6 ms·

> In 2020, he realises that specifically mentioning SARS and Coronavirus in a blog post about pandemics will seem relevant or look prescient so he adds it back

> In 2020, he realises that specifically mentioning SARS and Coronavirus in a blog post about pandemics will seem relevant or look prescient so he adds it back into the quote And that’s the problem isn’t it? He claims that he talked about the risks of Coronaviruses before the pandemic, and yet the only evidence is an article about biolab security (frankly not particularly relevant unless he’s insinuating that’s the origin of this virus too) amended well after the current pandemic began.

lhnz 6y ago
An untouched quote from his article: > Experiments on viruses that could cause a > global pandemic killing many millions were > halted but were recently cleared to resume > and will be conducted in these ‘top > security’ labs. He was talking about pandemics and quoting an article which does mention SARS and coronavirus. This is a tiny gotcha "oh but you didn't technically use the word SARS or coronavirus yourself when quoting the article the first time so it doesn't count".
- pmachinery 6y ago
  So when he quoted a report on pandemic threats and specifically left out the parts about coronavirus that shows he was talking about coronavirus?
  - thu2111 6y ago
    It's pretty close. I mean, he wasn't talking about specifically coronaviruses, because that's not the only kind of virus that could escape from a biolab. But he contracted discussion of SARS and coronaviruses to "[An example]". Editing old blog posts is probably not the right way to do this. But bear in mind the whole biolab escape theory is entirely plausible. Such things have happened before. The 2007 foot and mouth epidemic in the UK was traced back to an escape from a lab at Pirbright. There were at least two outbreaks of Marburg Virus (ebola) in the USSR due to lab escapes. I don't really understand the certainty many people here seem to have, about how it couldn't possibly have come from the Wuhan lab. How could you know that? Such escapes have happened repeatedly, that was sort of the point of Cummings' blog post.
    - DanBC 6y ago
      So, the problem is being poorly reported. At his press conference Cummings said that he was definitely not in favour of herd immunity, and was not against lockdown. And he said that he could prove this because of his writing about coronavirus. To me the problem isn't that he edited the blog to include the word coronavirus (because I agree, it's pretty clear he was talking about coronaviruses and flu viruses). The problem is that his blog post says nothing about lockdown or herd immunity. It's a moderately interesting idea about increasing security at biolabs. So his blog doesn't support his claims.
      - lhnz 6y ago
        > Cummings said that he was definitely not in favour of herd immunity, and was not against lockdown. Well, we already know that he was actively pushing for earlier lockdown within the SAGE meetings (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-28/top-aide-to-u-k-s-johnson-pushed-scientists-to-back-lockdown https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-28/top-aide-...) so he should be off the hook for that bit of misinformation (earlier in the year the media were trying very hard to make it seem like he was the architect of "herd immunity").
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - pmachinery 6y ago
      > It's pretty close. Imagine CNN has a report on the chances of Hillary and Donald in 2015. A few weeks later someone copies the stuff about Hillary's chances and makes no mention at all of Trump. After the 2016 election they then edit their post to paste in the Trump stuff and use that new edit to claim they were writing about Trump's chances a year before the election. Is that pretty close to the truth or is it virtually the complete opposite of the truth? > But he contracted discussion of SARS and coronaviruses to "[An example]". Not sure why you keep saying this. [An example] refers to the example that follows those words, about CDC labs, not an example that he specifically didn't mention.
jondubois 6y ago
The fact that he added the word 'coronavirus' does not change the fact that SARS (which he in fact did mention before) was a coronavirus. He just added the word 'coronavirus' next to SARS in an existing sentence to emphasize that SARS is a coronavirus. He updated his article but didn't really change its meaning. It's not that big a deal IMO. No need to lynch the guy over this.
- iso1631 6y ago
  Even if all he did was correct a typo, he hid it, that's dishonest
- pmachinery 6y ago
  > He just added the word 'coronavirus' next to SARS in an existing sentence to emphasize that SARS is a coronavirus. That isn't what happened. He copied a wall of text about Holland, the US, the UK, the CDC, influenza, H5N1, bird flu, Ebola and specifically snipped out the part about SARS/coronavirus and China. (The text he edited in just last month, in bold.) He basically did the opposite of what he lied about doing. https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-labs-routinely-make-errors-that-could-cause-a-global-pandemic-are-about-to-re-start-experiments-on-pathogens-engineered-to-make-them-mammalian-airborne-transmissible/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccu...

lhnz 6y ago

An untouched quote from his article: > Experiments on viruses that could cause a > global pandemic killing many millions were > halted but were recently cleared to resume > and will be conducted in these ‘top > security’ labs. He was talking about pandemics and quoting an article which does mention SARS and coronavirus. This is a tiny gotcha "oh but you didn't technically use the word SARS or coronavirus yourself when quoting the article the first time so it doesn't count".

pmachinery 6y ago
So when he quoted a report on pandemic threats and specifically left out the parts about coronavirus that shows he was talking about coronavirus?
- thu2111 6y ago
  It's pretty close. I mean, he wasn't talking about specifically coronaviruses, because that's not the only kind of virus that could escape from a biolab. But he contracted discussion of SARS and coronaviruses to "[An example]". Editing old blog posts is probably not the right way to do this. But bear in mind the whole biolab escape theory is entirely plausible. Such things have happened before. The 2007 foot and mouth epidemic in the UK was traced back to an escape from a lab at Pirbright. There were at least two outbreaks of Marburg Virus (ebola) in the USSR due to lab escapes. I don't really understand the certainty many people here seem to have, about how it couldn't possibly have come from the Wuhan lab. How could you know that? Such escapes have happened repeatedly, that was sort of the point of Cummings' blog post.
  - DanBC 6y ago
    So, the problem is being poorly reported. At his press conference Cummings said that he was definitely not in favour of herd immunity, and was not against lockdown. And he said that he could prove this because of his writing about coronavirus. To me the problem isn't that he edited the blog to include the word coronavirus (because I agree, it's pretty clear he was talking about coronaviruses and flu viruses). The problem is that his blog post says nothing about lockdown or herd immunity. It's a moderately interesting idea about increasing security at biolabs. So his blog doesn't support his claims.
    - lhnz 6y ago
      > Cummings said that he was definitely not in favour of herd immunity, and was not against lockdown. Well, we already know that he was actively pushing for earlier lockdown within the SAGE meetings (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-28/top-aide-to-u-k-s-johnson-pushed-scientists-to-back-lockdown https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-28/top-aide-...) so he should be off the hook for that bit of misinformation (earlier in the year the media were trying very hard to make it seem like he was the architect of "herd immunity").
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - pmachinery 6y ago
    > It's pretty close. Imagine CNN has a report on the chances of Hillary and Donald in 2015. A few weeks later someone copies the stuff about Hillary's chances and makes no mention at all of Trump. After the 2016 election they then edit their post to paste in the Trump stuff and use that new edit to claim they were writing about Trump's chances a year before the election. Is that pretty close to the truth or is it virtually the complete opposite of the truth? > But he contracted discussion of SARS and coronaviruses to "[An example]". Not sure why you keep saying this. [An example] refers to the example that follows those words, about CDC labs, not an example that he specifically didn't mention.

jondubois 6y ago

The fact that he added the word 'coronavirus' does not change the fact that SARS (which he in fact did mention before) was a coronavirus. He just added the word 'coronavirus' next to SARS in an existing sentence to emphasize that SARS is a coronavirus. He updated his article but didn't really change its meaning. It's not that big a deal IMO. No need to lynch the guy over this.

iso1631 6y ago
Even if all he did was correct a typo, he hid it, that's dishonest
pmachinery 6y ago
> He just added the word 'coronavirus' next to SARS in an existing sentence to emphasize that SARS is a coronavirus. That isn't what happened. He copied a wall of text about Holland, the US, the UK, the CDC, influenza, H5N1, bird flu, Ebola and specifically snipped out the part about SARS/coronavirus and China. (The text he edited in just last month, in bold.) He basically did the opposite of what he lied about doing. https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-labs-routinely-make-errors-that-could-cause-a-global-pandemic-are-about-to-re-start-experiments-on-pathogens-engineered-to-make-them-mammalian-airborne-transmissible/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190331190550/https://dominiccu...