If Russia already has a vaccine for COVID-19, then they're probably responsible

[ecstatic]

for unleashing the virus in the first place, potentially with trump's (unwitting?) assistance.

The urgent questions that need to be answered:

1. Who advised trump to pull the PREDICT team from Wuhan, China, just WEEKS before the outbreak began? trump didn't come up with that idea on his own. We all know that he had no idea the team was even there. WHO told him to do that and WHY?

2. Similarly, why was the White House pandemic team dismantled? I know the common opinion is that trump wanted to undo everything President Obama did, but the pandemic team is something that trump likely knew little, if anything, about. Who told him about the team and then suggested dismantling it? Does the timing coincide with one of his private conversations with putin?

3. trump has repeatedly made promises about a vaccine coming "real soon." Who told him this? putin? Will trump now use billions of US taxpayer money to purchase vaccines from Russia?

Again, these questions must be answered, because COVID-19 is unlike ANYTHING we've ever dealt with. Hundreds of thousands of people are now dead! Researchers are still baffled and confused, yet Russia has a vaccine now??

Experts say that like a fishing net with many holes, the surveillance network had numerous gaps, with too little money and manpower to be truly effective. “We’ve been gutting surveillance for too long,” says Michael Buchmeier, a virologist and associate director of the Center for Virus Research at the University of California, Irvine. “And by doing that, we’re creating blind spots in our ability to identify and contain threats of infectious disease in the world.” Indeed, in September 2019, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic began, USAID announced it would end funding for PREDICT. The agency claims it has plans for a successor effort, but it has not provided any additional details, and many worry that critical momentum is being lost.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-the-coronavirus-slipped-past-disease-detectives/

[Karadeniz]

1. Well, when you put it like that....!

[Mike 03]

2. You're asking very good questions.

One question I have is: If Russia is confident it has a vaccine to the virus, why do they keep getting caught launching cyber attacks on US and European pharmaceutical companies supposedly trying to steal their data about vaccines?

[ecstatic]

5. Worldwide chaos?

Or....

if they are responsible for the virus, couldn't they tinker with the DNA to make sure that they are the only ones who can vaccinate against it?

[lagomorph777]

40. I don't think Putin wants to steal the vaccines; he wants to sabotage them.

[fescuerescue]

41. They may very well have stolen the vaccine from a pharma

There are many candidate vaccines already available.

None have finished being certified.

Perhaps Russia simply stole it, and is skipping the testing phase and claiming it's their own.

[DonaldsRump]

3. Suggest all DUers stay away from open windows or don't drink tea with strangers

You may be on to something!

[Native]

4. I've been wondering about this as well. It's all too convenient.

It came to a head for me when I read that they were "testing" the vaccine on government members and the military. That sounded more like they were "protecting" their more important assets before giving it to the general population.

[LisaL]

17. China is already giving vaccine that China developed to the military.

There are lots of vaccines. None have been fully tested. That obviously isn't stopping some countries for starting to giving them to people.

[roamer65]

6. You are definitely echoing my suspicions.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2551538

[Xolodno]

7. They....like our intelligence services, already knew....

...China had a major problem on their hands, but weren't forthcoming. Russia sealed its border with China well in advance and started quarantining people right away. Putin even went into self quarantine to avoid any chance of getting it. But it was still too little, too late. Of course, Trump ignored the intelligence warnings.

They probably have a vaccine similar, if not exact, like ours that's being developed. However, Russia isn't afraid to rush things without enough testing. The way they look at it, the final test will be on the populace.

[NNadir]

8. This post is purely tin foil hat.

The idea that the virus is synthetic has been debunked many times.

We don't serve ourselves well when we engage in paranoia, and the quote from Scientific American is taken completely out of context and has nothing to do with a Russian bioweapons attack on the US.

[Brainfodder]

10. Perhaps he just kicks things to future discussion, and then *poof* it is gone?

Until fake news asks about it again?

[NNadir]

11. While I'm appalled at the contempt for science on the right, it is MORE painful on the left...

...because I am a member of the left.

One can, and does, see some pretty ignorant stuff around here.

[not_the_one]

16. I understand your reluctance...

I also remember that when we first started talking about russian interference in our election, it was opined that only two states' data bases had been affected, and all they did was "look around". Because to do more was just not, technically, possible.

THAT certainly turned out to be a bit naive.

We tin foil hat wearers find these political coincidences a bit too convenient. So we say so.

Trust us, we hope we are wrong.

As another comment says, we put NOTHING past them. IF IT IS AT ALL POSSIBLE, they will do it. The question is, is it at all possible? Human innovation, especially when driven by ulterior and sinister motivations, SEEMS to know no bounds.

[NNadir]

20. In order to believe this is possible, one must hold contempt for science.

I will never endorse contempt for science.

I know you are wrong, because I know something about virology because I routinely and regularly and fairly constantly have been opening scientific papers all day long for periods extending 30 years.

Raising this point makes the people raising it look like Trumpian fools. It is the equivalent of bleach injections, hydroxychloroquine, et cetera.

[ecstatic]

26. Point me to one expert who has 100% eliminated the possibility that

COVID-19 was engineered. You can't do it. Unlikely does not mean impossible. I have a science degree, so I definitely don't reject science. I've paid extremely close attention to what the experts have said and not said. The only clear pattern is that they're still bewildered by a virus that can kill entire families yet leave others without so much as a sniffle. Every day, new studies are released that directly contradict other studies.

By the way, do you know the answer to those questions regarding PREDICT and the White House pandemic team? Or are you comfortable moving forward with them unanswered? If so, that's your choice, but I will not silently and obediently believe every piece of nonsense the trump admin throws out there.

[NNadir]

28. Give me a break. Every fucking scientific journal in the world is publishing open accessed Covid...

...papers.

It is not my job to educate you; there are millions upon millions of more important things to do. It is also not my job to engage someone in the idiot exercise of proving a negative.

Every conspiracy theorist asks people to prove a negative; 100% of the time.

I don't generally credit CT theorists with respectability, since they have none.

Your claim is not worthy of this site. OK?

[NNadir]

33. Well, I admit that CT typepulling stuff out of their asses, piss me off...

I have a better idea about how to interact with these types, a method of which I avail myself when annoyed by the type of arrogant ignorance people see with, say, Trump.

I have no use for appeals to ignorance, for example, someone making up a theory about the origin of viruses, when one has no ability in the world to distinguish a fucosylated glycan from a peanut butter sandwich.

We live in very serious times, and there is little time to waste with clowns.

Last week, in the prestigious scientific journal, Science, a news item referred to a scientist who has spent her career studying viruses, and she addressed, with due contempt. the world's most famous and noxious CT conspirator in the world, another shit for brains fool who speculated about the origin of this virus without even a shred of scientific training or insight.

The coronavirus pandemic has thrust virologist Shi Zhengli into a fierce spotlight. Shi, nicknamed “Bat Woman,” heads a group that studies bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), in the Chinese city where the pandemic began. Many have speculated that SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen that causes COVID-19, accidentally escaped from her lab—a theory promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump. Some have even suggested it could have been engineered there...

...“U.S. President Trump's claim that SARS-CoV-2 was leaked from our institute totally contradicts the facts,” she added. “It jeopardizes and affects our academic work and personal life. He owes us an apology.”

Shi stressed that over the past 15 years, her lab has isolated and grown in culture only three bat coronaviruses related to one that infected humans: the agent that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which erupted in 2003. The more than 2000 other bat coronaviruses the lab has detected, including one that is 96.2% identical to SARS-CoV-2, are simply genetic sequences that her team has extracted from fecal samples and oral and anal swabs of the animals. She also noted that all staff and students in her lab recently tested negative for SARS-CoV-2, challenging the notion that one of them triggered the pandemic...

Wuhan coronavirus hunter Shi Zhengli speaks out (Cohen, Science 31 Jul 2020: Vol. 369, Issue 6503, pp. 487-488, Science News.)

Science is hard enough without having to engage every asshole and moron, from Trump on down, who presents one lunatic theory after another, none of which invested with a shred of fact. People who do this sort of thing distract us from our responsibilities, and thus do nothing more than trivialize and further worsen a dire situation.

I'm a scientist. I don't need this shit. No scientist needs this shit. I have nothing more to say to anyone who raises such nonsense. I have an ignore list for preventing myself from being exposed to depressing ignorance.

Have a nice life. We won't be speaking again, woo...woo...woo...

[tritsofme]

47. For all that nonsense, I thought the poster was very kind.

[lagomorph777]

42. The virus doesn't have to be synthetic; Trump is undeniably amplifying the pandemic.

Who's to say a naturally occurring virus wasn't introduced in a planned way, after TrumPutin made sure to neutralize all of our defenses?

[NNadir]

43. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Nobody on this website doubts that Trump is an evil man, but...

Most of also agree he is intellectually limited, to put it mildly. He simply is limited in his ability to maintain an attention span to engage in a nefarious plot.

We have more serious things to address than speculations and innuendo. We need not pile fanciful speculations on his very well known, documented evidence of his malignity, all of which are plentiful. To do otherwise is to embrace his methods, which is simply to make stuff up. In someways in my opinion, this kind of stuff legitimizes his outrageously bad thinking by presenting us as no better than him.

Corona viruses are among the most widely studied pathogens in the world, by highly trained and accomplished scientists. The proteins, the nucleic acids, the glycine and even the lipids have been explored in great detail.

The origin of this disease are clearly and unambiguously zoogenic, almost certainly involving bats possibly with a bridge species. That's a fact. Facts matter.

[lagomorph777]

46. Every Trump COVID briefing is extraordinary proof.

Which is exactly why he plummets in the polls every time he resurrects the briefings.

[whttevrr]

18. I'm more concerned that this post is 8

Post 1 should have called 'woo'

[obamanut2012]

37. Same -- was shocked I had to scroll so far

[Celerity]

35. [phone] The OP should self delete this claptrap

[uponit7771]

9. K&R, There is ... ***NOTHING*** ... I would put past Trump & the Kremlin KKKLan

[GoCubsGo]

12. I'll believe that Russia has a vaccine when I see it.

It's run by an asshole who is as much a corrupt liar as the asshole running this country. I ain't buying it.

[LisaL]

15. They have a vaccine.

Numerous countries have numerous vaccines. None of the vaccines have been fully tested.
China is already giving their vaccine to their military, even if it isn't fully tested.

[GoCubsGo]

25. I guess I should have qualified that...

I'll believe Russia has a safe, fully-tested vaccine when I see it.

[Rstrstx]

13. For the conspiratorialists, a couple of months ago there was a rumor...

...that the virus may have been introduced in Wuhan at the time of some type of Olympic style games last fall. Russia was one of the countries that participated. Some people tried to connect the dots back to this incident:

https://thebulletin.org/2019/11/what-happened-after-an-explosion-at-a-russian-disease-research-lab-called-vector/

Supposedly there were reports of some of the athletes getting sick in Wuhan, and there was a story that the French had gone back and found the virus had been present in France back in November of last year (France also had athletes at the Wuhan games).

https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20200520-scans-show-french-patients-were-sick-with-covid-19-in-mid-november-doctors-say-colmar-haut-rhin

Personally I’m extremely skeptical about this elaborate conspiracy theory, it makes a lot of assumptions, the evidence still points to China as the “birth place” of the virus and people come down with illnesses all the time. We don’t know much about the accuracy of how the French detected these early cases - the victims could have had one of the coronaviruses associated with the common cold and it might have triggered a false positive CV-19 result, we just don’t know. The story quickly died and if there was something there you would think you would have heard about it.

So either Russia is at the heart of this very extravagant theory or they’re just chest-pounding. Put me in the chest-pounding camp.

As for the Trump administration scrapping the pandemic response team, well, mmm, dismantling, gutting and slashing is the one thing they seem to be pretty effective at.

[LisaL]

14. This sort of lunacy doesn't belong on DU.

There is not enough tin foil in the world for this kind of idiotic crap.
There are numerous vaccines already in existence. If you don't go through all the clinical trials, you can start giving it to people right now.
I've seen nothing to suggest Russia completed an extensive testing of their vaccine.

[whttevrr]

19. Thank you

Isn't there another forum for tin foil hat conspiracy theories?

[Celerity]

36. [phone]

[backscatter712]

21. There's already been a number of vaccines cooked up for Cap'n Trumps. We don't know if they work.

It's going to take months of double-blind trials to determine if 1.: the vaccines work, and 2.: the vaccines don't have nasty side-effects like causing immune-system freakouts.

If we're lucky, Fauci said he was optimistic that we could see a vaccine become available to the public early next year.

[Rebl2]

22. Don't

believe for one minute they have a vaccine for this already that works.

[grantcart]

23. Not just unfounded but contrary to known facts

It has been established that covid virus from wild animal to human transmission has a radically different architecture than covid that is created in labs for research. US intelligence has determined conclusively that the Covid 19 virus is generated from wild transmission and not a lab.

[DallasNE]

24. Putin Could Be Just Trying To Get Inside Of Trump's Head

With his October announcement on mass inoculations for CV-19. Right now he has Trump in a race situation hoping to prompt Trump to prematurely begin vaccinations in America. Trump will take the bait, you can count on that. So, how much of a delay will Trumps false start cause? Will the infrastructure be in place that soon? This takes careful planning, not some knee jerk reaction to something Putin says.

[meadowlander]

27. If Putin had a vaccine wouldn't he give it to his own people

before the massive spread of Covid-19 in Russia destabilised his regime and made him look like an idiot for claiming what a great job he was doing?

[JI7]

29. Russia doesn't have a Vaccine .

[Initech]

31. Russia doesn't have a vaccine.

They're skipping about 100 steps to get there. They're jumping from Phase II to it's already in production. That would be like winning the gold medal for the Olympics in cycling when you're just starting to learn how to ride a bike. I think you might want to turn off the tin foil hat there.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/02/world/europe/russia-trials-vaccine-October.html

[PTWB]

32. This is misinformation.

The virus has been scientifically shown to be natural - not synthesized in a lab.

We have (several) vaccine contenders in various phases of testing. Russia simply does not have the same rigorous testing standards that we do.

[obamanut2012]

38. CT misinformation and disinformation - delete this

[lagomorph777]

39. It is odd that the ignoramus knew exactly which pieces to dismantle and when.

And don't forget what we just learned about him postponing the big ventilator order from Philips by 2 years, and volunteering to pay 5x the already-negotiated price.

All of those facts point to deliberate amplification of the pandemic.

There was never a need for the actual virus to be synthetic; all that's needed is for the response to be deliberately sabotaged. It's plain to see that Trump is sabotaging the response every day, and has been doing so since long before we became aware of the virus at all.

[Happy Hoosier]

44. They are simply proceeding with production without adequate testing.

They are going to make their entire country a Phase III trial. It's probably one they stole anyway.

[FBaggins]

45. Nonsense that belongs with other conspiracy-theory woo.

It doesn't even make sense for Russia to be behind it.

1 - If Trump is their puppet... why create something that virtually ensures his defeat?

2 - Russia's #1 geopolitical goal is their dominance in oil/gas exports and keeping those prices as high as possible. This damages both.


As for the claim itself - there are lots of vaccines out there that look promising already. Perhaps Russia just doesn't require as much safety testing.