4 ms·

I wish these type of articles referenced a benchmark or baseline, such as "Corona virus damages XX percent more/less braun cells than recent strains of influenz

I wish these type of articles referenced a benchmark or baseline, such as "Corona virus damages XX percent more/less braun cells than recent strains of influenza virus".

trompetenaccoun 5y ago
Why only recent strains? This may be the worst coronavirus outbreak in 100 years. It's reasonable to compare it with the worst flu strains. Which still killed more people btw. On a side note, since we now know the Wuhan lab did do gain of function research after all, which we were first lied to about, there is a very real possibility this virus was engineered. So we should be comparing it to weaponized flu strains as well. Stuff like this, also founded by the NIH, interestingly enough: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2019/03/04/scientists-restart-research-on-creating-deadly-bird-flu-with-nihs-blessing https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2019/03/04/scien... A mere 2 years before this outbreak the NIH lifted their ban on these sort of experiments, btw: https://www.businessinsider.com/nih-lifts-ban-on-flu-mers-sars-virus-gain-of-function-research-2017-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/nih-lifts-ban-on-flu-mers-sa...
- op00to 5y ago
  That Forbes article is opinion, not fact. Why do you insist on deception to make your point? Is it because much like your horse paste addled brain, your point is aimless and full of holes?
  - shlpa 5y ago
    Forbes article author: "I'm the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, and Biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University." I thought we have been told to listen to scientists in the past 2 years! Incidentally, Dr. Fauci has used any number of deceptions to make his point. I wouldn't be surprised if the Wuhan virus was engineered.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    Forbes has a Medium-like program for writers, which is what that article was published under. It's more of a blog article than an actual Forbes article.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
    You could have looked it up yourself. Here are more sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7119956 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7119956 https://www.nih.gov/news-events/research-involving-potential-pandemic-pathogens https://www.nih.gov/news-events/research-involving-potential... Here you can see that there was already controversy around it back in 2014: https://osp.od.nih.gov/biotechnology/gain-of-function-research/ https://osp.od.nih.gov/biotechnology/gain-of-function-resear... The comment seems to have hit a nerve, since you choose to reply with an ugly ad hominem attack straight away.
- roenxi 5y ago
  FYI, it took me two reads to realise that you weren't comparing the Wuhan's lab work to a biological weapons program. I see a fair amount of vehement downvoting on your comment, and I suspect at least some of that is people making the same mistake. It is a bit risky to put "weaponised strain" and "Wuhan" in the same paragraph - there is no evidence that this is a bioweapon and while you don't claim otherwise it is an easy misreading to make.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    I assumed that was the intent behind writing the comment? After all, why does it matter where the virus came from unless you're more interested in assigning blame than fixing the problem?
    - afnwl 5y ago
      I never understand why glib comments like this one aren't punished as long as they fit the mainstream narrative. Would you extend the same courtesy to an oil spill? Just fix it and don't assign blame? Or the Volkswagen emission scandal. Volkswagen was fined several billions. Government employees mostly get away with everything, of course.
      - jleyank 5y ago
        None of these are contagious and thus threatening to large numbers of people (far) removed from the problem. It’s like a big fire… Put the damn thing out before worrying about who started it.
        zdragnar 5y ago
        Wait that long and none of the people who started it will still be around... probably because they made something even worse.
  - vixen99 5y ago
    Agreed. Difficult to claim that this is a bio-weapon given its lethality of around 1.8% (lousy weapon) and that even this figure is highly age and co-morbidity related as we are all aware. Huge numbers of people are asymptomatic. 50% according to this: https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/journal-scans/2021/05/24/14/42/the-proportion-of-sarscov2 https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/journal-scans/2021/...

I wish these type of articles referenced a benchmark or baseline, such as "Corona virus damages XX percent more/less braun cells than recent strains of influenza virus".

trompetenaccoun 5y ago

Why only recent strains? This may be the worst coronavirus outbreak in 100 years. It's reasonable to compare it with the worst flu strains. Which still killed more people btw. On a side note, since we now know the Wuhan lab did do gain of function research after all, which we were first lied to about, there is a very real possibility this virus was engineered. So we should be comparing it to weaponized flu strains as well. Stuff like this, also founded by the NIH, interestingly enough: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2019/03/04/scientists-restart-research-on-creating-deadly-bird-flu-with-nihs-blessing https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2019/03/04/scien... A mere 2 years before this outbreak the NIH lifted their ban on these sort of experiments, btw: https://www.businessinsider.com/nih-lifts-ban-on-flu-mers-sars-virus-gain-of-function-research-2017-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/nih-lifts-ban-on-flu-mers-sa...

op00to 5y ago
That Forbes article is opinion, not fact. Why do you insist on deception to make your point? Is it because much like your horse paste addled brain, your point is aimless and full of holes?
- shlpa 5y ago
  Forbes article author: "I'm the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, and Biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University." I thought we have been told to listen to scientists in the past 2 years! Incidentally, Dr. Fauci has used any number of deceptions to make his point. I wouldn't be surprised if the Wuhan virus was engineered.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Forbes has a Medium-like program for writers, which is what that article was published under. It's more of a blog article than an actual Forbes article.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- trompetenaccoun 5y ago
  You could have looked it up yourself. Here are more sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7119956 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7119956 https://www.nih.gov/news-events/research-involving-potential-pandemic-pathogens https://www.nih.gov/news-events/research-involving-potential... Here you can see that there was already controversy around it back in 2014: https://osp.od.nih.gov/biotechnology/gain-of-function-research/ https://osp.od.nih.gov/biotechnology/gain-of-function-resear... The comment seems to have hit a nerve, since you choose to reply with an ugly ad hominem attack straight away.
roenxi 5y ago
FYI, it took me two reads to realise that you weren't comparing the Wuhan's lab work to a biological weapons program. I see a fair amount of vehement downvoting on your comment, and I suspect at least some of that is people making the same mistake. It is a bit risky to put "weaponised strain" and "Wuhan" in the same paragraph - there is no evidence that this is a bioweapon and while you don't claim otherwise it is an easy misreading to make.
- pjc50 5y ago
  I assumed that was the intent behind writing the comment? After all, why does it matter where the virus came from unless you're more interested in assigning blame than fixing the problem?
  - afnwl 5y ago
    I never understand why glib comments like this one aren't punished as long as they fit the mainstream narrative. Would you extend the same courtesy to an oil spill? Just fix it and don't assign blame? Or the Volkswagen emission scandal. Volkswagen was fined several billions. Government employees mostly get away with everything, of course.
    - jleyank 5y ago
      None of these are contagious and thus threatening to large numbers of people (far) removed from the problem. It’s like a big fire… Put the damn thing out before worrying about who started it.
      - zdragnar 5y ago
        Wait that long and none of the people who started it will still be around... probably because they made something even worse.
- vixen99 5y ago
  Agreed. Difficult to claim that this is a bio-weapon given its lethality of around 1.8% (lousy weapon) and that even this figure is highly age and co-morbidity related as we are all aware. Huge numbers of people are asymptomatic. 50% according to this: https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/journal-scans/2021/05/24/14/42/the-proportion-of-sarscov2 https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/journal-scans/2021/...