"The line between disorder and order lies in logistics." -Sun Tzu
COVID has been a logistical nightmare. For everyone.
For the record, no--I don't believe anybody 'engineered' it [or has used it]* as a bioweapon.
*Edit for clarity
note that i don't agree with your definition.
> Biological warfare [...] is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, insects, and fungi with the intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war.
Knowingly allowing the spread of a highly contagious, lethal virus fits the definition. The only point of contention is whether the party's actions were due to incompetence or malice.
That said, it’s one possibility among others, though the animal reservoir theory is the most viable and accepted at this time.
for example, this article is a great read: http://nautil.us/issue/83/intelligence/the-man-who-saw-the-p...
people making baseless claims about the virus, which is happening everywhere and in particular is coming from the u.s., will only seek to harm things for everyone in the long run. it will cause governments to clam up (already happening) and has politicized the virus. now, experts' opinions and life work, like that found in the above article, will continue to be ignored in the chaos that is ensuing.
if the experts on zoonotic viruses are to be believed (why wouldn't you?), then it is clear that there are systematic problems that are leading to the increasing crossover of these zoonotic viruses. by politicizing the virus and hyper focusing on its political enemy, the u.s. is making this thing much, much, much worse (in addition to increasing the current spread within its own borders) and will lessen the impact on preventing future outbreaks. we as a species already struggle to address the issues that cause these outbreaks (overpopulation, encroachment on habitats, socioeconomic issues, etc.), and these actions of rumors and associated behavior, found on this site even, will bury the actual problems, turning everything into a childish and chaotic argument.
Disclaimer: I don’t believe this, just playing devil’s advocate
Disclaimer: Also don't believe this, just playing along.
everybody keeps saying this, but just stop. it doesn't help and it confuses. all you do is bolster people who skip over your "disclaimer", even if you actually do believe your disclaimer.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
i think it's simply because a lot of americans are on hacker news, and there is a gross level of anti-chinese sentiment in the united states in general, probably more-so from educated people.
They're currently kicking black people out in the streets out of their homes and giving them no where to go because of a ban on foreigners, even though those foreigners never left the country during the pandemic and are no more risk at spreading the disease than anyone else. It's racism, pure and simple.
https://www.france24.com/en/20200411-if-you-re-black-you-can...
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079497/us-w...
I mean, many of the things we're seeing in China currently are the kind of things that were happening in Germany in the 30's that were warning signs.
Just calling out things that are well documented in the news is enough to get down voted mysteriously, maybe the wǔmáo's have become aware of this community.
Also in the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html): please don't post insinuations about astroturfing to HN. The data is clear that this is almost always in the eye of the beholder, i.e. people imagine it as an explanation for things they dislike, and they're far more likely to notice those than other things. For a great deal of past explanation, see these links:
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
I didn't realize such selectively enforced standards were a thing? Should I report any post that criticizes government actions for nationalism?
So is criticizing a any government's actions in an comment section about an article criticizing the same government is nationalism? I didn't realize being in support of common human rights was a controversial ideology. I apologize for my actions and welcome the new mod community standards.
I hope this statement will please current and potential YCombinator investors.
Users who post thoughtful, substantive comments on either side of this issue don't run into problems with moderation. The point is that this is a site for curious conversation, not ideological or political battle. We can't have both, for the same reason you can't have a tank battle in a flower garden.
I have zero idea what will please Y Combinator's investors. From my point of view, the only thing that matters is keeping Hacker News interesting, because that's what keeps the community thriving, and that's what's most in YC's interests. I realize that people have reason to be skeptical about such claims, but being able to run HN that way is why I'm willing to do this job. Most other places on the internet, this wouldn't be possible, because the site would need to make money directly (e.g. by selling ads) or to push growth at all costs, either of which would kill HN as we know it.
HN is in a sweet spot that way, compared to how other sites of its kind need to operate. The reason is mostly a historical accident of how HN and YC grew up together, plus the fact that YC's business benefits more from HN being the way it is than it would from a different sort of community. The aren't many businesses in whose interest it would be to fund a site like this.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Someone conflated that with race, which is holding an ethno-nationalist view of China, where as I differentiate between the government and the people. I've actually been to China, as such I have a personal investment in the place, and met a few of the minority groups and are aware its not one homogeneous culture, so to think all Chinese are the same or even the same race to me is ignorance. I called that out.
When I linked to several articles pointing out the hypocrisy of the CCP position, which was being echoed by who I was replying to, that all criticism is due to racism which is a propaganda position (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/29/chinas-latest-tactic-call-am...) and no sensible person would use that as a defense. So its not a thoughtful, or substantive comment to say all criticism is anti-Chinese or bigoted. But you're doing this one sided enforcement of rules?
I follow the stuff in China close to the ground, I'm hyper aware of the tactics used to counter criticism. I got turned on to the people to get on the ground reporting right here on Hacker News. To see moderators allowing shallow "any criticism of China is racism" but harp on me for pointing out obvious human rights violations, well it does call in to question the bias here.
So I ask you, why call out my statement, and not the person making blanket statements that people are anti-Chinese (as in race) when calling levying criticism. I fail to see that as thoughtful or substantive.
Honestly I’m not sure how Occam’s razor doesn’t suggest that it was released accidentally from one of the only labs in the world studying coronaviruses in bats, given that the lab was within 10km of patient zero.
Also, experts have not reached nearly the level of consensus regarding the origin of the virus as your comment implies. [1] While consensus seems to be against bioweapon, there is much debate as to whether the origin was lab accident or “wet market” as claimed by CCP.
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/sars/media/2004-05-19.html
[1] https://thebulletin.org/2020/03/experts-know-the-new-coronav...
How often does this happen because someone was doing research on Coronavirus and it accidently got released from a biosafety level 4 lab? Not often. How often do novel Coronaviruses spread from bats to something to humans? All the damn time.
On the other hand, prefaced with the fact that it isn't one, or was still under research if that, bio-weapons are just as effective when they disrupt an economy and infrastructure and a virus targets the elders or those at an age of those most likely in leadership positions. So it doesn't have to kill military aged people to be effective. Again, this is likely not one, but the disruption its caused and economic hit its taken is in line with how modern wars are fought. They only need to overwhelm medical facilities, its like the case with mines, they don't kill so much as maim, because maiming soldiers puts a greater strain on an army to keep them alive, transport them and treat them (even though they'll never return to the battle field), then if they were simply dead. You kill a soldier, they're down a man, you maim/disable a soldier, they're down a man, two other soldiers needed to evacuate him, they're down transport needed to get them back to a medical center, and several medical personnel needed to treat them and get them stable. You want to cripple an army, you don't kill it, you make it so the soldiers barely survive and need assistance, or you take out their resources, this virus does a good job of both.
A virus only has to severely disable economies and create a strain on resources to be effective at crippling an opponent, if its not especially deadly, it can spread further, if it puts enough soldiers in hospital beds, especially senior leadership, its effective. Even if this isn't a bio-weapon, it actually would be pretty effective as one assuming you already had the vaccine, which no one does.
Not even close, not even a little close. With proper containment COVID-19 is easily contained. This isn't that great, especially when you look at countries who are handling this well: Taiwan. Bioweapons are notorious for being quick and lethal. As per the CDC on bioterrorism:
>When the potential agents are reviewed for these characteristics, anthrax and smallpox are the two with greatest potential for mass casualties and civil disruption
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/5/4/99-0411_article#r6
If you give me a normal amount of resources and competent public health professionals COVID-19 does not scare me. It's CFR is below 1% with adequate protocols (Standard, honestly).
China is so interconnected to the rest of the world, especially the US, the worst thing for them is to shut down both their and the US economy. Why would they test a weapon that disrupts the entire globe when you could have a weapon that has a narrow focus of a small region?
You didn't read a thing I said did you? You're calling whats happening now, easy? Did you even read what happened to the naval ship that got infected?
This has had pretty disastrous effects for the economy of the entire world, there are food riots overseas right now, the unemployment rate is skyrocketing. The social disorder alone, cops are arresting doctors providing supplies to the homeless, yelling at women not wearing a mask while walking their dog, arresting people playing in a park near no one else, by world leaders being put in the ICU. Get your head out of the sand.
None of this is easily contained. Ebola is easily contained, this you don't even know you're sick when you're walking around spreading it for days.
>If you give me a normal amount of resources and competent public health professionals COVID-19 does not scare me.
Weirdly, no countries seem to have this, since they're all getting ravaged, at least those with high population density. The only country's with high population density not getting ravaged is Taiwan, which has an extreme mistrust of the CCP, and speak/read Chinese so had intelligence from the Chinese Internet on what was really going on far before most country's public did. They reacted sooner by shutting down travel, and sounded the alarm bells, but the WHO didn't listen to them, because they were too busy pretending they weren't a country.
I'm saying that the response to COVID-19 is easy. You know why? Because all it would have taken is surveillance and proper quarantine. I'm going to say it again: if you give me a normal amount of resources and a normal team I would be able to manage anyone with COVID with reasonable success. Now it starts getting tricky with any serious comorbidities and luckily we have nephrology to manage electrolytes. Shutting this thing down is not challenging. What's challenging is when you have incompetent leadership that ignores expert advice.
It's ridiculous that people think laowhy and serpenza are credible China-watchers. They're travel bloggers and now clickbait video generators. The amount of people who get all their information and opinions on China from these two is worryingly staggering. There is an incredible amount of subject matter experts that specialize and operate in China. Literal billions are poured into NGOs, think tanks and other intelligence sources with boots on the ground. Granted much of it is not great, but they're infinitely more reliable than a couple youtubers who got kicked out of China and have no professional prospects outside of click bait conspiracy theory.
Also notice how he has recent videos about China killing his dreams, his move out of China and his wife divorcing him. Do you think that would cloud his judgement? Why isn't there a video on netizens work on the US engineered virus conspiracy theory? Youtubers =/= credible sources.
This lab accident, on the contrary, is NOT unsubstantiated claims, and acting as it is some frivolous theory is unfair at best. I, while perhaps inducing worryingly staggering feelings to you, looked at the sources and concluded that the info was credible. So it has nothing to with the occupation of laowhy86.
You are appealing to the authority of billions poured into NGO, as if corruption never happens, as if money magically makes people competent, as if organizations never suffered from political bloat. As if for example there was no video proof that the WHO was ignoring Taiwan input for policial reasons – a country that has better epidemics statistics than the majority of us–. Are we also all stupid to entertain the idea that, when a WHO leader does not hear the journalist on skype exactly when she asks a question about taiwan, this is just a bad stratagem to elude the question?
Please.
laowhy86, bitter expats doing China-bad for clicks is well trodden career pivot. You can see clearly in his youtube timeline when he transitioned from prosaic China musings to anti-CPC bashing after he left the country. His authority or lack of absolutely has to do with the fact that he's a youtube travel blogger and not subject matter expert - again of which there are many - who has not endorsed such theories. I'm not appealing to a singular authority, but a community of China watchers where conspiracy theories are dismissed as conspiracy theories. Unless your conspiracy is that they all got bought off - including anti-China institutions - and are collectively incompetent. Or alternatively, a youtuber is endorsing conspiracy for clicks. Which is more likely? Which is the kind of thing a stupid person would entertain?
Re: Taiwan, they released the alleged emails that they had information on H2H on Dec31st. Never mind there's no way they would be able to verify such information since they only had their first imported case on Jan21st. There's Taiwanese interviews in early Jan where their own CDC deputy director stated it was impossible to verify H2H until new cases happen after Jan14th. Their Dec31st email turned out to be the exact correspondence provided by Wuhan medical officials to the WHO and other medical community prior - they are treating novel corona patients in isolation wards which is standard practice. AKA it was nothing. Also elevating Taiwan was part of a coordinated US propaganda push to undermine the WHO including that interview (by HK news no less) that attempts to discredit the WHO via ambush questions that's outside of the organization's let alone a scientist's purview. Identifying propaganda and manufactured consent is media literacy 101. Believing your countries propaganda over a competing narrative is understandable, but believing a youtuber over general consensus of experts is less so. That's Alex Jones territory.
You can say he is bitter or a nutcase, it does not make it so.
About the video, so far you are only able to say that laowhy86 is a youtuber, and therefore he wrong.
So far I've said that the documents linked in the video description corroborates the theory, making this theory credible.
How long will you continue to shoot the messengers instead of listening to what is said? Apart saying gratuitously that youtubers cannot possibily be right, you have not addressed the content of the video. I guess when you can't criticize the content, criticize the form, it is easier.
I will stop now, because I believe you are not writing in good faith. If a youtuber's documented demonstration does not deserve anyone's consideration by nature, because he is necessarily wrong, then certainly by your logic, as stranger writing on hacker news, you don't either deserve anyone's consideration, and you are wrong too.
Have you spent much time in China? Have you lived there, or is your knowledge all second hand?
The point is they are not only not experts in infectious disease, they're not experts in any particular Chinese subjects at all. Living in China is not itself a remarkable qualification. If I were to ask people to find me two youtubers from China who moved to US to do travel blogs that I should base most of my opinions about China on, it would be an impossibly asinine exercise because US is a large, complex country. So is China. That's why you have thousands of institutions and entire industries of specific experts trying to grasp the larger realities. This industry exists for Chinese affairs, yet a surprising amount of people insist on posting generalized, personal reflections of a couple youtubers instead of relevant subject matters for each respective topics which, again exists.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3050872/chin...
She’s still missing and her whereabouts are unknown
Here's the list of agents that are better than SARS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioterrorism#Types_of_agents
Edit:
So far I'm dissapointed with the comments to my post. I can't tell if some of these are trolls or not, but generally they don't add much to the discussion.
These hypotheticals are specious, sure they sound like lucid idea but with even a slight amount of criticism they'd fall apart. I'm going to posit some ideas here. Why didn't China weaponize H5N1? It has a higher Ro and CFR. It is commonly found throughout Southeast Asia and is what most pandemic experts thought was going to be the next pandemic. How would a virus get through a biosafety level 4 lab? If anyone else here has experience in biosafety labs I'm all ears, but I'd be shocked that a virus would be able to escape from something like that; not that mistakes don't happen but this isn't exactly a durable pathogen. Then we have the issue of every single advanced military in the world wouldn't even touch The Coronavirus family. I'm going to go ahead and assume that the people who are making bioweapons are good at their jobs and can recognize what makes a good bioweapon and what doesn't. Finally, there are just so many better options for bioweapons. The US invests massive amounts in making precision weapons because when you're a military power hitting a precise location is what's key. COVID is like a cluster bomb that has 90% duds.
But after all of this, instead of random people on the internet, we have experts who have time and time again said that COVID is not a bioweapon:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts-debu...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9?fbclid=IwA...
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-not-human-made-in-la...
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/coronavirus-cott...
https://www.ft.com/content/a6392ee6-4ec6-11ea-95a0-43d18ec71...