America's pandemic dead deserve accountability after Birx disclosure

[Wombat + 1,028]

39 minutes ago, notsonice said:

What you have in the US today is those in denial that COVID kills. The amazing part is it is all political. Only half of the GOP white male voters over 50 have stated they will get the vaccine. (Democrats are now 27 percentage points more likely than Republicans to say they plan to get, or have already received, a coronavirus vaccine (83% to 56%). This gap is wider than those seen at multiple points in 2020.Mask mandates are disappearing fast, COVID is not. Daily new infections is increasing and death is now bottoming out at around 800 a day on average . With out masks in public the infection rate will continue to rise and so will deaths. Their is no herd immunity as the virus is too widespread and it signs of infection occur after one is contagious. As I have been in phase 3 (Pfizer) since last July I went in for another blood draw in March and was informed that a third booster shot is required as they already know from phase1 and 2 participants that the vaccine loses a fair bit of its effectiveness after 8 months. I am expecting my third shot to be given in  June. In addition I was asked to participate in phase 3 past the initial 2 years. Simply said it looks like everyone will need a booster every year forever (as it does not look like COVID will ever be wiped out around the world). You will be able to spot those who survive that catch COVID as many will have lung damage and have trouble climbing stairs and many will be carting oxygen bottles with them forever. Those who do not want to get the vaccine will be reinfected every few years until their lungs are toast. The GOP will see their base (White Males over 50) getting wiped out by a few 100,000 every year more than Democrats. For those living in denial and do not get the vaccine and do not wear masks, good luck.

A great read on vaccinations  is Jonas Salks book The Survival of the Wisest written in 1973, right now you cannot buy a copy for less than $2000.

 

Notso, I am notso pessimistic as you. According to the virologists, it is fairly easy for them to "tweak" their vaccines for new variants. Also, I am guessing that being jabbed with multiple types of vaccine (ie: vaccine combination therapy), may also be helpful in the near future. My biggest concern is what other bat viruses the Wuhan Lab may unleash on us in the next few years. The CCP must not be allowed to get away with this biological and economic warfare. They have gone way too far this time and if we cannot accomplish regime change within the next 18 months, the CCP will have won their "total war" against us. Every country that is not Russia, North Korea, Pakistan, or Iran, should immediately stop all trade with China or at least put 500% tariffs on all their exports. This would be the only way to get reparations from them for their war on the world.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 3/30/2021 at 10:52 AM, Jeffrey Brown said:

Former federal prosecutor: Trump admitted to '2nd degree murder' in Woodward interview (September, 2020)

https://news.yahoo.com/former-federal-prosecutor-trump-admitted-190200145.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=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&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMdckgbmlYsXWHn-gmhjHbdB7WTOmF1itUapXFSdQCBg5kZUZxeKuDs0kZ8tsyx0347-ToN_oJ0lxY0gGTvzc1zvm1MogNOX-RTuNPxGJNWKVFhJYNyl3Y_f_uF95Dv7fLjM2MAnbl9x6TR71xLDjYUi1r9RfVgijAWDn-t6rRBv

Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner thinks President Trump's coronavirus admissions should land him in prison. . .

"There are only two elements for second-degree murder. The first is you caused the death of another," Kirschner said Thursday. That factor was fulfilled because Trump "was lying to the American people about the danger this virus posed," and now 190,000 people are dead, Kirschner said.

"The second element is the intent element," which would "get tricky if we didn't have Trump's incriminating admissions," he continued. But "in my opinion as a career prosecutor," Trump admitted to "conscious disregard" of the risk his coronavirus downplay created, thus admitting to "second-degree murder" that he "must be held accountable" for, Kirschner finished.

Why blame Trump for the crimes of Mr Xi? If Trump could be blamed for second degree, then surely Mr Kirshner should be pursuing Mr Xi for genocide in the ICC? Wouldn't that make more sense?

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 3/30/2021 at 10:52 AM, Jeffrey Brown said:

Former federal prosecutor: Trump admitted to '2nd degree murder' in Woodward interview (September, 2020)

https://news.yahoo.com/former-federal-prosecutor-trump-admitted-190200145.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=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&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMdckgbmlYsXWHn-gmhjHbdB7WTOmF1itUapXFSdQCBg5kZUZxeKuDs0kZ8tsyx0347-ToN_oJ0lxY0gGTvzc1zvm1MogNOX-RTuNPxGJNWKVFhJYNyl3Y_f_uF95Dv7fLjM2MAnbl9x6TR71xLDjYUi1r9RfVgijAWDn-t6rRBv

Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner thinks President Trump's coronavirus admissions should land him in prison. . .

"There are only two elements for second-degree murder. The first is you caused the death of another," Kirschner said Thursday. That factor was fulfilled because Trump "was lying to the American people about the danger this virus posed," and now 190,000 people are dead, Kirschner said.

"The second element is the intent element," which would "get tricky if we didn't have Trump's incriminating admissions," he continued. But "in my opinion as a career prosecutor," Trump admitted to "conscious disregard" of the risk his coronavirus downplay created, thus admitting to "second-degree murder" that he "must be held accountable" for, Kirschner finished.

I understand that there has now been about the same number of deaths on Biden's watch as there were on Trump's, despite the subsequent vaccine rollout and the fact that Biden's watch is only 3 months in whereas Trump's figures were over an entire 12 months? That means that Americans have died at 4 times the rate under Biden than they did under Trump? Am I correct?

[Wombat + 1,028]

1 minute ago, Wombat said:

I understand that there has now been about the same number of deaths on Biden's watch as there were on Trump's, despite the subsequent vaccine rollout and the fact that Biden's watch is only 3 months in whereas Trump's figures were over an entire 12 months? That means that Americans have died at 4 times the rate under Biden than they did under Trump? Am I correct?

DOES THAT MEAN BIDEN SHOULD BE CHARGED WITH CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE?????????? Or does it just mean that no POTUS is a magician? I NOTE THAT THE USA STILL HAS NOT CLOSED IT'S BORDERS AND DOES NOT QUARANTINE RETURNING CITIZENS???? In other words, BIDEN has allowed the UK variant, the Brazil Variant, and the South Africa variant into your country? SURELY THIS MAKES HIM JUST AS CULPABLE AS TRUMP??????

[PTakacs + 59]

4 hours ago, Wombat said:

Notso, I am notso pessimistic as you. According to the virologists, it is fairly easy for them to "tweak" their vaccines for new variants. Also, I am guessing that being jabbed with multiple types of vaccine (ie: vaccine combination therapy), may also be helpful in the near future. My biggest concern is what other bat viruses the Wuhan Lab may unleash on us in the next few years. The CCP must not be allowed to get away with this biological and economic warfare. They have gone way too far this time and if we cannot accomplish regime change within the next 18 months, the CCP will have won their "total war" against us. Every country that is not Russia, North Korea, Pakistan, or Iran, should immediately stop all trade with China or at least put 500% tariffs on all their exports. This would be the only way to get reparations from them for their war on the world.

To say this is a bioweapon just does not make sense -- how come Taiwan only has had 10 deaths, including the 1 million working in China? Same with HK, which has a much lower death rate than us. 

The solution to this virus is NOT politics, but science. All the countries that have not done well against the virus (mostly Western countries) failed largely because of playing politics.  The Asian countries , regardless of their relationship/politics with China, faired much better because they focused on actual solutions (e.g., lockdowns, checks, screenings, tracing) instead of doing political games.

Edited April 10, 2021 by PTakacs

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

21 minutes ago, PTakacs said:

To say this is a bioweapon just does not make sense -- how come Taiwan only has had 10 deaths, including the 1 million working in China? Same with HK, which has a much lower death rate than us. 

The solution to this virus is NOT politics, but science. All the countries that have not done well against the virus (mostly Western countries) failed largely because of playing politics.  The Asian countries , regardless of their relationship/politics with China, faired much better because they focused on actual solutions (e.g., lockdowns, checks, screenings, tracing) instead of doing political games.

This science you refer to, I am most interested. A note here, the US system of medical treatment is not lacking by any means, quite the opposite.

 

[PTakacs + 59]

56 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

This science you refer to, I am most interested. A note here, the US system of medical treatment is not lacking by any means, quite the opposite.

 

Ours is among the best, if not the best, in terms of cutting-edge medical science because we have the best people here, and coming here, to perfect their medical art and in the process becoming highest compensated within the profession -- money buys talent, always!

But our healthCARE system may not work best. The "care" system is a more practical system for the general population that requires an equally practical solution -- this is the difference between the best and most expensive cancer drug and your typical generics, as certainly not everyone is a Saudi prince paying top dollars to stay at Cleveland Clinic.

I am not in the healthcare industry, so I don't have the solution. But the pandemic did expose which systems worked better than others.

Edited April 10, 2021 by PTakacs

[surrept33 + 609]

On 4/7/2021 at 11:26 AM, Eyes Wide Open said:

Your point was very illuminating, 10 deaths that is a extraordinary number, no miracle cure,no vaccination...no known procedures to stabilize human life. Yet  Taiwan accomplished a extraordinary feat, while it may have identified individuals with the WUHAN VIRUS how did Taiwan keep those individuals with the WUHAN VIRUS  from expiring? Social Media?

Well, it's almost as if Taiwan has very painful memories of SARS:

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2020/04/19/2003734881

and they've learned from their mistakes made: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971204001766

To me, Taiwan is sort of like New Zealand, low numbers because it's a island with few chokepoints, plus all of the public health reforms they've gained since SARS.

Speaking of the opposite problem, Norway had to station troops on the border with Sweden for the first time in 70 years because of an open border (but these are two countries with little population density unlike say, China and Taiwan):  https://news.yahoo.com/swedish-covid-19-cases-surge-144220061.html 

https://sciencenorway.no/borders-covid19-nordics/the-border-between-norway-and-sweden-is-closed-for-the-first-time-since-1954-will-the-pandemic-ruin-their-special-friendship/1780394

Edited April 10, 2021 by surrept33

[PTakacs + 59]

2 minutes ago, surrept33 said:

Well, it's almost as if Taiwan has very painful memories of SARS:

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2020/04/19/2003734881

and they've learned from their mistakes made: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971204001766

To me, Taiwan is sort of like New Zealand, low numbers because it's a island with few chokepoints, plus all of the public health reforms they've gained since SARS.

Speaking of the opposite problem, Norway had to station troops on the border with Sweden for the first time in 70 years because of an open border (but also little population density): https://news.yahoo.com/swedish-covid-19-cases-surge-144220061.html

There were 1 million Taiwanese working in China, many of whom repatriated back to Taiwan after China started to do its massive quarantines. There were also many Taiwanese-Americans who went back to Taiwan last year as well because it's safer there. The "chokepoint" argument has some merit, but the sheer size of the inflow of people from all over the world would have overcome the efficacy of those one-time checkpoints, especially when in the early stage no one had a reliable method of testing the virus at borders. 

HK is the same -- they had streets packed with protesters in late 2019 and open borders with China until the latter started to quarantine! Yet HK's healthcare system and contact tracing proved to work well enough (despite a few COVID quarantine hospitals being burned down at the time). 

[PTakacs + 59]

8 hours ago, Wombat said:

Notso, I am notso pessimistic as you. According to the virologists, it is fairly easy for them to "tweak" their vaccines for new variants. Also, I am guessing that being jabbed with multiple types of vaccine (ie: vaccine combination therapy), may also be helpful in the near future. My biggest concern is what other bat viruses the Wuhan Lab may unleash on us in the next few years. The CCP must not be allowed to get away with this biological and economic warfare. They have gone way too far this time and if we cannot accomplish regime change within the next 18 months, the CCP will have won their "total war" against us. Every country that is not Russia, North Korea, Pakistan, or Iran, should immediately stop all trade with China or at least put 500% tariffs on all their exports. This would be the only way to get reparations from them for their war on the world.

See also: https://www.yahoo.com/news/ceo-moderna-moment-first-realized-130100215.html

"And so on January 11, the Chinese put the sequence online and our team at Moderna used the sequence to design a vaccine. Barney's team did the same thing. And when they shared notes after around 48 hours, they'd designed exactly the same vaccine."  -- That was 1/13/2020. 

Imagine if Moderna and the CDC (Barney's team) played politics, stating, oh, this is a bioweapon and the sequence provided by the Chinese must be fake or misleading ...  

Imagine if Moderna and/or CDC were led not by scientists but politicians!

Politics should not get in the way of medical science. Do you remember what the politicians were saying and doing on 1/13/2020? As of today, has any major politician discussed how we had developed the vaccine on 1/13/2020 and how we could roll out vaccines faster in the future? I am not saying that we definitely should, but it is a topic that should be discussed openly and extensively. 

Edited April 10, 2021 by PTakacs

[PTakacs + 59]

double post

Edited April 10, 2021 by PTakacs

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

13 hours ago, Wombat said:

 I have heard of American exceptionalism before, but it really would be a miracle if virtually no Americans died from covid despite the high rate of infections there. At the beginning of the pandemic, I advised Trump that your best case scenario would be 200,000 fatalities, worst case 600,000. I think it is very unfortunate the worst case has eventuated despite the fact that you have the best vaccine and fastest rollout of any large country. I don't know why you are downplaying what the Chinese govt has done to your nation. Far worse than Pearl Harbour? You may as well be a Chinese mouthpiece. I find it amazing that Americans and Europeans have stooped so low as to turn the pandemic into a political issue. Here in Australia, we have all gotten behind our govt and that is why we have only needed facemasks for about 6 weeks in the last 12 months. The unemployment rate is nearly back to normal and the budget deficit will now come in much smaller than originally feared. Still, we will have a trillion dollar debt within 4 years when we were on track to have our debt back to zero before the Kung Flu came along. We are determined to get our revenge on them and I recommend that you start thinking along similar lines rather than dismissing what the little bastards have done to you?

Don't forget, China itself only had 110 deaths after March or so of last year from Covid. Either they already had the cure, or they never had the disease in the first place, or unlike here they properly accounted for Covid deaths, rather than giving suicide victims an idiotic PCRx40 test and finding tiny fragments of… something and calling it positive, hence paid in full by the government. 

Real deaths from Covid (if it is even real) number perhaps 20k in this country. Numbers attributed to Covid are vastly higher closer to 600k, but they are fiction. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

3 hours ago, PTakacs said:

See also: https://www.yahoo.com/news/ceo-moderna-moment-first-realized-130100215.html

"And so on January 11, the Chinese put the sequence online and our team at Moderna used the sequence to design a vaccine. Barney's team did the same thing. And when they shared notes after around 48 hours, they'd designed exactly the same vaccine."  -- That was 1/13/2020. 

Imagine if Moderna and the CDC (Barney's team) played politics, stating, oh, this is a bioweapon and the sequence provided by the Chinese must be fake or misleading ...  

Imagine if Moderna and/or CDC were led not by scientists but politicians!

Politics should not get in the way of medical science. Do you remember what the politicians were saying and doing on 1/13/2020? As of today, has any major politician discussed how we had developed the vaccine on 1/13/2020 and how we could roll out vaccines faster in the future? I am not saying that we definitely should, but it is a topic that should be discussed openly and extensively. 

You believe in the Chinese? You believe in the vaccine? You believe in the Tooth Fairy? 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2021 by Ward Smith

[PTakacs + 59]

1 hour ago, Ward Smith said:

You believe in the Chinese? You believe in the vaccine? You believe in the Tooth Fairy? 

 

 

The CDC and Moderna believed in the Chinese in producing the vaccine. I believe in the CDC and Moderna (more so than I do in politicians and most of the people here).  

Also, anyone who thinks that the cure to the various cancers could be a "vaccine" or "vaccines" is thoroughly mistaken. It really does not work that way.

Moreover, whoever quoted the number of years is being completely disingenuous -- whatever we did 100 years ago or 40 years ago is not relevant to the latest advances in mRNA -- it's like saying Google must not be real because, even though people have been working on how to sort information for thousands of years, Google did not come into existence until fairly recently. 

Edited April 11, 2021 by PTakacs

[surrept33 + 609]

On 4/10/2021 at 6:42 PM, Ward Smith said:

You believe in the Chinese? You believe in the vaccine? You believe in the Tooth Fairy? 

 

 

Yeah, because bioinformatics has changed a lot in the last 10 years (or maybe last 1 year):

https://www.modernatx.com/sites/default/files/Moderna_The_Digital_Biotech_Company_White_Paper_6.22.17_FINAL.pdf

You have to look at what happened before though to enable a 1 year breakthrough. Perhaps you heard of the big data revolution? Well, it's basically everyone converting analog data into digital data and figuring out how to process it at scale. 

Now *also* replace the traditional model (graduate students and other lab assistants) moving a bunch of pipettes from one test tube to another to see what works and what isn't.  This is heavily roboticized now (called high throughput screening).

Now, *also* take the information from high throughput screening, store the vast amount of data online, concurrently train machine learning models, and *also* have an economic revolution (have them run on elastic cloud hardware that can be brought online or offline at scale based on need). That's basically what all of the biotech companies (and numerous research labs) did. But keep in mind this has also been a slow evolution for a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home

That's basically the (very broad) field of biomedical engineering today. Some companies, like moderna, were right place, right time to take advantage. You can't time a pandemic though various people (long) wisely prophesied the need to plan for one. 

Note, that "facebook for biomedicine" (for example, there has also been a lot of innovation in a more general semantic relevance, even with complicated science) automatically aggregates research, run them on reproducible platforms, and share them with relevant people worldwide: https://www.meta.org/ 

It used to be that people would have to be aware of other people's work, but a lot of those types of "friction" are greatly reduced. 

I think we'll see copernican revolutions in many fields in the next 10 years, mostly the diffusion of AI + internet. Of course, some fields will require less predictive modeling. 

Perhaps people can solve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases next. 

Edited April 13, 2021 by surrept33

[turbguy + 1,544]

32 minutes ago, surrept33 said:

Yeah, because bioinformatics has changed a lot in the last 10 years (or maybe last 1 year):

https://www.modernatx.com/sites/default/files/Moderna_The_Digital_Biotech_Company_White_Paper_6.22.17_FINAL.pdf

You have to look at what happened before though to enable a 1 year breakthrough. Perhaps you heard of the big data revolution? Well, it's basically everyone converting analog data into digital data and figuring out how to process it at scale. 

Now *also* replace the traditional model (graduate students and other lab assistants) moving a bunch of pipettes from one test tube to another to see what works and what isn't.  This is heavily roboticized now (called high throughput screening).

Now, *also* take the information from high throughput screening, store the vast amount of data online, concurrently train machine learning models, and *also* have an economic revolution (have them run on elastic cloud hardware that can be brought online or offline at scale based on need). That's basically what all of the biotech companies (and numerous research labs) did. 

That's basically the (very broad) field of biomedical engineering today. Some companies, like moderna, were right place, right time to take advantage. You can't time a pandemic though various people (long) wisely prophesied the need to plan for one. 

Note, that "facebook for biomedicine" (for example, there has also been a lot of innovation in a more general semantic relevance, even with complicated science) automatically aggregates research, run them on reproducible platforms, and share them with relevant people worldwide: https://www.meta.org/ 

It used to be that people would have to be aware of other people's work, but a lot of those types of "friction" are greatly reduced. 

I think we'll see copernican revolutions in many fields in the next 10 years, mostly the diffusion of AI + internet. Of course, some fields will require less predictive modeling. 

Perhaps people can solve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases next. 

I agree.  The rise in the power of computing over the last few years has enabled stunning advancements in reducing costs and accelerating developments in genetics.  Just "jaw-dropping"!

Another example of "we ain't seen nothin' yet".

Edited April 11, 2021 by turbguy

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

41 minutes ago, surrept33 said:

Yeah, because bioinformatics has changed a lot in the last 10 years (or maybe last 1 year):

https://www.modernatx.com/sites/default/files/Moderna_The_Digital_Biotech_Company_White_Paper_6.22.17_FINAL.pdf

You have to look at what happened before though to enable a 1 year breakthrough. Perhaps you heard of the big data revolution? Well, it's basically everyone converting analog data into digital data and figuring out how to process it at scale. 

Now *also* replace the traditional model (graduate students and other lab assistants) moving a bunch of pipettes from one test tube to another to see what works and what isn't.  This is heavily roboticized now (called high throughput screening).

Now, *also* take the information from high throughput screening, store the vast amount of data online, concurrently train machine learning models, and *also* have an economic revolution (have them run on elastic cloud hardware that can be brought online or offline at scale based on need). That's basically what all of the biotech companies (and numerous research labs) did. 

That's basically the (very broad) field of biomedical engineering today. Some companies, like moderna, were right place, right time to take advantage. You can't time a pandemic though various people (long) wisely prophesied the need to plan for one. 

Note, that "facebook for biomedicine" (for example, there has also been a lot of innovation in a more general semantic relevance, even with complicated science) automatically aggregates research, run them on reproducible platforms, and share them with relevant people worldwide: https://www.meta.org/ 

It used to be that people would have to be aware of other people's work, but a lot of those types of "friction" are greatly reduced. 

I think we'll see copernican revolutions in many fields in the next 10 years, mostly the diffusion of AI + internet. Of course, some fields will require less predictive modeling. 

Perhaps people can solve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases next. 

Experimental means experimental. Effective vaccines have been made the same way for 100 years. Maybe this new technique works, but who the hell knows what the side effects will be? Do you? Are you convinced your body accepts designer RNA that replicates with no error correction so it can mutate in only a dozen times? You confident that mutation isn't going to have any deleterious side effects? You think self learning algorithms will catch that? Please be my guest to put your body on the line for this experiment, but don't tell another living soul that they have to. 

Edited April 11, 2021 by Ward Smith

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 4/11/2021 at 8:36 AM, Ward Smith said:

Don't forget, China itself only had 110 deaths after March or so of last year from Covid. Either they already had the cure, or they never had the disease in the first place, or unlike here they properly accounted for Covid deaths, rather than giving suicide victims an idiotic PCRx40 test and finding tiny fragments of… something and calling it positive, hence paid in full by the government. 

Real deaths from Covid (if it is even real) number perhaps 20k in this country. Numbers attributed to Covid are vastly higher closer to 600k, but they are fiction. 

Ward, let's just say that 1 million Americans actually end up dying of covid. With a pop'n of over 300m people, you could argue that is "only" 0.3% or 3 per 1000. Just like a decade of flu, right? Unfortunately, due to the nature of the virus, it has the potential to become more like the bubonic plague. If you read last weeks edition of the New Scientist, you would understand why. Firstly, it is so transmissible that more deadly variants have no trouble spreading, ie: no selection pressure to just turn into a common cold. What is worse, it has already jumped from humans to minks and back to humans. Also infects dogs and cats, particularly cats. Scientists are seriously considering that ppl should get their cats vaccinated to avoid new variants. The UK strain has jumped into lab mice. The Pfizer vaccine is not effective against the South African strain. It is getting very serious now Ward. I dunno why the f*** every country on the planet did not follow the Australian model and shut their borders and quarantine returning travelers. I am beginning to suspect that China did not release the virus deliberately, just sheer incompetence, as they are starting to panic now. China had 10's of 1000's of deaths in a matter of just 6 weeks and did a complete lockdown of 50m ppl. They know the exact location of every citizen at all times and can trace all cases with ease. I would rather die than live like they do, but I am glad that here in Australia, we seem to have found a solution that is halfway between the extremes of the Chinese and American versions. 

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 4/11/2021 at 1:23 AM, PTakacs said:

To say this is a bioweapon just does not make sense -- how come Taiwan only has had 10 deaths, including the 1 million working in China? Same with HK, which has a much lower death rate than us. 

The solution to this virus is NOT politics, but science. All the countries that have not done well against the virus (mostly Western countries) failed largely because of playing politics.  The Asian countries , regardless of their relationship/politics with China, faired much better because they focused on actual solutions (e.g., lockdowns, checks, screenings, tracing) instead of doing political games.

Wrong. We know it is a bio-weapon. We know it escaped from the lab in Wuhan. We know their containment measures were not up to scratch. We know that even if the escape was accidental, the cover-up was not. We also know that the WHO was criminally negligent in not declaring a pandemic until it was too late. As for politics, the China Virus cost America and the world a great POTUS that was re-building his country and bringing peace to the planet. Now we are on the verge of WW3 and rightly so. You may be interested in this article:

America’s Broken Civil-Military Relationship Imperils National Security | Foreign Affairs

Whichever way you cut it, the Chinese have rubbed our noses in their virus and the only solution to that is military. You need to remember that this virus has cost Australia at least $1 trillion dollars and enormous misery despite the fact that like other Asian nations, we have fared well on the death toll. And what happened when we called for an inquiry into the origins of the virus? The CCP stopped buying $40bn of our coal and $20bn of our agricultural products. Science does not live in a vacuum, my friend. There is no "scientific solution" to a global economic hit of $100 trillion, millions of un-necessary deaths, and horrendous deprivation of liberty. The damage has already been done. Except to China. Yet. Do you understand?

[turbguy + 1,544]

2 hours ago, Wombat said:

Wrong. We know it is a bio-weapon. We know it escaped from the lab in Wuhan. We know their containment measures were not up to scratch. We know that even if the escape was accidental, the cover-up was not. We also know that the WHO was criminally negligent in not declaring a pandemic until it was too late. As for politics, the China Virus cost America and the world a great POTUS that was re-building his country and bringing peace to the planet. Now we are on the verge of WW3 and rightly so. You may be interested in this article:

America’s Broken Civil, almost right, or even mista-Military Relationship Imperils National Security | Foreign Affairs

Whichever way you cut it, the Chinese have rubbed our noses in their virus and the only solution to that is military. You need to remember that this virus has cost Australia at least $1 trillion dollars and enormous misery despite the fact that like other Asian nations, we have fared well on the death toll. And what happened when we called for an inquiry into the origins of the virus? The CCP stopped buying $40bn of our coal and $20bn of our agricultural products. Science does not live in a vacuum, my friend. There is no "scientific solution" to a global economic hit of $100 trillion, millions of un-necessary deaths, and horrendous deprivation of liberty. The damage has already been done. Except to China. Yet. Do you understand?

That is certainly one way of expressing a theory about what might have happened to cause this pandemic.  You could be right, partially right, or even mistaken.  We may never know for certain.  I agree it's certainly suspicious that of all the "gin joints" in the world, this virus just happened to appear in a large city that just happened to have a virus research lab.

You indicate that the only solution is military.

I don't believe that will start or end well.  The chaos of any military action has a high probability of severe "unintended consequences".

I believe a better response would be economic.  Start by all suppliers agreeing to raise the price of oil/gas to China with a "virus surcharge" to recoup the damage.  If the middle east could do that to the USA, they can do it to China.

[surrept33 + 609]

14 hours ago, Wombat said:

Wrong. We know it is a bio-weapon. We know it escaped from the lab in Wuhan. We know their containment measures were not up to scratch. We know that even if the escape was accidental, the cover-up was not. We also know that the WHO was criminally negligent in not declaring a pandemic until it was too late. As for politics, the China Virus cost America and the world a great POTUS that was re-building his country and bringing peace to the planet. Now we are on the verge of WW3 and rightly so. You may be interested in this article:

America’s Broken Civil-Military Relationship Imperils National Security | Foreign Affairs

Whichever way you cut it, the Chinese have rubbed our noses in their virus and the only solution to that is military. You need to remember that this virus has cost Australia at least $1 trillion dollars and enormous misery despite the fact that like other Asian nations, we have fared well on the death toll. And what happened when we called for an inquiry into the origins of the virus? The CCP stopped buying $40bn of our coal and $20bn of our agricultural products. Science does not live in a vacuum, my friend. There is no "scientific solution" to a global economic hit of $100 trillion, millions of un-necessary deaths, and horrendous deprivation of liberty. The damage has already been done. Except to China. Yet. Do you understand?

All we can say is that China's internal politics, aka "public relations", likely overran their own internal SARS-era controls via astroturfing:

https://www.propublica.org/article/leaked-documents-show-how-chinas-army-of-paid-internet-trolls-helped-censor-the-coronavirus

https://apnews.com/article/3c061794970661042b18d5aeaaed9fae

How do we promote better behavior given the pragmatics at play?

I think it is important to have robust military deterrence (which the US contributes to by increasing the cost of pain for China so they don't directly, for example, take Taiwan). But it's also gotta be the right economic deterrence. I think surrounding China is what she fears most because the Straits of Malacca are where China imports oil, though they are trying to subvert that via pipelines in for example Pakistan, Russia, Burma, Turkestan, etc. So yeah, deepen our ties with everyone in Australasia, which is pretty much the Transpacific Partnership would have done. 

Edited April 13, 2021 by surrept33

[Bob D + 562]

I have never seen this level of FEAR from the far left.  Why are you sooooo scared.  

You'd think this level of fear would drive them to thank the last President for the lightning speed with which he worked with the vaccine makers to create, produce and distribute the vaccine.  The vaccines were produced so quickly that when Joe Biden got his shot in Dec he claimed the vaccines weren't available until his administration was inaugurated in Jan??  Poor Joe.  Hell, the vaccines are so damn good that even Fauci recognizes their importance to slowing cases and deaths.  That is if you can hear what he says through his three masks which is interesting because 6 months ago he said we didn't need to wear even one.  

 

      

[PTakacs + 59]

14 hours ago, Wombat said:

Wrong. We know it is a bio-weapon. We know it escaped from the lab in Wuhan. We know their containment measures were not up to scratch. We know that even if the escape was accidental, the cover-up was not. We also know that the WHO was criminally negligent in not declaring a pandemic until it was too late. As for politics, the China Virus cost America and the world a great POTUS that was re-building his country and bringing peace to the planet. Now we are on the verge of WW3 and rightly so. You may be interested in this article:

America’s Broken Civil-Military Relationship Imperils National Security | Foreign Affairs

Whichever way you cut it, the Chinese have rubbed our noses in their virus and the only solution to that is military. You need to remember that this virus has cost Australia at least $1 trillion dollars and enormous misery despite the fact that like other Asian nations, we have fared well on the death toll. And what happened when we called for an inquiry into the origins of the virus? The CCP stopped buying $40bn of our coal and $20bn of our agricultural products. Science does not live in a vacuum, my friend. There is no "scientific solution" to a global economic hit of $100 trillion, millions of un-necessary deaths, and horrendous deprivation of liberty. The damage has already been done. Except to China. Yet. Do you understand?

So many words yet there is nothing of substance. 

If it's a bioweapon, how come it could not even kill more than 10 of your No.1 archenemy's citizens, including the 1 million working in your own country, over (by now) 15 months (if not more)? What kind of bioweapon is this? If it's a bioweapon, why share its DNA sequence on 1/11/20 with your No. 2 archenemy so that they could develop a vaccine in 48 hours on 1/13/20 while you still can't?

I don't pretend to know what this virus is or how it came into contact with humans. But based on these, objectively speaking it cannot be a bioweapon even if it is labeled so by the Chinese themselves -- it does not kill your enemies, and its true nature and vaccine thereto were known by your enemy more than 13 months ago while you yourself still do not even have an effective vaccine!

Now if you like Ward think that the virus (or the vaccines) is a hoax ...

[Wombat + 1,028]

35 minutes ago, PTakacs said:

So many words yet there is nothing of substance. 

If it's a bioweapon, how come it could not even kill more than 10 of your No.1 archenemy's citizens, including the 1 million working in your own country, over (by now) 15 months (if not more)? What kind of bioweapon is this? If it's a bioweapon, why share its DNA sequence on 1/11/20 with your No. 2 archenemy so that they could develop a vaccine in 48 hours on 1/13/20 while you still can't?

I don't pretend to know what this virus is or how it came into contact with humans. But based on these, objectively speaking it cannot be a bioweapon even if it is labeled so by the Chinese themselves -- it does not kill your enemies, and its true nature and vaccine thereto were known by your enemy more than 13 months ago while you yourself still do not even have an effective vaccine!

Now if you like Ward think that the virus (or the vaccines) is a hoax ...

You dope. The CCP did not share the sequence. One of the scientists did. What do you mean by "it does not kill your enemies"?

[surrept33 + 609]

4 hours ago, Bob D said:

I have never seen this level of FEAR from the far left.  Why are you sooooo scared.  

You'd think this level of fear would drive them to thank the last President for the lightning speed with which he worked with the vaccine makers to create, produce and distribute the vaccine.  The vaccines were produced so quickly that when Joe Biden got his shot in Dec he claimed the vaccines weren't available until his administration was inaugurated in Jan??  Poor Joe.  Hell, the vaccines are so damn good that even Fauci recognizes their importance to slowing cases and deaths.  That is if you can hear what he says through his three masks which is interesting because 6 months ago he said we didn't need to wear even one.  

 

      

I don't think people discount the success of "Operation Warp Speed" or the administration's role in it. 

I don't know about the long delay between when the start of Warp Speed (several months) and the characterization of the structure of the key components of the virus. Arguably, there could have been more done to unlock more funds to the NIH ASAP. 

In some way, we got lucky because people have been looking at the Coronavirus spike protein for a while (since MERS for example, was endemic). See for example:

https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vaccines/tiny-tweak-behind-COVID-19/98/i38

https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vaccines/UT-Austin-Mount-Sinai-partner/99/i13

Also mRNA vaccinology, after being studied for several decades, became mature at the just right time. So figuring out the path of most likely operationalization (after many false starts) was already past research stage.

Now, actually turning it into a manufacturable vaccine (especially at scale with a cGMP supply chain), compressing typical administrava for the clinical trials, and even handling the logistics of deploying such a fragile vaccine, yeah, most definitely you can thank Warp Speed. It was a partnership between a lot of stakeholders, no one man, more like a "federation" of people.

Edited April 13, 2021 by surrept33