "guilty until proven guilty," but I've learned not to expect better from certain people.

I would also point out that, pretending that China was cooperating, and then there is still was no definitive proof of where it comes from, all they've done is let the US in. And they still blame you.. and going by the US track record of fabricating evidence to start wars eg. the 2 Iraq war, you'd have to be an idiot to let the US in

It's been a 100 years and we still dont have definitive proof of where the Spanish flu start. You just know it didnt start in Spain

 

[Thaluikhain]

When you cause the death of more than 3 million people across the globe you lose any right to deny external scrutiny.

Is that a new rule? Cause historically that has not always been the case.

 

[Agema]

Covid is a WMD that was unleashed on the world. The Chinese hid this fact as long as possible. Human. Like someone hitting and running when drunk driving and accidentally killing a pedestrian. You still need to sanction a driver like that when the driver is caught. And China? They should be in one hell of a lot of trouble.

Good luck with sanctioning China, when it makes most of the electronics hardware your country's economy relies on, amongst other stuff. Maybe you can get round to it in 5-10 years, after you've enacted a strategic plan to remove all your dependency on Chinese trade goods, and sucked up the pain of inflation from all the additional costs incurred by relocating so much production to other countries.

* * *

I think we humans have a common psychological feature, to seek blame. I remember a case of a woman who ran down a child. In the review, it was shown that she was driving within the speed limit, did nothing wrong, it's just a small kid ran out right in front of her car with her having no time to brake and that was the end of the kid. After the driver was cleared of any wrongdoing, the mother of the child raged at the injustice that this woman could kill her child and not receive any punishment.

Irrational, of course. But also perhaps understandable. There are two factors going on.

Firstly, that this mother was not minding her child properly, leaving him free to run into the road. The element of scapegoating, deflecting blame. There is a desire to blame China in part for the godawful hash we made over it. Doubly painful, to see (even despite their massaged figures) that China did a better job of controlling covid-19 than we did. Blaming China is a way for our countries to distract from their own failings. We can attack their mishandling, but how much force does this have to look at our own dead? How do we avoid the accusation of hypocrisy about China's inadequacies, when our own are plain to see?

Secondly, the idea that there has to be someone responsible for everything. It is normal, when in pain, to want some form of vengeance to make it better. The idea that if someone can be blamed, then something can be controlled and not happen again. Just like in the medieval era, a drought wipes out your crops, it's because your village angered God, or there's a witch. The idea that random, natural, terrifying things happen that up-end our lives is hard to accept. One day, your house, your child, your own life is gone because of a cosmic twitch no-one could do anything about. Psychologically more comforting to think that it's someone's fault, and it can be controlled, and not happen again.

There is another factor that China is a geopolitical enemy, that we do not trust and with many ethical values we do not approve of. And it is far easier to hate and suspect an enemy.

By which I would summarise that we have powerful emotional reasons to think the worst of China. But these emotional reasons cloud our judgement, rather than give clarity. SARS was not man-made, nor MERS, nor a host of 'flu strains over the years. So why suddenly is Covid-19 different... except that it caused orders of magnitude more disruption?

Until there is good evidence otherwise, the base assumption and mostly likely reality should be that this is a natural virus.

 

[Silvanus]

So why would the lady in question still use those figures for her supposedly more accurate and truthful dashboard again?

Don't know or particularly care. This isn't proof.

 

[Silvanus]

So then if you changed the numbers, the local jurisdictions would know...

...unless its your job to collate them for said jurisdictions.

 

[Generals]

Is that a new rule? Cause historically that has not always been the case.

Not that new. A lot of countries have already apologized for massacres which were committed by previous generations. If some can apologize and accept scrutiny for something their ancestors have done Xi can accept scrutiny for what he has done. And while history is filled with shitty people doing shitty things and not taking any responsibility, surely we should aspire to more than just repeating the same mistakes?

 

[Silvanus]

This is not correct. The counties collect the data, each of which publishes their own data and reports to state agencies above them. The state publishes the combined data sets from the counties and reports to the federal government. The CDC puts together the data from the counties and the states. In order to fudge their outward facing numbers, Florida would have to at minimum coordinate with county level officials, and then for the story of asking the dashboard manager to change the numbers to be plausible, they'd have to be showing both data sets to that person, who has to then somehow know that the one that checks out with other sources is fraudulent.

Edit: they collect by "jurisdictions" rather than just counties, because some city governments are big enough to have their own officials. But it's mostly by county.

OK, I mean this isn't a correction really, it's just an extra step. States gather the data... from counties.

The point was that the "central government" doesn't pass data to the states as Dwarven said. Its the other way around.

 

[Generals]

That's not how causality works. Again, your logic is "guilty until proven guilty," but I've learned not to expect better from certain people.

Why use that logic against the poor bats? And let's not forget I never said it did leak from a Chinese lab. I said it wasn't a conspiracy theory and a possibility, one backed by plenty of scientists who believe this option cannot be ruled out just because China says so.
Chinese labs contain a lot of coronaviruses and mistakes happen. A virus leaking from a lab due to human error must be one of the most boring conspiracies ever.
So until we have very solid evidence this virus must have come from animals you cannot rule out the other possibilities. Otherwise you are the one who considers animals guilty until proven innocent.

 

[Agema]

Why use that logic against the poor bats? And let's not forget I never said it did leak from a Chinese lab. I said it wasn't a conspiracy theory and a possibility, one backed by plenty of scientists who believe this option cannot be ruled out just because China says so.

I would seriously question what the scientific argument is that it came out of a lab. I don't think there is one (or at least, not a good one), and I don't think the scientists who back the lab leak hypothesis do so because of a scientific motivation.

 

[Agema]

So until we have very solid evidence this virus must have come from animals you cannot rule out the other possibilities. Otherwise you are the one who considers animals guilty until proven innocent.

That's really not how it works.

The point of guilty until proven innocent is based on the principle that a person has caused something to happen through their actions. However, the baseline reality of the world is that lots of things happen without any human intervention - such as viruses mutating into a new form which will infect new creatures, the wind blowing, volcanos erupting, etc. Where something can be reasonably explained through a natural process without human intervention, that should be the basic assumption when considering holding humans responsible (culpable).

 

[Buyetyen]

Otherwise you are the one who considers animals guilty until proven innocent.

If this is the best you can do in terms of wit, it's no wonder you've never won an argument around here. You've already decided China is guilty, damn the facts. You're just what-abouting to distract from your own partisan hackery.