May 24, 20214 yr 2 minutes ago, The_Omega said: No he didn’t. He was ripping on Rand Paul for alleging cover funding of gain of function research which, the way things have been going, will probably end up being true too. Right, Fauci was ripping Rand Paul. Not only is it ridiculous to say NIH funded research in China to create a virus, it is ridiculous to think the virus was developed in a lab. Quote He was saying we funded a kind of research in China that could lead to dangerous research. That's not the case. So what he was saying was just absolutely not true. It's really unfortunate that he brought that up. It really does nothing but cloud the issue of what we're trying to do. So it was just unfortunate that he said that. It was said in an accusatory way that just made no sense and was not based in any fact that all. Quote So in a very minor collaboration as part of a subcontract of a grant, we had a collaboration with some Chinese scientists. And what he conflated is that therefore we were involved in creating the virus which is the most ridiculous majestic leap I've ever heard of. But yes, Fauci feels we should investigate what happened in China that resulted in the virus. We don't know the exact path it took.
May 24, 20214 yr Just now, toolg said: Right, Fauci was ripping Rand Paul. Not only is it ridiculous to say NIH funded research in China to create a virus, it is ridiculous to think the virus was developed in a lab. You're flying in a plane full of lies. It's time to land and catch up on the truth that is now known.
May 24, 20214 yr 32 minutes ago, toolg said: No he didn't. He said the exact opposite. The point being the virus developed naturally. Most likely the virus developed among Chinese farming of exotic animals in central/southern China. That's where the virus jumped from species to species, eventually to humans. Now if you want to make the case exotic animal farming in China is unnatural, fine, but it is ridiculous to think COVID-19 virus was developed in a lab. Fauci says that is ridiculous. Fauci is at least leaving the door open for origination from non-nautral sources. What he was calling "ridiculous" was Paul's accusation that the U.S. collaborated with China in developing the virus in a lab setting, that the NIH was in no way involved in "gain-of-function" research in Wuhan. There's still a lot unknown about this, but it seems that most scientists are not discounting the possibility of man-made origins at this point. It's up in the air, and will be for as long as China withholds lab data. Quote Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the federal government’s leading voice on COVID-19, rebutted Paul by saying: "The NIH and NIAID categorically have not funded gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology." In an interview with PolitiFact at United Facts of America: A Festival of Fact-Checking shortly after the hearing, Fauci called Paul’s accusation "preposterous." "He was saying we funded a kind of research in China that could lead to dangerous research; that’s not the case. So, what he was saying was just absolutely not true," Fauci said. Fauci added: "So, in a very minor collaboration, as part of a subcontract of a grant, we had a collaboration with some Chinese scientists. And what he conflated is that therefore we were involved in creating the virus, which is the most ridiculous, majestic leap I’ve ever heard of." Asked if he was confident the virus developed naturally, Fauci said, "I think that we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we find out, to the best of our ability, exactly what happened. ... I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus."
May 24, 20214 yr 1 minute ago, EaglesRocker97 said: Fauci is at least leaving the door open for origination from non-nautral sources. What he was calling "ridiculous" was Paul's accusation that the U.S. collaborated with China in developing the virus in a lab setting, that he NIH was in no way involved in "gain-of-function" research in Wuhan. There's still a lot unknown about this, but it seems that most scientists are not discounting the possibility of man-made origins at this point. It's up in the air, and will be for as long as China withholds lab data.
May 24, 20214 yr 14 minutes ago, The_Omega said: You're flying in a plane full of lies. It's time to land and catch up on the truth that is now known. You unironically saying this just made me bust out laughing.
May 24, 20214 yr 16 minutes ago, The_Omega said: You're flying in a plane full of lies. It's time to land and catch up on the truth that is now known. Never go full zuker.
May 24, 20214 yr Saw an article over the weekend that said that Moderna and Pfizer are saying that a booster will most likely be needed in the fall - for what it's worth
May 24, 20214 yr starting june 1, my employer is no longer requiring mask wearing for those who have been vaccinated. i'm sure my co-workers will be happy to see my handsome face again! we have 1 maroon in our office who still hasn't been vaccinated...coincidentally?, it's the guy who always wears his mask below his nose. so he'll have to continue wearing a mask incorrectly while the rest of us go maskless.
May 24, 20214 yr 12 minutes ago, mr_hunt said: starting june 1, my employer is no longer requiring mask wearing for those who have been vaccinated. i'm sure my co-workers will be happy to see my handsome face again! we have 1 maroon in our office who still hasn't been vaccinated...coincidentally?, it's the guy who always wears his mask below his nose. so he'll have to continue wearing a mask incorrectly while the rest of us go maskless. I'm so sorry you have to go through this. Stay safe!
May 24, 20214 yr Got Moderna #2 Saturday. Fine all day, arm started hurting a little about 4 am Sunday morning, not as bad as a tetanus shot, but definitely noticeable. Took a couple naps yesterday, other than that, no symptoms.
May 24, 20214 yr I'm definitely shedding a lot more than usual after getting the Pfizer. I'm almost completely bald now.
May 24, 20214 yr 5 minutes ago, Toastrel said: I'm definitely shedding a lot more than usual after getting the Pfizer. I'm almost completely bald now. I know. Gray hair too. It's either the vaccine, or spending a year at home with the wife and kids is taking its toll. Not sure which.
May 24, 20214 yr I noticed the Sheetz locations near me have changed their signs to say you don’t have to wear a mask if you’re vaccinated. No Wawa down here, sorry.
May 24, 20214 yr 4 hours ago, toolg said: Right, Fauci was ripping Rand Paul. Not only is it ridiculous to say NIH funded research in China to create a virus, it is ridiculous to think the virus was developed in a lab. No, that's not what Fauci said at all. Quote PolitiFact’s Katie Sanders noted that there is still "a lot of cloudiness around the origins of COVID-19” and asked Fauci if he is "still confident that it developed naturally,” according to footage of the event which was resurfaced by Fox News on Sunday. "No actually,” Fauci said at the "United Facts of America: A Festival of Fact-Checking” event. "I am not convinced about that,” he added. "I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened.” He continued: "Certainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out. So, you know, that’s the reason why I said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus.”
May 24, 20214 yr 2 minutes ago, The_Omega said: No, that's not what Fauci said at all. Back to that kooky viruses being cooked up in a lab story...
May 24, 20214 yr 2 minutes ago, toolg said: Back to that kooky viruses being cooked up in a lab story... That's right, we don't know where it came from, we just know where it didn't come from. That makes total sense of you're a CCP stooge. Even Fauci now admits it's not as kooky as your exotic animal smuggling theory. Quote The Circumstantial Evidence at Wuhan Lab Keeps Growing By JIM GERAGHTY May 24, 2021 9:11 AM It would be preferable if this Sunday’s big Wall Street Journal scoop had a few more specifics attached to it: Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report: the researchers with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness. That’s kind of a big distinction, now, isn’t it? Let’s observe that most people who work in biosafety-level-four laboratories such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology are in their adult years and are in good health. While I suppose it is possible that a lab technician or virologist who handles dangerous pathogens could be immunocompromised or elderly, that seems like a significant and unusual risk for both the individual and the institution. If you go midway down the page on my April 3, 2020, examination of the evidence, you’ll see five photos of the staff from the website of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Lab of Diagnostic Microbiology available at the start of the pandemic; the staffers appear to be in their 20s, 30s, or 40s. Perhaps "common seasonal illnesses” in central China are more likely to put a healthy adult in the hospital. Here in the United States, the two groups at the highest risk of developing serious complications from influenza during flu season are the elderly and the immunocompromised. While it’s not unheard of for a healthy adult to require hospitalization from the flu, it’s pretty rare. The CDC offers two sets of estimated figures for the 2017–2018 winter season. In the first, roughly one out of every 177 American adults between the ages of 18 and 49 years who was diagnosed with the flu required hospitalization. A second estimate calculates that 221 out of every 100,000 American adults between the ages of 18 and 49 years required hospitalization, which comes out to one out of every 452. Neither figure separates out immunocompromised adults; either way, it’s really rare for an American adult to require hospitalization for our "common seasonal illnesses.” And yet, if this previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report is accurate, the Wuhan Institute of Virology had three hospitalizations either simultaneously or in rapid succession. This means that one of three things happened. Either three employees of the WIV caught a particularly virulent common seasonal illness, bad enough to put healthy adults in the hospital, right before the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2, and completely unrelated to that outbreak; their illness was connected to their work at the WIV, but what they caught was not SARS-CoV-2; or they caught SARS-CoV-2 and were the first cluster of COVID-19 cases. Yes, this is circumstantial evidence, but the circumstantial evidence keeps piling up higher and higher. You may recall that back in March of this year, virologist Marion Koopmans, who was part of that World Health Organization team that traveled to Wuhan earlier this year, told NBC News that "maybe one or two” scientists working on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology did get sick with flu-like symptoms in autumn of 2019, shortly before the first cases of COVID-19 — but that she’s confident those illnesses are unrelated to the COVID-19 outbreak. "There were occasional illnesses, because that’s normal,” Koopmans told NBC News. "There’s nothing that stood out. . . . It’s certainly not a big thing.” She added that she knows these illnesses couldn’t be connected to the COVID-19 outbreak, because the Chinese government told the WHO that those researchers tested negative for COVID-19. And as we all know, the Chinese government would never lie about this virus, except for all the times it did. The Journal reports that "Shi Zhengli, the top bat coronavirus expert at WIV, has said the virus didn’t leak from her laboratories. She told the WHO-led team that traveled to Wuhan earlier this year to investigate the origins of the virus that all staff had tested negative for Covid-19 antibodies and there had been no turnover of staff on the coronavirus team.” A little more than a year ago, Chinese social-media users and those watching China’s Internet kept hearing rumors that a Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher named Huang Yanling was "patient zero,” and a statement from the institute named her specifically, denying the rumor, and declaring she left the institution in 2015. A public appearance by Huang Yanling would dispel a lot of the public rumors and is the sort of thing the Chinese government could and would quickly arrange in normal circumstances, but that never happened. Huang Yanling has not been seen in more than a year, and her fate remains unknown: A post purporting to be from Huang later appeared on social media platform WeChat. "To my teachers and fellow students, how long no speak,” the message said. "I am Huang Yanling, still alive. If you receive any email (regarding the COVID-19 rumour), please say it’s not true.” Her former boss made a separate post on social media claiming that she had left the institute in 2015, while a Chinese news agency claimed that it had spoken with her new employer but provided no other details. Inexplicably, however, Huang has disappeared from social media and has not been heard from since being identified as Patient Zero, while her biography and research history have been scrubbed from the institute’s website. Almost one year on, the only trace of the student researcher is a grainy picture of her salvaged from the institute’s website and circulated on the internet. In the days after the initial reports, bloggers and internet users in China suspicious of officials’ denials pleaded with Huang to make a public appearance to prove she was alive. ‘To stop this rumour spreading, Huang should just come forward and do a blood test,’ said one. Another posted: ‘No matter where you live, Huang, you will be found.’ China’s internet censors quickly stamped out discussion of Huang, and extensive enquiries within the country by The Mail on Sunday, including messages to her former colleagues, have failed to turn up any trace of her. Maybe Huang Yanling is indeed alive, well, and merely very afraid of making a public appearance. Maybe she’s being detained by the Chinese government. Or maybe she’s dead. Remember, dear readers, you and I are lab-leak-theory hipsters. We were into it before it was cool. Now, no less a figure than Dr. Anthony Fauci is no longer willing to say it’s too farfetched to be plausible: PolitiFact’s Katie Sanders noted that there is still "a lot of cloudiness around the origins of COVID-19” and asked Fauci if he is "still confident that it developed naturally,” according to footage of the event which was resurfaced by Fox News on Sunday. "No actually,” Fauci said at the "United Facts of America: A Festival of Fact-Checking” event. "I am not convinced about that,” he added. "I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we continue to find out to the best of our ability what happened.” He continued: "Certainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out. So, you know, that’s the reason why I said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus.” On the home page today, Michael Brendan Dougherty declares that, "If COVID-19 is a man-made disaster, searching for the people, the institutions, and the governments that authored this disaster is not scapegoating, it’s necessary fact-finding before doing justice.” From the beginning, there have been people in the West who were understandably deeply uncomfortable with the thought that this could be the result of the Chinese government’s recklessness, as opposed to just bad luck or those darned animal smugglers. Everybody hates animal smugglers. They’re the perfect villain. They don’t have lobbyists. They don’t have public-relations firms. There’s no International Association of Illegal Animal Smugglers, addressing international conferences about the joys of black-market pangolin scales. You know what animal smugglers have zero impact upon? Apple’s manufacturing; Disney’s revenues from movies, theme parks, and merchandise sales; America’s exports of soybeans, oil, natural gas, microchips, cotton, and corn — $124 billion in U.S. trade revenues. You know what does have an impact on $124 billion in U.S. trade revenues? The Chinese government, which is why a whole lot of America’s business, political, cultural, and social elites don’t want to antagonize the Chinese government. For 30 years, most of America’s leaders have pushed all their chips to the middle of the table and bet that the U.S. and China "can continue to advance our mutual interests for the benefit not only of our two peoples, but for the benefit of the world.” It’s increasingly clear that for 30 years, America’s leaders bet wrong on China — and they’ve been in denial of how wrong they were for ten to 15 years. And if Beijing was experimenting with dangerous viruses and accidentally set off a worldwide pandemic that, as of this morning, has 167 million cases and 3.4 million deaths worldwide, it means that the Chinese regime is far too reckless and irresponsible to be trusted with any kind of power — never mind nuclear weapons, one of the world’s largest militaries, biological-weapons research, DNA databases of American citizens, groundbreaking artificial intelligence, and God knows what other tools and weapons the People’s Liberation Army is developing. Maybe someday we'll know for sure where it came from. It's seeming less and less fair to call it the Chinese Coronavirus, given that there's a chance that American's (and who knows what other nationalities) were involved in its development.
May 24, 20214 yr Quote SEN. KENNEDY (R-LA): Okay. Last question, what, in your opinion, was the origin of the virus? CDC DIRECTOR ROCHELLE WALENSKY: This has been studied by the WHO-- KENNEDY: --No, ma'am, I'm asking your opinion. WALENSKY: I don't believe I've seen enough data, individual data, for me to be able to comment on that. KENNEDY: What are the possibilities? WALENSKY: Certainly, the possibilities that most coronaviruses that we know of are of origin from--that have infected the population, SARS-CoV-1, MERS, generally come from an animal origin and-- KENNEDY: --Are there any other possibilities? WALENSKY: Certainly, a lab based origin is one possibility.
May 24, 20214 yr 5 hours ago, toolg said: Right, Fauci was ripping Rand Paul. Not only is it ridiculous to say NIH funded research in China to create a virus, it is ridiculous to think the virus was developed in a lab. But yes, Fauci feels we should investigate what happened in China that resulted in the virus. We don't know the exact path it took. both Rand and Omega Zuker are misguided in thinking that a research venture where we partnered with Chinese researchers (which is one of the most scrutinized type of research ventures sponsored by federal agencies) is part of the origin story of COVID-19. but Fauci absolutely did say that he wasn't totally confident that COVID-19 originated "naturally" (outside a lab). Quote PolitiFact: That has been the subject of a lot of our fact checking on the coronavirus for the past year. And like you said, there's a lot of cloudiness around the origins of COVID-19 still. So I wanted to ask, are you still confident that it developed naturally? Fauci: No, actually, that's the point that I said. And I think the real unfortunate aspect of what Sen. Paul did is he was conflating research in a collaborative way with Chinese scientists, which was, you know, you'd almost have to say, if we did not do that we would almost be irresponsible because SARS-CoV-1 clearly originated in China, and we were fortunate to escape a major pandemic. So we really had to learn a lot more about the viruses that were there, about whether or not people were getting infected with bad viruses. So in a very minor collaboration as part of a subcontract of a grant, we had a collaboration with some Chinese scientists. And what he conflated is that therefore we were involved in creating the virus which is the most ridiculous majestic leap I've ever heard of. But no, I'm not convinced about that. I think that we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we find out to the best of our ability exactly what happened. Certainly the people who've investigated say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else. And we need to find that out. So, you know, that's the reason why I said I'm perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus.
May 24, 20214 yr 1 hour ago, The_Omega said: That's right, we don't know where it came from, we just know where it didn't come from. That makes total sense of you're a CCP stooge. Even Fauci now admits it's not as kooky as your exotic animal smuggling theory. Maybe someday we'll know for sure where it came from. It's seeming less and less fair to call it the Chinese Coronavirus, given that there's a chance that American's (and who knows what other nationalities) were involved in its development. Not smuggling. It was irresponsible Chinese farming practices that provided the vectors for the virus to jump species. Animals were involved in its creation. You tell me what nationalities are involved, because last I checked animals and viruses don't care about borders. Lab workers getting sick at an underfunded, under-equipped facility isn't really a surprise. What were they working on? What did they know about viruses circulating in central China? That's what the world wants to know. 23 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said: but Fauci absolutely did say that he wasn't totally confident that COVID-19 originated "naturally" (outside a lab). Ok. "But it could have been something else" does not mean it was certainly created in a lab.... Literally, it could have been anything. One in a million or more possibilities. That's what Fauci wants to investigate.
May 24, 20214 yr 8 minutes ago, toolg said: Ok. "But it could have been something else" does not mean it was certainly created in a lab.... Literally, it could have been anything. One in a million or more possibilities. That's what Fauci wants to investigate. I dunno man, he was asked pretty clearly "are you still confident that it developed naturally?" and he said "no.. I'm not convinced about that.." I don't know what other unnatural possibility than from a lab it could be. that doesn't necessarily mean malice on the part of China, though it could certainly mean negligence. from what I read about the traits of the virus itself, it was deemed unlikely that it would have been lab-produced. but it could well have been a variant that came about naturally, that China had contained and was studying in a lab that ended up leaking. to be sure, scientists are typically pretty hesitant to rule things out unless they have definitive evidence to do so. this is why scientists make for poor spokespersons.
May 24, 20214 yr 4 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said: to be sure, scientists are typically pretty hesitant to rule things out unless they have definitive evidence to do so. this is why scientists make for poor spokespersons. Exactly right. Even though Fauci said it's ridiculous in so many words, that's why he won't rule it out, because he has no proof otherwise. He can't rule out any possibilities until we know for sure. It is one of limitless options. Like Fauci, I think it is worthwhile to investigate... How many species did this coronavirus jump through before infecting humans? What viral traits were passed on each time it jumped? How long did it circulate among people before it became such a highly contagious, dangerous virus? The lab in Wuhan, China likely knows more than they let on. How much did they know? Unless it's the last viable possibility in the world, I won't believe they created it.
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