Please stay home!

David Baltz wrote:

Naturally-evolved, but genetically-modified.  Citation please for these "multiple credible scientists."  Don't make claims without evidence.  Oh, and don't reference the WHO which can't even bring themselves to say the word "Taiwan" because they are owned by the CCP.  It does appear that many of the CCP's running dogs in the US were in on the creation of the virus.  Nonetheless, it did come out one of the Wuhan labs (intentional or accidental) and was intentionally allowed to spread for at least two weeks before international flights were stopped--thus insuring a pandemic.  During those two weeks, China bought up as much PPE equipment as they could, causing shortages worldwide.

Trolling may resume...

A google search brings up dozens of results. I don't know why you ask for them, though, because you don't seem like the kind of person who would give them any credence. 

is a statement put out by the NIH.

From Cornell Alliance for Science.

The Director of National Intelligence concurs with the greater scientific community that it was neither man-made nor genetically modified.

But you believe Infowars has validity, so whatevs, man. You'll keep pursuing your alternate reality no matter what actual Subject Matter Experts say or publish.

David Baltz wrote:

Naturally-evolved, but genetically-modified.  Citation please for these "multiple credible scientists."  Don't make claims without evidence.  Oh, and don't reference the WHO which can't even bring themselves to say the word "Taiwan" because they are owned by the CCP.  It does appear that many of the CCP's running dogs in the US were in on the creation of the virus.  Nonetheless, it did come out one of the Wuhan labs (intentional or accidental) and was intentionally allowed to spread for at least two weeks before international flights were stopped--thus insuring a pandemic.  During those two weeks, China bought up as much PPE equipment as they could, causing shortages worldwide.

Trolling may resume...

So David, I assume you’ve read and understood the article you referenced. Can you tell me how it would be possible to distinguish the naturally occurring virus with the mutations that allow entry into human cells vs. the virus engineered to do so?

Always good to see Misty get in on the "locals say bla bla bla" train.

Kyle Edmondson wrote:

Exactly.  Instead, make your claim and provide a link to a genuine scientific article.  (No need for the two to connect in any way...)

Copy and paste “thinking” and then placing the onus to contradict endlessly spinning bullshit on the reader. So rewarding for all of us.

The big question is why our response to the virus in this country is the laughingstock of the world, not trying to get China to pay for the wall or whatever the fuck these knuckle dragging chuckleheads think is going to happen in the orange baboon’s search for shiny objects.

Matthew DeCesare wrote:

I read the paper (I'm a biogeochemist, not a virologist so it was a tough road but I got through it), nowhere does it mention genetic modification by scientists. No scientist modified the genetic code to "install" a bridge between bats and humans.

Seriously?  From the paper (and yes, I read it).  

To evaluate the potential genetic changes required for HKU4 to infect human cells, we reengineered HKU4 spike, aiming to build its capacity to mediate viral entry into human cells. To this end, we introduced two single mutations, S746R and N762A, into HKU4 spike. The S746R mutation was expected to restore the hPPC motif in HKU4 spike, whereas the N762A mutation likely disrupted the potential N-linked glycosylation site in the hECP motif in HKU4 spike.

And for those who still think it came from InfoWars, can you please actually click on the link and look at the heading?  (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524054/ ) National Institute of Health.

Continue with the puerile reflexive insults...

David Baltz wrote:

Seriously?  From the paper (and yes, I read it).  

And for those who still think it came from InfoWars, can you please actually click on the link and look at the heading?  (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524054/ ) National Institute of Health.

Continue with the puerile reflexive insults...

All I need to disqualify your thoughts is you earlier typifying 500,000 “flu” deaths a year as acceptable. I appreciate the raising of the acceptable deaths bar though, it points to an acceptance of failure we’ve seen from the very top. 

You don’t seem to understand what herd immunity entails without a vaccine in place. Maybe you don’t believe in that sort of thing.

David Baltz wrote:

Seriously?  From the paper (and yes, I read it).  

And for those who still think it came from InfoWars, can you please actually click on the link and look at the heading?  (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524054/ ) National Institute of Health.

Continue with the puerile reflexive insults...

"we reengineered HKU4 spike"
Exactly, they never messed with reengineering the MERS-COV!!! Nowhere in the paper will you find them messing about with MERS-cov! 

Matthew DeCesare wrote:

I read the paper (I'm a biogeochemist, not a virologist so it was a tough road but I got through it), nowhere does it mention genetic modification by scientists. No scientist modified the genetic code to "install" a bridge between bats and humans. "MERS-CoV spike already contained both of these mutations, explaining why MERS-CoV is capable of infecting human cells." Hopefully to clarify, cancer is a "genetic-mutation" – if you know someone with cancer I'm sure they can tell you a scientist didn't sneak into their bedroom at night to modify their cells.
Please people, read with an open mind and not a preconception to find evidence. You can prove anything to yourself my misunderstanding. Try to research subjects your don't understand before believing anything.

Sorry Mathew, this is not entirely true in this case. The mutations were identified in presumably naturally occurring virus. But those mutations were also engineered into non-mutated virus to confirm those mutations conferred ability to infect human cells. The altered proteins were then also mutated in reverse to show that thus blocked the ability to infect human cells. 

csproul wrote:

Sorry Mathew, this is not entirely true in this case. The mutations were identified in presumably naturally occurring virus. But those mutations were also engineered into non-mutated virus to confirm those mutations conferred ability to infect human cells. The altered proteins were then also mutated in reverse to show that thus blocked the ability to infect human cells. 

Thank you for clarification.

Dan Daugherty wrote:

Does a pandemic require liability or full coverage? 

neither, merely faith.

Matthew DeCesare wrote:

Thank you for clarification.

It looks like they re-engineered the spike protein from  HKU-4 so that human processes would recogocnize it. HKU-4 does not naturally infect human cells because the human protease do not cleave  the potion of the spike allowing cell fusion, as is the case with MERS-CoV. That engineered HKU-4 spike protein was then introduced into a completely different retrovirus, ie neither the HKU-4 or the MERS-CoV,  and showed that it could infect human cells. The alteration they made to MERS-C0V was to change the spike proteins to look more like the HKU-4  spike and thus not able to infect human cells.

So you were kind of right. They made no mutations to HKU-4 to allow that virus to recognize human cells. The spike mutation was added to an unrelated retrovirus. And the mutation made to MERS-Cov eliminated its ability to infect human cells. BTW, I also believe that the WT and engineered HKU-spike proteins used to introduce into the retrovirus were epitope tagged, meaning it would be easy in this case to distinguish naturally occurring spike proteins that contained the human protease sites from those engineered to contain those cleavage sites. So if the same strategy had been used to create a HKU-4 that was capable of infecting human cells, it would be recognizable by that epitope tag.

David Baltz wrote: And for those who still think it came from InfoWars, can you please actually click on the link and look at the heading?  (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4524054/ ) National Institute of Health.

Continue with the puerile reflexive insults...

We know it didn't come from Infowars. The point is that anyone who takes Alex Jones and Infowars even slightly seriously or cites this disgusting man and his postulations as worthy of any intellectual regard is someone whose arguments, regardless of topic, should automatically be given short shrift (at best). This isn't a reflexive insult. I've already taken the time to understand exactly what Alex Jones followers are willing to believe in. Can't speak for others but I imagine they have done the same.

csproul wrote:

It looks like they re-engineered the spike protein from  HKU-4 so that human processes would recogocnize it. HKU-4 does not naturally infect human cells because the human protease do not cleave  the potion of the spike allowing cell fusion, as is the case with MERS-CoV. That engineered HKU-4 spike protein was then introduced into a completely different retrovirus, ie neither the HKU-4 or the MERS-CoV,  and showed that it could infect human cells. The alteration they made to MERS-C0V was to change the spike proteins to look more like the HKU-4  spike and thus not able to infect human cells.

So you were kind of right. They made no mutations to HKU-4 to allow that virus to recognize human cells. The spike mutation was added to an unrelated retrovirus. And the mutation made to MERS-Cov eliminated its ability to infect human cells. BTW, I also believe that the WT and engineered HKU-spike proteins used to introduce into the retrovirus were epitope tagged, meaning it would be easy in this case to distinguish naturally occurring spike proteins that contained the human protease sites from those engineered to contain those cleavage sites. So if the same strategy had been used to create a HKU-4 that was capable of infecting human cells, it would be recognizable by that epitope tag.

This is a good adult response.  Bravo!

While this 2015 paper doesn't specifically say they "re-engineered" HKU-4, would you say that the Wuhan lab apparently possessed the capability to "re-engineer" HKU-4 or any other virus of the SARS strain (with or without an epitope tag)?  

Folks, This type of research makes nuclear weapons research seem like development of a pop gun.  While this is a fairly mild biological weapon with a mortality rate of 1-3%, it has already killed a quarter of a million people--comparable to the deaths from both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs--and the resulting economic chaos will kill even more.  Can you imagine if the lab had 'accidentally' released MERS, a strain which has a mortality rate around 34%?  We would potentially be looking at more than two billion deaths and a return to the dark ages!  The fact that the NIH was funding these folks is simply stunning.

This type of research makes nuclear weapons research seem like development of a pop gun. 

Na, this type of research allows us to better understand how to deal with stuff like this when it inevitably happens.

While this is a fairly mild biological weapon 

Idiot. It is a Democrat hoax. Everyone knows that. It will be over by April.

Wayne Curr wrote:
Idiot. It is a Democrat hoax. Everyone knows that. It will be over by April.

Bigly.

David Baltz wrote:

This is a good adult response.  Bravo!

While this 2015 paper doesn't specifically say they "re-engineered" HKU-4, would you say that the Wuhan lab apparently possessed the capability to "re-engineer" HKU-4 or any other virus of the SARS strain (with or without an epitope tag)?  

Folks, This type of research makes nuclear weapons research seem like development of a pop gun.  While this is a fairly mild biological weapon with a mortality rate of 1-3%, it has already killed a quarter of a million people--comparable to the deaths from both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs--and the resulting economic chaos will kill even more.  Can you imagine if the lab had 'accidentally' released MERS, a strain which has a mortality rate around 34%?  We would potentially be looking at more than two billion deaths and a return to the dark ages!  The fact that the NIH was funding these folks is simply stunning.

Biological weapon. That’s a stretch and I still see nothing that suggests this was intentional. These type of science conspiracy theories are exactly that. Lol...pretty much every biology lab in the world has the capability to do this if they know what to target. Hell, I’m a terrible biologist, and I’m pretty certain I could have gotten this work done if someone else had found the target for me. Why do you think they didn’t engineer HKU-4 and instead used the retrovirus? At least part of the reason is to intentionally make the experiment safer.

Great guest on the Ralph Nader radio hour this week. Some interesting Covid 19 info, and the real world f ups and potential future fixes, and a second guest worth listening to, too. Better than bickering over Alex Jones.

David Baltz wrote:

Rather than relying on Op-eds from ABC News, I go to the source:

Two Mutations Were Critical for Bat-to-Human Transmission of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus

This is but one of many papers published by the Wuhan scientists who had developed the techniques to modify natural SARS-like bat viruses to infect humans.  Once the first cases were made public and Wuhan placed under lock down, over 50 international flights were allowed out of Wuhan in what could be interpreted as the intentional cause of the pandemic.

Hey, did you hear that the Clintons were running child prostitutes through a pizza parlor? 

Did you know the moon landing was faked and that Obama killed JFK?

It's an outrage!

Wayne Curr wrote:
Na, this type of research allows us to better understand how to deal with stuff like this when it inevitably happens.

Idiot. It is a Democrat hoax. Everyone knows that. It will be over by April.

Actually, it was back in February or March that our expert-in-chief told us that we only had 15 cases and we would soon be down to zero. It was, as he predicted, a miracle!

Robert S wrote:

Hey, did you hear that the Clintons were running child prostitutes through a pizza parlor? 

Did you know the moon landing was faked and that Obama killed JFK?

It's an outrage!

JFK was assassinated in '63 and Obama was born in '61, therefore your little conspiracy theory just has one teeny tiny hole in it... Obama was still in Kenya at that time, checkmate atheist.