I think this one can be and should be different than YEC stuff. For the most part, YEC stuff has no direct impact on people’s well being (indirect - yes, but not direct). However in this case, inhaling or ingesting disinfectant needs to be quickly and strongly squashed. /cough
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Hey now … your avatar really should have a mask on if you’re gonna carry on like that.
[Somebody really should start a rumor that corona virus can spread through your keyboard if you visit questionable forums that promote conspiracy theories.]
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It only works if you use 5G.
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It’s more difficult to go on a killing spree during lockdown.
YES! I think the semantics are wrong … but everyone thinks they know well enough what he meant, and so they leave it alone. To be technically correct, I think this sentence:
“…one of the challenges in this world is knowing enough about a subject to think you’re right, but not enough about the subject to know you’re wrong!”
should be re-written in this way:
"One of the challenges in this world is knowing enough about a subject to think you’re right,
but also to know enough about a subject …
to understand how you could be wrong!"
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Christy,
I appreciate your responses. To your first and second points, on assessing the uniqueness of the genome, yes, you are right, COVID-19 is a different genome from anything else we’ve ever seen. (Some have noted however that it even appears to have some insertions similar to HIV-1…) However, isn’t this to be expected? Weren’t we already made well aware that during gain-of-function research as seen above, that these viruses were being passed repeatedly through different animals (civets, mice, etc.) in order to see not only what affect they might have on humans (i.e. binding to the ACE2 enzyme in civets, which is closely related to the ACE2 receptor in humans), but also whether they can gain any new functionality in the process? Once this new functionality occurs, the genome will change and won’t be the same as what was studied previously, right?
Again, we know many labs were working on GOFR and testing on animals, and often without universal oversight. So, how is it possible that all scientists around the world, including those outside of China, could know for certain that this virus was from nature and not from a lab?
Secondly, there isn’t even universal agreement amongst all scientists that the virus came from the Wuhan wet market. The article below references an initial Lancet study that the virus likely did not come from the market:
“…The virus came into that marketplace before it came out of that marketplace,” Lucey asserts. The Lancet paper’s data also raise questions about the accuracy of the initial information China provided, Lucey says.”
(Incidentally, it should also be noted that the Wuhan market didn’t even sell bats.)
Thirdly, one of the 28 signatories on the Lancet statement you referenced, P Daszak, is deeply involved with GOF research and bat coronaviruses. Below is an example of his organization being funded to work closely with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on how SARS-Cov “can use ACE2 as a receptor and infect animal and human cell lines”:
https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debate-over-risky-research-1.18787
Therefore given the background of this particular signatory, I question how objective this statement really is?
In Christ,
That Indian paper, which was taken down by its authors, was objected to on multiple fronts by actual virologists (the authors were not):
Essentially, the scientists found that yes, there are some additions in the nCoV coronavirus originating in Wuhan that other coronaviruses don’t have, which are similar to pieces of sequence found in HIV. But, the kicker here is that these pieces of genetic code are also found in countless other viruses and there’s no reason to believe they specifically came from HIV, at all.
I don’t personally understand the science behind it, it’s not my area of expertise. But I accept there is actual reliable science behind it, and the people whose area of expertise it is are saying they have definitive ways of knowing it is natural. You know who is saying they are lying? People with no expertise in virology–conspiracy theorists and right wing political pundits. So, it comes down to who you are going to trust to make a valid assessment of what the science says. I pick scientists with actual expertise. I flat out do not believe there is a global conspiracy within the entire scientific community to obscure the truth about what happened here. Do you?
So? That doesn’t mean “therefore it was engineered in a lab or came from a lab accident.” There is pretty universal consensus it was passed from an animal (bat, pangolin, dog, pick your favorite host) to a human, since there is no positive evidence at all that prior to the outbreak in China where it began to pass from human to human, that scientists were aware of the virus’ existence, had taken it from animals, and were studying it. You can’t prove a negative, so no one is going to be able to 100% refute the idea that it was “possible” they were. All we can say is it’s a highly implausible scenario, based on what is known. There are potentially many other ways a bat virus could have passed to a human besides the market, most of which are far more likely and rational than a lab accident or an intentional release on the people.
I guess I don’t really follow your argument. Said person was involved with lab-made coronaviruses, so we can’t trust his expertise to analyze whether a virus is natural or not? I don’t see why the one thing would imply motivation to lie about the other thing. Labs all over the world are doing work with dangerous viruses that could infect humans. They have safety protocols. Bat hunters and live game traffickers, on the other hand, maybe not so much.
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You may not realize this, but the pharmaceutical industry has spent more money than any other industry lobbying the government, by a factor of 3X, in fact:
" Pharmaceutical and health product makers spent more than any other industry on lobbying the federal government between 1999 and 2018, scoring key victories along the way, a [study in JAMA Internal Medicine]"
(Lobbying Expenditures and Campaign Contributions by the Drug Industry in the United States)found.
You are right, I am not a scientist, but before graduate school, I was a CPA with a big 4 accounting firm for a number of years. Based on my experiences, I can tell you that when times go bad, or large sums of money are at stake, many companies will do whatever it takes to stay in business, including knowingly hiding or obscuring the truth. That’s not always the case, but many people in business do not follow the Lord.
I think I’ve already made enough points here, and don’t need to go much further. It is your (and everyone else reading) call if you decide to pursue this further. God will judge ultimately, and it is in his hands.
However, if you dare, i would recommend that you look into the story of Dr. Judy Mikovits. Her latest book is quite eye-opening and might change how you see the situation. I hope it isn’t true, but my gut doesn’t tell me that is the case. Before you accuse her of being a discredited individual, you should note that she is also a person of faith, so you would be judging a fellow believer too:
“I’m a person of faith and believe God wants humanity to enjoy good health, not suffer. Sometimes people ask me how I’m still alive, and I reply, “God has a sense of humor.” I do not know my ultimate fate or how I will be judged by this world. It doesn’t matter. However, I know one day I will stand before God, who will ask if I was obedient and served as He requires. What I share in the pages that follow is the account I would give the Almighty on Judgment Day.”
Thanks for the work you (and everyone) does at Biologos. God Bless and have a nice day.
We have data from all over the world to compare our own numbers to. There are consistent patterns. You can’t claim the entire world is just motivated to get Trump out of office or line the pockets of pharmaceutical companies or cover the butts of US governmental agencies. Not everything is political. A cover-up at that level would require far more cooperation than the world is capable of.
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Oh, no. she’s an anti-vaxxer who has been discredited. I’m also worried that apparently she uses her faith as an advertisement. Paul Harvey quoted his father as saying to this effect:" If you see a door to door salesman who carries his wares under one arm and a Bible prominently under the other, throw him out." It’s an easy way into people’s hearts. My own family (and we are all Christians still) have been bilked by people who advertised that they would offer a huge, repaid reverse mortgage (“Blessed to be blessing” was the motto they showed on their stationery). They took the mortgage of multiple elderly people and fled with it to France. That’s not to say all people who do that are frauds, but far better to find out that they’re Christians through their work, and their lives lived, than by their advertisement.
We as people of faith are very gullible. It’s possible that it comes in part from our reliance on testimony as proof of God’s working.
Thanks.
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Thanks, Randy. It is important to be Berean about it and search for answers rather than take someone’s word for it simply because they are a Christian – even sincere people can still be wrong, unfortunately.
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Hi, thanks for your comments and responses.
To be fair to Dr. Mikovits, I believe that labelling her as an ‘anti-vaxxer’ is only a partial truth… Remember that in the early 90’s, she was instrumental in discovering the link between HIV and AIDS and how to prevent people who contracted HIV from dying.
It’s not that she’s opposed to all vaccines, its that through her research, she appears to have discovered that during the development of certain vaccines back in the 50’s and 60’s, they were created using contaminated animal tissues, some of which contained viruses that were harmful and transferrable to humans. In fact, it is these viruses that she believes are causing things like Autism and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in humans, diseases that were not experienced on a large scale in previous human history. Of course, when the big Pharma companies found out that she was going to publish this information, what do you think their reaction was? In her book, she writes:
“And what is my case about? I think it’s about the use of animal tissues to grow viruses for vaccines, or to use in the development of other biological products, transferring those animal viruses into human beings where they are causing a cascade of human diseases, from autism to ME/CFS, cancer, and the new diseases of aging like Alzheimer’s disease when the functions of the immune system begin to falter. We thought we knew what we were doing in those labs, but we didn’t. All of humanity is at risk, especially the lab workers.”
Certainly, her claims are pretty controversial, so they do need to be analyzed in detail and ‘held up to the light.’ (1 These 5:21). My point is that simply taking one side’s opinion of her without also objectively hearing her POV does not make for a healthy or productive debate or lead us closer to the truth. If you would like to learn more about her POV, you can read her newest book, or you can watch the video below:
If this is too inflammatory/controversial and/or you don’t feel it’s appropriate for this forum, I’m OK to stop, no problem and you won’t hear from me anymore. Note that one motivation for doing this is because I do appreciate this forum, and it has been a big benefit to me in my faith. So thanks for everything you do here. Ephesians 5:11. God Bless.
I think it is OK to let your post stand, but with the caveat that we really do not want to go down this road. This former researcher has a colorful and checkered history, just looking at her Wikipedia page, and appears to jump on whatever the controversy of the day is to sell books and book speaking engagements. In other words, she has really done no credible work in many years, and the work she did on viral causes in chronic fatigue syndrome was withdrawn and attributed to laboratory contamination (which may well have been an honest error, as those things happen).
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Phil,
Fair enough and thank you. I will stop here.
Appreciate the work that you and the team do on this website, including Dr. Collins for setting it up. Have a great day and God Bless.
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In this video, Dr. Ezike, the head of the Illinois Department of Public Health, says that Illinois is counting deaths as COVID-19 deaths even if the person was already on hospice, even if the death was attributable primarily to other causes. This video is not helping me talk friends off of ledges. What am I missing?
I feel like now my conspiracy-driven friends are right about 1 out of 100 things, and they know I’m wrong about at least one thing, and that’s enough of a beachhead for them to fight through the reality of the remaining 99 things they are wrong about. Did this doctor misspeak? Are other states saying similar things or are they marking boundaries in their definitions? Does anyone have non-aggregated data (deaths broken out by which co-morbidities if any and whether they were lab tested or presumed to have COVID-19)? If in 95% of the cases, COVID-19 was the most contributing factor, and if 95% of COVID-19 cases were lab tested (not “presumed”), then the overall picture doesn’t change much at all.
On death certificates, you have a primary cause, then under it a space for contributory factors or secondary conditions. If a hospice patient with say, a brain tumor died of a cerebral hemorrhage but had Covid, that would be listed as a secondary condition, though perhaps not particularly contributory. If they were on hospice for lung cancer and they died of respiratory failure and Covid pneumonia, it might be a toss up as to whether to put lung cancer first with Covid secondary or Covid primary with secondary condition of lung cancer. It is a judgement call, probably depending on how well the patient was doing with the cancer before the infection. Some hospice patients are still pretty functional, some are not.
Truthfully, while most deaths have co-morbid condiations, very few are going to be on hospice. And those of course do not die in hospitals. Truth is, if you have been tested for Covid and have it, you have probably been sick, and unless shot while stealing toilet paper, is probably contributory.
So, while what the doc said was sorta true, it was definitely poorly worded and subject to misinterpretation.
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I grabbed this from the CDC website which highlights some challenge of classifying deaths:
Classifying deaths is now the hot rage among those who are in conspiracy circles. They literally jump from one to another. But there are many uncounted extra deaths as seen from the following chart. We are supposed to be going into our summer minimum for deaths and sadly we are not:
And this is with less deaths from things like car accidents too.
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I agree with you 100%, Matthew. It should be obvious, if people trust the sources of data, that a once in a century event is happening (and not just a once in a century economic or social event). The overall deaths (from any cause) make an overwhelming case.
But this doctor in Illinois is shooting herself in the foot. She’s not a wackadoo seeking YouTube fame, and she’s not looking to reopen everything ASAP, and she’s not interested in undermining confidence in the reporting systems. She’s supposed to be a state health expert, and she threw red meat to the wolves and didn’t even realize it. She could have clarified, like Phil mentions, that the COVID/not-COVID subset of the data (shot while stealing toiler paper with COVID) is a small fraction that would not change any of the data-based health policy decisions that are being made. She could have mentioned (and why) it is a virtual certainty that the set of unreported COVID deaths greatly outnumbers the reported (but truly not) COVID deaths. I have lots of friends in Illinois looking for every reason to doubt, and she unwittingly helped them.
I would still be interested to hear if anyone is aware of other local definitions of “COVID fatality” and whether there is any segmentation of the data anywhere by lab tested versus “presumed”, and segmentation of the data by what accompanying factors, if any.
I watched all of the video before and after the question, and I was just amazed she didn’t clarify her statements, and I was amazed none of the reporters jumped on that response.
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Here for example is one chart that separates COVID-19 from COVID-19, influenza or pneumonia from the CDC:
This immediately caused lots of people to further doubt death numbers without understanding what the first and second columns mean.
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The latest thing my right leaning friends are posting is an article stating Kansas City, Missouri is requiring churchgoers to register with the government, when in actuality they are just asking all large groups meeting as we open up to keep a list of attendees so that if there is a case of Covid, contacts can be identified.
It is frustrating to see some of these websites distort and deceive to pander to their audience and stir passions. Of course, left- leaning sites do the same thing. I have to remind myself that there is a difference between being deceived and being a deceiver, and give people some grace.
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