Coronavirus.

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
A quick google search will show the agencies you list also looking at this hypothesis. This was only ever raised to show opinions can change over time.
So does any hypothesis (guess) that gets 'looked into' become legitimised to you, regardless of outcome?
 

SketchyMagpie

Well-Known Forumite
Appears uk absoutlely terrible with new cases compared to the rest of Europe, or has everyone else given up testing apart from here ?
Yeah, we just have more cases. Probably on account of the lack of any precautions currently in place. To be honest, the official figures are probably an underestimate - the Covid ZOE project out of King’s College London (which has been retrospectively proven accurate throughout the pandemic) predicts 60,251 new daily cases (vs ONS figure of 40,701) and 796,257 total infections in the UK right now.

It's a little alarming how used we have gotten to 40k (to use the ONS figure) new daily infections and 150-200 daily deaths. A year ago today we had far fewer of each and were weeks away from lockdown, but there doesn't feel to me any indication that Boris's "plan B" of reinforcing masks etc is anywhere near coming in.

I'm not saying we should be panicking, I'm just a bit worried about how bad things might have to get (which they probably will in the winter months) before that sense of urgency is there again.
 

Theresa Green

Well-Known Forumite
Do find it rather funny how we had the cheek to "Redlight" places, and put them on "amber" before, when most of them are coping with it, or have less cases than us. yet cried when other places did it to us.

Ah the british superiority!

Losing red list countries is only half the story

Germany and Belgium are green list countries when you leave the UK but when you arrive you have to isolate

Minister don't say dis
 

Thehooperman

Well-Known Forumite
Saw this machine at Manchester Piccadilly. Makes a change from the usual drinks or chocolate machines I suppose.

IMG-20211008-WA0008.jpg
 
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tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
I'm not saying we should be panicking, I'm just a bit worried about how bad things might have to get (which they probably will in the winter months) before that sense of urgency is there again.
Said it before but I'll repeat again, brexit needs covid. We need a disaster to distract us on Jan 1st, and covid is the gift that keeps on giving in that respect. Let us have a NYE blowout to save the economy then it's lockdown quick and all the new issues we're suddenly facing are because of that.

You'd have to be pretty thick to fall for it, so I fully expect the UK to swallow it whole and repeat ad nauseum that Boris is doing a good job in very difficult times.
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
1. The more testing performed the more positives are identified countries with good asymptomatic testing will find more than countries that don't for example.
ramble ramble ramble testing ramble
2.notable virus outbreaks the UK delt with over the 20th century were 1918-19,1957-58, 1968
thus confirming that you are unfamiliar with the meaning of the word 'pandemic'
3. Last year the lab leak hypothesis was a conspiracy theory almost everyone was on agreement now it's the it's being investigated as a possible source.
This year the 'lab leak hypothesis' is still a conspiracy theory - no one who is anyone subscribes to this.

The Biden administration instructed the FBI to investigate it to satisfy the Republican voices that were pushing it, but only to satisfy a rabid home base eager to deflect serious shortcomings. So what was the outcome of that investigation? Remember all the 'gotcha' stories in all of the news agencies, all over the world, when the 'smoking gun' was traced back to Wuhan?

No, me neither. Ever wonder why?

Everyone who is anyone thinks this is zoonotic escape, almost certainly from bats via an intermediary animal. SARS 1 took ten years to pin down, SARS 2 could take at least as long.

You need to stop, like now - you have been wrong about literally everything, and continue to be wrong about things in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Wait, should i have (or 'of') bullet-pointed these points to add legitimacy to them? uh oh spaghettio!
 

SketchyMagpie

Well-Known Forumite
I don't know how widely this has been reported (I didn't know about it until I read the book 'Failures of State'), but the closest known relative of Covid-19 is a strain of coronavirus labelled RaBtCoV/4991 (later renamed RaTG13) discovered in an abandoned mine in 2013 which caused the respiratory illnesses in six miners who contracted it and three eventually died. In later studies, it was discovered that there were 152 genetic sequences of coronavirus over six species of bats, including two of the strand that had caused Sars and one that stood out for both being a previously unidentified strain and for being from the same family as the 2003 outbreak.

RaTG13 is a 96.2% match to the strain of coronavirus that initially went around the world.

Maybe Covid-19 leaked from the lab (a team of Wuhan scientists did visit the mine several years before 2020) but it seems more plausible that it would have escaped naturally from that mine or another location.

Then again, maybe I shouldn't be so tough on people who insist it leaked from a lab as I know an NHS worker who genuinely believes it was created in Russia as a weapon...
 
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Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I don't know how widely this has been reported (I didn't know about it until I read the book 'Failures of State'), but the closest known relative of Covid-19 is a strain of coronavirus labelled RaBtCoV/4991 (later renamed RaTG13) discovered in an abandoned mine in 2013 which caused the respiratory illnesses in six miners who contracted it and three eventually died. In later studies, it was discovered that there were 152 genetic sequences of coronavirus over six species of bats, including two of the strand that had caused Sars and one that stood out for both being a previously unidentified strain and for being from the same family as the 2003 outbreak.

The coronavirus that was discovered in that mine is a 96.2 match to the strain that initially went around the world.

Lab leaks happen, but it takes a stunning swerve of logic to not see that it coming out of this mine - which was visited by Wuhan scientists a few years after those deaths, as laid out in a 2016 paper titled ‘Coexistence of multiple coronaviruses in several bat colonies in an abandoned mineshaft' - is the most plausible explanation.

Then again, maybe I shouldn't be so tough on people who insist on the lab leak theory as I know an NHS worker who genuinely believes it was created in Russia as a weapon...
I have discovered today that there are people who believe that the existence of Australia is a hoax.
 

Theresa Green

Well-Known Forumite
The virus originated in a Government laboratory in China

No question

Whether or not the subsequent pandemic was compromised by a priest travelling to Wetherspoons in Uttoxeter is unclear
 

Cue

Well-Known Forumite
It’s not out of the realm of possibility that it was a lab leak.

Deliberate? Don’t be daft. But an accidental lab leak isn’t impossible really, it’s certainly not to the point of being conspiracy theory level of crazy - “over worked or negligent lab worker accidentally lets virus into local populous, which is subsequently covered up by a government well known for hiding their failures” wouldn’t honestly be that out there.

However if it was we will never ever know, because the CCP would sooner burn the region to the ground than have it be shown that they covered up a leak that screwed over the entire planet for the best part of 2 years
 

Theresa Green

Well-Known Forumite
It’s not out of the realm of possibility that it was a lab leak.

Deliberate? Don’t be daft. But an accidental lab leak isn’t impossible really, it’s certainly not to the point of being conspiracy theory level of crazy - “over worked or negligent lab worker accidentally lets virus into local populous, which is subsequently covered up by a government well known for hiding their failures” wouldn’t honestly be that out there.

However if it was we will never ever know, because the CCP would sooner burn the region to the ground than have it be shown that they covered up a leak that screwed over the entire planet for the best part of 2 years
Daft?

Of course it's deliberate

Maybe not by the CCP

But that's still not accidental
 

SketchyMagpie

Well-Known Forumite
The virus originated in a Government laboratory in China

No question

Whether or not the subsequent pandemic was compromised by a priest travelling to Wetherspoons in Uttoxeter is unclea
Daft?

Of course it's deliberate

Maybe not by the CCP

But that's still not accidental

The thing I never understand with this perspective, can you explain why you even need such an explanation for something that we *know* has a high probability of occurring naturally? Covid-19's closest relative that we know of emerged in that mine I referenced and killed 3 out of 6 people who encountered it unprepared in 2013, so why do you need a different explanation for a virus that is only 3.8% different, genetically, than that one?
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
The thing I never understand with this perspective, can you explain why you even need such an explanation for something that we *know* has a high probability of occurring naturally? Covid-19's closest relative that we know of emerged in that mine I referenced and killed 3 out of 6 people who encountered it unprepared in 2013, so why do you need a different explanation for a virus that is only 3.8% different, genetically, than that one?
Blame, people want a target. Its pretty much ingrained in the British mindset nowadays, whatever ills you face someone else is to blame. Much better to blame the Chinese government, and stoke resentment of Johnny Foreigner, than admit its just something that could randomly occur.
 
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