Re: What's Going on in the Americas?
Reply #1478 –
I still can't make sense of what you're talking about.
[...]
you need a mutation to be 40 times more likely in an HIV patient than in a regular person [...]
I can see why... What you need is an unrestricted viral load in a defenseless host...
How long do you think a person with untreated AIDS lives, before succumbing to some opportunistic infection? The patient the Stanford docs treated had been in a long-term care facility -where she was not treated for her AIDS- when she contracted Covid-19... It turned out to be the Omicron variant; but there was no claim that it originated (spontaneously) in her system. Indeed, Omicron was already well established in other parts of the world...
The Omicron variant itself had already acquired its profile, the markers that allow its classification and identification. And it was a more than passing-strange beastie! (As no one denies: Its number of mutations compared with other variants is phenomenal; and its transmissibility is -as all agree- much greater.)
But your numbers game (sorry, if that sounds pejorative: it's not meant that way -- please read on!) makes two unwarranted assumptions:
- That the variant is not stable
- That it requires a host with a severely compromised immune system to reproduce
If either were true, we wouldn't be in such a dither. Your numbers game is beside the point you intended to make, no?
But in evolutionary terms, given the prevalence of AIDS in southern Africa, the origin of the Omicron variant posited by the Stanford docs is plausible...
I'd say likely true. But.
I wouldn't leave that determination fo "fact checkers",
I read what you linked to. I read what the organization offered about itself. And do you really mean me to infer that you equate well-credentialed and respected scientists and doctors to those prone to succumbing to Russian or Chinese disinformation?
I don't doubt their views concerning certain efforts -the ones specifically mentioned- are cogent and defensible... But note, please:
As of March 2021, the team has sixteen full-time staff recruited by EU institutions or seconded by the EU Member States. Team members have a variety of professional backgrounds in communications, journalism and social sciences and speak some of the languages of EU’s neighbours, including Russian. [Emphasis added - dej]
No virologists, no MDs. What you want them to do is out of their wheelhouse, Frenzie.