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The CCP Coronavirus

This is a discussion topic for posting info and questions about the CCP Coronavirus. Check back regularly for updates and share important info. This is a serious pandemic and we all need to educate ourselves and stay home. Don't go out for non-essential reasons. A lot of people are going to die, and our behavior today (March 15, 2020) will still dramatically affect how many die.

March 23 update: Although diseases are commonly named after locations, I edited the post title from The Wuhan Coronavirus to The CCP Coronavirus to reflect the fact that the fault lies with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), not the city of Wuhan.

Below is the original post.


I'm not a medical expert and I haven't given my full attention to the Wuhan Coronavirus. But I've looked into it some and I have a few guesses, below. Summary: It's a real danger, which might kill millions, and China is lying about containment.

  • Coronavirus is spreading in mainland China outside of Hubei province.
  • The Chinese government is lying heavily.
  • China reports fake coronavirus data.
  • Experts could and should have known the above points a month ago.
  • There's a significant chance, let's say >= 20%, that coronavirus kills a lot of people, let's say over a million.
  • If the virus infects 25% of the world and has a 1% mortality rate, that's 19 million dead. The 25% and 1% figures are both plausible. Worse is not unreasonable.
  • Things might not turn out all that bad, but people ought to be concerned and take it seriously.
  • The virus is a bigger threat than the government measures to contain the virus.
  • Many measures to stop or slow the virus' spread are being done too late to have a large benefit.
  • Many people with coronavirus show no symptoms, but can still be contagious.
  • Individual quarantine measures are frequently inadequate. Self-quarantined persons are told e.g. to keep their distance from their spouse ... who can still live with them and go to the grocery store.
  • A 14 day quarantine is inadequate for a person who is around healthy family members or roommates. E.g. they could infect a family member on day 6. Then the quarantine ends too soon (8 days, not 14) after that person got sick.
  • Although we may still slow the spread down, we can't realistically expect to stop the virus from spreading to most of the world. It may not spread that much, but if it doesn't, that will be luck more than skill. We don't know all the details of the virus and how good it is at spreading. Also, the potential exception would be if someone comes up with a major medical breakthrough to protect us.
  • Politicians and others still going around shaking the hands of dozens of people are fools or bastards.
  • The people mocking those who do "social distancing" like not touching other people (e.g. no handshakes) are second-handers disconnected from reality, and they will be responsible for many deaths.
  • Literal life and death threats are inadequate for most social-reality-oriented persons to start focusing on facts, science, details and logic. They can't snap out of it and will continue to be dangerously careless, and to make decisions based on e.g. not wanting to show weakness. People deal with situations by social dynamics like acting tough instead of fearful, and not wanting to be reactive or high effort, and it doesn't matter if coronavirus has no social behavior and cannot act on social interpretations. People will e.g. stock up on supplies if and when other people stock up, and do whatever they think others are doing; they don't want to be different and that matters more to them than their lives.

Elliot Temple on March 9, 2020

Messages (30 of 376) (Show All Comments)

#16455 I think that prison finding is approximately consistent with the side that claims ~50X reported cases are asymptomatic or unreported.

With 4% symptomatic, you'd only need half of the symptomatic population to not report their case for the reported case count to be 2% of the total infections (1/50th). I think that's reasonable.

Someone with a mild fever & cough - which is lots of the symptomatic cases - might reasonably choose to just stay home until they feel better rather than go out and get tested. Or they may not want the stigma/restrictions of being a "confirmed case" when it's not going to change their (current) treatment.

I think there's pretty good agreement about that, and even people who don't think there's not a lot of asymptomatic cases think the infection rate is 2X-3X the confirmed case count.

But I am still not convinced the ~50X side is right. Reasons:

- Small samples

- Adverse selection criteria

For the prison testing, prisoners are younger than average, are often calorie constrained, and probably have other medical criteria that make them different from the general population

- Contra-cases, like cruise ships and health care workers, which seem to show symptoms at a higher rate (Though admittedly with their own adverse selection criteria)

So for now I'm hopeful but still neutral.


Andy Dufresne at 6:46 PM on April 26, 2020 | #16456 | reply | quote

Comparing Countries

New Zealand is "opening up" today (it's already Tuesday there) so I decided to look a little more at NZ and some other countries.

Source for NZ opening:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/121289245/coronavirus-count-down-to-level-3-with-1-million-kiwis-expected-back-at-work

Some of New Zealand's "opening up" sounds like a lot of US states' "lockdown":

> Food retailers offering contactless takeaways and delivery can reopen, with fast-food businesses like KFC, McDonald's and pizza chains expected to do a roaring trade.

> Click-and-collect operations would also be able to restart on Tuesday, provided retailers did not physically interact with customers.

New Zealand also made statements about being prepared to dance effectively:

> "At the moment, they can themselves trace 185 cases a day, and are looking to scale that up to 300 and being able to link electronically with our national contact tracing centre ... will allow us to scale up to our target of a thousand a day."

They are currently experiencing an average of 5 new cases per day, and at the height of their epidemic it was 75 new cases per day. So even their current capability of 185 cases a day seems fine.

Source: http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/

First graph, select "New Zealand" in the Highlight drop down then "New Cases, 1 Wk. Avg." in the data dropdown.

New Zealand's active case count is also 54 per million people and falling. I look at the active case count as indicating the infection risk. As discussed previously it understates the actual infection count by some unknown amount, but it's still a pretty good relative indicator on which to compare countries.

NZ seems to fit the "Hammer and Dance" strategy pretty closely.

Australia's new daily case curve and case count per million people is similar to New Zealand's. South Korea's active case count per million people is lower, at 33 and Thailand's is even lower, at 4.2 per million people. But all the curves are going in the right direction, approximating what Pueyo advocated in hammer & dance.

I think it's notable that Australia and New Zealand were able to approximate the right hammer curve shape and get to reasonably low active case counts per population. They are western culture countries with similar traditions and population attitudes to the US and Western Europe.

Meanwhile USA's active case count is 2439 per million people and rising.

Source: http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/

3rd graph down, select "Total Active Cases" from the data drop down.

The "opening up" US states are doing today or later this week will allow dine-in restaurants, movie theaters, bowling alleys, and gyms to reopen.

Individual US States vary widely in terms of population adjusted case load. (4th graph down at the same site linked above, select "Total Active Cases"). On the low end there is Montana at 406 per million people, and on the high end New York at 13662 per million people. There isn't a single US state with an active cases curve that looks like a pacific region Hammer country (substantially falling on a population adjusted basis).

Because the new cases per day is flat overall and falling in several states, current measures might eventually get us to a Hammer-like curve if we maintained them. But we're not going to maintain the current measures in lots of states, and at least so far states aren't meaningfully closing their borders. I think that means states that maintain restrictions are going to have residents taking vacations in less restrictive states and bringing back new cases.

That leaves the US with virus seasonality as our main near-term hope for further reductions.

US new case per day rate is currently around 29,500. That's down a bit from the high of over 31,000, but not by much. I haven't seen any estimate of the US's contact tracing ability but I'm pretty sure our new case rate currently exceeds it. So the US won't be dancing either.

Most of Europe's curves, including Italy and Spain who have been "locked down" for much longer than the US, continue to look more like the US than the hammer countries in the Pacific region. I don't think they qualify as having finished the hammer or even being on track to finish it soon. I don't think their daily new case curves yet look like where Pueyo places them on chart 4 of:

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-learning-how-to-dance-b8420170203e

Unlike the US I don't know much about whether Europe will sustain their measures much longer. Maybe they will and if so my opinion of Europe might change.

Finally I looked at Sweden, which didn't make much of a pretense of locking down.

Sweden's active case count is 1494 per million people and rising just a little faster than the US. Its new daily case rate is also rising slightly where the US overall is approximately flat. But the curves are pretty shockingly similar given how much of a big deal the US and Europe media have made about locking down versus Sweden's failure to do the same.

It's still too early to say, but it seems possible that Sweden's approach may have been overall better than the US and the rest of western Europe. Not much higher cases & deaths, but a lot less economic damage.

With an average of over 600 new cases a day, it's conceivable Sweden could try to dance. I don't know what their testing and tracing capability is. But given they didn't even make a pretense at the hammer I doubt they'll make a pretense at the dance either.

Basically I disagree with Pueyo's statement:

> Most did the right thing

At best his statement is premature, and I fear it's going to turn out not to be true. He's doing his own strategy a disservice by claiming it now. A few countries in the pacific region did what Pueyo advocated. Most of the world instead undertook fairly strong and visible mitigation measures but didn't actually do the hammer. And they won't sustain what they did do for long enough to get similar results (substantially falling population adjusted active case counts & manageable new daily case rates).

Whether good or ill, I think the hammer and dance should be judged based on what happens in Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand going forward. At least currently, it should not be judged by what happens in western Europe and the US.


Andy Dufresne at 11:28 AM on April 27, 2020 | #16457 | reply | quote

The Governor of my state unexpectedly (to me at least) extended the stay at home order from April 30 to May 15 with some loosening.

A few people openly violated the current order. More were publicly vowing to do so if it was extended. That's part of why I didn't think the order would be extended. Talk radio hosts have been encouraging the violations and saying it should have opened already.

We'll see what happens now. My guess is fairly widespread violations and/or protests.


Andy Dufresne at 8:17 PM on April 29, 2020 | #16468 | reply | quote

https://quillette.com/2020/04/23/covid-19-superspreader-events-in-28-countries-critical-patterns-and-lessons/

The author analyzes Covid-19 superspreading events and concludes that the virus is more likely to be transmitted by large droplets than by aerosol droplets or contaminated surfaces.


Anne B at 3:24 PM on May 1, 2020 | #16474 | reply | quote

Anonymous at 7:19 PM on May 7, 2020 | #16492 | reply | quote

#16452 New study from Spain claims the total case rate is 9-10X the confirmed case rate:

https://bgr.com/2020/05/14/coronavirus-stats-spain-antibodies-study-of-covid-19-infection/

This would be a middle rate between the 2X and 50X sides I referred to earlier.

If 10X is the rate in the USA, it means we currently have about 15 Million people who have been infected. Most of those were infected over April and half of May, so a rate of around 10 million per month.

With a middle rate of unconfirmed infection, suppose we assume something like 60% would be enough herd immunity to keep hospitals from being overloaded with no other social distancing measures. That implies we need to get to 330 * .6 = 198 million post infection. At 10 million per month that means we need to flatten the curve for ~20 months, of which we've now completed 1.5 months. We could expect to reach herd immunity around the end of 2021.

If a combination of less intrusive measures like:

- Widespread mask wearing

- Plenty of people being cautious and staying away from bars, restaurants, etc. even though they're open, continuing online/delivery instead of in person shopping, etc.

- Cancellation of large events & conferences

- Extremely limited domestic and international air travel

- Increased hygiene & awareness

...can keep us from hospital overload on its own, then I think it's reasonably likely we'll do it. People could reasonably be expected to put up with the stuff on that list for another year and a half or so. Not guaranteed though - there's now a growing anti-mask movement trying to associate mask wearing with paranoia, stupidity, and/or leftism. If it succeeds a lot fewer people will wear masks.

If the above + summer season & school closure is what it takes to avoid overload, then we probably hold through the summer but then have to lock down again or overload in the fall. I predict overload - maybe or maybe not followed by lockdowns. Political opposition to lockdowns is way more vocal and organized now than it was in March.

If the list + summer season & school closure still isn't enough, then we see overload in a few more weeks in places that have opened up as cases there take off.

I don't think testing & contract tracing is even a factor in USA. We're not doing it and can't reasonably be expected to at current infection levels.


Andy Dufresne at 3:40 PM on May 18, 2020 | #16551 | reply | quote

laowhy86 got tested for CCP virus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De-FLygAX8s

video has info about what going to the hospital was like and reminders that coronavirus is still around, important, etc.


curi at 2:29 PM on June 10, 2020 | #16660 | reply | quote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXhj-g6JNmE

> Study: Coronavirus May Have Begun in August

and other China news


curi at 8:02 PM on June 12, 2020 | #16685 | reply | quote

#16300

> the left has spent decades purging all the competent ppl out of government

> i don't know how much competence is left in the military. there have been major efforts to destroy it too but most of the news stories about those are relatively superficial issues that do limited damage instead of destroying the core.

> though some of them involving fucking with training and education. the more ppl go thru a PC west point ... they could ruin everything in a few decades.

Here's part of an opinion piece on that topic from someone who claims to be ex-military.

Oh, you thought they were on your side? (American Partisan | Aug 20, 2020):

> The military is not ‘on your side’ and are not to be trusted in their official capacity. It is not the conservative bastion it once was, and certainly not the one its public perception is believed to be. Only through an unlikely purge of the ranks could such a return to American values be made, not without a massive level of internal disruption. Those of us who knew the deal got out, taking our experience with us.


Anonymous at 11:12 AM on August 22, 2020 | #17563 | reply | quote

FaZe clan abuses the PPP loan program

The PPP loan program was put in place by the U.S. government in 2020 to to help small businesses hurt by coronavirus pay their employees and make other essential business payments such as rent and utilities.

In September 2020, Upper Echelon Gamers (UEG) released a video called FaZe Clan - Financial Parasites. The video criticizes FaZe, an esports organization, for applying for a $1-2 million PPP loan. According to UEG, FaZe technically meets the standards for PPP loan approval. However, UEG argues that FaZe's loan application violates the spirit of the PPP loan program and that any money FaZe received should have gone to small businesses that actually needed it. Specifically, UEG notes that:

- FaZe's YouTube channel makes, conservatively, $1.2 million per year

- FaZe closed a $40 million round of funding in April 2020

- Esport revenues have been growing strongly since the COVID-19 pandemic started

- FaZe is a financially irresponsible organization that provides a $30 million California mansion (with $80,000 monthly payments) for its players, who in turn release videos in which they smash computer monitors

- More than 100,000 small businesses have permanently shut their doors due to COVID-19

- The first round of PPP funding quickly ran out

- 1.7 small businesses were waiting for PPP funding as the second round was about to run out

- The money FaZe took could have saved dozens to hundreds of legitimate small businesses

- The owner of FaZe made over $200,000/day running a "gambling platform for CS:GO" skins out of Antigua (such a site is legal there, in contrast to the U.S.)

- FaZe likely has significant performance and integrity issues; for example, in a lawsuit, FaZe claimed they did were barely based out of California, even though they had the mansion there

PPP loan abuse extends far beyond FaZe. According to the NY Post, lots of large businesses took advantage of PPP loans that were meant for small businesses:

> The [PPP loan] program has also come under a torrent of criticism for paying banks big bucks to steer hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to their large, publicly traded clients, like Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Potbelly Sandwich Shop and Wilhelmina International, a talent agency that represents big stars like Nicki Minaj and Nick Jonas.

MSN claims that the finance industry received $12.2 billion in PPP loans, despite not generally being negatively affected by COVID-19:

> The finance and insurance industry received $12.2 billion in loans from the small business program, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. While many of those firms are technically small businesses -- employing 500 people or fewer -- they weren’t forced to shut by stay-at-home orders, unlike barber shops, florists and mom-and-pop retailers whose revenues evaporated. Financial markets have remained open during the lockdowns, allowing Wall street firms to keep earning fees from clients.

According to Business Insider, the government has started noticing the PPP loan abuse:

> Members of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis wrote a memo sounding the alarm bells, explaining that tens of thousands of PPP loans "could be subject to fraud, waste, or abuse."

> Among the memo's chief points of concern: Some companies received multiple loans, when the original program was intended to grant recipients just one loan. As much as $1 billion in PPP funding was carved up by firms that received more than a single loan.

> What's more, as much as $96 million in PPP loans was pocketed by companies which are excluded from doing business with the federal government. And, government contractors with "significant performance and integrity issues" received another $195 million in funds, the memo said.

Forbes reports that the government has begun prosecuting cases of PPP loan fraud. However, the cases Forbes covers are blatant, such as lying about how many employees you have, getting loans for businesses that don't exist, and spending the loan money in unauthorized ways. Forbes doesn't cover any cases in which a business was prosecuted for applying for a loan for which they technically qualified and spending the loan money in technically authorized ways.


Gamer at 7:05 PM on September 21, 2020 | #18105 | reply | quote

#18105 Here is my initial position on FaZe's PPP loan abuse and the exploitation of government financial loopholes in general.

My opinion on all this is that I don't think businesses have any obligation not to exploit loopholes in government financial programs, whether those are forgivable loans or tax breaks.

I think the government is to blame for allowing those loopholes in the first place. Upper Echelon Gamers says the government had to act quickly with the PPP loan program and made some mistakes. That may be, but it seems to me that the government more or less has lots of financial loopholes available at any given time to entities that know how to take advantage of them. In terms of government financial loopholes, I'd be surprised if the PPP loan abuse was anywhere near the worst of it in total dollar terms.

Regarding taxes, Judge Learned Hand wrote in Helvering v. Gregory, later affirmed by the Supreme Court:

> Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.

In the same vein, Judge Learned Hand wrote in Com’r v. Newman:

> Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one's affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.

I agree with Judge Learned Hand. Maybe in a better world, businesses would follow the spirit of the law as well as the letter. I don't think we live in that world, and I don't blame businesses for not acting as if we do.


Gamer at 6:22 PM on September 22, 2020 | #18108 | reply | quote

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/an-iowa-airport-has-a-plan-to-screen-passengers-for-the-coronavirus-its-being-held-up-by-the-faa/2020/11/04/a20d2a24-194c-11eb-befb-8864259bd2d8_story.html

> An Iowa airport has a plan to screen passengers for the coronavirus. It’s being held up by the FAA.

months of delays with no end in sight

you're broadly not allowed to do/change much stuff without the government paying bureaucrats (with your taxes) to eventually get around to consider it, then telling you whether you can or not. you mostly can't do big stuff (or even most small businesses) without permission.

a big reason tech has been impactful in society is you can actually do something (web or app) without a bunch of government approval. having little physical presence or products drastically reduces how much government regulation you to have to deal with.

i'm sure the govt will get better at taking control over software, the internet, etc. but for now the govt is much better at controlling physical objects and interactions between people in person.


curi at 1:55 PM on November 9, 2020 | #18594 | reply | quote

#18594 they basically just wanted to use thermometers to screen for people with a fever. but they aren't allowed to.

freedom and capitalism (which includes businesses deciding what to do and how to do it) are not the default.


curi at 1:58 PM on November 9, 2020 | #18595 | reply | quote

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1335635744833024003.html

Twitter thread by logistics professional about how coronavirus testing in the U.S. is a mess. A few points among many that it makes:

- coronavirus PCR tests convert the sample specimen from RNA to DNA, which is hard or expensive to do without contamination

- then they sort of “grow” the sample for one or more iterations until either they detect coronavirus or they reach about 50 iterations without seeing any coronavirus (at which point they report a negative result), but they don’t generally report the number of iterations, so you don’t know how much Covid was present in the original sample (apparently lots of Covid in the sample results in fewer iterations being needed)

- test kits need to be shipped at low temperatures or else they spoil

- DHL/UPS/FedEx don’t do a good job at temperature controlled shipping

- Something I didn’t quite understand about how there’s no good way to report to the government about issues on items imported under an FDA EUA (emergency use authorization)

- lots of labs are new organizations without much experience

- there’s financial pressure for labs to just accept spoiled test kits (without checking to see if they’re spoiled), use them, and report results


Anonymous at 4:00 PM on December 7, 2020 | #19044 | reply | quote

https://twitter.com/surplustakes/status/1339581898394279939

Twitter thread talking about how the CDC recommendations regarding who to administer the coronavirus vaccines to first are racially biased in anti-white ways

https://twitter.com/surplustakes/status/1339583493479665667?s=20

see also this NYTimes article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/health/covid-vaccine-first.html


Anonymous at 5:37 AM on December 19, 2020 | #19200 | reply | quote

https://twitter.com/diviacaroline/status/1343878880570998787

As a COVID policy, the UK government is giving a 50% discount on restaurant meals if and only if you dine in at the restaurant.

What the actual fuck.

https://twitter.com/lxrjl/status/1322676157230309379

The UK government is discouraging mask usage at schools.

> [Mask usage at schools is] not *illegal* but gov. guidance is "masks should not be worn in the classroom because they interfere with teaching". I'm wearing one but am the only staff member doing so other than my wife, about 5% of kids are.

What the actual fuck.


curi at 12:27 PM on December 29, 2020 | #19302 | reply | quote

#19302 Note: The UK's 50% dine-in restaurant discounts were August 3-31, 3 days a week. 10£ limit per person per restaurant visit. Excluded alcohol. Could be combined with any other discounts, e.g. coupons.


curi at 1:48 PM on December 29, 2020 | #19303 | reply | quote

Twitter thread claims CCP was promoting its lockdown policies using social media https://twitter.com/michaelpsenger/status/1270925788389486593?s=21


Anonymous at 6:10 AM on January 5, 2021 | #19370 | reply | quote

https://twitter.com/TheEliKlein/status/1346226027752796160

> NY Gov Cuomo denied NYC’s request to vaccinate people who are 75 and older, despite the fact the City has only used 25% of its Covid vaccine supply


curi at 10:55 AM on January 5, 2021 | #19373 | reply | quote

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-vaccine-delays.html

> 66% of New York City’s Vaccine Doses Sit Unused as Virus Numbers Soar

> Small numbers of doses have even been thrown out as the city’s mass inoculation campaign gets off to a dispiriting start.

(Warning: NYT is an unreliable source.)


curi at 11:54 AM on January 8, 2021 | #19414 | reply | quote

#19838 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/world/moderna-vaccine-vials.html

> Moderna is hoping to raise the number of doses in its vials to as many as 15 from the current 10 doses. The proposal reflects the fact that the company has been ramping up production of its vaccine to the point where the final manufacturing stage, when it is bottled, capped and labeled, has emerged as a roadblock to expanding its distribution.


curi at 7:29 PM on February 2, 2021 | #19839 | reply | quote

#19838

If the FDA has to be asked at all, for something they haven't been asked before then we shouldn't expect a fast turnaround.

Could filling the bottles higher cause them to break the sterile seal easier in response to shipping motion?

Could filling the bottles higher cause them to physically break in other ways due to changes in temperature?

Could drawing 15 doses instead of 10 meaningfully increase the risk of giving contaminated vaccines?

Why was 10 doses per bottle established in the first place? What assumptions were made there that might not be true at 15?

...etc.

These are what I'll call technical questions. Presumably Moderna already considered and answered these technical questions. But the FDAs role is at least to research and verify the answers. Which in and of itself will take substantial time.

But the real slow down is that the people capable of answering these technical questions correctly are almost certainly not the people with the power to give the official answer.

That's because seeking and successfully obtaining the power to give the official answer is, to a large practical extent, incompatible with having the knowledge to answer technical questions correctly.

Which means (best case) the person(s) who can actually answer correctly not only have to figure out the right answer, but then also convince the people with the power to answer what the answer should be. And that in turn brings in political questions - questions the power-holders will have about whether their answer will now or subsequently bite people with power in the ass for having given it.

For example, if the bottles are manufactured in a key congressional district, and allowing 15 doses this time will cause a long term shift to 15 doses per bottle of other vaccines, causing demand for the bottles to fall in the long term and resulting in layoffs at the bottle factory, the person with power could get in trouble for answering yes even if that's the right technical answer in the context of COVID vaccines and vaccines in general.

The people with the power to give the answer are in power precisely because they think about political questions like that and include them in consideration for what to answer.

The only solution to this I know of is for the vaccine manufacturer not to have to ask the FDA.


Andy Dufresne at 6:27 AM on February 3, 2021 | #19844 | reply | quote

#19844

> seeking and successfully obtaining the power to give the official answer is, to a large practical extent, incompatible with having the knowledge to answer technical questions correctly.

Well put.


Anonymous at 6:55 AM on February 3, 2021 | #19845 | reply | quote

#19844 The article says this issue has been known for years:

> Although that nuts-and-bolts stage [like "fill and finish", like bottling] receives less attention than vaccine development, it has been identified for years as a constraint on vaccine production.

They could have dealt with this years ago. Or while preparing the COVID vaccine before it was done. Why didn't they? My first guess is to blame the FDA not the drug companies. And the FDA could have developed a policy on this regardless of what the drug companies did.

Also, I think the FDA response is going to be very risk averse regarding the risk that the change leads to anything bad, while basically ignoring the risks of more people dying due to *not* making the change and less vaccine being distributed less quickly.


curi at 12:54 PM on February 3, 2021 | #19846 | reply | quote

The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan? (2021-05-05):

> It later turned out that the Lancet letter had been organized and drafted by Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance of New York. Daszak’s organization funded coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. If the SARS2 virus had indeed escaped from research he funded, Daszak would be potentially culpable. This acute conflict of interest was not declared to the Lancet’s readers. To the contrary, the letter concluded, “We declare no competing interests.”

> The Daszak and Andersen letters [stating that SARS2 didn't come from a lab] were really political, not scientific, statements...

>China’s central authorities ... did their utmost to conceal the nature of the tragedy and China’s responsibility for it. They suppressed all records at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and closed down its virus databases. They released a trickle of information, much of which may have been outright false or designed to misdirect and mislead. They did their best to manipulate the WHO’s inquiry into the virus’s origins, and led the commission’s members on a fruitless run-around.

> the National Institutes of Health was supporting gain-of-function [enhancements of viral capabilities] research, of a kind that could have generated the SARS2 virus, in an unsupervised foreign lab that was doing work in BSL2 biosafety conditions.


Anonymous at 9:39 AM on May 7, 2021 | #20533 | reply | quote

#20533 In Feb 2021, the NYT used the lab-origin theory of SARS2 as an example of a conspiracy theory (emphasis added)

> Hoaxes, lies and collective delusions aren’t new, but the extent to which millions of Americans have embraced them may be. Thirty percent of Republicans have a favorable view of QAnon, according to a recent YouGov poll. According to other polls, more than 70 percent of Republicans believe Mr. Trump legitimately won the election, and 40 percent of Americans — including plenty of Democrats — believe *the baseless theory that Covid-19 was manufactured in a Chinese lab*.


Anonymous at 9:44 AM on May 7, 2021 | #20534 | reply | quote

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