"Gain of Function? Never heard of it". When informed newspaper readers say that, I realize again that I live in a parallel universe. Not that it is a prerequisite to know what 'Gain of Function research' is, but it can serve as a measure of how introduced you are. Of course you know the government narrative and the rivm dogmas. But knowing absolutely nothing about additional or other ideas or alternative ideas reminds me of van Dissel who has never heard of 5G theories or does not know that carnival is a virus-spreading festival. You're missing angles, both sensible and nonsensical.
From hypothesis to reality
That "Gain-of-Function" or "Lab Leak" theory states that the virus was grown in a lab. That was a wappie theory early on. It then served mainly as evidence of a conspiracy theory in which the virus was deliberately developed to roll out the "plan" we are now in the midst of: curtailing individual freedoms, totalitarian elements in government thinking and thus pooling all power into small elites, from monetary to Big Tech, including drastically reducing the number of people on earth to, very 'woke', to save the climate.
However, the idea that the virus comes from a lab is gaining ground, even outside of Conspiracy. In fact, I'm tempted to say there's no getting away from it. As more becomes known, plausibility increases. If you still think it's a hopeless conspiracy theory, take the time to this long piece by Nicholas Wade to read. Nick has worked for Nature,Scienceand many years before theNew York Times. He digs it out and shows what points in that direction. I don't summarize it because if you list the key points without context and evidence -if available- then it is hard to believe.
Who cares, GoF or not?
Why are people so obsessed with the origin of the virus? To what extent is it interesting where that virus comes from? Americans want someone to be sued, I know that. Trump took pleasure in blaming the Chinese, reducing credibility for the story. It will be satisfying for many if a scapegoat has to pay, but how can an individual, institution or country ever provide reparation for all that has been done? And even then: you don't solve the current problem with it. If you know the origin you can hopefully prevent it from happening again, but you don't hang the baked pears back on the tree with it.
There is also a call for a tribunal because it is an international, even global affair. Perhaps I don't know enough about that because I thought that a tribunal was always about the crimes of the losing governments, apparently committed in vain on the winning side. Usually it is about winning countries against other losing countries, that is clear. That means that if the other side had won, the roles in that court would have been exactly reversed.
This raises fundamental questions: who will be the winners here, who will be the losers? Who can put the democratically elected parliaments of just about every country in the world in a dock? How can citizens organise a tribunal against the people who represent them? Or will the indictment be limited to a small circle of boosters? In short: I am very curious how Reiner Fuellmich will approach this.
A scenario that answers questions
Why I have come to find the Gain-of-Function debate interesting is that this 'narrative' (because that's what it is: a coherent story) can be a supporting explanation for the incomprehensible hyperreaction of the WHO, the NHI (National Health Institute), Fauci and the institutions and governments that work with them.
The Lab Leak theory seems to be fodder for conspiracy scenarios, but it is the opposite: conspiracy scenarios are actually referred to the realm of fables. At Lab Leak, an accident and the hysterical attempts to cover it up are at the root of the misery. That is very different from spreading the virus as the first step of a preconceived plan by a power-hungry elite.
Synopsis
Spoiler alert: it looks like a movie script.
[Read the updated version ]
Some scientific health institutes, at least American, maintain politically undesirable ties with China in order to continue research that is very difficult to do in the West. The Obama administration banned Gain of Function (GoF) research in America, after which they went to China for (debatable?) virus research, the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In GoF research, for example, ferrets are used to increase the infectiousness and/or lethality of viruses. (Not surprisingly, ferret farms had to be culled because the virus was bred for infectiousness among rodents. Does that sound improbably conspiratorial again? Then I refer again to this piece by Nicholas Wade.)
A sudden local severe flu wave in Wuhan is attracting attention. The Chinese quickly recognize the virus in question. All alarm bells go off. Not only with regard to the health risks, but also for keeping the GoF research and the US-Chinese cooperation under the radar. After all, the virus bears characteristics of what people were doing in Wuhan. That's wrong. This must be suppressed immediately and ruthlessly at all costs. Fauci is stuck, who starts emailing around.
[addition 29 June: still in doubt? Read Ask Marion (3) (janbhommel.com) and view the bibliography. A paragraph from that article:
"Because as Jamie Metzl, an expert in geopolitics, put it: 'If the pandemic had arisen as a result of an escape of a (genetically engineered) virus from the laboratory, the potential for virology as a discipline could mean what the Harrisburg and Chernobyl nuclear disasters meant for nuclear power.". It would most likely lead to the cessation of funding, and the imposition of moratoriums on doing this category of scientific research, as had already happened in 2014. It would mean the end of all lines of research on gain-of-function."
Consultation and panic, how do we keep this under the radar? Containment is necessary so that the virus cannot spread further: Wuhan goes into lockdown. In order to control the Wuhan virus, one must also know where it is located, otherwise the project will still leak out. So: if the weeds put together a test. But how do you explain afterwards that you already knew it was a SARS virus? Just, look on twitter:
“Before public release of virus sequences from cases of 2019-nCoV, we relied on social media reports announcing detection of a SARS-like virus. We thus assumed that a SARS-related CoV is involved in the outbreak.”
(source: justification of the RT-PCR test of a.o. Koopmans and Drosten) Sounds solid, doesn't it?
Trump will hear it. In a recorded phone conversation with Bob Woodward in February 2020, he says: "It goes through the air. That’s always tougher than the touch. You don’t have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus. This is deadly stuff.” [Later zal Trump het virus publiekelijk downplayen. Misschien was hij pas later gebriefd over de Amerikaanse betrokkenheid.] Bron: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/09/trump-bob-woodward-book-rage-coronavirus
Everything must be done to stop this virus or the entire GoF operation will be exposed – which seems to be happening now. The entire virologists' summit is mobilized. Convulsive, ruthless. Research partners (WHO, NHI) are involved, as well as Imperial College, the Chinese people's 'favourite research partner'. They promise to turn things on a bit, because for a serious but reasonably common flu virus, it obviously makes no sense to tackle this so draconianly.
To justify the urgency, the lethality of the virus is presented twenty times as serious. Pharmaceutical companies are approached confidentially, they can already get started with a vaccine (the basic tool of the WHO) before there is even a pandemic. If I were a pharmacist, I would negotiate a purchase guarantee, even if an effective drug turns up. And a waiver because I can't follow my normal research protocol.
No one could have realized what all that would mean. The dynamics that were set in motion would surpass any fantasy. The mass psychosis, the collective hysteria, the agony among scientists that makes it impossible to think soberly. It all got completely out of hand.
I can imagine a Netflix production with worried honest researchers, administrators who always go a step further, manipulation, industrialists who make deals, etc. The tension-enhancing pressure of interest that we know from series about drug cartels pales in comparison to what is at stake here. Never seen before.
They're probably already writing in Hollywood.
Involvement Koopmans and Osterhaus
On Jan Bonte's blog there was previously a very readable piece about GoF research in the Netherlands: irresponsible research under life-threatening conditions at risk of global catastrophe. And it also states that Marion Koopmans knew about the Chinese (GoF) investigation at the beginning of 2020, which she later denied.
De hele Q&A staat op https://youtu.be/Nbw_m2qCSAY?t=477
We hadden het kunnen weten 😉
