Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Strawberry]

Honestly, it is quite suspicious how coronaviruses have outbreaks in China. And in the poor regions.
China isn't worse than some parts of South America (and other poor parts of the world). Shit, they eat also all kind of even more exotic animals.
Thailand and other SEA countries are eating monkeys, scorpions, snakes, etc.
Although I'm not even sure if this is caused by eating exotic animals.
China's only biocontainment lab level 4 (the highest level) is located in Wuhan, only 30min drive from the supposed outbreak centre.
Chinese political party is not much different from CCCP. They too tried to cover and play down incidents like Chernobyl.
People in Wuhan have been eating all kind of animals for decades, even centuries.

I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that there is foul play in this.
I mean, would you be surprised?

[shadowmouse]

Not a bad one huh? Better than Iraq having chemical weapons.

How about starting an Iraq thread then, and stop with the derails and conspiracy crap.

[Muajin76]

@Muajin76 <bleep!> I'll have to try to get some tangyuan. One of my old students wants to WeChat video celebrate with me. Welp, grocery shopping will need to get done today. AQI is probably not going to be great tonight.

The new suspect for the missing animal link is pangolins: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...rus/ar-BBZL9HS

The death penalty mention on CNN (at least the one I saw) was for deliberate spreading of the virus and if I recall was put in place in Heilongjiang. That makes sense since it is all too close to attempting mass murder, and the last thing anyone needs is for this to get loose in North Korea (which is rather suspiciously not reporting any cases).

It's pretty much in every supermarket or small store. The fruit flavored ones are pricey. I paid 21 rmb for 16. But they are yummy! I saw maple and chocolate today for the first time. bought strawberry.
Yes i also saw that too. I think now it's nation wide, not just Heilongjiang. Good on the govt for saying this. I don't know how many have the virus in NK, they haven't said anything.

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Honestly, it is quite suspicious how coronaviruses have outbreaks in China. And in the poor regions.
China isn't worse than some parts of South America (and other poor parts of the world). Shit, they eat also all kind of even more exotic animals.
Thailand and other SEA countries are eating monkeys, scorpions, snakes, etc.
Although I'm not even sure if this is caused by eating exotic animals.
China's only biocontainment lab level 4 (the highest level) is located in Wuhan, only 30min drive from the supposed outbreak centre.
Chinese political party is not much different from CCCP. They too tried to cover and play down incidents like Chernobyl.
People in Wuhan have been eating all kind of animals for decades, even centuries.

I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that there is foul play in this.
I mean, would you be surprised?

I been thinking recently. IF there were animals carrying this virus, wouldn't someone have gotten it by now? The rumor going around is that it was created or something along those lines by the govt, in a way to thin out the population. There is no proof to this, but just light speculation/rumor. Who knows.

[xenogear3]

IF there were animals carrying this virus, wouldn't someone have gotten it by now? The rumor going around is that it was created or something along those lines by the govt

The virus in bats cannot survive in human, because it doesn't have the correct S protein.
This is why you don't get virus from cat and dog.

As for the secret lab, there are two versions.
One is created by Chinese. The other is created by US, and China steals it.

[shadowmouse]

I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that there is foul play in this.

Hanlon's Razor: “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”

I see two, perhaps three points that could explain it without anything sinister.

The first is general weak health from the early days of the PRC.

The second is pollution, not just bad air, but bad water and contaminated soil. That has led to even people in the 30s having a load of underlying conditions that are only aggravated by their binge drinking, chain smoking, lousy diet (white rice is strongly linked to diabetes for example), and outright quackery masquerading as TCM in particular. I'm OK with TCM for some uses, but there are a lot of quacks who claim to use it and don't know crap about it.

The iffy one is population density. Take weak health and it may be easier for novel viruses to gain a toehold. In many places that might just result in something getting written off as flu or an unexplained death, but here it is like smoking in the powder magazine. It isn't just a single guy with weak health, it is a whole bunch of them in close proximity. Boom!

@Muajin76 The problem is that I was doing my shopping last minute and I wanted to stick with the local supermarket. I wanted just the old fashioned black sesame ones.

[Muajin76]

The virus in bats cannot survive in human, because it doesn't have the correct S protein.
This is why you don't get virus from cat and dog.

As for the secret lab, there are two versions.
One is created by Chinese. The other is created by US, and China steals it.

hmm..that would make sense. Created by either country. If cv did come from some animal, i'm sure that animal was eaten plenty of times before the virus infected anyone. Yet, suddenly people are getting it. Maybe i'm just thinking too much about where it could have come from. I'm surprised more people aren't speculating the possibility that it was created/engineered.

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Hanlon's Razor: “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”

@Muajin76 The problem is that I was doing my shopping last minute and I wanted to stick with the local supermarket. I wanted just the old fashioned black sesame ones.

I've eaten plenty of black sesame ones and wanted something more...fruity. :P
We mixed it up today, we each had black sesame and strawberry ones.

[shadowmouse]

Maybe i'm just thinking too much about where it could have come from.

Yep, you're thinking too much. Read up on how bats survive viruses.

Now consider the chain as a series of coin tosses.

The right bat had to have contact with the right bridge animal. Count that as mutation 1.

The bridge animal had to make it to market in good enough shape that it was passed through the market chain, and when it got to market it needed to be healthy enough somebody bought it. Lots of infected animals might never make it to that point, too lethal a virus and the animal dies before there is a chance for it to infect anyone. That's one of the comments on the Wuhan virus, that if it were more lethal it might have burned out by now.

The bridge animal that finally did get bought as exotic meat then had to have a version of the virus that could jump to a human host. Count that as mutation 2. That isn't enough though, the virus had to survive food prep -- for most meat the Chinese eat, that means at the least that it was very thoroughly cooked because the Chinese don't really like anything less than nuked from orbit levels of well done. All of that, and the human host then has to catch the virus.

Finally, the kicker is what we weren't sure about in the first days of the virus, was there human to human transmission? Count that as mutation 3. Once again, it isn't enough that there could be human to human transmission, there needs to be successful human to human transmission which means it got past things like people washing their hands and potential hosts' immune systems (although that may not be a major hurdle for a novel virus, it can still be a factor).

That's why I think the possible weakness of human hosts is significant.

[NED funded]

This is what you get for funding the poaching of a protected species

[derpkitteh]

This is what you get for funding the poaching of a protected species

considering i just heard that pangolin might actually be where the virus originates from, it certainly is a fitting punishment.

pangolins are horrifically endangered, yet the chinese still sell and eat them, or sell them to the pet trade.

also, look at the pangolin-like thing of the US, the armadillo. what happens when people touch or eat armadillo? they get leprosy. guess what 99% of americans don't do? eat the thing that gives you leprosy. it's almost like there's shit out there that you just shouldn't eat or touch. even fucking pigs are vile and filled with parasites, yet most people eat that.

[PosPosPos]

considering i just heard that pangolin might actually be where the virus originates from, it certainly is a fitting punishment.

pangolins are horrifically endangered, yet the chinese still sell and eat them, or sell them to the pet trade.

also, look at the pangolin-like thing of the US, the armadillo. what happens when people touch or eat armadillo? they get leprosy. guess what 99% of americans don't do? eat the thing that gives you leprosy. it's almost like there's shit out there that you just shouldn't eat or touch. even fucking pigs are vile and filled with parasites, yet most people eat that.

So I guess this is the next escalation of radical-vegan spins. Entertaining to know in this very moment; mentally tossing them out like the babble it is the next.

[NED funded]

So I guess this is the next escalation of radical-vegan spins. Entertaining to know in this very moment; mentally tossing them out like the babble it is the next.

You can sympathize with the victims and also think their fate is justified.

Kinda like cutting down a forest. When you get a drought Id feel bad for the people but their fate is of their own making

[derpkitteh]

So I guess this is the next escalation of radical-vegan spins. Entertaining to know in this very moment; mentally tossing them out like the babble it is the next.

i'm literally eating chicken right as i type this.

the message is "don't eat weird shit you aren't supposed to or you bring it on yourself". well, in this case, they didn't just bring it on their selves. they brought it on the rest of the world.

[breadisfunny]

How about starting an Iraq thread then, and stop with the derails and conspiracy crap.

when did this site start allowing conspriacy theories anyways?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

If someone doesn't have the gene CCR5, it makes them resistant to HIV. Europeans mostly don't have this gene cos the plague back in 1300s used the same gene to enter the cells. So the ones that have it died. Natural selection, not napalm.

So, we know CCP was torturing the Uighur Turks in China, keeping them in detention camps under very bad conditions. Haven't heard of any deaths from virus in that area.

This virus may be something prepared by USA especially for China and they allowed Chinese agents steal it.
Another theory..

Bill Ryan predicted exactly what you were saying back in 2010!

@15:00



The prevailing theory seems to be that either the virus was accidentally released from a level 4 lab about 20 miles away from the food market, or that it was intentionally released to cull the population. I don't really believe in conspiracy theories, but holy crap t it makes so much sense.

[shadowmouse]

@Val the Moofia Boss Conspiracy theories are still conspiracy theories and in theory are a banned topic.

Still, inside China, a common theory is that the US released African Swine Flu to destabilize China and the Wuhan virus is phase II. And that's the problem with conspiracy theories, they're points strung together to make an emotional appeal and reflect fears and prejudices more than facts.

[xenogear3]

@Val the Moofia Boss Conspiracy theories are still conspiracy theories and in theory are a banned topic.

Still, inside China, a common theory is that the US released African Swine Flu to destabilize China and the Wuhan virus is phase II. And that's the problem with conspiracy theories, they're points strung together to make an emotional appeal and reflect fears and prejudices more than facts.

wumao is at a small US website !

If the Chinese government uses all its resource to control the virus, instead the internet, these virus would be dead by now.

[Piglord]

when did this site start allowing conspriacy theories anyways?

It seams they became more allowed when Jeffrey Epstein died, and mods were taking part in it.

[shadowmouse]

wumao is at a small US website !

That was such a sizzling and new comeback that you made it half way to witty.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

@Val the Moofia Boss Conspiracy theories are still conspiracy theories and in theory are a banned topic.

Still, inside China, a common theory is that the US released African Swine Flu to destabilize China and the Wuhan virus is phase II. And that's the problem with conspiracy theories, they're points strung together to make an emotional appeal and reflect fears and prejudices more than facts.

The problem with conspiracy theories is that people want answers when the current information cannot provide, so they will make pretty wildly reaching conclusion to satisfy their desire for "why".

We will probably never get hard, factual evidence as to how it began. Speculation is all we got, and all we will ever get.

The reason why I brought up the Bill Ryan video is because we know that this strain of the Coronovirus seems to be unnatural, completely unlike any other strain of Coronovrius, possibly indicating that it was artificially created. Hence, the "it was created in a Wuhan lab and accidentally escaped" and the "it was created to cull the population of one of the world superpowers" theories.

Obviously, the latter is less likely than the former. We're a month into this and it doesn't seem like it has reached Black Plague levels of fatalities. Yes, the Chinese are almost certainly lying about the death counts, but if it was anywhere near the "25,000 deaths" as per the supposed Tencent numbers, we would almost certainly know. There would be so much evidence of it. Even if it kills a million people, that is a drop in the bucket compared to the whole population of China. Hence, why I lean towards the idea that it was just a random accident and there was no ill intent involved.

[shadowmouse]

Hence, why I lean towards the idea that it was just a random accident and there was no ill intent involved.

You'll notice, I mentioned Hanlon's Razor some posts back.

I have a fairly simple reason for doubting the artificial origin theory, if there is one thing I'm fairly sure of it is that there are big time labs around the world that would love the publicity and government actors of all stripes who would love to "gotcha". The techniques have not developed, to the best of my knowledge, to the point that an artificial origin wouldn't stand out like a nun in a bordello.

As for why the conspiracy theories? Some is speculation, but I'm relatively certain some is simple jackassery trying for attention, like the guy who "pranked" a plane or the kids who "pranked" Walmart (WTF is up with people using Walmart as their soapbox).