WHO report: covid likely not from Wuhan

[PicsInRed]

Covid not from Wuhan, not there before December 2019 and may even have been imported into Wuhan/China in frozen food.

Definitely, 100% not from a lab but may have mutated bit by bit and crossed different animals and borders whilst doing so in order to reach the current covid we know and love.

So there ya go.

www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55996728

@Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow
lweji I find your posts remarkable and not in a good way.

You need to explain that better.

The WHO knows how secretive and worse the Chinese government is. It has been very clear that the WHO have done their best to maintain links to China to encourage their openness. Unlike what happened during SARS-1.
www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-sars-idUSKBN1ZL12B

China have managed to contain this virus, and it is not them, nor the WHO that can be accused of ignoring it. Individual countries bear a lot of responsibility for ignoring what they knew was coming, and for implementing half arsed measures even as this winter.

I live in the worst affected country for the past couple of weeks and it certainly isn't due to China, but to ineffective measures to contain it from the start, even if we did do better than most European countries in the Spring.

I mean, why Wuhan and why now when it never happened at Harvard or John Hopkins or Norwich GMO labs?

I give you the Marburg virus.

But lab leaks do happen.
Its happened before.
Gain of function research was banned in the US under Obama (reinstated under Trump) because of exactly this fear.

That's proof of nothing in this case, of course.

But it's not a wild sci fi scenario to consider either.

They spent three whole hours investigating, so they must be certain!

And they spent 3 hours in the lab and 1 hour in the market so they obviously thought there was enough merit to the theory to investigate it in the first place.

Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow

What I don't get is your posts. You started going off at me for some reason, but without any reasoning, or debating any of my posts.

What I'm saying is that China isn't as innocent as they want to look, nor as bad as many people on this thread want them to be. Probably.

There is no evidence, from studies done in various labs, that this was a human-made virus.

I don't think we will never know if there was a leak from the lab.

But China has a long history of generating novel or recombinant virus by natural means. It happens pretty much every year with the flu.

It has been clear that most people and even scientists have underestimated this virus, and it is thus very likely that China did too at the start, as did the WHO, and as Europe did as a whole, even after having the virus here running rampant, and we still do, FGS.

Chinny reckon as they say...🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

@Longdistance

WHO is probably in China’s pocket.

This

LemonSwan

Variations of this virus were found in the lungs of people living close to the bat caves some years ago. This was entirely predictable. Covid-19 has been years in the making.

www.wsj.com/articles/who-caught-between-china-and-west-on-frozen-food-coronavirus-transmission-11611324088

Also the WHO's new theory about it being a result of frozen food imports is worrying. Because it's what China has suggested and will impact other economies as costs in global supply chain will increase (additional checks etc) and some countries who depend on exports will be in dire straits.

and theyve had a year to get rid of evidence so not there you go

We haven't a clue what has caused this virus.

I'm not "We" then, Because I have lots of clues.
it's zoonotic.
Lots of diseases jump from animals to people, like Ebola, bird flu or MERS. They jump back too. People give their viruses to animals.

The virologists sequenced SARs-cov-2 and found useful bits of genes shared with the animals it cycled thru before becoming successful at infecting people.

Suppose covid did start in a Wuhan lab -- here's the interesting question: what viruses are the Americans or Russians cooking in their labs Right Now ? What will the American pandemic-engineered virus do to everyone?

(Please don't say the American virus will turn us all into orange permatan guys with nasty handshakes)

Maybe the Russian virus will make everyone invincible at bare-shirt wrestling with bears in the snow. While the French virus will let everyone drink 6 gallons of wine and smoke 50 ciggies a day without getting cirrohsis or lung cancer. Vive la France !

Within a month of the dna of the virus being made available, around start of jan 2020, a number of leading epidemiologists including one from south korea and hongkong (both likely to be independent from china therefore...) all concluded the virus was @94pc bat and therefore likely to have entered humans via a host such as the pangolin and likely to be linked to the black market exotic food trade. The epids saw the dangers and immed notified the WHO and various world press and govmts, tried to warn everyone in the world, largely ignored, started to set about business of researching every aspect of the virus and of containing it within their own respective jurisdictions, which they have done consistently far more successfully than the uk, usa, etc have done.

What the bbc link re the report says is exactly what those clever independent altruistic epids/scientists were saying a year ago.

sorry about lack of capital letters typing with one hand

Would much prefer an independent accredited source provide information like that, I just don’t believe it coming from WHO

As PP have said, the problem would lie in finding one and then (bearing in mind their resistance even to the WHO) persuading China to admit such an organisation

It's also true that he WHO have no actual power over anyone - which is precisely why, in the context of China's secrecy, their visit was always going to be pointless

open.who.int/2018-19/contributors/contributor

China: 0,2% at 8.9 million US$

The Wellcome Trust, UK: 0,3%
Luxembourg 0,46%

USA 15%
Gates Foundation 12%
UK 8%
Germany 5%
Rotary International 3%

I don't think it's China. I blame more Bill's chips.

Since we're writing fiction, if you designed a virus, what would it do?

Simply destroying your enemies is boring. What about making them super placid or love your politics -- hey I know what the Russian virus does. It makes people believe in conspiracy theories and turn against 'main stream media', 'democracy' and 'The Establishment'.

Wow, when did they release that virus? About 1980, I reckon.

@Lweji

I mean, why Wuhan and why now when it never happened at Harvard or John Hopkins or Norwich GMO labs?

I give you the Marburg virus.

There was a lab technician in Birmingham, she caught small pox at the university. it was in the 70s and if I remember correctly it was the last death recorded of small pox.

@lljkk
I'd say it was the 60's.
You get all that stuff from the 60's intellectuals and the hippies took it up first.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Loving the concept of the "extreme diplomacy" and WHO having to do a joint statement with the Chinese authorities

With genuinely impartial invesigators that probably shouldn't have been necessary - but then, if they'd said anything which didn't quite suit, they'd most likely never have been heard from again

They did a joint briefing with Chinese health authorities because it was a joint investigation. Those were the terms under which WHO was permitted access.

How could we set up this team of 'genuine impartial investigators'? Who would decide that they were genuinely impartial? How could they have persuaded China to allow them access? What if China said fuck off?

How would this be different from the WHO we already have?

lljkk your posts reminded me of the old red dwarf episode, the virus that activated the activated the dormant psychic part of Arnold Rimmer's brain ... that lovely dress and pig tails is where we are heading..

@lljkk

Some fiction for your bed time reading tonight

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20380897/

The hantavirus outbreak in Yunnan caused by naughty naughty lab rats and an over tired lab student.

ancientgran

At my previous work, someone found a rusty vial at the bottom of an old fridge or freezer. Can't remember what it was labelled as and I know there was no outbreak, but we got quite worried about it.

Lab leaks happen, but they tend to be traced to lab workers in some way. It seems unusual that if this happened that the first serious cases would be from a market.

But, quite frankly, leak from animal cultures or wet market or intensive farming, neither leaves China with a good record in terms of preventing zoonotic pathogens from crossing to humans. They certainly must do better.
And they know this. Which is why they keep pushing the frozen food hypothesis.

@lljkk

But unfortunately it’s not fiction. China are now tipped to become the dominant global economic superpower by 2024. If that’s not purpose enough I’m not sure what is.

The sad thing is the WHO always were the independent accredited experts.

It is a pity people have lost faith in them. That may be because of their own actions or it's people picking them up wrong - pandemics release irrational fears as well as rational ones.

It should be one of their priorities to win back public trust.
But maybe this happens everywhere they go where there is a health disaster and they know how to claw it back.
I hope so, because pathogens are going no where.