If (big if) the virus is manmade

[Itsnotyourchoiceanymore]

Then will it keep mutating no matter what as possibly that’s what the program is meant to do?
I’m avoiding naming countries or finger pointing as that’s not the purpose of my question

I'm just saying that referring to previous events and speculating on increasingly wild theories about the origins of the virus

Hasn't the lab theory always existed though? What are the increasingly wild theories?

Marmalade virus is an idea I like & find intriguing smile

We'd never be able to stop the spread though (arf arf)

@gagrag

I'm just saying that referring to previous events and speculating on increasingly wild theories about the origins of the virus

Hasn't the lab theory always existed though? What are the increasingly wild theories?

@gagrag

increasingly wild theories I would categorise as the Chinese government deliberately releasing a transgenic coronavirus ("man made") as a bioterrorist event

I wasn't referring to the idea that lab staff may have transmitted the virus out the lab accidentally

@JesusInTheCabbageVan

Marmalade virus is an idea I like & find intriguing smile

We'd never be able to stop the spread though (arf arf)

all hail marmalade virus

increasingly wild theories I would categorise as the Chinese government deliberately releasing a transgenic coronavirus ("man made") as a bioterrorist event

Well that theory has existed since the beginning & doesn't have any credible sources.

I think it is a natural virus but has been modified in the lab and accidentally released. That is what gain of function research does, it modifies viruses, no? I read an interesting paper which laid out the structure of the virus and the ‘inserts’ which made it different from SARS-Cov- 1. These obviously could have happened naturally (I am not a virologist, so I don’t know), but the probability of it being a coincidence that such a highly infectious bat coronavirus emerges in close proximity to a lab working on such viruses seems low.

Whether it has been programmed to mutate in a certain way thereafter, I don’t know but I don’t think so. There have been teams and teams of people looking at it to work on vaccines, so I think they might have come up with that possibility, if so.

@somgreatapollo
I'm not sure that the UN has used the term genocide. Nor has HRW, though they do use the term "crime against humanity". Though of course that term is bandied around a fair bit: here is a HR group accusing the US of crimes against humanity just last month. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/26/us-police-killings-black-americans-crimes-against-humanity

90% of reports of the terrible stuff supposedly happening in Xinjiang seem to come from or be funded by research of right-wing US thinktanks. Sorry, I don't put too much store by anything they say after their lies concerning Iraq, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Vietnam etc. - especially as China is a rival for world leadership.

The US is silent on the murder of Muslims in Israel, including many children, something for which evidence is overwhelming. And remember "we dont do body counts" during the Iraq war which killed hundreds of thousands. So yeah I'm slightly sceptical of US and its small group of allies claims of their claims of "genocide" against one specific group of Muslims in China, when there is not evidence of a single murder.

I personally prefer the Chinese response to terrorism on its on its soil -deradicalisation, education and integration. Certainly preferable to the US response to terrorism on its soil: up to a million dead in Iraq.
China is not using "targeted" drone strikes either.

"The 542 drone strikes that Obama authorized killed an estimated 3,797 people, including 324 civilians. As he reportedly told senior aides in 2011: “Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine"

• Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama

I personally think this dreadful virus did come from the wuhan lab of virology. I just wish these the scientists who work there like Shi Zhengli, nicknamed 'bat woman', due to her expeditions to bat caves, would just leave bats the fuck alone. Taking bats from their natural habitats, experimenting on the poor creatures, messing with these coronaviruses and carrying out incredibly dangerous 'gain of function' research is just asking for trouble. I wish the lab would be closed down immediately but obviously it'll never happen and they continue to carry out highly dangerous research there. It causes me a great deal of mental anguish to think this could have all been avoided and the total devastation this virus has caused all over the world and the horrible way it's affected day to day life. I hope to God they get to the bottom of exactly what happened but as this is China, it'll never happen. I'm terrified about what new disease will emerge next from China.

I have never believed this was a natural virus, it was about as natural as HIV. If a certain country is responsible, it will take a global effort to enforce sanctions on said country. Personally, Id send them right into the wilderness, they've made a fortune and how they can sleep at night with all these deaths and illness, I will never know. My friend lost two family members, another lost work colleagues. If it has been manmade, there should be an international court hearing of some sort. There should be consequences, because if there isn't, what's to stop it happening again?

There should be consequences, because if there isn't, what's to stop it happening again?

Such as?
China is shifting from an exporting economy to one of domestic growth, its a nuclear superpower, isolate it and it will then do whatever it likes (even more so than it does already)

However, i would like to see a gradual shift from using China for our manufacturing and move this to other less totalitarian regimes, regardless of where this virus came from... which i do believe was from Wuhan, lab studying CV, locals get ill from CV... its not rocket science.
Shi Zhengli is operating under the authority of the Chinese state.

@speckledostrichegg

Just going to answer the question and ignore the other stuff

Nope, you can’t artificially design a recombinant virus to have a higher mutation rate than a ‘natural’ virus.

All RNA based viruses have a relatively high mutation rate, particularly when you have such high levels of transmission.

Came on to say exactly this. You've said it for me.

@strangeshapedpotato

OK - this is ridiculous.

Let's just start by saying that the world's experts are in complete agreement that the virus is natural.

Now the current discussion is whether or not the epidemic began with an escape from a laboratory of the virus where it was being studied - this then becomes careless science rather than biological warfare. Let's consider what this argument is based on.

1. Initially absolutely NOTHING at all aside from the close (several hundred miles) proximity of the lab to the wet markets and an absolute need to deflect blame for managing the virus away from Trump's idiocy, and onto a foreign state.

2. Now it's come to light that 3? members of the lab were admitted to hospital in 2019......

Right, smoking gun or what?? Not! Lol

Coming back to reality, we've had two similar viruses emerge recently, that we dealt with - with MERS it was easy as it wasn't H2H transmittable, and with SARS, the much shorter incubation period and more severe symptoms meant it was far easier to contain. Given the state of the modern world, it's inevitable there'll be more.

SARS-COV-2 didn't come out of nowhere - we had ample warning which we ignored. Now we're fishing around for someone else to blame.

Side note - we've taken exactly the same stance with global warming. Human beings are just terrible at looking after their planet. This has consequences.

Wow. Is this post satire or are you being serious? Every one of your points is misinformation.

No... the worlds experts are not all in agreement that in itself is a preposterous thing to say. The first opinion piece disguised as a paper which people like you always show when the lab leak is brought up was conspired by those connected to the wuhan institite of virology and those who get most of there funding because of gain of function research namely peter daszac who funded the bat coronavirus gof research at the WIV. The paper is an opinion piece and offers no evidence it was not made in a lab or a natural virus leaked from a lab. And here you can see the most prominent scientists have signed a letter asking for it to be investigated including Ralph baric. science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6543/694.1

The lab is not 'several hundred miles' away it is 8 miles away and there is a wuhan CDC that held bats yards away from the wetmarket.

Yes three lab workers were hospitalized. Most of those working at the WIV were young is it common for young people to be hospitalised with a regular flu? No.

And I see you bring up Donald Trump for no reason which leads me to believe that you do not want to admit this is true despite the increasing evidence of it being so
With 0 evidnece this is from nature and more and more for the lab leak hyposis. as he was one of the first that said it was from there and thus you can never have him say anything right due to your dislike of him which is pretty sad and sorry but this is the most important story of the century and these labs doing gof need to be shut down the risks are not worth it. Please read this www.google.com/amp/s/thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/amp/ and then please tell me with a straight face that it didnt come out of the lab.

The man-made theory is attractive because it implies there’s some level of control - that this happening again can be prevented, that we can take action against the country deemed to be responsible. It’s far more attractive than the alternative, which is that the virus occurs naturally and we have far less control over it.

It is literally physically impossible for the wild conspiracy theories to be true. Do some basic research into how viruses function.

Therefore would that mean that the ‘setting’ is to create maximum damage
There's no such thing as a "setting" on a virus that people can switch on or off.

The scientific community has known and predicted a pandemic caused by a zoonotic virus for decades. It was always just a matter of time. Nothing about this is suspicious or unexpected. And it certainly won't be the last zoonotic pandemic.

Which country is to blame? The one with the largest oil reserves that they can raid once they invade of course.

It strikes me as entirely possible that the natural SARS-COV-2 virus had been collected in samples from patients with weird symptoms and was being studied in the local main lab with good containment facilities.

This is late 2019, no particular urgency, because not many people are ill and contact tracing is showing only low transmission. People think it's a SARS variant and aren't worried because SARS has been contained before. They'd be right only about the first bit.

But then, the virus, still of course out there in the world from which it was captured, shows how it boosts its transmission by having seemingly random superspreading events. There's one in the wet market, perhaps others, once past the 'smouldering in the background' level of transmission it flips into major problem in just a few weeks.

But at least there's a sample in a lab and it's already been sequenced. That can rapidly be released to international reasearchers, and official permission won't take as long as it used to because international co-operation has improved, and also the case numbers are rising and the containment measures are ever more conspicuous.

The SARS variant is indeed that (hence the eventual name) but the effect of the changes has made it a whole novel strain.

TL:DR it didn't need to escape from the lab if it was captured from the wild, as it will still exist in the wild

Nothing about this is suspicious or unexpected. And it certainly won't be the last zoonotic pandemic.

Well one reason why the zoonotic theory is being questioned is because of the lack of transparency & access. So definitely suspicious & definitely no direct evidence it's zoonotic yet.

@CrownKettle

The man-made theory is attractive because it implies there’s some level of control - that this happening again can be prevented, that we can take action against the country deemed to be responsible. It’s far more attractive than the alternative, which is that the virus occurs naturally and we have far less control over it.

It is not attractive in the slightest. Why would anyone rather catch a virus that has been played around with in a lab and passed through humazied mice in order to make it more infectious to humans? I would rather catch a natural virus any day

@Gothichouse40

I have never believed this was a natural virus, it was about as natural as HIV. If a certain country is responsible, it will take a global effort to enforce sanctions on said country. Personally, Id send them right into the wilderness, they've made a fortune and how they can sleep at night with all these deaths and illness, I will never know. My friend lost two family members, another lost work colleagues. If it has been manmade, there should be an international court hearing of some sort. There should be consequences, because if there isn't, what's to stop it happening again?

Funny you mention HIV. There’s huge speculation that there is hiv mixed with a coronavirus .... I keep reading things about this (one from a french dr I think who won a Nobel prize in 2008?) That plus how blood clots are a symptom/more likely in hiv sufferers does make me wonder if there’s been a mix

This guy? @HelpforFree

Earlier, he supported controversial theories like ‘DNA emits electro-magnetic waves’, and tried to give credibility to anti-vaxxers. A year after winning the Nobel Prize, he claimed that a “good immune system” is enough to protect one from AIDS, and also supported a discredited theory of water having memory — the basis of homoeopathy.

theprint.in/science/nobel-laureate-who-found-hiv-now-backs-homoeopathy-anti-vaxxers-calls-covid-a-lab-accident/665710/

New Delhi: You are a French virologist, who co-discovered the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in 1983 and were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2008. Then, in the midst of a once-in-a-century global pandemic, you start making headlines on Indian WhatsApp, for apparently saying “there is no chance of survival for people who have received any form of the (Covid) vaccine”.

This is not a thought experiment; it’s the true story of Luc Montagnier who, in recent years, has taken a decisive turn away from the fabled ‘scientific temper’ and grabbed headlines for promoting baseless claims about vaccination, homoeopathy and most recently, Covid-19.

I often wonder if conspiracy theorists arise from children who never fitted in at school and spend the rest of their lives trying to be important as a result.

Yes that was one of the things I’d read

Or maybe they just the world differently to you. Doesn't make them wrong or inferior to you.