to me the source is largely irrelevant. The US had a team, plans, and some equipment in place to prevent a great many of these cases and deaths and the Trump administration failed at every possible level and turn.

there is no way under a clinton administration that followed the previous admins set up that we even have half the cases/deaths we have now. but unfortunately we are stuck with possibly the dumbest most corrupt president in US history during this.

the United States response as a ""world leader" was a complete and total embarrassment that is wholly owned by trump. to say otherwise is just silly.

thanks for the feedback. i agree with all of the above (except the source not mattering to me).

This is evidence against this being an engineered virus that escaped from the lab.

So we're gonna allow conspiracy theory bullshit to be spread here during a public health crisis. Cool, cool.

No, we're not.

That's the one trump selected from the menu??

Not sure what this means in light of the new highlighted policy that CT's around Covid won't be allowed.


A CT is generally accepted to mean (my paraphrase) 'a denial of settled science or fact in favour of an alternate theory generally premised on little more than denials and specious circular arguments'.


Are we saying here that the 'virus jump' question is settled fact or settled science? As it is not. YEs, the lead theory or belief, at this point, is that happened naturally via the wet market (and that is the one I lean towards), but that does not mean further investigation is not ongoing and will not continue to be done on this, to address this question.

A LEADING theory, even one that is basically accepted today, does not mean the science is settled or fact is established.

Skepticism and outlier views are actually a vital part of science and are different than CT's and we have to be careful to not equate them.

(i may be wrong in even thinking that is what the two comments above are addressing but some clarification is desired)

Yea there is a big difference between it came from a lab and its caused by 5G/Bill Gates.

Don't think this falls under CT as the lab was located like 200M from the market, the market didn't sell bats, the bats they think it came from are from southern China, that lab was cited by US (or WHO?) officials as having subpar security/safety protocols and China has had SARS escape from a lab in the past (I'll edit with a cite in a bit).
Not saying it for sure came from the lab but seems like there is enough circumstantial evidence that it can't be thrown out as a possibility.

In this context it means that such claims should be well vetted, well sourced, reasonably summarized and debated with care.

The views that were specifically struck down was claims that the virus was bio-engineered and supporting arguments in the resulting conversations. This is a view that have been condemned, most notably by pieces in the Lancet - the world's leading medical journal - as nonsense (a judgment extended to research claiming the same), stating that no credible evidence points to another source than natural evolution. Granted, popular media has not been particularly good at conveying this sentiment.

But yes, censorship is indeed problematic, tiresome and a general pain. We made a ruling on Covid-19 due to the nature of the current crisis, and there is a good solid debate to be had on whether it was (or is) a good idea.

I haven't read anything specifically about this in a while but from what I was reading a couple of months ago it seemed like there was no strong reason to discount the initial source being an accidental escape from the lab but there was strong evidence that it was a natural virus and had not been created/altered artificially (so if it came from the lab it was research on a naturally occurring virus and not modification experiments).

That would of course be a very different claim, and one that presumably wouldn't be the area of only bio-medical experts to answer. It would of course also lead to a hen/egg-type question on exactly how the spread unfolded.

But yeah, again... well vetted, well sourced, reasonably summarized and debated with care.

And for the bigger debate on censorship, it's probably not going anywhere.

Troubling pattern and curious how these mistakes always minimize cases and never accidentally inflate them...


Horrifying’ data glitch skews key Iowa coronavirus metrics

Walgreens Pharmacy coding error results in under-reporting of 59,000 COVID-19 test results statewide

Is there even any real doubt that it's some wacky trump supporter/s behind this stuff?

How do you know this?

Today, in "politicizing COVID is bad" and "leaders are responsible for the deaths of their citizens" news:



In other news, he's trying to compare the United States situation favorably with New Zealand, which is currently experiencing a SURGE (as Trump tells it) of...a dozen cases per day (Trump leaves that part out).

Imagine voting for this idiot lmao

Yeah the actual sad/ironic/insane part of the story is that Trump and co didn't need to make up all the lies and spin and various political BS to make it seem like they were containing the virus, a far more useful and effective tactic would have been to, you know, actually contain the virus! But for some bizarre reason that was the one move that Trump never even considered. I guess it runs counter to his overall approach to the most important job in the world of not really doing much of anything.

Ultimately it will probably cost him the election too, which is doubly ironic because had he acted even marginally competent during this crisis he probably could've coasted to an easy re-election win. Sad, but of course it's not nearly as bad a fate as he deserves, which is probably to spend the rest of his life in a federal prison. I'm sure if you're one of the families of the 175,000 odd Americans who lost their lives even that fate is too good for him too. But it is what it is.

The Trump coulda coasted to an easy win narrative is just nonsense. Even without Corona he was a historically unpopular president who barely won last time and got impeached. He was always drawing dead for an easy victory where he wins the popular vote by 5+.

So just post the experiment that "settles the science" and mock your tin foil opponent all day as he denies empirical evidence. But apparently science doesn't need experiment to prove a theory correct, you just need a critical mass of people called "scientists" to believe it? Wrong, experiment is the key to science.

Could be settled fact but not settled science. Try recreating controlled conditions emulating the process of viral jump and magicking variables etc..

If it's a scientific theory it's proven by experiment therefore settled. In terms of the origin being discussed, this is not a science (a how and why) question that can have a testable hypothesis, its a 'what happened' question. And in that sense it is far from settled. The peculiar thing about removing discussion of 'origin theory' is that it's the antithesis of denying covid.

How do i know "there is troubling pattern with these reports..."?

Because that is the pattern we are seeing whenever there is a report?

When I think of the coasting thing I usually think of it more along the lines from day1. Like had he came into office and tempered his approach--maybe threw a couple bones to the base but largely just bounced along. Now we know--he's simply not capable of that He's the kinda guy that would sit there arguing endlessly about what color hose to use(and who gets the credit/his cut)--while everything's burning down around us.

The guy is literally so racist that he can't accept the economy etc was ok under Obama because it goes against every fiber of his being/beliefs. So admitting that means his other views are wrong--and it just ain't gonna happen imo.

Well, maybe starting a trade war with China wasn't the way to go after all.

It's honestly shocking that a president would say this kind of **** to a governor

Trump killed a lot more so guess he is trying to call Cuomo a newb or something. I do like how he tosses in all sorts of they will take guns away commentary in most of the things he says these days. Must make for some interesting replies when he is asked what he wants to eat for lunch.