https://www.wsj.com/articles/c...na-lab-leak-807b7b0a

I was excoriated for saying this here.

No matter.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/t...es-mandates-b3ba912c

"clerisy"-- new word to me.

Why are you fighting this so hard?

Kind of hard to follow the controversy without being able to read the WSJ owing to the paywall.

To the best of my recollection there were three basic themes of controversies (having to do with the origin of the pandemic - not counting whether there were any sleazy doings to do with its spread across borders):

1) whether the virus originated via bat consumption.

2) whether the virus originated by a leak from Chinese labs where they were experimenting on it

3) whether the Chinese had been conducting secret "gain of function" research (ways to make the original virus more powerful by some kind of reverse genomic engineering which - ? - involved recombinant studies), Also, that the US had funded this at least in part, by contributing $ and/or cooperative studies.

(Spearheaded especially by the Evil Fauci.)

Apart from your virulent [sic] hatred of Fauci and his alleged lies, I thought the third claims were thes one you most supported and which was most rebutted on WTF.

*Still don't have a clue why you or anybody would think the Chinese had a motive for this "gain of function" research, all the less why the US would support it.
(But again, since I don't have access to your linked articles, I don't know just what developments to the various controversies they discuss - and to which you are pointing.)

The assessment by the Energy Department was made with low confidence. In case that matters.

Here’s a link that should let you read the WSJ article online.

Here’s an article on the same subject from The NY Times today. Don’t know if it’s behind a paywall.

Lab Leak

Thanks Adagio and RP for your links!

Luckily, I subscribe to the NYT, but if there's any workaround to access WSJ articles, I'd love to know it, Adagio.

As near as I can grasp even reading (cursorily) both articles, they seem to involve a back and forth about the US' hypotheses about the origin of the virus.

Whether it resulted from some kind of viral cross-species leap in the large Wuhan (food sourcing) animal market.

Or whether it resulted from a leak in the virus laboratories (also in Wuhan). I gather one reason the lab exists is because the trauma of the SARS pandemic motivated China to step-up its research on dangerous viruses to avoid an even worse danger to our species.

[EDIT] It seems the big (latest) news is that the most current hypothesis is that the pandemic WAS caused by a leak from the WUHAN LABS.

(But again, nothing seems to allude to that supposed "gain of function" business.)

Why the lab and animal market are both in Wuhan, I still don't know. Is it because the exotic animal trade was seen as posing such an intrinsic risk of viral evolution (via animal to human transmission)? Or is it more complicated? (When was the virus lab first built? Is the Wuhan market the only such a huge trading area?)

I AM struck by the repeated allusion to the Chinese periodic attribution of the virus' origin being from America.

(Feeling a Covid-conundrum headache coming on again...)

"Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says
U.S. agency’s revised assessment is based on new intelligence

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress.

The shift by the Energy Department, which previously was undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office."

"Three Years Late, the Lancet Recognizes Natural Immunity
The public-health clerisy rediscovers a principle of immunology it derided
throughout the pandemic.

The Lancet medical journal this month published a review of 65 studies that concluded prior infection with Covid—i.e., natural immunity—is at least as protective as two doses of mRNA vaccines. The most surprising news was that the study made the mainstream press.

“Immunity acquired from a Covid infection is as protective as vaccination against severe illness and death, study finds,” NBC reported on Feb. 16. The study found that prior infection offered 78.6% protection against reinfection from the original Wuhan, Alpha or Delta variants at 40 weeks, which slipped to 36.1% against Omicron. Protection against severe illness remained around 90% across all variants after 40 weeks. These results exceed what other studies have found for two and even three mRNA doses."

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel:

“Immunity acquired from a Covid infection is as protective as vaccination against severe illness and death, study finds,”

That's good, if you managed to survive the first infection.

quote:

"Three Years Late, the Lancet Recognizes Natural Immunity
The public-health clerisy rediscovers a principle of immunology it derided
throughout the pandemic.

The Lancet medical journal this month published a review of 65 studies that concluded prior infection with Covid—i.e., natural immunity—is at least as protective as two doses of mRNA vaccines. The most surprising news was that the study made the mainstream press.

“Immunity acquired from a Covid infection is as protective as vaccination against severe illness and death, study finds,” NBC reported on Feb. 16. The study found that prior infection offered 78.6% protection against reinfection from the original Wuhan, Alpha or Delta variants at 40 weeks, which slipped to 36.1% against Omicron. Protection against severe illness remained around 90% across all variants after 40 weeks. These results exceed what other studies have found for two and even three mRNA doses."

I don't know what the source of the quote was, but it's not helpful science journalism. Comments like "three years late" indicate to me that the writer is probably more interested in getting people riled than reporting on new information. Three years ago, we didn't have this information. Now we do. That's really the story but it probably doesn't get the clicks.

I posted the NBC article (written by a doctor) about the Nature study right around the time it came out. Worth reading.

http://well-temperedforum.grou...983950897#3983950897

And getting back to the original lab leak topic...Axios has a good summary of the current status:

https://www.axios.com/2023/02/...ak-assessment-debate

I have always believed that a lab leak was a possibility. The problem was, and continues to be, that information is hard to come by. We're trying to do a jigsaw puzzle where we're missing a lot of pieces. Or we are the blind men trying to describe an elephant, an animal they've never seen before. Our guesses as to what the picture looks like are not very good. That's why we're seeing the differing conclusions and not much confidence in those conclusions coming from the various intelligence agencies.

We may never know what happened.

quote:

Originally posted by wtg:

quote:

"Three Years Late, the Lancet Recognizes Natural Immunity
The public-health clerisy rediscovers a principle of immunology it derided
throughout the pandemic.

The Lancet medical journal this month published a review of 65 studies that concluded prior infection with Covid—i.e., natural immunity—is at least as protective as two doses of mRNA vaccines. The most surprising news was that the study made the mainstream press.

“Immunity acquired from a Covid infection is as protective as vaccination against severe illness and death, study finds,” NBC reported on Feb. 16. The study found that prior infection offered 78.6% protection against reinfection from the original Wuhan, Alpha or Delta variants at 40 weeks, which slipped to 36.1% against Omicron. Protection against severe illness remained around 90% across all variants after 40 weeks. These results exceed what other studies have found for two and even three mRNA doses."

I don't know what the source of the quote was, but it's not helpful science journalism. Comments like "three years late" indicate to me that the writer is probably more interested in getting people riled than reporting on new information. Three years ago, we didn't have this information. Now we do. That's really the story but it probably doesn't get the clicks.

I posted the NBC article (written by a doctor) about the Nature study right around the time it came out. Worth reading.

http://well-temperedforum.grou...983950

897#3983950897

This link isn't science journalism. It's an opinion piece.

The citation in my first link is impeccable.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

quote:

Originally posted by Amanda:
Thanks Adagio and RP for your links!

Luckily, I subscribe to the NYT, but if there's any workaround to access WSJ articles, I'd love to know it, Adagio.

Mr. AM has a subscription, so I used the free share button. I don’t know of a way to get around, without a subscription. But here it is!

The NBC link I posted is the one that the author of the op Ed you quoted is commenting on.