Permissible Covid Theories

[LDAHL]

I see that Facebook will no longer block posts about Covid lab-leak theories. I suppose Mark Zuckerberg is powerful and well-positioned enough to resist the sort of Chinese government pressure that forced a groveling apology from John Cena for calling Taiwan a country.

[iris lilies]

Stupid timing, since that theory has finally been allowed to see the light and was quickly regulated to the bottom of the theory pile. And perhaps it should’ve been there earlier it’s just that no one was allowed to float the theory seriously because Trump.

That Mark Zuckerberg was controlling discussion of THE SCIENCE for his own beneficial reason of staying on the good side of the
Chinese is disturbing.

[iris lilies]

What discussion are still forbidden on FB?

[bae]

Facebook. Is that like MySpace?

[happystuff]

Facebook. Is that like MySpace?

Tee hee hee... good one!

[Yppej]

Under Biden the government is also looking into theories about aliens in our skies.

[iris lilies]

Facebook. Is that like MySpace?
FB is like My Space for old people.

[happystuff]

FB is like My Space for old people.

LOL. I had a My Space when it first came out and one of the kids signed up.

I think I read somewhere that the younger folks no longer use Facebook, but have moved on to instagram and twitter.

[LDAHL]

What discussion are still forbidden on FB?

I don’t know how they decide to separate the true wing nuts from the merely obnoxious or eccentric. I thought there was some kind of panel at one time. It must be a difficult task to regulate the zeitgeist.

[happystuff]

I don’t know how they decide to separate the true wing nuts from the merely obnoxious or eccentric. I thought there was some kind of panel at one time. It must be a difficult task to regulate the zeitgeist.

I found most true wing nuts that I have encountered are also obnoxious and eccentric, and eventually become very easy to identify by their repeated ravings, rantings, etc. "Deciding" which is which and actually doing something about them are generally two different things. They do not exist only on FB. LOL.

[Alan]

It's odd to live in an era where a virus first detected in very close proximity to a lab experimenting with the same family of virus was almost universally considered just another conspiracy theory fueled by racist Trumpers. I think one of the great blessings of the Trump electoral defeat is that due diligence can now be resumed without stigma or cancellation by social institutions.

[razz]

I am pleased that the whole virus is being carefully examined.

What concerned me was the secrecy when two people, prominent virologists, associated with a special research Canadian lab were suddenly removed and returned to China after they had shipped some virus research to China before they were removed. A lot of intelligence was involved from different nations in the decision, I believe.

So, I never saw it as a Trumper issue as much as a scary Canadian lab issue. Of course, I read about the political rhetoric in the polarized situation in the US but the science was kept secret and still is unless further info has been released recently.

Still waiting to see what is eventually released about the husband and wife team sent back to China. Some have complained that their integrity was beyond question and, therefore, unjustly removed.

[iris lilies]

I am pleased that the whole virus is being carefully examined.

What concerned me was the secrecy when two people, prominent virologists, associated with a special research Canadian lab were suddenly removed and returned to China after they had shipped some virus research to China before they were removed. A lot of intelligence was involved from different nations in the decision, I believe.

So, I never saw it as a Trumper issue as much as a scary Canadian lab issue. Of course, I read about the political rhetoric in the polarized situation in the US but the science was kept secret and still is unless further info has been released recently.

Still waiting to see what is eventually released about the husband and wife team sent back to China. Some have complained that their integrity was beyond question and, therefore, unjustly removed.

Oy The plot thickens with scary Canadian lab people. I’ve not heard that angle but then I’m not paying any real attention to the whole thing.

[Jane v2.0]

There are a lot of questionable conspiracy rumors/theories swirling around COVID--from "It's a hoax" to "It's part of Bill Gates' plan to dominate the world." The idea that the virus may have escaped a lab in China is more plausible than many of them.

[LDAHL]

The idea that the virus may have escaped a lab in China is more plausible than many of them.

I see China is offering a competing theory blaming a lab in Maryland. I find it as plausible as their claim to have suffered fewer than 5,000 Covid related deaths.

[razz]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid-19-wuhan-lab-leak-theory-1.6042038
For Canadian biotech entrepreneur Yuri Deigin, whose 16,000-word essay last April provided one of the first detailed arguments that the COVID-19 virus could have escaped from a Chinese lab, the recent traction gained by such a theory provides a measure of satisfaction.

"When I just put it out, I was ridiculed and attacked as a crackpot, a crazy guy who doesn't know what he's talking about," Deigin said from Moscow.

Deigin says he too initially believed what appeared to be the general scientific consensus, that the virus behind COVID-19 originated naturally through human contact with an infected animal in Wuhan, China "because that's how viral outbreaks usually happen."

But, he said, after he delved into the competing theory, "it became very clear that this is not a crazy hypothesis, not a crazy conspiracy theory."

To be clear, the so-called Wuhan lab-leak theory isn't back in the news because any major piece of evidence has been uncovered to give it credence. What has changed is calls from scientists in the field, the Biden administration, and others to investigate it properly — because even the head of the World Health Organization says that hasn't happened yet.

"I have to remind everybody and myself, too, that, you know, we're still far from a conclusive proof either way," said Deigin.

'Do a serious investigation'
The lab-leak theory postulates that researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which does work with coronaviruses, may have been studying or even modifying such viruses to better understand them, and that a lab accident may have allowed the virus to escape.

It was floated shortly after the pandemic emerged, and championed by then U.S. president Donald Trump and other Republicans, but dismissed by many as a conspiracy theory.

But, without clear evidence of a natural origin, or what scientists call "zoonotic spillover" from an animal host, the idea hasn't gone away.

"As time progresses, the fact that China doesn't allow any substantive investigation into the origins of it, people are going to naturally begin to wonder why," said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine.

"And so then any time a new snippet of evidence comes along that that seems odd ... people are more and more prone to jump to that conclusion that either it had human origins or it was the lab."...

[Tybee]

It's odd to live in an era where a virus first detected in very close proximity to a lab experimenting with the same family of virus was almost universally considered just another conspiracy theory fueled by racist Trumpers. I think one of the great blessings of the Trump electoral defeat is that due diligence can now be resumed without stigma or cancellation by social institutions.
+1