Lancet flips on origin

Why do we need to know ?

Yonak

I'm still skeptical of the need to know the origin. I don't see how knowing if it came by natural routes or was created in a lab can help us attack it. We wouldn't know more about the nature, transmissability, longevity or aggressiveness of the virus, now would it give us any additional information on how to treat or ward it off. If we can't identify a natural source, what more could be learned that we need to know ?

It seems to me, the only reason for wanting to know the origin is to point fingers if it turned out it was developed in a lab, from which it escaped, and was covered up by the Chinese. It would be unfathomable that the introduction of this germ to the public would have been done on purpose. That they didn't come forth immediately and admit their mistake, if that's what happened, could not be a surprise. Such behavior cannot be confined to only Chinese people, government or culture.

If it did come from unnatural sources, why do we need to pursue it ? It was a mistake. Let's just drop it. It doesn't further our goals to pursue it. Why stoke the animus ?

Re: Why do we need to know ?

Bruce, a MN Galoot

Besides your excellent response, it just feeds the trolls.

I don't think so, Bruce.

Yonak

Besides Tom, there are many people who say we need to find the origin, including our President. Unless we find the virus occurred naturally, I just question why.

Low odds...

David Weaver

..from a pattern recognizer's position, most of what the lancet posts is very accurate and the folks who criticize their one-off emotional reaction (which is what their February solidarity "we're against the conspiracy theorists" article was) wouldn't like to compare rigor with most of the rest of the group.

They still have leadership, like anyone else, and everyone gets a chance to overreact once in a while.

But I think where people delude themselves is coming up with a scenario where the explanation given as the official explanation is first, true, and second absolutely certain to be factually correct.

In this case, the lancet is admitting that they don't have evidence that the source is natural. That doesn't mean the have evidence that it's not. But there are too many very large stakeholders involved to believe that someone is going to come forward and say "you caught us, we did it, here's what we didn't share before, and now you can send over your auditors".

Things will be what they will be, and sometimes you have to be comfortable with saying "when it comes to a contest in who can be 'righter', maybe I ought to give someone else even a tenth of the room that I give myself when I excuse errant suppositions".

The gift of time that we have isn't in the past - it's over. It's the present, and the future will be the present. The past never will be. If we're not solving problems to make the future better for others, or for ourselves so that we can do it for others, there's not a whole lot to gain. But we can walk around in circles ogling the issue, trying to uphold what we want to be (vs. what is) and miss the present and spoil lining up to make the future the best present that it can be.

Not the place for this

John in NM

There are answers to your questions about relevance, but they seem to skate too close to the thin ice of politics for a forum like this one. Let's show some courtesy to Ellis and Bill H and leave this one alone.

Maybe..

Mark Nowicki

.. one should leave moderation to the Moderation?

For the most part, the participants in this thread appear to be intelligent and secure adults, why deny them a chance to have a conversation?

Just an opinion...

John in NM

Like Tom's and Yonak's, they have the ability to ignore it and continue their discussion if they please.

We're all just expressing opinions here.

At the very least,

George Koch

It should be labeled OT

agree with that..

David Weaver

..I'd have a black pot issue if I said something specific about covid topics, as I think there may be a few on here who think this is no different than what I posted below in great detail (the exoneration of that is that the FDA ultimately ruled what I suspected is data driven - but I don't need an exoneration and realize that it's annoying to some).

But, this whole lancet issue isn't really about problem solving or coming to a conclusion - it's posting about something unresolved, and that will remain that way. Argument or discontent can be endless because there's no conclusion, and that's not good.

I think we should try

Bill Howatt

Given the number of deaths, economic costs, length of time it persists with mutations and given that it is indeed a global problem it seems to me we should be doing all we can to pinpoint why it occurred so we can perhaps avoid or reduce the effects in the future.

If we don't find out anything I don't think the money is wasted anymore than what is spent on a lot of obscure research projects.

Bill

Re: At the very least,

Mark Nowicki

The lack of the OT label in the title is a compliment, it presumes a certain level of general knowledge.

Agree wholeheartedly!

Wiley Horne

Bill Tindall once said to me that this is the Manhattan Project of our time (he was speaking of the search for vaccines).

Just my data point (and I know there are others totally worn out on this subject), but I am intensely interested in news and insight into this enormous event.

I thank TomD for his post—I would not know of the Lancet piece otherwise.

Wiley

It's a good thing to know..

David Weaver

...but at the outset, I thought their uncharacteristic somewhat emotional post (for them) was out of antiscientist sentiment frustration.

I'm a little less confident that the desire to poke a finger in their eye and ignore their entire body of other work (they even published study information in ivermectin) is done with the hope of finding answers vs. poking in eyes.

But poking in eyes is popular these days.

So they've posted "we're back to 'we don't really know'" and my personal sense in recognizing patterns of things over time is if the initial answer isn't apparent, quite often, later explanations aren't solid either. I'm pleased to see that they revised (publicly) what they said initially, but recognize the difference between them saying they don't know vs. someone else proving that their initial statement was errant.

Re: Agree wholeheartedly!

TomD

Then you will love this:

This is the meeting that resulted in a 16-2 finding against boosters that was then reversed by a political appointee.

Some interesting points, in the parts I have watched so far, it will take time to get through all 8 hrs. One point that was made on efficacy is that to the degree that the number of people with natural immunity are constantly rising, it proves difficult to actually ascribe an efficacy number because a lot of the observed effects may in fact be due to natural immunity. So they have very sketchy information on risk, but it is at least harm arising from vaccination, but the benefit side of the ledger is murky. It has always been a little mysterious as to why our numbers on infections are so low, but this could be part of the story. If they admit high infections numbers they can't come up with persuasive data on efficacy. The 10% infection number in the US, and the 4% infection number in Canada were obviously low, and obviously they weren't looking, but I thought it was partly pragmatic since it is costly to get the info, large scale, and at one point one could say that one did not know what the benefits of infection were (assume the costs are sunk, obviously not always negligible). But in the end all roads lead back to "vaccine" promotion.

One of the panel members observed that they have zero data to base a decision on 16 year olds (I gather the plan is for 16 and up getting boosted?), possibly this is because they can't actually do trials on people below the age of consent, not elaborated.

One person said that the number of hospital cases for children is rapidly rising, (which is what one would expect if one has a leaky shot, and no therapeutics strategy, the virus is going to exploit weakness). So he supported a boosters plan.

(that is two against and one pro comment. I didn't cherry pick, I just was told the last 3 hours were the most interesting, and jumped in, eventually I will get to the rest).

(Oh I should add that "against" arguments are not the kind you hear in public for the most part. There your hear it is a miracle product, while other people say it is a poison. The truth is more interesting it is many shades of "I don't know". "I don't know" is pretty scary, as we have certain age groups 100 percent vaccinated where I am currently living, talk about pushing the chips forward and saying "I am all in")

It is interesting to see just 18 people who don't agree working on policy. Then they get over-ruled, not sure what else the process could be, but it is fragile at best. (Reminds me of my working days in policy development.) The CDC was also against the pro-boost end policy. It does go to show that there are still people who have integrity in these organizations, not because they are for or against something, but you can see the caution generally. This is what one hears from insiders. This is the distillation of the science- that is then ignored.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFph7-6t34M

Re: Why do we need to know ? I can answer that

TomD

1) From the medical perspective where the thing grew is critical to understanding the response. When they make these things in a lab, the gain of function thing can be achieved by exposing it to certain stimuli that cause it to develop in certain ways. And if it evolved naturally then it evolved in a natural environment. So for instance a thing that evolved in a cave, might be more fragile in sunlight. Whether this is the fastest way to get certain info, relative to just exposing the virus to sunlight is for scientists to judge. I do think that various assumptions that are being made about stuff like the safety for children, may be proceeding on poor evolutionary understanding. It is currently evolving in the environment, not knowing what the backstory is would seem an oversight.

(Latest news of a release of lab virus into bat caves just goes to show how weird the story may be)

2) If we don't know what the story is, we can't protect ourselves in the future. While there are various blame narratives out there, none of them are coherent The real story could be anything. What we do know is that the US banned the research, created exceptions, then outsourced it. Would it not be valuable to actually know what the gaping hole in all this was. For future reference.

3) I assume we do know what happened. That is always the hidden part in this kind of question. The should we look question covers the we already know reality.

4) One can't rule out the possibility that a COVID release was intentional without a story as to how it happened. This is the problem of not answering the question. If we could convincingly pinpoint this as a terrible accident, that would eliminate the belief it was intentional.

(People in China die every year from biological anthrax weapons released by the Japanese. UN also dropped anthrax on China during Korean war. And of course a lot of distinguished citizens can trace their ancestry back to the China Trade where chemical weapons were used against the Chinese. Today tens of thousands of people die every year in the US from Fentanyl that is manufactured in plain view. Fentanyl is/was under consideration for designation as a WMD. )

Re: I don't think so, Bruce.

TomD

I didn't say we should pursue it, I said it was of "more than idle interest".

There is no chance people won't look into the origin. Hiding one's head in the sand just guarantees that work will be done by wingnuts.

The best case here is that this is the largest industrial accident in the history of the world. Does not yell "best practices" to me that we try not to understand what happened. At least with Fukashima, and Chernobyl we had an address.

Off the rails

Jim Matthews

There has never been a better illustration of a Chatroom without meaningful moderation.

"(People in China die every year from biological anthrax weapons released by the Japanese. UN also dropped anthrax on China during Korean war. And of course a lot of distinguished citizens can trace their ancestry back to the China Trade where chemical weapons were used against the Chinese. Today tens of thousands of people die every year in the US from Fentanyl that is manufactured in plain view. Fentanyl is/was under consideration for designation as a WMD. )" TomD.

When any claim, no matter how outrageous no longer requires verification - it's over.

This is the sort of untethered ranting that took down Woodnet and Lumberjocks.

Re: Off the rails

Mark Nowicki

Actually this is a good example of how a few easily triggered will try to ruin it for the rest.

Many years ago acertain Canadian Prime Minister, responding to a complaint about bilingual packaging with French on one side and English on the other said:

"Turn the box, Madame"

water out of the bathtub...

David Weaver

here's what I saw in this. I didn't like the reporting and reasoning - it's all over the place further down this board. The FDA more or less didn't like what I didn't like. That was reassuring to me because it suggests that the 18 you're talking about and their supporting staff are following a regulatory process and not making emotional decisions or just going with their gut.

It appears the CDC ends up going through the same process (But their area of responsibility is probably different and not just "pfizer's approval", but the overall strategy).

In the end the FDA scientists found no good reason to give a third pfizer shot (Based on what pfizer provided) to the open population but found reason to give the shot to the vulnerable (Water under the bridge) as well as the older population (this doesn't seem unreasonable to me - I don't know what data they used, but it's interesting that they ended up giving the green light for a group of people that pfizer didn't include in their safety data. My opinion is that pfizer did that on purpose to keep the side effect profile down, but everyone needs to remember that pfizer's biggest legal obligation is to their shareholders.)

Then, things go to the CDC, and I haven't read but am supposing it's this: vulnerable and maybe also older individuals are given the greenlight by policy for the booster (but it doesn't sound like anything happens if an individual decides they want to get boosted, either, and when I went for my pfizer shot, my used to be lots, but now isn't that much fatness (31 BMI) put me in the first at risk class after the "really at risk" and first responders. ). I'd lie if I said I signed up - my wife signed me up and I went - I was ready to ditch masks and data supported the option. I have talked to more than enough to count all of my fingers who got themselves into the early class for the vaccine by claiming that they do things they don't do (stretching the definition of "teacher" or "daycare" for example to "I did that two years ago and could still do it if I wanted"). So for anyone who wants to get a boost, it seems like there's no repercussions - sign up and do it. They didn't ask me why I met the high risk class, either, and I went to a public setup and not just a drug store or doc's office. I could've lied about my weight and they'd have let me in. I wouldn't do that, but you get the point.

Back to the CDC - i suspect they probably felt at risk (and maybe old age individuals) showed a need for the booster, but not first responders and teachers (Based on actual data), and then the politicians intervened and changed the rules.

Here's the water out of the bathtub part - we got to see the inner workings of this. The rank and file folks did their jobs, and the politicians overruled. If you get too upset about the politicians overruling, we have to be realistic - the 18 individuals will be cooked to come to a conclusion beforehand, and I don't think that's better than seeing what actually happened).

Long story short also, though I made a big deal about the data not suggesting the boost being needed if you're actually trying to solve the problem (and there's still a big hole in public information - how are the people who had covid before faring, and how does it look if they never got vaxed, if they got covid and then were vaxed, and then the breakthroughs - how serious are their cases and what's the outcome since then - I'm sure there is data showing the answer to that).....take a breath....

though I made that point, there is no real indication that the booster is going to be that dangerous, and if it is, it will be known quickly (refer back to my comment about the unusual situation with an acquaintance whose pacemaker being set off was attributed by the hospital to the moderna booster....

....here's the kicker with that person, though. It was an unfortunate situation - having a cardiac event - but she also had a severe reaction to the second shot (not a cardiac event, but very ill from it).

I would rather have those "18" in place doing their job and then see them overruled than have them be planted so that they operate like political appointees, though. Far rather have that.

Re: Off the rails

TomD

You just did the same thing, there were 4 claims, which one are you disputing? It suits you to jump on them, but what is your actual point? Adding an ad hominem attack would not seem to be moving in the direction of the moderate behavior you prefer.

My only point was that bioweapons have been used in the recent past, as well as chemical weapons. Is that actually in question?

The other thing to consider is what would a bioweapon use look like? It isn't all going to look like a Bond villain with a finger on the button, there are lots of degrees of escalation, as in anything else. One would hope that military planers have considered a range of options that would allow their countries to profit from everything from normal seasonal outbreaks on up. There are lot of steps on the way to some kind of ridiculous suicide attack. But then my mom would say "nobody would do that, it isn't nice".