https://archive.ph/8Y6jt

Comments are on and they're awful - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/03/opinion/covid-lab-leak.html#commentsContainer

  • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
    ·
    26 days ago

    No that’s not how this works. There are a so many things that could cause respiratory illnesses and the vast majority of them aren’t covid. Whatever you say was happening at ft detrick doesn’t have to be covid at all. You only believe it so because the narrative suits your particular bias. Again you’re doing exactly what the author of this article is doing, minus her capacity to fake scientific credibility for a general audience and her pro state departments bias.

    More importantly, if you even want to suggest it was covid you would have to be able to explain away the evidence we do have. That’s something the author of this article tries but fails to do. I don’t expect you’ll have better arguments than the papers she cites. You’d have better luck parroting what they say if you want to make your case.

    That said, I feel like I’m going to have a hard time convincing you you’re wrong because I doubt you understand anything about the science in question. You first need to understand that virologists can trace the evolution of a virus down to a precise timescale and lineage. Viruses mutate in a predictably rapidly but consistent rate. Think of their genetic code as like an atomic clock in a way. It’s so precise in fact that scientists can trace the origins of every circulating strain of Covid to a set of almost uniformly identical strains found in Wuhan. They can also pin down a precise time point for when those strains started spreading in humans. From that they can conclude that it is incredibly unlikely the virus was spreading in humans before reaching Wuhan. Additionally scientists can lay out the locations of where the virus was as it mutated and spread, not just globally but within Wuhan itself. That analysis shows us that the Wuhan wet market was the likely epicenter of the spread. There’s more but if you want to discuss further than that you’ll really need to read up on the tools and methods virologists use.

    That’s all to say that the evidence available makes any ft detrick scenario just so incredibly unlikely it’s not worth considering seriously. Seek truth from facts BMF and you’ll be much better at deducing when and how the state department is lying to you.

    • coolusername@lemmy.ml
      ·
      edit-2
      26 days ago

      Original strain isn't from Wuhan. https://web.archive.org/web/20200410111500/https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/covid-19-genetic-network-analysis-provides-snapshot-of-pandemic-origins

      Wastewater data also shows covid was present in Europe and the US before being discovered in Wuhan. Why are you so confident about something you haven't researched?

      • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
        ·
        26 days ago

        “It is a misinterpretation of our research to suggest that the novel coronavirus originated outside China”

        This is a direct quote from the scientist whose work you are trying to cite. It was added to the article because people like you were intentionally misinterpreting his work.

        https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/covid-19-genetic-network-analysis-provides-snapshot-of-pandemic-origins

        Don’t try this “something you haven’t researched” shit when you clearly don’t know the first thing about phylogenomics.