• NEW! LOWEST RATES EVER -- SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE VERY BEST PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! Welcome to The Paracast+, eight years young! For a low subscription fee, you can download the ad-free version of The Paracast and the exclusive, member-only, After The Paracast bonus podcast, featuring color commentary, exclusive interviews, the continuation of interviews that began on the main episode of The Paracast. We also offer lifetime memberships! Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! You can sign up right here!

    Subscribe to The Paracast Newsletter!

COVID-19 News


Status
Not open for further replies.
It only shows that black and white solutions don't work. But when politics are thrown into the picture, shades of gray become impossible to discuss.
 
Of course Randall will dispute all this, but in light of the erratic testing in the U.S., it's very likely far more people have been infected than has been estimated. Could be several times more.

I liked your post just because you alluded to me in a manner that preserves my reputation as a rabble-rouser :p. Unfortunately I don't have sufficient reason to dispute that more people than estimated have been infected. Given that between 40 and 90% of the people who are infected never even know they have COVID, it's entirely possible.

What I do have a problem with is the death count presumption. The way death counts from covid have been skewed by changes to mortality reporting requirements brought-in during the pandemic can mean a difference of literally millions upon millions in the global statistical scheme. It's all been documented in the thread, so no point in rehashing that evidence.

And what is left out ( as usual ) are all those otherwise perfectly healthy people who have died and will die in the future as collateral damage from pandemic management. The following article was from a year ago. How many more since then?


The health care system needs expanding, but increasing capacity has consistently been at the bottom of the priority list, unless you're in China, where they can build a new hospital in 10 days.


Dr John Lee on Covid - Is the cure worse than the disease?​


 
Last edited:
Unfortunately, there are not very savory motives behind some of the claims of a deliberate intent by the Chinese to release a virus into the wild. It has resulted, alas, in a rise in hate crimes and bad treatment among asians in the U.S. that resulted in a recent law signed by President Biden. That's the outcome of the "Chinese Virus" mantra from some politicos.

There's that sensitivity, but certainly the possibility of an accident hasn't been totally dismissed.
 
Basically there will always be the threat of pandemics. This sorry episode was a wake up call. In the U.S., they had a plan, but the previous occupant of the White House, who wants us to believe he is still President, ignored that plan, which the Obama administration gave them at the transition to deal with such happenstances.
 
Gene, this is not just US issue, its the same all over the world. They all have been warned many, many times. Nothing has happened really.

However there has been a huge, major improvement on how to tackle this via genetics. That has become independent of whoever is in the White House or in the Chair of the EU Commission. Its mRNA based approach. In this modern era, its also possible the reverse-engineer the new vaccines, and that has been precisely done:
Reverse Engineering the source code of the BioNTech/Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine - Articles
(That is real hard core article, but if you understand even some of it, the new mRNA vaccines - both Biontech and Moderna - are ingenious.)

We do not live in the 80's anymore, it is perfectly doable to create a new vaccine in a few months now. Give few years and it will be weeks. There is absolutely no need anymore to validate it for 10 years. It will actually be like Star Trek!

So for the forseaable future, the battle is going to rage on. I'm confident that the viruses lose.
 
In the European press, they are not still ruling out that COVID came from a lab in China...
It's obvious SARS-CoV-2 came from a lab, but to prevent all the associated political fallout, they've done a lot of damage control.
 
Possible, yes. Obvious, no unless you look at the conspiracies that claim China did it all deliberately to screw up the rest of the world that they need for commerce and to grow their economies.
 
Possible, yes. Obvious, no unless you look at the conspiracies that claim China did it all deliberately to screw up the rest of the world that they need for commerce and to grow their economies.
Obviousness in this context is an expression that doesn't mean the same as "provable". It's like "We know he did it, but we can't prove it." Also I'll admit that to the general public, it's also not obvious. You need to dig, but for anyone who looks close enough at the facts as we know them, it is totally obvious in this context.

Do I really need to go back and list all the reasons why? Start with the 60 Minutes Australia exposé, and as much as you don't like the Epoch Times for the way they have exploited, or allowed by proxy their print carriers to be exploited, their investigation into the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is still one of the best I've seen yet. Judge it for it's content rather than its affiliation.
 
I have no confidence in anything that Epoch Times reports.

Actually, my growing opinion is that we may never know the source of "Patient Zero."

But W.H.O. is clearly not dismissing a lab accident even if they give it lower probability. That it was a deliberate act on the part of the Chinese government is not logical, but I suppose a rogue element acting irresponsibility or out of madness could have done anything. The may also explain the rush to hide the facts at the beginning, and then the rush to post the genome for the virus in early January 2020, from which the vaccines were developed.
 
Former FDA Director Dr. Scott Gottlieb said, as paraphrased in a published report, that "it’s unlikely we’ll ever know for sure. Unless there is a whistleblower or regime change in China, he said any evidence supporting the lab leak hypothesis won’t likely surface."

That the authorities won't say for sure these days it could not have originated from a lab accident gives that possibility more credibility.

More to the point, how many labs around the world have had leaks of viruses, only they didn't cause worldwide pandemics? If it's a lab leak, it's a wake-up call to be far more careful. Obviously such things don't just happen in the movies.
 
And this story actually gives high credibility to the possibility of a lab accident:


It doesn't require a deep dark conspiracy about the Chinese Communist Party wanting to infect the rest of the planet so that they totally screw up their commerce with them.
 
And one more thing:

It is to be expected that a local or national government might want to hide bad news. However the virus got out, whether in the wild market or via a lab error, they wouldn't have wanted it to be disclosed until there was no choice.

The Chinese government still doesn't want outsiders to poke around too much, which is why I suggested that the final solution may never be found. Scientists can get an idea by looking at the DNA of the virus and such to trace its potential progression. But that probably wouldn't indicate whether it was a transmission from bats to a lab accident. The WSJ story about three sick researchers may actually help us to find "Patient Zero."
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top