Why does it feel like Wuhan have got off lightly

[Talsaml]

No mention of how Covid started anymore. reckon it was made in a lab and the experiment went wrong. Why won’t they just admit it. Not that anyone can do anything now but so many people have died. All those lost love ones. Relatives, people that have had Covid and long Covid suffers should get compensation I say

Ah, I see where you're coming from aimee and it was such a shitshow, I have no idea - they limited it to a 62.5 million fund, to compensate the first 250 families, back in 2001.
As of 2019, they have paid out approx. 37 million in compensation.
www.vcjdtrust.co.uk/
You apply to the trust directly. There were reports that French victims might sue the government as far back as 2000. A most recent French victim's family (of lab worker Emilie Jaumin) who died 2 years ago, aged 33, will be suing the INRAE’s Molecular Virology and Immunology Unit in Jouy-en-Josas (she was infected in lab work 10 years ago).
Figures vary - google it and it says there have been 229 cases - 52 were not from the UK. Did the UK compensate these 52 families or only the 177 Brits?
It's a good question you ask. Because it also brings into play burden of proof, the issue of silent carriers and it being dormant for up to 50 years (I'd be 75 before I could safely say I wasn't infected) and whether current, older victims are misdiagnosed with dementia per se.
I note the trust made no payments in 2019 but I'd have to do a deep dive to see when the last payment was.
I also am aware of gdpr/nda/media blackouts, making it difficult to know how many more were out there.

@Aimee1987

So are UK research labs. There is a huge amount of restrictions surrounding research within this country but currently the UK goverment is not legally responsible for a private company.

Poor farming practises within the UK lead to BSE. Are the UK goverment liable for this?

Exactly. The UK Government provides a legal framework. We have an independent judiciary to ensure privates individuals or companies follow this framework and if not they are penalised.

It's not perfect, but it's a million miles away from the system in China. Do you think a private person or company in China could defy the state and issue legal action against it, and expect to get a fair hearing, for example? It isn't the same, at all. And to pretend it is even remotely similar is naive at best.

@Aimee1987

Also there is currently no ban on gain of function research within the UK.

So an accidental or intentional ( by a single scientist) could easily have happened within this country. Labs arent as secure as people like to think. I can access enough neurotoxin to poison the water supply of my entire town if I so wanted and there are very few barriers in place to stop me from taking and stockpiling this.

Hmmmm. Yes, all countries should tighten security of these labs further. BUT the egregious breaches of security reported at the Wuhan lab in late 2019 don't sound to me like something that would happen in the UK. Sneaking out jnfected animals to sell as livestock at a meat market to make extra money? I can't see that happening at a UK level 4 lab tbh.

@Furries

Do I think it leaked from the lab - yes Do I think it was intentional - definitely not Do I think they held back information far too long - yes Do I think they held back info on severity of the issue - yes Do I think they care - no Do I think anything can be done about all of the above - in all honesty, no Does this make me feel frustrated/angry/etc - yes

I have nothing insightful or intelligent to add. I’d been coping fairly ok up until this week. I believe we will eventually get through this, but I’ve stumbled on a big rut this week.

I agree with most of this. I'd like the rest of the world to take a collective stand against it all, if China will not cooperate transparently with investigations (ha ha). But I don't believe they will do that. I think it's highly unlikely.

@gofg

The LF tests, which I have to do daily for work, are made in China.

So? Where I live almost everything is made in China.

There are some ridiculous posts on this thread.

So?

The issue is that you don't understand why that is a problem.

Sneaking out jnfected animals to sell as livestock at a meat market to make extra money? I can't see that happening at a UK level 4 lab tbh.
I know of a PhD student at a Russel group university who snuck out genetically modified mice and released them into a local park. Grossly illegal yes but he got a slap on the wrist ( but will never work in science in the uk). Luckily someone found them and reportednit to the uni.

I agree that the Chinese goverment knew about the research and I think tighter regulations would be beneficial but you cant force another goverment ( especially not one as powerful as Chinese) to do what you want. My point is the perception that it couldn't happen here is grossly wrong.

Oh also I've spent 15 years working in animal research labs in the UK and Ireland including 1 prion (BSE is an example of these but not the strain I was studying) and there has never been anyone standing at a door making sure I dont wander off with the animals.

@Aimee1987

Sneaking out jnfected animals to sell as livestock at a meat market to make extra money? I can't see that happening at a UK level 4 lab tbh. I know of a PhD student at a Russel group university who snuck out genetically modified mice and released them into a local park. Grossly illegal yes but he got a slap on the wrist ( but will never work in science in the uk). Luckily someone found them and reportednit to the uni.

I agree that the Chinese goverment knew about the research and I think tighter regulations would be beneficial but you cant force another goverment ( especially not one as powerful as Chinese) to do what you want. My point is the perception that it couldn't happen here is grossly wrong.

Bloody hell. Not that you should know the answer, but why on earth did he think that was a good idea?

I am someone who struggles massively with regards to animal testing - on the hand, I realise the advancements with regards to medicine. On the other hand, I hate it (especially with regards to everyday cosmetics).

I understand the ‘urge” to release these animals - but I struggle to understand the rationale with regards to how they are expected to survive once released. Let alone the fact that they were GM - what impact could that potentially have if released into the wild?

Sorry - not a dilemma I expect you to answer at all!

@furies
I think he just had a mental breakdown to be honest.
These mice had a neurodegenerative disease ( non transmission) so little risk to society in this particular case.
The mice themselves are bread in captivity so have no idea how to survive in the wild. If they weren't found they would have been killed by a fox or something. In reintroduction programs of endangered animals they spend years training the animals to survive in the wild.

I think it would be useful to get to the bottom of whether it was from a lab - because if it was then I think gain of function studies on viruses should be banned.

I am less angry at China/ Wuhan Lab than I am at the way the media/ WHO / governments and scientists rallied to shout down it as a possible theory. The public have been treated like children with a memory span of less than 5 minutes.

It has done nothing but breed distrust when we most needed it, and I am not surprised we are in this situaton where lots of people are questioning whether they should be vaxxed, boostered, lockdowned etc.

I will be honest I am even feeling this way about the booster (from someone who took the first vaccine in first week of roll out in December last year), and its because I dont feel like we are being given all the facts so its a struggle for me to make a considered decision. We probably never will have them.

We have pertinent and important questions to do with our own position right now @Talsaml. Once the smoke clears we will, hopefully, be able to investigate history and learn from it.

At the minute, we have more pertinent problems to address.

We will need aid from them soon based on how much more advanced and developed they are

Unlikely. China will continue to be a very important world power and rival to the US and other wester countries during our lifetimes due to its sheer size and many other factors.

But its demographics are bad and it's already showing signs of the "Middle income trap." China's GDP per capita is still low by the standards of developed countries, yet it's old-age dependency ratio will soon be as bad or worse. Not an easy combination. The economists I follow feel that China is probably nearing the peak of its power and influence.

The CCP knows this, by the way, which is a major reason why they are so prickly and chippy, and seem to feel such a sense of intense urgency about trying to overtake other countries before the demographic problems start to kick in. The next few years could be very "interesting."

On the other hand, at least Zero COVID (complete with anal swabbing) is keeping China busy with other things to think about. If they try to invade Taiwan, maybe we can drive them back by threatening to breathe on them.

"its old age dependency," not "it's." I do know how to punctuate, I swear!

It's not just deliberate leaks or freeing animals on purpose or selling them; leaks can be accidental - see the smallpox outbreak in 78
www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/21/it-was-a-total-invasion-the-virus-that-came-back-from-the-dead
As to gain of function experiments, Jon Stewart put it best when he said how he believed the world would end...

Just because scientists can do something doesn't mean that they should.

China is currently committing genocide against the Uyghurs. I think they need to be held accountable for at least that.

The issue is that you don't understand why that is a problem.

@TheCatsHaveKilledTheGonks - I don't see that it is a problem. China is one of our largest trading partners - we can hardly expect to sell to them but not buy in return.

There is so much unproven rubbish on this thread.

I remember a while back an expert talking about it not being engineered as too chaotically put together - eg how it’s spliced or whatever

Is that not the case anymore?

US apparently were doing gof research. Then told to stop it as too risky. The whole project then shipped off to china. Fauci apparently involved in funding it. Has been questioned about it all.

[quote user333334]Personally, I think there's some next-level conspiracy stuff going on in this thread. If you apply any kind of rational thought, the 'America conducted gain of function research and were complicit in releasing a deadly virus so 2 or 3 American pharmaceutical companies could make a profit' theory collapses almost immediately. Anyway, here are a couple of analyses that are pretty balanced. Might be worth looking at.

www.factcheck.org/2021/10/scicheck-republicans-spin-nih-letter-about-coronavirus-gain-of-function-research/

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/29/repeated-claim-that-fauci-lied-congress-about-gain-of-function-research/[/quote]
Oh please. This is manistream news.It's in The Telegraph for goodness sake. Hardly a conspiracy theory rag

And I don't see people saying that they thought any leak was on purpose nor saying that it was done with the objective of a big US corporate cash in.

Rather that if it was a mistake that is a big deal (cos it has like led to a global pandemic and untold amounts of death and suffering). It has also led to gigantically profitable products for some. And the US government funded in part the development of some of those products. If the reports in the mainstream press turn out to be true that would mean that the American National Institutes of Health were involved in both the funding of the research that led to to the leak and consequently the pandmeic and (in part) the funding of some of the very profitable solutions to that leak.

One doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that there is an overly cosy relationship going on there with potential for conflict of interest. At the very least we should want transparency from these organisations because they are funded by taxpyers and exist to serve taxpayers in the US.

But its demographics are bad and it's already showing signs of the "Middle income trap." China's GDP per capita is still low by the standards of developed countries, yet it's old-age dependency ratio will soon be as bad or worse. Not an easy combination. The economists I follow feel that China is probably nearing the peak of its power and influence.

Hence the 3 child policy bought in this year although i'm not sure it will work.

Peter Daszak had not always been forthright about his research and his financial ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Daszak’s attempts to hide gain-of-function research:

www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2414

nypost.com/2021/11/04/letter-confirms-wuhan-lab-virus-study-was-funded-by-taxpayers/

Despite intensive efforts over the past two years, no one has found a bat-source population, SARS-CoV-2 circulating in an intermediate species that functioned as a viral conduit between bats and humans, or evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was present anywhere else before it emerged in Wuhan.

Consider, too, the unique furin cleavage site between the S1 and S2 subunits of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Furin is an enzyme expressed by human cells that separates the spike protein subunits at the cleavage site, enabling the virus to bind more efficiently to human cells and release its genetic material into them. It is an important reason that SARS-CoV-2 is so easily transmissible.

The furin cleavage site is found nowhere else in the entire genus of SARS-related betacoronaviruses. SARS-CoV-2 is the only one that has it. This fact alone suggests that it did not arise naturally in SARS-CoV-2. In addition, while other, more distant coronaviruses do have furin cleavage sites, the protein components (amino acids) in the SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site are coded for by a unique set of nucleotides in its RNA, not found in the other viruses, making natural recombination between the viruses unlikely.

It’s particularly concerning that in 2018 the EcoHealth Alliance reportedly submitted a proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to partner with the WIV in constructing SARS-related bat coronaviruses by inserting such cleavage sites into their spike proteins. DARPA rejected the proposal because it failed to address the risks of gain-of-function research. EcoHealth’s president, Daszak, did not dispute details of the reporting.

In other words: There are many indications that SARS-CoV-2 could have been created in a lab, specifically the Wuhan lab, which was conducting gain-of-function-type research with coronaviruses, some of it funded by the NIH.

While the particular experiments revealed in Tabak’s letter may not have created SARS-CoV-2, other research at the WIV, including research that EcoHealth sought to fund with US grants, could have done so.

It’s doubtful that we will ever discover the true origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, since the Chinese will never cooperate with a full and open investigation. It doesn’t help that, until recently, our own NIH stonewalled on questions about its funding of WIV research.

Sen. Rand Paul has called on Dr. Anthony Fauci to resign over denying gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Considering the release of the recent NIH letter and the revelations about EcoHealth Alliance, it remains entirely possible that US taxpayers funded a project at the Wuhan lab that may have led to the COVID-19 pandemic.

@Beachcomber - I agree with your posts - it baffles me why nobody appears to be asking more questions of China/America and I struggle with the constant mantra, 'Trust the scence'. Unfortunately science (and therefore scientists) are not always trustworthy as this proves. They have made appalling and dangerous mistakes in the past (this lab leak being one of them) so no, I will not blindly trust them now. I think we should all be asking more questions and the silencing of alternative viewpoints / discussion really worries me.

'Trust the science' is an awful mantra. It fosters complacency.

Adopting a scientific attitude is all about asking questions, being sceptical and thinking critically and independently. But ‘the Science’, as in ‘we are following the Science’ is a political coopting of science, which shuts down debate and demands the trust of the populace.

And then, paradoxically, sceptical, questioning voices are declared anti-science or ignorant of science.

I agree with @Furries upthread. It’s really too awful to think about, that the country responsible for this disaster has escaped justice. They should be paying reparations to the rest of the world.

But it’s like a bully. If they punch you, you often take it. Because if you punch back then they’ll pummel you into the ground.