I don't think that we would have done anything differently if we knew that China was responsible. It wouldn't have changed our treatments or vaccination strategies or anything. Could it have made some people who are crazy against China feel differently? Maybe. I don't think it would have made the doofuses who took ivermectin act differently though.
"Ivermectin: an award-winning drug with expected antiviral activity against COVID-19... with demonstrated antiviral activity against a number of DNA and RNA viruses, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)"
Whether or not ivermectin ultimately turned out to be efficacious against Covid19 is not the main point, it was/is a widely known, completely safe, anti-viral, and while everything else in the toolbag was being thrown at Covid19, ivermectin was a good candidate, especially since it showed positive results in some clinical conditions. (and I've heard it pointed out that in order to get profitable approval for experimental mRNA vaccines to be released, there was a huge financial incentive to declare a priori that ivermectin did not work)
If you "believe in science" you wouldn't call people who tried ivermectin "doofuses", doing so you're simply looking in the doofus mirror.
It's best not to join one partisan camp or the other and politicize science, but look at evidence. Ivermectin has well known antiviral properties, and coronavirus is a virus.
> I don't think that we would have done anything differently if we knew that China was responsible
you are fixating on the wrong aspect. Whether or not covid19 is the result of the leak of "man-made" gain-of-function research is extremely important to what we do in the future. The public has a right to know.
you keep arguing your own point here, that "no harm is no foul and we wouldn't have done anything differently so we don't need to look" and to me that's simply you saying you support the politics that played out and you don't want to look at it. To me, science was ignored in favor of politics and it's all exactly what I want to look at.
I just don't buy the international conspiracy to block ivermectin. I've considered it and discussed it with my poor father who became convinced by Fox News and endless Facebook forwarded postings. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of drugs and substances that have an antiviral effect. Ivermectin was one that was tested and there were some early results that were positive but then later with more thorough testing it didn't appear as efficacious. There are plenty of other drugs that were also promoted as blocking COVID, that lupus drug. It became a conservative conspiratorial fantasy that there was a widespread governmental attempt to block them from using other things than coronavirus vaccines. My father went out and found alternative sources for these substances. Fortunately he never took any of them.
I do think knowing the actual source of COVID is good information to have.
People were blocked from getting ivermectin prescriptions. Doctors were told not to write them. Pharmacies were told not to fill them. There was no conspiracy. It was done completely openly. It was just decided by "the scientists" and effectively banned from the mainline medical system. Any doctor working in a network healthcare system (most of them) was basically told they could not prescribe it.
Given it's long history and safety, why was this necessary? Much is learned in medicine by practitioners trying things and sharing their results amongst each other.
And if they did, they'd lose their license. Which would happen because there sure were a lot of people who were super happy to dime out anybody breaking covid rules.
It astounds me how so many people continue to buy into the mainstream covid narrative. It just doesn't make any sense. Just doesn't add up. It never did.
> I just don't buy the international conspiracy to block ivermectin.
I agree, there is no conspiracy. It is just that when scientists, journalists and public servants are usually on the same side of the political spectrum, there is no need to central coordination (conspiracy). Society seems more polarized than recent times which leads to greater uniformity of ideas on each side.
Regarding Ivermectin, though the evidence was flimsy, it got quickly identified by one side as a problem because it put at risk some core beliefs on how to combat the pandemic (lockdowns, forced vaccination, sanitary passes). Even though the evidence for some of these beliefs were also flimsy or speculative.
The evidence was flimsy that vaccinations prevented trasmission of the disease, but that didn't stop all the "experts" spreading damaging misinformation about it though. Therefore evidence was not among the criteria that governed their decision making, so their decisions about ivermectin must have been motivated by something else.
> Our results demonstrate that vaccinations reduce susceptibility to infection as well as infectiousness, which should be considered by policy makers when seeking to understand the public health impact of vaccination against transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
> The SAR [secondary attack rate] in household contacts exposed to the delta variant was 25% (95% CI 18–33) for fully vaccinated individuals compared with 38% (24–53) in unvaccinated individuals.
> SAR was 35% and 23% for unvaccinated and vaccinated delta variant exposed contacts, respectively. SAR was 44% and 41% for unvaccinated and vaccinated omicron exposed contacts, respectively. Booster dose immunisation of contacts or vaccination of index cases reduced SAR of vaccinated omicron variant exposed contacts.
> For outpatients, there is currently low‐ to high‐certainty evidence that ivermectin has no beneficial effect for people with COVID‐19. Based on the very low‐certainty evidence for inpatients, we are still uncertain whether ivermectin prevents death or clinical worsening or increases serious adverse events, while there is low‐certainty evidence that it has no beneficial effect regarding clinical improvement, viral clearance and adverse events. No evidence is available on ivermectin to prevent SARS‐CoV‐2 infection.
> The evidence suggests that ivermectin does not reduce mortality risk and the risk of mechanical ventilation requirement. Although we did not observe an increase in the risk of adverse effects, the evidence is very uncertain regarding this endpoint.
> It is just that when scientists, journalists and public servants are usually on the same side of the political spectrum, there is no need to central coordination (conspiracy).
The last time this happened we created the Nuremberg Code.
I'll never forget how inhumanely some people were treated and how little some truly care for bodily autonomy. The coercion and gaslighting from all directions has been nauseating. The trust I lost in so many institutions wont be replaced anytime soon, perhaps ever.
What would a modern day Nuremberg trial look like?
> Firstly, it is important to note that the drug was only tested in vitro using a single line of monkey kidney cells engineered to express human signaling lymphocytic activation molecule (SLAM), also known as CDw150, which is a receptor for the measles virus
> Also, ivermectin has not been tested in any pulmonary cell lines, which are critical for SARS-CoV-2 in humans
> Furthermore, these authors did not show whether the reduction seen in RNA levels of SARS-CoV-2 following treatment with ivermectin would indeed lead to decreased infectious virus titers.
> Importantly, the drug concentration used in the study (5 μM) to block SARS-CoV-2 was 35-fold higher than the one approved by the FDA for treatment of parasitic diseases
"demonstrated" is doing a lot of lifting in that abstract given those caveats (and there's several more pages of caveats and "could", "maybe", "might", "may" hedging after those.)
Some of them said that. Many of them explicitly told the public that masks wouldn't help. However impeccable your motives for doing so, lying to the public should destroy your credibility.
> I mean, to be fair -- they said we needed to conserve all the masks we had for medical staff because they had no idea what was coming.
Its also worth noting that this was the direct result of off-shoring manufacturing to China, who could then threaten to withhold delivery of new PPE if they continued to pursuit the lab leak theory at the same time they were curtailing protests in Hong Kong and disspearing physicians who were speaking out about the severity of COVID and implementing their zero COVID policy and physically barricading people in their homes or comically netting them on the street.
I think HN has a this terrible need to play 'but my guy/source is more trust worthy because of X' the truth is all sides have an agenda, what I think is not in question is how revealing it was how little they respect the intelligence of the general public in what was thought to be a dire health crisis.
That's the ONLY real take away, sitting here and trying to distract from this fact, is the stark realization that there is a direct funding source for GoF viral studies provided by the NIH [0] shows that no party is innocent here.
In addition to that the CCP didn't allow investigations to take place effectively from the international community, and the subsequent floods that happened in Wuhan in 2020 ensured that the truth will likely never be known which is the best resolution to what is likely a complete debacle of epic proportions as plausible deniability and saber rattling in the Taiwan straight and the Russian invasion of Ukraine were enough to sweep things under the rug.
I unlike e rest of my friends worked in the health sciences, and to be honest I was the first to mention in my circle of friends that this was likely an unitentional lab leak situation I got the stink eye; it was because I saw what was happening in November in Hong Kong in '19 during the aftermath of the protests in the Summer that had escalated in intensity and were leading what was outright revolution as momentum increased. The Bird flu epidemic overwhelmed and devastated the medical system in HK and the CCP knew that (it was overrun by ill mainlanders) used that very real trauma and weaponized it in order force people to stop te protests in order to pass the NSL, jail dissidents and then weaponized zero COVID as a policy to illegally annex Hong Kong in direct violation of the hand-over and international law.
What was worse is the CCP forced the borders open during covid fir and used mainlanders as vectors for Chinese nationals into HK (and blatantly ignored or outright purposely spread infection) further prolonging and increasing infection rates needed to justify these measures in what was an unprecedented and alarming show of display as Lam and the police followed a more PLA playbook to handling the domestic situation.
Furthermore, the exiled virologist (Dr. Li-Meng Yan) who worked on at the WIV but was scrubbed fled the mainland and came out about the GoF work she had done there, but sadly because she was platformed by Trump affiliates her claims and work were disregarded showing how divisive and polarizing people were on this matter, despite the fact that the physician who spoke out about COVID early on died a terrible and painful death because the CCP wanted to make an example of him. This was wen clubhouse let mainlanders use a more open platform to communicate online mind you and riots were breaking out.
Again, if you think that health sciences isn't at it's core an immensely corrupt system and enterprise it's only because you neither worked in it or are benefiting from it being so. On need only look at the reputations pharma has, people like the Sacklers are only exploiting a very clear flaw in the medial system and know they can ultimately get a way with it due to the well understood conflicts of interests. It's the path of least resistance, and to think that nation states aren't looking out for their own interests an will lie and manipulate the population is the height of willful ignorance, especially since it's so very clearly effective: as seen here.
> Some of them said that. Many of them explicitly told the public that masks wouldn't help. However impeccable your motives for doing so, lying to the public should destroy your credibility.
As an Anarchist, if that were true than the entire enterprise of politics should collapse over night, but it doesn't because it is perhpas the most wide and willfully held form of ignorance and denial: we are too fixated on a chieftain based social order as a Species. Until we overcome this immense defect in the Human condition, you can rest assured that the most unscrupulous amongst us will continue to benefit and profit from this flawed system.
On one hand: yes, more data will inform future technical approaches and procedures.
On the other hand: no, people are technically ignorant, xenophobic, and more willing to scapegoat and project anger than reflect on their own behavior.
I don't like being lied or condescended to, just because most people can't handle the information. Also, it often backfires.
Like, in early 2020, when the CDC said masks were unnecessary, then that N95s were unnecessary, it was glaringly obvious that this was propaganda to keep the public from panic-buying PPE and causing shortages.
Some people believed them, took inadequate protections, got sick or died. It led to ineffective safety policies. It torched the CDC's credibility right out of the gate. They got called out later for flip-flopping. It led to "trust the science" being so ridiculed. Mostly, I got mad that it was such an obvious lie.
This. The many little white lies killed trust in institutions.
People knew things were not adding up. The mistrust drive them to search and search for answers, and if you search long enough on internet, something will turn up because search engine don't have discernment.
That created the breeding ground for conspiracy theorist to gain unprecedented audience.
It's ridiculed because trust was immediately violated, and trust is not what science is built on. However just being an everything skeptic without any scientific education is not good either.
The problem was the politicization, the dishonesty, the corruption.
Both camps were wrong plenty of times, none would admit to it, and public discourse suffered because neither side was willing to cede ground to actual science.
> The problem was the politicization, the dishonesty, the corruption.
This one part is correct. For example, when they admitted to being wrong about masks after they had better information, lunatics claimed they were lying and corrupt. And they have been spreading wild-eyed propaganda to this day.
It wasn't just about waiting for better information, though. The restaurant infection in Washington, where the spread of the virus matched convection currents from the air conditioning, along with the super spreader events from singing, etc. should have immediately made them suspect aerosol transmission. There were numerous, obvious clues about it from the beginning, but it took until late 2020 for them to acknowledge - far after independent virologists had raised alarms.
The argument, as far as I can tell, was just that the effect of different kinds of masks on covid transmission hadn't yet been studied. Which means that data was a priority, sure, but recommending masks as an initial precaution against an extremely contagious novel respiratory virus just seems sensible.
I've lived in many US states, including in the south, and I have not met very many of these ignorant, xenophopic, scapegoat-seeking people that everyone claims to be worried about. Seems like those people, if they exist in any significant numbers, are just an excuse to lie to the public "for their own good".
If you didn't meet those people, then either you're ignorant yourself -(with all due respect), or you are not looking closely.
I'm from the south. I went to high school there, I got my college degree from there. I live there from the time I was born until my mid-20s. The south is full of racist, horrible people, it was common in my youth to hear people talk badly about Jewish people, people dropped the n word. I heard people talking about non-Christians shouldn't get to vote. I heard plenty of sexist words about women for men. It just beggars belief that you would never hear this kind of speech.
I just don't commonly hear this on the west coast in the US like I did in my years in the south. And unfortunately I still hear it when I go to visit.
Not everyone is like that! But enough people are that, so that you're going to encounter it over and over again.
As someone living in the South, I would really appreciate it if you stopped tarring everyone who lives in a Southern state as a "racist horrible person". There are many millions of people who live in the South.
Some of them are racist, millions of them are not.
When I was a kid in the south my barber constantly talked about the problems of black people and that he saw crosses being burned and that he didn't want his daughter to like black boys. I'm not making this up! They literally burned crosses in the town I grew up in.
In my very first comment I said that not all people are like that. Yet sadly, to this day, I constantly do meet people making casual racist comments when I go to the south. And when I say the south, I include the state where I was born which is one of the states that fought against the US government in the civil war.
Not all people are like that but there is an issue that a lot of people are like that.
Alabama had a ban on interracial marriage in its state constitution. Struck down in the 60s by SCOTUS but still on the books after that. When they put it to a referendum to repeal it from the text of the law - the vote was surprisingly close:
> The amendment was approved with 59.5% voting yes, a 19 percentage point margin, though 25 of Alabama's 67 counties voted against it.
And Oregon didn't repeal its black exclusion laws until 2002.
And just over 20 years before that there were riots in Boston over desegregation of schools.
It's so funny, this romantic notion that many from the north have of how supposedly enlightened they are, while the south is a bunch of backwater hicks. I know, I used to have it too, as did my wife then, who was Canadian. People thought we were crazy when we moved to Texas.
I really had my eyes opened. I encountered far more tolerance in Texas than anything I'd ever experienced up north.
Try being black in some communities in Vermont. See how well you do. Compare it with New Orleans.
Of course you can find racism and racist enclaves anywhere, but this asinine idea that "the south" is some sort of backwater racist hole while the north is a pristine liberal utopia is nonsense.
Also, I hate to disabuse you further, but I should also point out that the population of the capital of Alabama, Montgomery, is 60% black and 30% white. Whites are firmly a minority in the capital.
As a Canadian I was tempted to use my own experiences of people spouting stuff that made me think I had fallen in a time warp to the 1950s. But that's subjective. And the above thread was about the southern USA.
I was not trying to pile on the south bashing so much as to simply point out that pockets most people would consider remarkably regressive persist, not specifically in the south per se, as just in North America at all. I was particularly interested in the last bit: 60% majority in favour, yet 25 counties majority against. Localized, varies by community. It's like that in Ontario too.
As someone who's lived all over, the primary difference in the south is that there are large African American populations.
Try being black in South Dakota or Maine.
Racism and othering exists everywhere, but physical proximity and interaction with the class in question moderates it heavily. It's harder to hate someone you know personally: that's why segregationists were such staunch opponents of any social integration.
> On the other hand: no, people are technically ignorant, xenophobic, and more willing to scapegoat and project anger than reflect on their own behavior.
Doesn't matter. Truth should be prioritized first. There are mechanisms to deal with Xenophobia and hate and those should be strengthened.
Seems like the future would be better served by putting safeguards in whether or not China was responsible. What safeguards specifically are you proposing, and why do they demand a culprit?
OTOH if we knew that China was responsible, won't the future be better served by putting safeguards to prevent a worse thing happening again?