loveistheanswer

A Flu Virus Risk Worth Taking (2011)

-By Anthony S. Fauci, Gary J. Nabel and Francis S. Collins

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-flu-virus-risk-wor...

Perhaps the root problem is that it is seemingly impossible for psychology to isolate and control for the dependent variable in question: consciousness.

"psychiatric diagnosis still relies exclusively on fallible subjective judgments rather than objective biological tests"

-Allen Frances

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Frances

A 2016 study by Johns Hopkins found similar results: iatrogenesis kills 250,000 Americans each year[1].

"The Johns Hopkins team says the CDC’s way of collecting national health statistics fails to classify medical errors separately on the death certificate. The researchers are advocating for updated criteria for classifying deaths on death certificates."

Doctors don't keep a record of the people they kill, just like the military or the police doesn't keep track of the civilians they kill.

[1]https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_su...

>how common pandemics have been in east Asia.

This is why we need more data about cross reactivity playing a role in the relatively favorable health outcomes in Asia and Africa compared to the rest of the world.

>question is whether each county has the organizational capacity and societal will to carry this strategy out.

Indeed, that's a critical question to the long term success of the strategy.

If the world is unable to put 8 billion people in solitary confinement (nevermind the disastrous effects that would cause) indefinitely until the virus is eliminated (nevermind the fact that we are incapabale of validating if it was actually completely erradicated), the virus is only going to pop back up.

There is no evidence of such a strategy working at scale across the world.

The scientists on the covid team at the WHO have said as much: lockdowns should only be used as a last resort to buy time to scale up health care resources. Should we listen to those scientists?

2/4 of those examples are affluent island nations with low population densities.

Another one of those examples has been actively censoring covid information from the start, and thus cannot be trusted.

As for Vietnam, it is an interesting case, and we don't have enough data to rule out cross reactivity or other factors playing a role.

Extrapolating these data points to the entire world with wildly varying sociological, biological, environmental, and countless other factors and saying this is clearly the correct (and implicity achieveable) strategy for all 8 billion people on the earth is at best hypothetical.

>But airplaines are engineered by humans, we know everything about how they are supposed to work until the last bit of physics.

>We don't have the same absolute understanding of mechanisms with vaccines.

Having even less knowledge about how vaccines and our immune systems work seems like reason to be even more cautious, not less cautious.

Especially considering the fact that autoimmune disorders have been on the rise for decades, and we don't know why.

If you've already had the virus, and had only mild symptoms from it, what additional level of protection does the vaccine confer?

Do you still really need to get the vaccine in that case?

The CDC says yes, but their reasoning is purely based on FUD: "experts do not yet know how long you are protected from getting sick again".

According to the available data, there has been only 71 confirmed cases of reinfection out of over 137,000,000 cases.[1]

Meanwhile, states in the US are reporting hundreds of "breakthrough cases" of fully vaccinated people.

So, the data we have indicates naturally gained immunity is stronger than vaccinated immunity.

It's funny how many people treat nuanced, data driven discussion like this as heresy to be shamed and censored.

[1]https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/08/covid-19-reinfection-t...

People are capable of critizing the bad things that both FB and the Guardian have done

Thanks for the detailed criticisms, you raise some good points.

>4. China is praised multiple times for its "near-elimination of SARS-CoV-2", but the official data is comically suspicious[3]. A total of 4,851 deaths in a country of 1.4 billion people. That week of April 13, 2020 was rough.

Indeed, the same day China decided to censor all covid death counts was the same day Chinese activists who were reporting on covid deaths using Github were dissappeared.

https://github.com/Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/07/22/silenced-china-archivist...

Thank you for the detailed response. As a layperson, these specifics are over my head.

Assuming everything you say is true, that still would not rule out a lab leak of a virus collected from nature, would it?

>You can't do it in the time we've been able to handle viruses like this or modify them in the ways we can. You'd have needed to start a few decades ago, have tools that we've only just invented, and a huge number of willing test subjects.

Does this imply that covid19 has been circulating among humans for a very long time?

>The lab leak would have to be covered up by the Chinese authorities and the WHO would some how have had to be in on it.

Indeed. There's another important bit that you seem to be missing.

Did you know that Peter Daszak, one of the "reputable international scientists" you speak of who helped investigate and author that report was himself the project lead for the US funded gain of function research at the WIV?

Who would be more inclined or in a better position to cover that up than him?

>But you know what's interesting about that?

>We know about the CoV-1 leak because /the chinese scientists told us about it./

Sometimes humans tell the truth, sometimes humans don't.

Pointing to one group of people who told the truth, and asserting that means another group must be telling the truth is just silly.

Especially considering the former example was in regards to a small accident relative to potentially the greatest accident in human history.

I know I would be strongly inclined to lie if I was responsible for the accidental death of millions of people.

If a human being was not inclined to lie about their responsibility for greatest accident in human history, why would humans ever lie about any mistake?

Which part of #1 is false?

1.1 Gain of function research primarily uses samples collected from nature

1.2 and seeks to stimulate their evolution in as natural a way as possible to learn how viruses evolve in nature.

1.3 If such viruses were to escape the lab, they would appear "natural"

>I can say the vast majority of us are not qualified to answer the question either way though.

It's also worth noting that even the leading experts can get these things wrong, as was the case with the Sverdlovsk lab leak.

Soviet authorities covered it up by blaming local meat markets, and leading US experts concurred with them, only to reverse their conclusion 6 years later.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak#Acci...

Judging by the comments in this thread, it seems a lot of people are still unaware that:

1. Gain of function research primarily uses samples collected from nature, and seeks to stimulate their evolution in as natural a way as possible to learn how viruses evolve in nature. If such viruses were to escape the lab, they would appear "natural"

2. It's not xenophobic for people from the US to suggest the possibility of a lab leak, because the US was itself funding gain of function research on novel coronaviruses in the Wuhan BSL4 lab

3. Lab leaks happen more often than most people realize[1]

[1]https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/3/20/18260669/deadly...

Scientifically speaking, that's not true

>herd immunity: resistance to the spread of an infectious disease within a population that is based on pre-existing immunity of a high proportion of individuals as a result of previous infection or vaccination.

>later on passed it on to your parents or other elderly people, that is something entirely preventable.

Weren't those types of higher risk people the first ones to have the vaccine made available to them?

The answer is: it is not acceptable. Humans are awesome! Including you, even if you don't realize it!

Why is it unacceptable to say "racial group x sucks", but it is acceptable to say "the human race sucks"?

What do you mean "bright line"?

The difference is plainly obvious, Bob's forum has <100 users, FB has > 2,800,000,000 users

I've seen a lot of Big Tech engineers make this same quip to avoid having to take any responsibility for the horrible results of their maliciously designed systems.

>Welcome to humans. They suck.

If AI is being developed by humans who have anti-human beliefs like this, we are in trouble.

Locking down scientific information from the greater scientific community and the general population is a terrible and anti-scientific idea which we have seen implemented by many theocracies and authoritarian states throughout human history

An alternate scenario could also be the most at risk populations (elderly, obese, etc.) lockdown, while the young, healthy, low risk populations gain quick herd immunity

No, more agnostically I'm just saying we don't know what the ultimate nature of reality is.

Some people say consciousness is just matter, others say matter is just consciousness.

I do find it peculiarly interesting that it is seemingly inherently impossible to isolate and control for consciousness as a scientific variable

>I mean, it's all chemicals, right? It's chemicals all the way down.

That is a theory, not a scientific fact.

The current state of physics tells us we do not understand the fundamental nature of matter.

The current state of neuroscience tells us we do not understand the fundamental nature of consciousness either.

So saying "consciousness is just chemicals" is like saying "bankum is just gobledeygook"; the terms are not fully understood or defined on a fundamental level.

>you'd think that the four human coronaviruses that supposedly confer partial immunity against COVID-19 are endemic all over the world.

What data is there that indicates this is the case?

>the truth is that the field of psychiatry doesn't put much weight on "chemical imbalance" takes.

Plenty of psychiatrists still assume mental illness of all sorts are primarily caused by chemical imbalance, which is why so many of them solely rely on chemicals to treat mental illness.

"Schizophrenia is caused by a chemical imbalance and other changes in the brain."[1]

[1]https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...

When corporations censor people expressing skepticism of corporate profit motives, are they not helping to reinforce those beliefs?