The Weekly Watch

Continuing COVID Confusion

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Discussion of the lab leak hypothesis on the origin of the pandemic is finally allowed. Is that because it adds fuel to fire a war with China (even though the US provided funding and support for gain of function research in Wuhan)? However, interestingly use of ivermectin as an effective treatment is still out of bounds and unacceptable. No, TPTB are suggesting an third dose of vaccine instead. Speaking of vaccines, I must admit it was nice to gather with old friends last week. We were camping outside, and I think everyone was vaccinated. About thirty folks gathered at the Florida Faux Festival, and our usual cadre of ten or so camped together. Made lots of music, and I feel like I'm getting my musical feet back. We also got in an eight mile canoe trip on the Suwannee, and went to four different and unique springs along the river. It was my first real dip back into normalcy since the pandemic began in earnest March of '20, and it was as refreshing as diving in the springs.

Suwannee Canoe Trip.jpg

Chris Martenson is back with his COVID discussions at Peak Prosperity. He knocks it out of the park with this presentation about the poor scientific approach to understand and cope with COVID
Good Science Saves Lives, Bad Science Has Ruined Lives. (57 min)

(links below clip on youtube)

Our national and global health authorities have been playing fast and loose with my, no...with *our*, beloved science.

Science means having an open mind, operating in a collegial fashion, being curious, and daring to be wrong and then change your mind when new facts come in.

Religion demands obedience to a narrative. That's why I call our current times of medical nihilism as being shot through with scientific religiosity.

People are believing the weirdest things, but then saying there's something wrong with us for asking questions and making observations (if and when those questions and observations don't confirm their unscientific views.

Time for that to end.

Those who speak with authority as scientists and have no doubt are usually poor scientists. Science is to be questioned not accepted...that's how it works. Additionally as Saagar suggests below there was a huge fail by the media to accurately report on COVID. The following conversation with a critical care doctor and two medical journalists is quite revealing and recommended if you have time. (30 min or so)
Media Censorship of Medical Evidence and its Dangerous Ripple Effects in a Pandemic

They suggest Trump had ivermectin before he went to the hospital resulting in his "miraculous" recovery.

The very idea an effective COVID treatment exists is well known but not recommended is beyond the pale to me...As thousands die. Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying discuss taking ivermectin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jSV7Aro6ZY (5 min)

The entire COVID episode has been mismanaged. Media mangled the coverage, in part because big pharma is a primary revenue stream for the media giants. No wonder people were/are so confused. For the most part they've been misinformed. The nature of science is to doubt and question, yet that very nature was suppressed, criticized, and demeaned. You were supposed to accept Dr Falsie's ever changing narrative without question. I think in part TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) played into all the misinformation and propaganda. If Trump said it, it was wrong, was/is the standard media response (other than Faux News). But hey a broken clock is right twice a day.

To add insult to injury, it appears SARS-CoV-2 was engineered as a gain of function experiment. Finally TPTB are allowing the conversation.

Jimmy Dore and Matt Taibbi discuss why the Fact Checkers Take A Beating On Lab Leak Theory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6D8bQs-E8A (40 min)

Peter Breggin takes it farther and suggest COVID was planned in advance.

(6 min) The last minute or so is a book ad.

Saagar Enjeti dissects how and why the media discredited the coronavirus "lab leak theory."

By the way Krystal and Saagar are leaving The Hill and starting their own platform,
KrystalandSaagar.com

Chris was discussing the lab leak hypothesis over a year ago. He reviews the evidence. Links are below the clip on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A8Drix5taQ (33 min)

Getting vaccinated for COVID and which vaccine to pursue is a personal decision. Chris had a nice piece on what you might consider if and when you get vaccinated.
Informed Consent: The Vaccine Safety Data You Need (47 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1nf5Mb50eg

The bottom line is that the short-term safety data for the 3 major vaccines shows that while they may be far preferable to getting Covid, they are among the least safe vaccines ever produced. Informed people would almost certainly elect to receive the vaccines nonetheless, but they absolutely need the data.
We deliver it, you make your own decisions.

And one more from Chris...
The 4 Easy Steps To Avoid COVID (30 min)

What's the real truth about masks? What science, what data do we have to guide us about when to wear masks and when it's nearly risk-free to take them off and not wear them?

That's what we cover here today as well as the four keys to *not* catching Covid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN5gyLwoB-8

John Campbell also looked at negative effects of the various vaccines after vaccination.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pr9yG7CMbY (18 min)

So no wonder people are so confused and opinionated about COVID. I come away from the previous clips with the following conclusions.
1. It is likely that the virus was manipulated in the Wuhan Virology Lab and escaped or was released
2. There is an effective treatment (ivermectin) which if recommended would result in the emergency use vaccines to be halted. Hence the suppression of its efficacy.
3. The are many more negative reactions to the vaccines than are reported. People deserve to understand the risks involved in order to make a rational choice.

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We've been misled about so much that Americans are pretty naive. Consider our support for the apartheid state of Israel. Here's Abby Martin describing her experience in the Gaza.

You have to sign in to see her film Gaza Fights For Freedom (2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnZSaKYmP2s&t=0s
She won her BDS suit in the state of Georgia. Will it be appealed?

And can you believe they are still beating the Russiagate drum? Aaron discussed the situation with Matt and Katie. (about 30 min)

Well my friends, all I can say is I'm grateful for the c99 community to help dispel the lies and illuminate the facts. There are many other examples of the ways we are misled. The few I mention are just the bare tip of the quivering pile of propaganda and outright lies we've been told.

Stephen Foster never visited the Suwannee River and even misspelled its name.

Foster had a tragic life, and died a pauper despite his many hit songs.

Suwannee Canoe Trip (31).jpg

What a nice break last week. The cypress trees dripping Spanish moss. The dark tannin water draining from the Okie and flowing across Florida to the Gulf is so mirror like. The music and laughter that have been such a large part of my life restored. I'm feeling hopeful despite our common situation. The economy is precarious. So many are living on the edge in such a wealthy country. I wish us well as our collapsing empire will negatively effect so many. However, perhaps it will be better for the world at large. Have a great Sunday and I hope you all find yourself in a more positive place than we were in last year. All the best!

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down on the Suwanee with your friends.
One of life's rewards for having survived
the idiocy of an improperly managed pandemic.

Cheers!

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Lookout's picture

@QMS

having to relearn all the words, notes, and rhythms, but past decades of playing making it easier. We are social creatures and the lack of physical community over the last year and a half has effected our society. That's seen in all the mass shootings I think.

At any rate I'm glad to begin emerging in the various communities that have been a part of my life.

Hope you are experiencing a similar thing. Take care and be well!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Lookout's picture

@Lookout

I meant to include Steven Donziger and Chris. Talk about corporate control ...it is like Assange. It is dangerous to challenge our corporate owners.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GZWJT2UtHQ]

Donziger has been fighting polluting American oil companies for nearly three decades on behalf of indigenous communities and peasant farmers in Ecuador, and has been under house arrest in Manhattan for nearly two years. He went on trial in federal court in New York two weeks ago on contempt of court charges, which could see him jailed for six months, for appealing the demand to hand over his computer, cellphone, and other electronic devices to the court, a violation he argues of attorney-client privilege. No attorney without a criminal record in federal court has ever before been detained pretrial for a misdemeanor offense.

https://scheerpost.com/2020/08/25/how-corporate-tyranny-works/

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

TheOtherMaven's picture

He needed two syllables, and neither "Yazoo" nor "Pee Dee" sounded right. Apparently an atlas in his brother's office misspelled the Suwanee as "Swanee", and they both agreed that hit the spot. So "Swanee" it has been ever since. (The lyrics have been periodically overhauled in the name of "political correctness".)

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Lookout's picture

@TheOtherMaven

It is a beautiful river. Saw gators, many birds, and enjoyed the river vibe.

Hope you're doing well. Thanks for coming by this Sunday.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Hi Lookout.And everyone up and reading today.

It's been raining hard and extremely windy since Friday afternoon. The temperature in NYC was 45 degrees when I woke up yesterday morning. A washout weekend and very bad for struggling shops and restaurants here.

My plants are huddled on the ground underneath their various planters and stands, as close to a protective wall as I can get them. Tommorow afternoon is when the wind and rain is projected to ease up.

On a happier note, everything has been thriving, especially the lantana that arrived from the midwest half dead.

Big week coming up on the world stage or maybe not. Wednesday is the last opportunity to dethrone Benjamin Netanyahu. Still unclear if the coalition formed to force him out will hold or fold by Wednesday. Nothing to do but watch.

If the coalition succeeds, a new government will begin.

If not, Bibi stays in power as the Knesset attempts to form a government.

If that fails, then Election # 5 with Bibi still holding the position of Prime Minister gets underway. An endless loop.......

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NYCVG

Lookout's picture

@NYCVG

Glad to hear the plants are doing well. We've been in the opposite situation, dry and cool. We did get 0.2" Friday, so at least had a dust settler. More rain due next week. New trees and garden will like that.

I've been sitting on the tractor getting the mowing under control. Leaving my big field to set wild flower seed before mowing. Had a lovely spring bloom.

Hope the city continues to open and get back toward normal. And Bibi can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. I see him as an evil bastard.

Y'all are pretty close to voting 6/22 so I hope it goes well.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout starts June 12. 13 days to go!

It is simultaneously exciting and frightening. It gets increasingly more difficult for me to envision happy outcomes in any political process.

But the weather will be better and plants are blooming and I expect to see more of my family in June and therafter. So, we soldier on.

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NYCVG

Dawn's Meta's picture

and reasonable comments you offer regarding COVID.

We both, but me most of all, fall into a group of people because of many toxic exposures creating hyper immune responses, which are advised not to take any vaccine. Previously in life, we both got shots annually for flu and when recommended pneumonia prevention.

It's been many years, and while we have in many ways gotten stronger, we unfortunately find ourselves exposed to yet more toxins: orchard sprays, mold, unvented gas exhaust, septic tank gases. It's not good. We are getting old enough and have accumulated inflammation from our various exposures, so it's constant work to mitigate the damage and try to prevent more.

We are trying various ways of getting Ivermectin. We are hoping for some soon.

We are wait and see how the populations of those with anti COVID shots are doing after some time to integrate into peoples' systems. More to the point how people with compromised immune systems do if we can suss it out.

On another note: reading Suzanne Simard's book 'Finding the Mother Tree' is exciting. Her intensity and curiosity are contagious in the best way. I first saw her name in Pamela Tree's book 'Wilding' about stopping typical farming in West Sussex in favor of introducing animals, plants and reworking water-ways to get as close as possible to a natural environment while raising animals that eventually have enough surplus to use for meat.

Regenerative agriculture has got to be one of the most exciting things I have become informed about in my lifetime. The interview with her publisher is marvelous. I don't say this often or lightly, she is a hero to me.

Mr. Meta is a musician too, and we were singing weekly in a good community choir before we were beset by household mold. Still working on being able to do these things.

Thank you for everything and congratulations on being able to make music.

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

Lookout's picture

@Dawn's Meta

Chris does a good job discussing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1nf5Mb50eg
From his links:
What to Do if You Have an Allergic Reaction After Getting A COVID-19 Vaccine
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/allergic-react...

COVID-19 Vaccines for People with Allergies
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/speci...

https://www.exstnc.com/
FRANCE

IVM generally available for COVID-19 but patient may have to request it ... IVM not included in national guidelines
These French Dr's are prescribing HCQ but not IVM? I bet they might.

Dr. Sabine Paliard-Franco (HCQ) 3 81 07 62 64

Dr. Denis Gastaldi (HCQ) 3 87 86 31 05

Dr. Jean-Jacques Erbstein (HCQ) 3 87 94 49 71

This DR in Italy does prescribe IVM
https://www.farmagalenica.it/ivermectina-contro-covid-capsule-galeniche-...

I think I would opt for IVM if I had bad allergies. Not medical advice just my take.

That's for reading. Always a pleasure to "see" you.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
How do I know if I'm allergic to polysorbate? I don't think so, I had no reaction other than a bit of bleeding and pain from the injection . The pain went way when the pharmacist withdrew the needle. Blood was probably because she hit a blood vessel. Red bruise wnt away overnight.
My eldest grandson refuses even the J&J, talking about mercury, but mercury isn't in the list of ingredients. ????

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Lookout's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

...was a sore arm after the first shot, but my partner had a day of flu like aches and pains. My point is there needs to be honesty so people can make their own decisions. Vitamin D is another example of the lack of information...especially for folks of color who make D at lower rates. We are products to generate profit, not people treated as such.

Glad you came through your shots without real problems, too.

Have a good one!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Granma's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness as a preservative in vaccines. But that was many years ago. It is no longer used.

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@Granma Thimerasol was removed from most childhood vaccines in the U.S. in 2001 (per the CDC). That's a lifetime for some, but not that long ago for me.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

alleged cases of great hoax about childhood vaccines causing autism, which somehow failed to give an entire generation or two or three said condition. Major disinformation campaigns like that often generate permanent belief clusters.

be well and have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@Dawn's Meta In case you haven't already read it, the mask plus protocol has what should be useful info.

https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FLCCC-Allianc...

If I messed up the link, search for 'FLCCC MASK PLUS'.

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Thanks for all the work you put in putting this all together. Lots to unpack and read but it does reinforce the part the media plays in passing on bad and biased information. “Eyes open wide” and never accept things as an absolute without some investigating is a good way for me to move forward.

I like you am glad I can begin to construct a normalcy in my life. Spending time outdoors in nature is as powerful a medicine as any and thanks for the lovely pictures. I have friends that spend parts of January floating several of the rivers in Florida and Mississippi and Alabama on their way to the rivers of Florida. I may be able to join them next January for this adventure. One of the rivers they love is the Suwannee river.

Have a good rest of your week! I myself am heading up to see my sister in Michigan and spend some time with her. She is very much the outdoors person so I will see what adventures she has lined up.

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Life is what you make it, so make it something worthwhile.

This ain't no dress rehearsal!

Lookout's picture

@jakkalbessie

Hope you have easy travels and a good time. Yes, outdoors in nature is the best in my opinion.

Have lots of fun, and let us know what you're up to!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

enhydra lutris's picture

you got some river time and music time and gathering time in a sort of all in one package.

I'm mostly of a mind to leave the whole bulk of this OT alone and get out to work in the garden. Apple tree needs thinning already. Put in about an hour yesterday and barely dented it. I have a container just recently thinned to 4 plants (container chard from Renee's) that is now up against the protecting mesh laid across the container, so I must devise non-shade producing protection from critter with lots of vertical room, and we are having dinner guests (vaccinated, outdoors, not too chummy) tonight.

I mentioned in another thread recently about protocols. A lot of us learned various things about what "science" is, "the scientific method" and a lot of suchwhat in our educational process, mostly simplified, simplistic, are more aptly illustrating "pure" science than "applied". Some of us went much further.

Most, I suspect didn't get too deep into modern practices, which, depending upon the discipline, are protocol based or at least protocol heavy. Medical research is especially so. Protocols evolved to serve many purposes and provide various assurances, but they are also limiting and crippling. So, today, a treatment of some kind for a condition isn't really deemed an effective treatment for said condition unless one or more randomized double blind studies have shown it to be as safe as delivery of known harmless substances, and "effective". To be considered to be effective it must be the case that any alleviation of symptoms and or verifiable "cure" (ie. clearing of a pathogen) must be obscenely unlikely to have occurred by chance and demonstrably better than the results obtained by administering a placebo. Not just better than a placebo, but enormously better than a placebo. So far, such a test does not seem to have been done and/or sufficiently repeated on a sufficiently huge scale with respect to ivermectin and covid-19. (I suspect that any proposal to perform one would be almost unanimously decried as unethical)

The vaccines, afaik, haven't met that test either. The effectiveness studies seemingly used methodologies that could not possibly achieve a "vastly better than placebo" determination for various reasons, not the least of which was the absence of before the fact testing. Also, they were not testing for curative prowess, but for theoretical prevention. (it is difficult to test for prevention without intentionally introducing the pathogen, which runs afoul of ethical considerations.)

That's just one problem, everywhere one looks, the data on this, that or the other aspect of the problem is insufficient or questionable as to either source or conclusions. Example - grown in Wuhan lab because 3 employees allegedly had serious illness of unknown but covid-19 like nature way back before the putative patient zero. Covid-19 like symptoms are also flu like, and similar to other respiratory diseases, as well as other corona viruses such as the one found in dogs, which that lab was probably full of. Back in that time frame, some of us had the cold from hell, which was damn near unshakable. Once covid-19 existed and tests were developed and we all needed and received such tests for various reasons (need to visit a medical facility for assorted procedures) we tested negative but just on pcr tests. About a month to 6 weeks after my second vaccination, I had a flu like ailment that knocked me down for about a week, but because covid-19 is such an assorted grab bag of symptoms, any one or more of which may be either present or absent, who the hell can self diagnose any flu-like ailment or even the cold from hell. So to me, the alleged existence of 3 people from that lab having a bad respiratory illness in a certain time frame isn't really much evidence of anything without a lot more, like how many in that province also had respiratory illnesses then, or in an average month and even that still has an odor of post hoc ergo propter hoc and there was no test and no testing, so we would really need vast volumes of information on every moment of their lives and of everything anybody and everybody in that lab was dong in the weeks prior to that to even get to "very highly probable", and we don't have it and probably never will.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Lookout's picture

@enhydra lutris

To my mind the likeliness of the lab leak is better supported by the furin cleavage site.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-020-0184-0
and a more definitively stated piece
https://www.organicconsumers.org/blog/covids-smoking-gun-furin-cleavage-...
However as I suggested, being dogmatic and certain isn't the true nature of science. Always doubt. The evidence certainly suggest the lab leak hypothesis from my view.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

enhydra lutris's picture

@Lookout

good argument, but, then again, this is a freaky virus, so one might expect to find freaky (and hitherto rare/unknown) abnormalities. We're seemingly just starting down a new rabbit hole, and might be expected to find new stuff. The dog covid, for want of a better name, has dna novelties too:

With a lot of virus on hand, Vlasova could decode its genome. From the virus's gene sequences, she could see that the virus had likely infected cats and pigs at one point. But it likely jumped directly from dogs into people. "The majority of the genome was canine coronavirus," she says.

Then she found a disturbing clue about the virus's future. "We did discover a very, very unique mutation — or deletion — in the genome," Vlasova says. That specific deletion, she says, isn't present in any other known dog coronaviruses, but it is found somewhere else: in human coronaviruses. "It's a mutation that's very similar to one previously found in the SARS coronavirus and in [versions of] SARS-CoV-2 ... [that appeared] very soon after its introduction into the human population," Vlastova says.

This deletion, she believes, helps the dog virus infect or persist inside humans. And it may be a key step required for coronaviruses to make the jump into people.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/05/20/996515792/a-newly-i...

If you find an unusual piece of debris over on the right shoulder of a frequent bike route that coincidentally is likely to be a special hazard for cyclists, it still might be random debris and might not have been done intentionally. If, as Dr. Grey and Leshan Xiu suspect, there are gobs of unusual Covid type viruses floating around in the world's pneumonia patients, abnormalities might also be very common.

be well and have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

enhydra lutris's picture

@Lookout

that revelation. It was alleged, iirc, that they had a print out of the DNA sequence of every virus that had in the lab, and only that one had the suspected additional DNA at that site, which was alleged, in passing to be exactly where you would insert something if you were trying for gain of function. If that was the perfect site for such a thing, why didn't every virus have at least one version with such an addition, since they were trying for gain of function?

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Lookout's picture

@enhydra lutris

is the ONLY Sars virus with the cleavage site. If you're interested listen to Chris explain. He was a year ahead in the conversation. You, of course, are entitled to doubt...that is the theme this week after all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A8Drix5taQ

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

enhydra lutris's picture

@Lookout

lab have it too, after all, they were trying to create such a virus, weren't they? The bir reveal concerning it that I originally saw had a far, far greater list than this video of sequences lacking the site, allegedly everything in he lab.

The receptor isn't, as I understand it too ultra rare and even occurs in some CoV, just not 2B type CoV: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7457603/ --

Absent in other group 2B CoVs, the four additional amino acids (PRRA) form the classic RXXR motif cleaved by many serine proteases when added to the conserved R found at the SARS-CoV-2 S1 cleavage site (PRRAR) 10. Notably, furin cleavage sites have been observed in other virulent pathogens like HIV, avian influenza strains (H5 and H7) as well as Ebola 11. In fact, furin cleavage sites are found in a number of other CoV family members including MERS-CoV, HKU1-Cov, and OC43-CoV12,13; given the range of disease associated with these CoV strains, the furin cleavage site does not necessarily predetermine virulence. However, given its absence in other group 2B CoVs and the major differences in disease compared to SARS-CoV, a better understanding of the role of the furin cleavage site during SARS-CoV-2 infection is needed.

Another paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1873506120304165 alleges

Furin cleavage sites occurred independently for multiple times in the evolution of the coronavirus family, supporting the natural occurring hypothesis of SARS-CoV-2.

and has a downloadable graphic indicating at least 9 prior cases where the site evolved in CoV family members. they then insert their conclusion early:

Here, we analyzed the sequences of coronaviruses and found furin sites occurred independently for multiple times during evolution. This exhibits natural occurrence of furin cleavage site in SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is highly possible. Thus, the insertion of furin cleavage site into SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is not necessarily a result of manual work.

of particulaar note:

Moreover, SARS-CoV-2 is the only virus in subgenus Sarbecovirus having this feature, while even its closest relatives, bat coronavirus RaTG13 (sequence identity 97.7%) and pangolin coronaviruses (92.9%–90.7%), do not have furin site. However, in Hibecovirus, the sister clade of Sarbecovirus, a Hipposideros bat coronavirus collected in 2013 at Zhejiang Province in China has furin site at S1/S2. Interestingly, the other member in Hibecovirus lacks such site, similar to the situation of SARS-CoV-2 and its close relatives.

there is a very interesting graphic here: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1873506120304165-gr6.jpg

and one more
Furin cleavage sites also occur in other genera of coronavirus

Our mapping results showed furin cleavage sites are widely present in the whole coronavirus family (Fig. 5). For spike S1/S2, furin recognition motif is universal in Gammacoronavirus, and also occurs in two clades of Alphacorovanvirus: feline coronavirus and relatives, and Chevrier's field mouse coronavirus. For spike S2′, furin recognition motif occurs in several independent clades, covering all the three genera. Notably, in the two human coronaviruses in Alphacoronavirus causing common cold, HCoV NL63 has furin cleavage site at spike S2′, while the HCoV 229E (protein sequence identity 63.8%) lacks such feature.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Pluto's Republic's picture

@Lookout

The virus was just getting politicized.

To my mind the likeliness of the lab leak is better supported by the furin cleavage site.

I watched Chris' video and read about it and thought it sounded credible. Then, somehow, Nature published something that cut off that aspect of inquiry. For the next year the official narrative was that SARS-CoV-2 was NOT weaponized in in a lab. Statements to the contrary were actively discouraged. Now it's flipped again to give Biden some political teeth to gnaw on China and build some hate.

Do we all understand that from 2014 to 2019, the US established bioweapons labs all over the world and sent out teams to harvest viruses from bats in every country that had them? US Defense contractors went on frenzied race to put this together, backed by a lot of money from the Pentagon.

This was happening as the Obama administration abruptly shut down dozens and dozens of Pentagon-funded BSL3 and BSL4 biolabs throughout the US. If we could not build the foreign labs as fast as we needed them, the Pentagon would commission existing foreign labs. That's how the Wuhan Institute of Virology ended up working for the US.

So, yes, the US launched a mad dash among the US bio labs around the world, and sent out biologists to collect bat viruses, in order to locate coronaviruses that would readily infect humans. However, from what I have read, "gain of function" was not what the labs were pursuing. They wanted to develop a strain of coronavirus that was infectious to people with specific blood types and biological markers related to race. The only way that bioweapons make any sense at all is when they infect only the enemy.

One of the first things I learned about SARS-CoV-2 was that it was especially deadly in persons with Type A blood. So, while my initial interest in Covid-19 was focused on prophylactics and preventives, I launched my own enquiry looking for the intended target. The US had been collecting blood samples from various nationalities for a long time, under one pretext or another. These samples were diverted to US BSL4 biolaboratories on foreign soil. The US biolabs are now scattered along the borders of designated enemy states — from Russia to China to South America.

Some very good intel about this comes from a young freelance journalist, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, who operates out of Bulgaria. Her main focus had been documenting war crimes and illicit arms exports to war zones around the world. Along the way, she got caught up in the rapid proliferation of US bioweapons research labs — and the race, from 2014 to 2019, to develop a coronavirus bioweapon. These events happened to be unfolding in the regions she covers. Dilyana writes in her blog:

The Lugar Center, a $161 million Pentagon-funded biolaboratory in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, discovered coronaviruses in bats with presumably pandemic potential as early as 2014, documents have revealed.

Coincidentally, the same Pentagon contractor tasked with the US DoD bat-research program – Eco Health Alliance, USA, also collected bats and isolated coronaviruses along with Chinese scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Eco Health Alliance received a $3.7 million grant from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to collect and study coronaviruses in bats in China from 2014 to 2019.

The Lugar Center sparked controversy about possible dual-use research in 2018 when leaked documents revealed that US diplomats in Georgia were involved in trafficking of frozen human blood and pathogens for a secret military program. Documents reveal that the Lugar Center also studied coronaviruses in bats.

In 2017 the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) itself launched a $6.5 million project on bats and coronaviruses in Western Asia with the Lugar Center being the local laboratory for this genetic research. The duration of the program is 5 years and has been implemented by the non-profit US organisation Eco Health Alliance.

Eco Health Alliance was also awarded a $3.7 million grant from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to collect bats and isolate coronaviruses in China. The duration of the project was 5 years (2014 – 2019) and was implemented at the Wuhan Institute of Virology – a BSL4 biolaboratory located in Wuhan, Hubei province.

Peter Daszak, president of Eco Health Alliance, told Democracy Now that he had collected bat samples with Chinese colleagues but the Wuhan laboratory did not house the culture of bat viruses but rather their genetic sequencing.

.
SARS-CoV-2 may have been manipulated in a bio lab somewhere. But it appears to be widely known that Wuhan never handled or stored SARS-CoV-2. Wuhan was just one of a large network of US-commissioned labs, but it was not the lab that handled the specimens from the particular species of bat that produced the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Apart from that, there are a dozen documented reasons why the Wuhan Institute of Virology is little more than a political distraction.

There is excellent evidence that Covid-19 was loose in the world for a year before showing up in Wuhan. In mid-October 2019, certain allies were told by US intelligence that a new pandemic was loose in China. Two of those countries, Israel and France, released the Intelligence briefing to their local newspapers. The next day, two newspapers published the pandemic briefing in their home country. In New York, ABC news picked the story that night and published it in the US. The CIA asked ABC news to pull the story, but ABC refused. However, no other US news media covered it, and the incident was soon forgotten.

Actually, I wanted to pass along the link to Dilyana, because it is clear this pandemic has its roots in geopolitics and Imperial sabotage. Other investigative journalists, like the Gray Zone, also reference her findings. A desperate America will do anything, no matter how depraved and self destructive, to stop China's success and inclusion in the world. The US is fast gearing up for a military confrontation with China. Their anti-China propaganda has the American People clamoring for it, as well. Falling for more evidence-free narratives from unnamed sources.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Lookout's picture

@Pluto's Republic

I also read about the sewage samples from Portugal that contained Sars-CoV-2 collected in March of 2019...long before the Wuhan outbreak.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-spain-science-idUS...

Thanks for your thoughtful and fact filled comment!

I suspected this sudden reversal about the lab leak was motivated by the Anti-China faction.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Pluto's Republic's picture

@Lookout

The sewage tests are one important proof. There are also tissue samples from Italy in the summer of 2019, when a strange pneumonia was quietly raging. Simultaneously, "vaping disease" was affecting several communities across the US. The respiratory disease was never identified, but it continued to kill until November, 2019, when it suddenly disappeared. Covid-19 took its place.

A number of athletes who participated in the international military olympics starting October 18, returned home very sick and later came to believe they had been infected with Covid-19. China would not see its first Covid-19 infection until December 31, two months later.

Genetic tracking is ongoing, but there are many strange leaps and anomalies. It's hard to say whether the disease pattern is natural or artificial. However, China doesn't seem to be the first country to be infected. The virus is native to bats in several parts of the world.

The most suspicious event of this era was the US obsession with building unregulated bioweapons labs throughout the world and conducting illegal experiments.

Calls mount for probe into US bio-labs after Russian claim

Apr 08, 2021 – Calls for probes into the US' mysterious bio-labs in order to better understand coronavirus origins are growing after Russia said it has every reason to believe the US is developing biological weapons in labs mainly near the China-Russia border.

Experts said that investigation of US bio-labs may offer clues to the virus origins; however, the US continues to ignore the international community's questions over its mysterious bio-labs.

Responding to a question about the origin of COVID-19, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said recently that US-controlled biological laboratories appear mainly near Russian and Chinese borders. And there is good reason to believe the US is developing biological weapons in those labs, and that outbreaks of non-typical diseases have been reported around them.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Thursday urged the US to respond to concerns and make comprehensive clarifications on biological militarization activities within and outside the US, and stop blocking the establishment of a verification mechanism under the Biological Weapons Convention.

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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
studentofearth's picture

@Pluto's Republic very similar to many product development scenarios of our modern corporate world of public/private partnerships. Intellectual property protection by legal structure or maintaining secrecy by only parsing out parts of the research and development to various teams located close by or globally. All stages managed by a very small development team with knowledge of the whole concept and key development information. Other participant knowledge and work limited by contracts, which would include standard language to protect intellectual property, sharing information without approval and sometimes restricting use of newly learned skills.

The owner of the intellectual property is responsible for the full product development life cycle. Other participants in the process are generally limited to only their stage. As we have seen in many corporate disasters some bit player along the chain of development takes the "Fall". Highest level players take the profit and move on to a new game, sometimes need to hire a good publicity manager for full redemption.

Simply look at the models for pharmaceuticals, semiconductor chips, chemicals and other products with high use of intellectual property protection (even Nike sneakers).

Thank you for the link to Dilyana Gaytandzhieva I had read some of her work on US Bio Labs ex-Soviet locations, did not note the author and lost the link.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@studentofearth

I saw how it worked along with the protections it offered as you described it. That's something Dilyana can't bring to the work she does. That's why we need each other for analysis. Recently, Dilyana uncovered a scheme in and around Ukraine, where US diplomats were transporting local blood samples in their diplomatic pouches on frequent flights to the US. Although her evidence is abundant, working it into current events is a challenge.

One thing I have learned over the past six years is that all high-level US government corruption has a foothold in Ukraine. The US political-party kabuki is dropped in Ukraine and the players constitute a mob of vast influence and criminality. The first impeachment of Donald Trump showed them working together with breathtaking precision. It was their finest hour. This mob has it all in Ukraine, from state of the art spycraft to invisible bank accounts and personal money laundering. It's the cornerstone of weapons brokering and war profiteering. This is the tower of corruption in the US Federal system.

'

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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
dystopian's picture

@enhydra lutris Hey EL! for this...

non-shade producing protection from critter with lots of vertical room,

We have a problem with mold on the tomatoes due to humidity. I use pvc framed greenhouselets. Can make as tall as needed, 3/4" is usually good enough, have them covered in big clear dropcloths and or screens as needed. I tie on with ropes in a way to hold but easy-off. But in thunderstorms the 1.25" PVC is better. Can make as tall as needed, don't glue, just tap the joints together with rubber mallet. A few T's and crossbars for strength and to tie stuff off to. I put 45's at the top of the 4 vertical corner poles to get a peaked roof. Easy to open at the ends... I guess I need to take a pic... I have a couple 4 or 5' by 6-7' or so, maybe 6' tall. We find katydids and other destroyers of veggies on the outside all the time.

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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

enhydra lutris's picture

@dystopian

coverings before. This ws for one small earthbox, so I just used some plastic construction fence staked around with 4 small bamboo sticks.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris I was struck by the discussion of relative risk reduction vs absolute risk reduction. Or rather, the absence of discussion, as absolute risk reduction is rarely if ever mentioned in most "news" reports.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

I need to know; something like me CANNOT exist in a totalitarian-neofeudal world.

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

enhydra lutris's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

good luck with your search

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris @enhydra lutris

Some of my minuses others might consider pluses...

Somehow, the CNMI (Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands), although part of the US, somehow gets away with having extremely restrictive gun laws. You might be able to have a bolt action .22 if the police accept your explanation for why you need it (self-defense not being considered a valid response).

Also, only people of 1/4 CNMI native ancestry are allowed to own land outright.

A bunch of the US military's forward-deployed war fighting materiel is stored on ships right off Saipan - imagine that puts it pretty high up the scale of targets for Chinese nukes.

US military also continues to press for an expanded presence, especially for firing ranges - they already have bombing range on one uninhabited island and an artillery range on Tinian.

OTOH - I guess people hunt wild hogs with crossbows there and long term leases of real estate are allowed, plus cost of living is apparently low.

Same latitude as Hawaii.

One could do worse, especially if you don't want to deal with getting foreign residency somewhere...

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Lookout's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

They have no army anyway. I also liked Switzerland which has 4 very different cultures including four languages.

However, the corporations are global. So I'm not sure there is an escape hatch.

Glad you came by!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

You seem remarkably tuned into all things COVID so you’ve likely seen this already, but this seemed as good a place as any to drop this video. It’s a good add on to his excellent Medium piece.
[video:https://youtu.be/2CQgo0tu6ek]

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6 users have voted.

Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

Lookout's picture

@ovals49

Thanks for the link and video.

Whatta con on so many levels.

Nice to "see" you this Sunday!

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5 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

enhydra lutris's picture

@ovals49

There's an old adage that says man is not a rational animal but a rationalizing one - we make up our minds and then find some (cherry picked) evidence, theory or other background to support it.

Premise "There is no evidence that this virus was ever in a bat" - I think that is an equivocation on THIS. I don't know what bat signal he was expecting and failing to see, but I seem to recall that when this theory was first proposed a lot of respected scientists asserted that it was clearly a bat virus based on dna. I suspect he is playing word games with THIS - this specific precise virus with exactly this version of the spike protein was never to my satisfaction proven to have been in a bat, like, you know, with a witnessed procurement of a bat and vivisection and .... He sort of shows us that this is what he is up to when he then says it was very easy for her to make one, she starts with a bat virus and starts string to splice in spike proteins. Why would she start with a bat virus, not a monkey, pig, waterfowl, etc. if this wasn't a bat virus to start with?

Why is it easier to believe that somebody goes and gets a new bat virus and then starts experimentally modifying the hell out of it, trying out a whole bunch of different modifications, eventually specifically with various spike proteins, until they get lucky than that they found a new bat virus that already had the spike protein in question? It actually violates Occam's Razor on the face if it. From there, it is but one digression to say the lab isn't remotely secure until we bring in the allegations of the intelligence community. I wonder if all 17 of them agreed like they did with the Russiagate hack? That's pretty much where I gave up on the interview.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Lookout's picture

@enhydra lutris

It is half bat and half pangolin connected by a furin cleavage site.

Pretty clearly a gain of function experiment.

Chris explains in the clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A8Drix5taQ

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7 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

enhydra lutris's picture

@Lookout

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris

There's an old adage that says man is not a rational animal but a rationalizing one

This applies to critics and adherents both. I am simply trying to find the bone the dog has buried. I have many questions and very little certainty, and see no good reason to accept narratives based on their Google search algorithm prevalence or their ubiquity in mainstream media headlines.

We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false. William Casey, CIA Director 1981-1987
(at an early Feb. 1981 meeting in the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House)

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6 users have voted.

Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

dystopian's picture

Great post as always... thanks for all the great info... the Ivermectin story will be a big one in time. I see India is suing WHO over its NON-recommendation of it. Please pass the popcorn.

Your trip sounds fantastic! Nature and music have been two of my most critical therapies.

In '73 my family, or part of it, stayed in a cabin in Stephen C. Foster St. Pk. in GA. Which is in the middle of the Okefenokee Swamp. We had to wait until the current occupant left, which was Guvnah Catah! One of the coolest state parks and most awesome places I have even been to; canoe trails, big Cypress and Spanish Moss, Prothonotary Warblers, and
Pileated Woodpeckers, you know how it is...

Hope all is well, for all!

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11 users have voted.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

Lookout's picture

@dystopian

did a 3 day canoe trip across the okie. It was great. Went with a wildlife bunch. Super fun...

Didn't know my birds then. Would love to go again. Camped one night on an island and one night on a platform.

Tales from my misspent youth.

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7 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”