The Wuhan virus—how are we doing? - Page 90 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Provision of the two UN HDI indicators other than GNP.
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#15163766
Pants-of-dog wrote:This is an interesting justification for appearing to support racism.

In working so hard to "not appear" to support yucky things, you end up saying nothing at all.

And when you can't say anything, you can't think anything either eventually.

Perhaps this is the purpose of constrained speech.
#15163774
Doug64 wrote:Nope, I'm not going to waste my time scrolling through weeks of posts looking for it. If you want to find the research, look for it yourself.


If you are not going to support your claims, then please go post on a blog.

Your claim that they do not spread illnesses to others is incorrect.

To again quote Fauci, "They want to get science, they want to get data, and then when you don't have the data and you don't have the actual evidence, then you've got to make a judgment call."


Right, and then you assumed this could only mean he was deliberately trying to impose some sort of illogical regulation on you.

And then you got mad at him based on your assumption.
#15163909
Drlee wrote:In the last 7 days, the death toll in Texas was the second highest in the nation. What about that Doug? Did you forget that?

Over the previous week, Texas's total deaths per million--at 25--was seventh in the nation, surpassed by Kentucky (68), Georgia (38), Massachusetts (37), California (34), and New Jersey & New York (both at 28). But Texas's rate dropped from the week before by 7 per million (almost 25%), where California's only dropped by 3, New York's by 2, New Jersey's stayed even, and Massachusetts's and Georgia's rose (+3 and +9 respectively).

Pants-of-dog wrote:If you are not going to support your claims, then please go post on a blog.

I already supported my claim, I'm not going to keep doing so over and over because you conveniently forget facts that conflict with your opinions.

Right, and then you assumed this could only mean he was deliberately trying to impose some sort of illogical regulation on you.

To yet again quote Fauci, "They want to get science, they want to get data, and then when you don't have the data and you don't have the actual evidence, then you've got to make a judgment call."

I can keep on requoting his clearly unambiguous statement as often as you wish.

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In New Jersey parents are suing schools to get their kids back in classrooms.

Meanwhile the whitewash the CCP handed to WHO has been released, and not even the Biden administration is buying it:

WHO report fails to quell questions over COVID origins, possible lab leak
A team of international virus experts working with Chinese counterparts failed to pinpoint the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic during a visit to China, amid mounting questions over stonewalling by Beijing and whether the virus escaped from a Chinese research laboratory.

The Biden administration and the head of the United Nations’ World Health Organization, which assembled the team behind the report, quickly aired doubts about the panel’s findings and said it was clear that more study was needed.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus criticized authorities in China for limiting access to investigators and questioned the WHO team’s dismissal of the laboratory origin theory.

“I do not believe that this assessment was extensive enough …,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks. “Although the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions involving specialist experts, which I am ready to deploy.”

Some of the report’s findings leaked earlier this week, and the WHO’s team leader acknowledged that many questions were left unanswered.

“At the end of the day, we didn’t find anything, but this is only a first set of studies,” team leader Peter Ben Embarek said in releasing the report at a press conference in Geneva.

Questions about whether the COVID-19 coronavirus leaked from a Wuhan laboratory — a scenario the authors rated as “extremely unlikely” and not worth further investigation — dominated the press conference, even though the joint WHO-Chinese report listed that theory as the least plausible of four scenarios it examined.

Separately, the Biden administration and 12 allied governments issued a joint statement expressing concerns that China did not support an open investigation and the need for more study.

“Together, we support a transparent and independent analysis and evaluation, free from interference and undue influence, of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the statement said.

The WHO report is part of a long-delayed effort by the U.N. health organization to find out the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed an estimated 2.8 million people worldwide.

“It remains to be determined where [COVID-19] originated,” the report said. “Although the virus was first identified as the cause of a cluster of cases of severe pneumonia in Wuhan, to date it is uncertain from where the first cases originated.”

China has been faulted for mishandling the outbreak by withholding data on the disease and not limiting travel by millions of Chinese during the Lunar New Year celebration last winter after the disease began spreading.

The government in Beijing prevented the WHO team from traveling to China until January. Once inside the country, team members were forced to undergo a two-week health quarantine. The team’s movement and activities were also restricted. Their report concludes that the virus most likely originated in an animal infected with a bat-related pathogen, although no specific animal host that sickened the first suspect Wuhan residents in December 2019 could be identified.

Four possible sources of the outbreak were listed in the report in order of priority: a direct “zoonotic spillover” from a bat to a human rated as “possible to likely”; the introduction of the virus from a bat to a host animal and then to humans, rated as “very likely”; the spread of the virus through frozen food packaging, a key Chinese official narrative, which experts considered “possible”; and an outbreak of COVID-19 from a laboratory incident that was gauged “extremely unlikely,” also reflecting a key Chinese government claim.

The report called for further study in China on farms that raised wild animals for markets and for research on wildlife like bats and pangolins, which carry viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

A laboratory leak of the virus was not ruled out, but the joint WHO-Chinese team said the focus of their probe was not on whether Chinese researchers may have mishandled a virus in one of several Wuhan laboratories, causing the disease outbreak, or that the virus escaped by accident.

China has staunchly denied that the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, home to the country’s sole high-security laboratory.

Lab questions

Team member Dr. Dominic Dwyer, with Westmead Hospital in Australia, said investigators were unable to conduct a thorough investigation of Wuhan labs. The coronavirus did not have to undergo research at a high-security laboratory and could have been studied at a less-secure laboratory, Dr. Dwyer said.

The team visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology involved discussions with lab officials on biosecurity protocols. Based on the information from the Chinese, “we were satisfied there is no obvious evidence of a problem,” he said.

Mr. Ben Embarek said the lab officials provided no documents.

Chinese state media and international scientific journals in the past two years documented extensive research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Centers for Disease Control, including “gain-of-function” research, which involves manipulating bat viruses to make them more infectious to humans in a bid to find vaccines.

A more thorough forensic investigation would be needed to determine whether the virus escaped, Dr. Dwyer said. “A true forensic investigation of a laboratory is a much more complex process, and that is not what we were there to do,” he said.

The report said a laboratory accident was possible. Work in a lab with limited safety or poor management could have led to human infections from virus cultures or animal inoculations.

The Wuhan CDC laboratory moved to its location near the suspect Huanan market on Dec. 2, 2019. The report noted that “such moves can be disruptive for the operations of any laboratory.”

Researchers at the Wuhan CDC, according to Chinese state media, isolated more than 2,000 new viruses, including bat coronaviruses. The work there was led by Tian Junhua, who has been dubbed the “Bat Man of Wuhan” for his research. However, the report also noted that three laboratories in Wuhan working on bat virus isolation and vaccine development appeared safe.

“All had high quality biosafety level (BSL3 or 4) facilities that were well-managed, with a staff health monitoring program with no reporting of COVID-19 compatible respiratory illness during the weeks/months prior to December 2019,” the report said.

Mr. Ben Embarek suggested that Chinese government officials who were present for meetings in China pressured the international team and sought to influence its final report.

“Nobody wants to have an origin of a pandemic in your backyard,” he said. However, he added, the final report was based on fair and vigorous debate and consensus among the experts.

The report said the virus may have emerged at the Huanan Market in Wuhan from a wild animal infected with the virus. None of the animal products sampled in the market tested positive for the virus, the report noted.

Animal sources that are possible hosts for the virus include bats and minks. However, the report found that “throughout 2020, there is no evidence of repeated introduction of early [SARS-CoV-2] strains of potential animal origins into humans in China.”

On the theory that the virus spread from frozen food packages, the report said no frozen food at the Wuhan market where the virus initially was thought to be a source was tested for the virus before it was closed in January 2020.

“There is no conclusive evidence for food-borne transmission of [the coronavirus] and the probability of a cold-chain contamination with the virus from a reservoir is very low,” the report said.

Many of the early cases of the pneumonialike disease were linked to the market, but the report said “many were not associated with any markets.” The team conducted extensive swabs of stalls at the market but was unable to pinpoint a specific type of animal that may have been carrying it.

Shifting narrative

China’s government, after initially claiming that he virus began at the animal market, has shifted its narrative and begun claiming the virus came from outside China. Mr. Ben Embarek dismissed that theory as unlikely and said cases might have been circulating around Wuhan as early as October and November 2019.

“That being said, the current thinking is we are looking at the start in Wuhan,” he told reporters Tuesday.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian called Monday for WHO experts to visit the United States, including a military laboratory, as part of virus origin tracing.

China has claimed the U.S. Army brought the virus to China. The U.S. government has denied the charge.

Increased international attention on the virus originating from a Chinese laboratory, once ridiculed by experts as a conspiracy theory, is gaining wider acceptance.

Robert Redfield, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, broke with many scientific experts last week by saying he believes the virus likely escaped from a Chinese laboratory.

“I am of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, escaped. The other people don’t believe that. That’s fine. Science will eventually figure it out,” he said on CNN.

The State Department in January published a fact sheet on the Wuhan Institute of Virology that said there is evidence that the virus came from the lab.

The fact sheet identified workers at the laboratory who became sickened with COVID-like symptoms in the autumn of 2019, work on the bat virus that is 96% similar to [SARS-CoV-2] at the lab and secret work by the People’s Liberation Army at the lab.

China is suspected of working on a covert biological weapons program, according to a State Department report released last year.

The U.S. and its allies said in their statement that the recent WHO study team in China “was significantly delayed and lacked access to complete, original data and samples.”

“Scientific missions like these should be able to do their work under conditions that produce independent and objective recommendations and findings,” the statement said.

Further study into the virus origin is needed and will require giving independent experts full access to all pertinent human, animal, and environmental data and research, and personnel involved in the outbreak.

Critics of the WHO team have pointed to its lone American expert, Peter Daszak of the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, who has conducted extensive research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Mr. Daszak has spoken out on social media against the theory that the virus leaked from a lab and has worked closely with the institute’s Shi Zhengli, known as the “Bat Woman of Wuhan,” for her work on bat coronaviruses, including laboratory manipulation of the viruses.
#15163917
I forgot to add, here's the latest numbers on schools reopening:

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Definitely lots of good news this time. North Dakota, South Dakota, and West Virginia have all pushed up to 100% (South Dakota jumping almost 15% to do so); while Arizona, Georgia, and Kansas have all pushed into the top 10%--that makes seven states at 100% and another nine over 90%, 32% of the nation's states.

At the bottom end, California and Oregon have pushed themselves up into the 20-30% range and Maryland all the way up the the 30-40% range. That empties out the 10-20% range, leaving the lowest tier made up of California, New Mexico, and Oregon in the 20-30% range.
#15163923
Doug64 wrote:I already supported my claim, I'm not going to keep doing so over and over because you conveniently forget facts that conflict with your opinions.


No, I have looked over the thread and I noticed I asked for this evidence several times and you never provided it.

This is a common tactic: ignore the request for several pages and then claim the request has already been granted.

To yet again quote Fauci, "They want to get science, they want to get data, and then when you don't have the data and you don't have the actual evidence, then you've got to make a judgment call."

I can keep on requoting his clearly unambiguous statement as often as you wish.


Yes, I have noticed that many people on this forum often repeat the same exact words even after those words have been refuted.

Repeating a claim after it has been addressed is not an argument.
#15163939
The problem @Pants-of-dog is the Doug honestly does not understand how "science" works. It is clear as a bell that he somehow thinks that Fauci's opinions, as perhaps the most respected and knowledgeable people in his field, carry no weight. He somehow thinks that Covid is somehow unusual in the annals of infectious disease research. It is not. Viruses like it have been studied for generations and a great deal is know about them. Finally he does not know what epidemiologists do. He is a typical pro Trump parrot.

And he did not answer your question.
#15164004
Pants-of-dog wrote:No, I have looked over the thread and I noticed I asked for this evidence several times and you never provided it.

I provided it. You just ignored it the first time, and I've ignored your requests to provide it again.

Yes, I have noticed that many people on this forum often repeat the same exact words even after those words have been refuted.

I've just quoted Fauci's exact, unambiguous words for everyone to read. You haven't provided anything to indicate that Fauci didn't say them, and you haven't provided any evidence that Fauci has provided any evidence since he made that statement in spite of any number of opportunities.

Repeating a claim after it has been addressed is not an argument.

Quite true. Good thing I'm just quoting someone rather than making a claim.

Drlee wrote:The problem @Pants-of-dog is the Doug honestly does not understand how "science" works.

To quote myself, "So if science doesn’t work through observation and experimentation, followed by evaluation and more observation and experimentation, feel free to explain to us how it really works."

And for more on Texas's performance, the New York Times has a decent though flawed website. Here's their current numbers for Texas over the past two weeks:

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And Texas isn't the only place that's changed mandates into recommendations, Mississippi's governor did the same thing even earlier--on the 2nd--and they're doing even better. Here's their last two weeks:

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#15164019
@Doug64

This should get some personal attacks and “intelligence”projections from the usual subjects.

Number of COVID-Positive Migrants Released in U.S. is Surging
Suddenly, White House admits it must ‘work more’ to discourage illegal migrants coming to US.


The current administration claims that there is no illegal immigration crisis at the southern border.

Yet, it is now being reported that the number number of migrants testing positive for the coronavirus before being released into the US by the Border Patrol is up significantly from the last week.

Felipe Romero, a spokesman for Brownsville, Texas, said 185 migrants rapid-tested at the city’s main bus station showed they were infected with COVID-19, ​up from the 108 who tested positive last week, Fox News reported Monday.

Since Jan. 25, 1,553 individuals have been tested for coronavirus after crossing the US border there, he said.

​​Romero said there’s little that Brownsville can do to restrict the migrants from ​traveling beyond Texas other than advising them to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention safety precautions and quarantine.

Migrants who were once held ​i​n border camps while they were being processed in the courts for entry are no longer detained as part of the Biden administration rolling back former President Donald Trump’s immigration policy.

One man who runs a homeless shelter along the border that a quarter of the immigrants brought into his facility test positive for the coronavirus.
Bill Reagan, director of Loaves and Fishes, the food bank and shelter in Harlingen, Texas, said more cases are likely but are not being detecting because, given the conditions, testing is “almost useless.”

Mr. Reagan told a Harlingen City Commission meeting last week that the migrants are processed at the border and then bused to his facility, so they may have contracted COVID-19 but show no signs of infection. Besides, he said, there is not much the city can do.

“We can’t quarantine them,” he told commissioners. “Even though they test positive, they’re going to leave the next day. They’re going to get on the bus or the airplane, and they’re gone.”

The first group that came through had 25% positivity test rate, he said.
Perhaps this is one of the myriads of reasons why the White House has just admitted it isn’t doing enough to discourage people from seeking unlawful entry into this country.
Speaking to reporters during a press briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged the failures after being pressed about the administration’s handling of the situation.

“I would say it’s clear we need to work more on getting the message out and being very clear, now is not the time to come,” said Psaki, before reiterating the Biden administration’s claim that “the majority of people who come to the border are turned away.”

“Yes, we have changed the policies of the last administration as it relates to unaccompanied children, but the majority of families, adults, the vast, vast majority are turned away at the border. And that is a message that clearly we need to continue to look for means and ways of getting out, you know, more and more out to the region,” she continued.
In fact, an Arizona sheriff recently called out the normally effusive “expert” Dr. Anthony Fauci and asked him to respond to reports that illegal immigrants are being released into the community by the Biden administration without being tested for the coronavirus.
The Biden administration’s handling of the coronavirus at the border “goes against the grain of the CDC,” according to Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels, who said he would “love to hear from Dr. Fauci” about why migrants aren’t being tested at the border.

“Nobody is talking about what’s going on on the southwest border when it comes to the health pandemic in this country,” Dannels said. “They are not testing them. They’re being released without being tested into communities. And then, you look at the public safety aspect of this. It’s upsetting. It’s almost like we’re not part of this country, which is very upsetting.”
Perhaps Fauci will say there is no need to worry about the immigrants, like when he said we didn’t need to wear masks about a year ago.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/03/n ... s-surging/
#15164025
Doug64 wrote:I provided it. You just ignored it the first time, and I've ignored your requests to provide it again.


No.

Those who wish to reread the thread will see that it was me who provided the evidence that children are just as likely to infect others as adults are.

I've just quoted Fauci's exact, unambiguous words for everyone to read. You haven't provided anything to indicate that Fauci didn't say them, and you haven't provided any evidence that Fauci has provided any evidence since he made that statement in spite of any number of opportunities.


Since I did bot make either of those two arguments, it would make sense that I would not support them.

I did, however, explain how this particular quote does not support a claim that Dr. Fauci was making decisions that were not science based.

It is entirely possible to make science based decisions about Covid transmission on an airplane from vaccinated people without having evidence or data about Covid transmission on an airplane from vaccinated people. The most obvious way would be to base decisions on some other viral transmission on an airplane from vaccinated people.

Quite true. Good thing I'm just quoting someone rather than making a claim.


Then you are no longer claiming that Dr. Fauci is making decisions without basing these decisions on science. Good.
#15164033
Pants-of-dog wrote:Then you are no longer claiming that Dr. Fauci is making decisions without basing these decisions on science. Good.

Nope, I’m just quoting Fauci himself saying that at least some of the recommendations are based on gut feeling rather than science.
#15164036
Doug64 wrote:Nope, I’m just quoting Fauci himself saying that at least some of the recommendations are based on gut feeling rather than science.


So, now you are claiming that he is basing his decisions on his gut feelings.

This contradicts your previous claim that you are not making a claim. How meta.
#15164163
Please post Fauci's "gut feeling" comment.

I see Doug has posted misleading (everyone who is surprised raise your hand) charts for two red states. Of course he forgets that Texas is doing horribly overall. But that would not fit his world view so he just decides to ignore it.

And Finfinder has finally posted some "evidence". He has posted a piece from a site that advocates the violent overthrow of the government called "legalinsurrection.com". :lol: :lol:

It is easy to see why Trump lost. His followers are not the sharpest knives in the drawer.
#15164205
@Drlee

The good news (for me and others who are or have taking/taken the Pfizer vaccine) is that the Pfizer vaccine is fully effective against the South African variant of COVID. I have gotten the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and will be getting the second dose in the middle of this month of April. I wonder if we will be needing to get a booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine now every 6 months in order to keep up protection against COVID?

Maggie Fox of CNN wrote:The ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial of Pfizer/BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine confirms its protection lasts at least six months after the second dose, the companies said Thursday.

It's the first look at how long protection for a coronavirus vaccine lasts, and while six months is a modest target, it's longer than the 90 days of protection been the best estimate offered to date.

The vaccine remains more than 91% effective against disease with any symptoms for six months, the companies said. And it appeared to be fully effective against the worrying B.1.351 variant of the virus, which is the dominant strain circulating in South Africa and which researchers feared had evolved to evade the protection of vaccines, the companies said.

"The vaccine was 100% effective against severe disease as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and 95.3% effective against severe COVID-19 as defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)," Pfizer and BioNTech said in a joint statement.

On Wednesday, the companies said a small trial of volunteers aged12 to 15 showed 100% efficacy in that age group.

"These data confirm the favorable efficacy and safety profile of our vaccine and position us to submit a Biologics License Application to the U.S. FDA," Albert Bourla, Pfizer's chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement. A BLA is an application for full approval. The vaccine currently has emergency use authorization, EUA, which falls short of full approval.

"The high vaccine efficacy observed through up to six months following a second dose and against the variant prevalent in South Africa provides further confidence in our vaccine's overall effectiveness."


https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/01/health/p ... index.html
#15164310
Image for some countries and basically excessive deaths overlapped with total covid deaths. Baseline is taken by putting deaths for 5 years before corona together and dividing by 5. The black line is the reported corona deaths. The red line is the exessive deaths - corona deaths which is added on top of Corona deaths. Let us face it, it doesn't really matter if a person died from Corona, complications from corona or because there was not enough space/time to treat them because doctors were busy dealing with Corona. Final number is the coefficient between the reported deaths and unreported deaths. Countries in the following order: USA, Brazil, India, Mexico, Italy, GB, France, Russia, Iran, Spain, Argentina, Columbia, Peru, Germany, Poland, South Africa, Indonesia, Turkey, Belgium, Ukraine. Some words after the line means "no data".

US underreported around 30% while Russia around 650%. This kinda shows that having heavily funded healthcare actually pays in the end. Germany, Belgium and France are plus, minus 10%. Columbia actually overreported ?!?!?!?

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#15164416
Drlee wrote:The problem @Pants-of-dog is the Doug honestly does not understand how "science" works.


I'm happy to see you put the word "science" in scare quotes here, because you are using the word to mean "the way the mass media weaves narratives in order to make money for our capitalist dictatorship."

I commend you, Drlee, on being able to integrate the propaganda function of late-stage capitalism into your criticisms of Doug64's texts.
#15164575
Remember how the "science" told the West to bomb Libya nine years ago?

Remember how scared we were of terrorists back then?

Gaddafi saw all of this coming way back in 2009:


Richard Kwame Krah wrote:
They will create the virus, pretend and sell the antidotes | Muammar Gaddafi

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...In a speech delivered during his prime years of leadership, the former Libyan leader address to the United Nations in 2009 during the world body’s 64th General Assembly in New York. Gaddafi asserted that there are people who specialize in creating health problems just to make money, irrespective of the danger it poses to human existence.

According to him, “they will create the virus themselves and they will sell the antidotes afterwards, pretending to take their time to find the solution when they already have it.”...


Don't forget how the bombing of Libya was sold as a "vaccine" against some great evil that no one was able to really explain. All narrators could do was shout "protect the students!" while scrunching their eyebrows and looking as panicked as possible.
#15164774
Here's the latest weekly stats.

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The one for opening schools is only a couple days later than the last one, and most haven't moved much if at all, but Idaho jumped almost 13 points from 87.1% to 100%.
#15164793
You note that the ONLY states nearly all open are bright red states. In addition to being stupid it points out clearly that the decision to open the schools was PURELY a political one and not based upon the science.
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