Dr. Fauci “not convinced” coronavirus developed naturally

[Phoenixmgs]

No, he's held one position related to public health in his professional life (a teaching professorship, not anything to do with actual practice).

What public health campaigns has he worked on? What areas of virology or immunology has he researched? It's quite easy to find long lists of practical past experience for Fauci.

Lol, Marty is trying to literally fix the American health system. If Fauci is so amazing, why has Marty been right far more times than Fauci during this pandemic? Again, Marty was saying to do tons of shit January of 2020 to curtail the virus. Whereas Fauci on February 29th "There is no need to change anything that you're doing..." (and 20% of NYC was infected by April). We might have had a chance to be New Zealand if Marty was in charge.

Only if you assume the truth of everything else you're spouting, which I do not.

What was Marty wrong about?

Yes, but you and those epidemiologists aren't quite saying the same thing. Why has been explained to you multiple times already, unfortunately you just don't seem to able to process it.

Let me try this analogy for you. In the average year, not that many people are stabbed, and the average person should have no significant fear walking around doing their daily business that they could at any moment be stabbed. However, a person that decides to go into a dangerous area of town and challenge some of the local kids to a fight needs to radically revise their assessment of stabbing risk, because the argument that almost no-one gets stabbed doesn't actually hold so much weight in those circumstances. Thus it is both true to say your chance of being stabbed is very, very low, and also to say that there are situations where you would be very strongly advised to take precautions against being stabbed.

Outside is safe, plain and simple. Just don't do this.

Remember when I said that covid-19 is not chickenpox? Well, in much the same way, vitamin D is not facemasks.

There is not a rule "X is correlational and false therefore Y is false because it is also correlational", because the data that supports X and the data that supports Y is different data. You are trying to draw this sort ridiculous logical parallel between two different things instead of accepting that they are different things with different evidence bases. The rest of it is just cherry picking your data to defend what you please.

The vitamin d data is actually better because you can isolate vitamin d much more than masks as there's so many variables that go into spikes and valleys, not to mention every country or every US state has a population with different restrictions and a population with different behaviors. Also, vitamin d studies in the past have shown better results in reducing flu than mask studies have shown against the flu. There is literally no solid data showing masks have done much of anything.

That letter of 200+ scientists (6th July) says stuff like "It is understood that there is not as yet universal acceptance of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV2; but in our collective assessment there is more than enough supporting evidence so that the precautionary principle should apply." This roughly translates to "it might not be certain, but it's very likely".

And indeed, policy for infection control was already designed on the assumption of spread through the air (social distancing, masks, etc.)

Your complaint boils down to the CDC offering an official scientific judgement on airborne spread when they thought the evidence put it beyond any reasonable doubt, rather than just when it was very likely. Given that it was already recommending policy on the assumption of airborne spread well before then, your complaint amounts to a whole heap of nothing much.

So it sounds like a "better safe than sorry" approach, which is why masks were recommended in the 1st place. Shouldn't you do things to counter something that is "very likely" in a pandemic of a new virus (until you figure out that it's looks almost certainly not likely)?

---

Funny how you don't respond to the actual thread topic. To be in favor of censoring a plausible theory is the opposite of science. Literally, all I (or anyone) has to prove is that the lab leak theory isn't impossible.

The Media's Lab Leak Debacle Shows Why Banning 'Misinformation' Is a Terrible Idea

Facebook made a quiet but dramatic reversal last week: It no longer forbids users from touting the theory that COVID-19 came from a laboratory. "In light

reason.com

 

[crimson5pheonix]

US Media Give New Respect to Lab Leak Theory—Though Evidence Is as Lacking as Ever

Despite the sudden media enthusiasm for the lab leak theory, there remains as little compelling evidence that the virus escaped from a Chinese lab as there always has been.

fair.org

 

[Silvanus]

Lol, Marty is trying to literally fix the American health system.

I'm sure that's part of the brand he's trying to sell, yes. He's a talented media player.

If Fauci is so amazing, why has Marty been right far more times than Fauci during this pandemic?

He hasn't. You just keep saying he has.

What was Marty wrong about?

The idea that we would have "herd immunity" by April.

Actual herd immunity would render outbreaks nearly impossible. How's that working out?

 

[tstorm823]

Actual herd immunity would render outbreaks nearly impossible. How's that working out?

That's not correct. Herd immunity makes outbreaks statistically unlikely, but it's always possible for every non-immune person to be in the wrong place at the same time.

 

[Silvanus]

That's not correct. Herd immunity makes outbreaks statistically unlikely, but it's always possible for every non-immune person to be in the wrong place at the same time.

Hence the "nearly" in "nearly impossible".

 

[tstorm823]

Hence the "nearly" in "nearly impossible".

But it isn't nearly impossible. it's far, far from impossible. It's just less likely to have an outbreak than not, which is sufficient to avoid exponential growth. You've been getting this concept wrong for like a year.

 

[Silvanus]

It's just less likely to have an outbreak than not, which is sufficient to avoid exponential growth. You've been getting this concept wrong for like a year.

No, what happened was that you were using a definition of "herd immunity" which is at odds with how its actually used in the epidemiological field.

 

[tstorm823]

No, what happened was that you were using a definition of "herd immunity" which is at odds with how its actually used in the epidemiological field.

I never was, you insist that personally, you are still wrong. I provided sources, you didn't care, you're still wrong. You have nothing but your own statements, you're still wrong.

 

[Silvanus]

I never was, you insist that personally, you are still wrong. I provided sources, you didn't care, you're still wrong. You have nothing but your own statements, you're still wrong.

No, you're rewriting forum history.

At the time, numerous sources were provided showing that the generally-accepted threshold for achieving herd immunity is much higher than we had in April. Nature put it at 60-70%. Johns Hopkins estimates 70%. JAMA network says the threshold is "typically" 70 - 90%. Here's a pretty well-respected and cited data scientist stating that achieving herd immunity in the US at all is "unlikely", and that we should aim for "normality" instead. Cleveland Clinic puts it at 70 - 85%. This study puts it at between 60 and 80%.

 

[tstorm823]

No, you're rewriting forum history.

At the time, numerous sources were provided showing that the generally-accepted threshold for achieving herd immunity is much higher than we had in April. Nature put it at 60-70%. Johns Hopkins estimates 70%. JAMA network says the threshold is "typically" 70 - 90%. Here's a pretty well-respected and cited data scientist stating that achieving herd immunity in the US at all is "unlikely", and that we should aim for "normality" instead. Cleveland Clinic puts it at 70 - 85%. This study puts it at between 60 and 80%.

You've sourced the wrong thing. The problem isn't your knowledge of numerical estimates of herd immunity. The problem is you that don't understand what those numbers mean. Those numbers are all effectively saying that with no people immune to the virus, each person infected will infect 3-5 other people on average, so if 2/3 to 4/5 of the population is immune, exponential growth stops. But that's based on average rates of passing infections, there are going to be lots of people who pass infection to nobody, and a few who infect many people and cause an outbreak. That's how averages work. 70% immunized does not make outbreaks nearly impossible, but rather it makes them unlikely if the immunized and non-immunized communities mix evenly, and it makes further spread from the outbreak also unlikely, making an epidemic a bafflingly extreme situation... but still possible.

I'm sure you're thinking about when I was arguing with Agema about 10-20% numbers, but that was when we were attempting to look at proximity to herd immunity based on known infections, which was a different thing at the time. It was never an argument about what level of immunity constituted herd immunity, it was about what level of positive tests one would expect to see. My basis was the Diamond Princess cruise ship, where despite being confined with the virus, only like 20% had positive test results. I wasn't assuming only 20% were exposed or immune, the opposite, I was assuming ~100% were exposed, and extrapolating from there, guessing that a population that sees 10-20% of people test positive for the virus is likely close enough to full penetration to reach a herd immunity state. That doesn't mean the herd immunity threshold is 10%, but that you'll never see positive tests for something like 70% of the population. That's not only a very different argument, it's also entirely moot now that we have vaccines, which removes a huge amount of uncertainty from the data.

 

[Silvanus]

You've sourced the wrong thing. The problem isn't your knowledge of numerical estimates of herd immunity. The problem is you that don't understand what those numbers mean. Those numbers are all effectively saying that with no people immune to the virus, each person infected will infect 3-5 other people on average, so if 2/3 to 4/5 of the population is immune, exponential growth stops. But that's based on average rates of passing infections, there are going to be lots of people who pass infection to nobody, and a few who infect many people and cause an outbreak. That's how averages work. 70% immunized does not make outbreaks nearly impossible, but rather it makes them unlikely if the immunized and non-immunized communities mix evenly, and it makes further spread from the outbreak also unlikely, making an epidemic a bafflingly extreme situation... but still possible.

Yes, I'm aware of how averages work. In order to create an outbreak-- that is, a high proportion of people infected in a single location-- it would not be enough for one of those 'few' to infect many people. They would need to be localised. And those infected would then also need to be significant outliers as well. That would be highly unlikely in a spot with <30% of people even susceptible in the first place. It would require the location in question to be highly divergent from the national average.

So, yeah, possible. But quite highly unlikely.

My basis was the Diamond Princess cruise ship, where despite being confined with the virus, only like 20% had positive test results.

Yes, I recall criticising the statistically-insignificant sample size at the time.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

I'm sure that's part of the brand he's trying to sell, yes. He's a talented media player.



He hasn't. You just keep saying he has.



The idea that we would have "herd immunity" by April.

Actual herd immunity would render outbreaks nearly impossible. How's that working out?

He testifies for free for anyone that is getting sued by a hospital over bills and the person has won every case he's testified in. Here's what Marty's been doing.

Fauci's been wrong many times.

What US outbreaks (as a country) have happened since late April? The US is a huge country, some areas have more % already infected and vaccinated than others, having a spike here or there is more dependent on that specific community vs the nation at large.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

No, you're rewriting forum history.

At the time, numerous sources were provided showing that the generally-accepted threshold for achieving herd immunity is much higher than we had in April. Nature put it at 60-70%. Johns Hopkins estimates 70%. JAMA network says the threshold is "typically" 70 - 90%. Here's a pretty well-respected and cited data scientist stating that achieving herd immunity in the US at all is "unlikely", and that we should aim for "normality" instead. Cleveland Clinic puts it at 70 - 85%. This study puts it at between 60 and 80%.

Herd immunity is just when the R0 of the virus is below 1, saying that achieving herd immunity is "unlikely" is just plain wrong or using a different definition. What proof do you have that the US as a whole hasn't achieved those percentages yet? The US has just about half the country vaccinated + you have all the people that got infected (about half the population as well) that contribute to immunity. Obviously, not everyone that has natural immunity didn't get vaccinated so there's overlap between those two groups. Regardless if we've quite reached herd immunity or not, covid now has far far far far far fewer cases than the flu does during a normal flu season and the fatality rate is now pretty similar to the flu because the vulnerable have basically all gotten vaccinated. So why do we have to TODAY treat covid differently than the flu?

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Yeah, there was absolutely no censorship going on with regards to the lab leak theory in the scientific community

The rejections kept coming. The coronavirus was a topic of intense scientific fascination, yet the four Australian researchers challenging conventional wisdom about how the pandemic originated couldn’t find a publisher for their study.

“We were quite stunned,” recalls one of that study’s authors, Dr. Nikolai Petrovsky, an endocrinologist at Flinders University in Australia who is also developing a coronavirus vaccine. The work he and his group had done only received what he called “blanket rejections.”

That finally changed late last month, when Nature Scientific Reports published their paper, “In silico comparison of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein-ACE2 binding affinities across species and implications for virus origin.” The journal is part of the prestigious Nature family of publications. Acceptance there has given greater credibility to a theory that until recently was taboo: that the coronavirus could have emerged from a laboratory.

Lab leak theory, once 'political dynamite,' gains credibility in new study

The release of a scientific paper that was long in finding a publisher has given greater credibility to a theory that until recently was taboo: that the coronavirus could have emerged from a laboratory.

news.yahoo.com

US Media Give New Respect to Lab Leak Theory—Though Evidence Is as Lacking as Ever

Despite the sudden media enthusiasm for the lab leak theory, there remains as little compelling evidence that the virus escaped from a Chinese lab as there always has been.

fair.org

And the evidence that the virus came from animals isn't lacking?

 

[crimson5pheonix]

And the evidence that the virus came from animals isn't lacking?

That's not how it works. The default assumption is that it's natural, and it has to be proven it came from a lab. In the absence of evidence for it being lab-grown, it has to be assumed it's natural. And so far there's not been evidence to show it came from a lab. Scientists are looking, but their work is slow and deliberate and while so far is reinforcing the idea that it's natural, they don't make big claims about it. At least not the respectable ones.

For example in the article you'll see a scientist who ended up making a big solid claim, and then other people pointed out he was wrong and immediately retracted it and went back to work.

 

[Silvanus]

He testifies for free for anyone that is getting sued by a hospital over bills and the person has won every case he's testified in. Here's what Marty's been doing.

Why are so many of your arguments based around Youtube videos?

Talented media players will often do high-profile pro-bono work, since it's helpful for their brand and their actual income comes from elsewhere and is assisted by the good PR.

What US outbreaks (as a country) have happened since late April? The US is a huge country, some areas have more % already infected and vaccinated than others, having a spike here or there is more dependent on that specific community vs the nation at large.

That graph you're showing indicates ~60 - 70,000 new cases per day in April.

In ordinary times, 60 - 70,000 new daily cases of any disease would unquestionably be termed an "outbreak".

 

[Silvanus]

Herd immunity is just when the R0 of the virus is below 1, saying that achieving herd immunity is "unlikely" is just plain wrong or using a different definition.

No, that's not it: the R0 refers to a population in which all individuals are susceptible to infection (I.E., no immunity has been developed). The effective reproductive number (RE) is usually used to gauge the level of population immunity.

Nonetheless, the RE is still subject to more factors than just immunity in a population-- most obviously, efforts to mitigate transmission through other means, such as lockdowns and contact tracing etc. In the UK, the RE sank below 1 shortly after March 2020.... and then rose again. And then sank below, and then rose above again.

Obviously, if we had "herd immunity", the RE wouldn't just fluctuate above and below 1 depending on whether lockdowns were in place or not.

 

[Seanchaidh]

That's not how it works. The default assumption is that it's natural, and it has to be proven it came from a lab. In the absence of evidence for it being lab-grown, it has to be assumed it's natural. And so far there's not been evidence to show it came from a lab. Scientists are looking, but their work is slow and deliberate and while so far is reinforcing the idea that it's natural, they don't make big claims about it. At least not the respectable ones.

For example in the article you'll see a scientist who ended up making a big solid claim, and then other people pointed out he was wrong and immediately retracted it and went back to work.

Methodological naturalism strikes again

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Why are so many of your arguments based around Youtube videos?

Talented media players will often do high-profile pro-bono work, since it's helpful for their brand and their actual income comes from elsewhere and is assisted by the good PR.

Then, you can read his book if you want. The guy trying to help fix healthcare and accomplishing things within the system, and you keep shitting on him. He wanted the US to be very proactive months before the US did anything. I'm pretty sure with how cautious you are, you'd be for what Marty wanted to do vs Fauci saying basically continue on like normal on Feb 29th. If not, then you're being wholly inconsistent just because you apparently don't like someone vs what they actually say and their arguments. Just because someone you don't like says something doesn't mean they're wrong.

That graph you're showing indicates ~60 - 70,000 new cases per day in April.

In ordinary times, 60 - 70,000 new daily cases of any disease would unquestionably be termed an "outbreak".

And Marty said herd immunity will kick-in late April and what started happening late April (really mid-April)? People were only doing more and more things and places were opening up more and more, I wonder why the cases kept going down? Perhaps herd immunity? If not, what's your explanation?

No, that's not it: the R0 refers to a population in which all individuals are susceptible to infection (I.E., no immunity has been developed). The effective reproductive number (RE) is usually used to gauge the level of population immunity.

Nonetheless, the RE is still subject to more factors than just immunity in a population-- most obviously, efforts to mitigate transmission through other means, such as lockdowns and contact tracing etc. In the UK, the RE sank below 1 shortly after March 2020.... and then rose again. And then sank below, and then rose above again.

Obviously, if we had "herd immunity", the RE wouldn't just fluctuate above and below 1 depending on whether lockdowns were in place or not.

My fault using R0 instead of RE but the point is still the same, the gist that an infectious person spreads it to less than 1 person on average. I wasn't talking about the UK, I'm talking about the US and the US is pretty fucking open; there's packed sporting events daily, people going to bars and restaurants, people not wearing masks, etc.

That's not how it works. The default assumption is that it's natural, and it has to be proven it came from a lab. In the absence of evidence for it being lab-grown, it has to be assumed it's natural. And so far there's not been evidence to show it came from a lab. Scientists are looking, but their work is slow and deliberate and while so far is reinforcing the idea that it's natural, they don't make big claims about it. At least not the respectable ones.

For example in the article you'll see a scientist who ended up making a big solid claim, and then other people pointed out he was wrong and immediately retracted it and went back to work.

Why does the default assumption be that it's natural? I really don't care much over if it's natural or not, I just very much dislike all the censorship that has halted science along with discussion. I just want science to happen normally without political bullshit and whatever is the truth will be found to be the truth. And there isn't no evidence that the virus is engineered either. The former CDC director thinks it is because a virus jumping from animal to human takes time to become as transmissible as covid was at the start of the pandemic. Also, the following.

A day before the teleconference, Kristian Andersen, an expert in infectious disease genomics at the prestigious Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, had told Fauci first by phone and again later by email that the genetic structure of the virus looked like it might have been engineered in a lab.

“The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome (<0.1%) so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered,” Andersen said in an email to Fauci on Jan. 31, 2020. Andersen added that he and University of Sydney virologist and evolutionary biologist Edward Holmes, plus a handful of other top scientists with whom Fauci was on a first-name basis, “all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.”

'I remember it very well': Dr. Fauci describes a secret 2020 meeting to talk about COVID origins

A 2020 call appears to have played a key role in shaping views of scientists who contributed to shutting down talk of whether a lab leak caused COVID.

www.usatoday.com

 

[Silvanus]

Then, you can read his book if you want. The guy trying to help fix healthcare and accomplishing things within the system, and you keep shitting on him. He wanted the US to be very proactive months before the US did anything. I'm pretty sure with how cautious you are, you'd be for what Marty wanted to do vs Fauci saying basically continue on like normal on Feb 29th. If not, then you're being wholly inconsistent just because you apparently don't like someone vs what they actually say and their arguments. Just because someone you don't like says something doesn't mean they're wrong.

There's nothing inconsistent here. I've not said the US shouldn't have been more cautious to begin with (it should). And I've not said Marty Makary is always wrong (he's not).

There's no inconsistency in also holding the position that he's wrong on other stuff. He's a human being, with some tangential experience (surgical), but working in a field that's mostly unrelated to epidemiology, virology, or immunology.

I'm not judging it on who's saying it. I'm basing it on the claim itself, and whether it's been borne out by the past year's evidence (it hasn't, the US did not reach herd immunity in April).

And Marty said herd immunity will kick-in late April and what started happening late April (really mid-April)? People were only doing more and more things and places were opening up more and more, I wonder why the cases kept going down? Perhaps herd immunity? If not, what's your explanation?

Do you genuinely believe that herd immunity offers the sole explanation for a drop in cases?

Regardless, what actually happened with the case numbers? They dropped in April... and then, when restrictions lifted, they rose again. By July they were higher than April. By December/ January, they were many times higher than April. And in April 2021, they're higher than they were in April 2020.

Are we to believe that the US gained and then lost herd immunity? Or are we to recognise that the RE is subject to more than one factor, the US did not attain herd immunity over a year ago, and Makary was mistaken?

My fault using R0 instead of RE but the point is still the same, the gist that an infectious person spreads it to less than 1 person on average. I wasn't talking about the UK, I'm talking about the US and the US is pretty fucking open; there's packed sporting events daily, people going to bars and restaurants, people not wearing masks, etc.

....packed sporting events daily, people going to bars and restaurants, people not wearing masks.... a world-beating death toll and infection rate, a massive spike over December & January....