Hang on, this will be a ramble.
Thanks for hunting down those links Tiny. I actually had seen those when you originally posted them but I didn't realize they were what you were referencing. Sorry to have wasted your time.
As for the actual idea that the virus came from the market via a racoon dog, the one critical question I didn't see asked or answered is are there racoon dogs in the vicinty of Henshi where the horseshoe bats are found? Has there been evidence found that racoon dogs carry the actual virus in question, regardless of location. I only scanned the article tonight and might have missed it so correct me if I'm wrong. China has lots of wet markets outside of Bejing so why are there no other reported cases of infected racoon dogs in any of those? Admittedly, I don't know much about the price of racoon dog meat but I can't imagine that anyone would make a 1000 mile journey(one way) over questionable roads to deliver only a couple of those critters to the Huanan(sp?) market. If it was a bigger load that likely could have slowed the trip. Yet there is no genetic evidence trail along the way where they stopped for fuel or to eat or sleep. Color me unconvinced.
Fridman also made this comical analogy during the podcast. Suppose I made a a proposal to do genetic experiments to grow a horn on a horse's forehead. I have the money, tools and know-how to do so but the county turns down my request. Then, about a year and a half to two years later there's a unicorn in my back yard. When the county asked me where it came from I said
"I don't know, it just showed up!" That's what we're being asked to believe here. Reminds me of the old punchline, "I know there's a pony under here somewhere".
Your praise of Moderna reminded me, Democrats in the US (I'm not calling you one) used to have a really healthy mistrust of corporate America and profiteering but they seem out to lunch about this. Pfizer alone is projecting between $81 and $82 Billion dollars in sales for 2022. Do you realize that the entire music recording industry sales is in the neighborhood of around $12 billion? That should give anyone cause for suspicion in my opinion. The technical abilities of the pharma industry may be unquestionable but their motives are not. There is a conflict of interest.
One final question. In looking back at some posts in the thread with the links you provided, I saw where you commented that you don't know how this whole issue became politicized. Are you kidding?
Originally Posted by Ducbutter
Ducbutter, Here are the possibilities,
1. The original COVID virus went directly from bats to humans, without passing through a laboratory or another animal
2. COVID went from bats to another animal and then to humans
3. An ancestor to COVID infected humans. It mutated, perhaps in a single individual who had the disease for a long time, or perhaps over a period of years while being mistaken for the something like the flu, before exploding in Wuhan.
4. COVID was collected from bat caves or some other source by the Wuhan researchers. The virus was not modified, and escaped from the lab.
5. COVID was collected from bat caves or some other source by the Wuhan researchers, modified through gain of function research, then leaked from the lab.
We don't know which of the preceding is correct. And if we focus all our efforts preventing future epidemics by addressing just one of the causes, it's going to bite us in the ass. MERS, SARS, Ebola and other very deadly viruses probably came from bats.
You're focusing on racoon dogs above. Please note that COVID has infected dogs, cats, tigers, lions, ferrets, mink, pigs, deer, hippos, hyenas, gorillas, otters, and apparently now rodents in South Africa. A number of these and similar animals were in Wuhan. More on the rodents later -- they may account for the mystery of the furin cleavage sites in the original COVID virus.
As to 96% genetic similarity between humans and chimpanzees, chimps are very close to humans. This virus, like I said, has a short lifespan and can mutate rapidly, and some researchers have hypothesized that a single human, who suffered from the disease for a long time, could serve as the host during the time the virus evolved from bats to COVID 19.
I mentioned this before too, but a bat virus very similar to COVID 19 was discovered in bat caves in Laos:
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-871965/v1
The furin cleavage site I guess is the mystery. But I believe there are some very smart people who study viruses who believe it arose in bats, without any modification in another animal host or the laboratory. Admittedly, that may be a minority view. (Or maybe not, I don't know.) But perhaps the modification occurred in rodents:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8216856/
As to Pfizer and Moderna, Pfizer's net earnings have risen from around $13 billion per year in 2016 to 2018 to forecasted 24 billion in 2021. Moderna went from a loss to an estimated 11 billion this year. Compare to the $5 trillion+ that the U.S. government spent on COVID relief and stimulus. Pfizer's and Moderna's profits are a drop in the bucket.
Originally Posted by Why_Yes_I_Do
