jac

Also @ bluesky:

[jac @jaccccc]

@MelbOnTransit RIP Ryan’s. Best operator hands down.

[jac @jaccccc]

Pleased to say as of Day 1, both @StanAustralia and @9Now have very good streams - but still no explanation as to why some events before the opening ceremony (Day -1) were just nowhere to be seen…

[jac @jaccccc]

So much for “live Olympics”… neither @StanAustralia nor @9Now are airing the archery, despite Stan’s app saying it’s live, the official Olympics app directing us to 9Now… What a joke.

[jac @jaccccc]

Meanwhile back in 2021 for Tokyo2020, 7+ managed to provide us with multiple live streams from the same event… I didn’t think that bar was too high?

[jac @jaccccc]

@SBSEurovision Will Joel’s mic be better next time? 😩

[jac @jaccccc]

@6NewsAU No one seems to be talking about this https://t.co/IQJ9e6osCr

[jac @jaccccc]

@MYOB On hold for over an hour, what gives? Don’t have time for this…

[jac @jaccccc]

These two things are completely contradictory. @Ticketek_AU, why do people that need to buy accessible tickets not get to buy their tickets in the same way at the same time as everyone else?

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

After years of official pronouncements to the contrary, strong new evidence has emerged suggesting the virus known as SARS-CoV-2 escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

According to multiple U.S. government officials interviewed as part of a lengthy investigation by Public and Racket, the first people infected by the virus, “patients zero,” included Ben Hu, a researcher who led the WIV’s “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses, which increases the infectiousness of viruses.

More than three years after the pandemic’s outbreak, many around the world had given up on learning the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the highly infectious respiratory virus that has killed millions, and the response to which shut down businesses and schools, upended societies, and caused enormous collateral damage.

Public officials in the U.S. and other countries have repeatedly suggested that uncovering the pandemic’s origin may not be possible. “We may never know,” said Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who oversaw pandemic response for two administrations.

Now, answers increasingly look within reach. Sources within the US government say that three of the earliest people to become infected with SARS-CoV-2 were Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu. All were members of the Wuhan lab suspected to have leaked the pandemic virus.

As such, not only do we know there were WIV scientists who had developed COVID-19-like illnesses in November 2019, but also that they were working with the closest relatives of SARS-CoV-2, and inserting gain-of-function features unique to it.

When a source was asked how certain they were that these were the identities of the three WIV scientists who developed symptoms consistent with COVID-19 in the fall of 2019, we were told, “100%”

“Ben Hu is essentially the next Shi Zhengli,” said Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Shi is known as “the bat woman of China,” and led the gain-of-function research at the WIV. “He was her star pupil. He had been making chimeric SARS-like viruses and testing these in humanized mice. If I had to guess who would be doing this risky virus research and most at risk of getting accidentally infected, it would be him.”

Hu and Yu researched the novel lineage of SARS-like viruses from which SARS-CoV-2 hails, and in 2019 coauthored a paper with Shi Zhengli that described SARS-like lineages they had studied over the years.

Jamie Metzl, a former member of the World Health Organization expert advisory committee on human genome editing who raised questions starting in early 2020 about a possible research-related pandemic origin, said, “It’s a game changer if it can be proven that Hu got sick with COVID-19 before anyone else. That would be the ‘smoking gun.’ Hu was the lead hands-on researcher in Shi’s lab.”

Sources tell Public and Racket that other news organizations are chasing aspects of this story. On Saturday, The Times of London quoted an anonymous U.S. State Department investigator saying, “It has become increasingly clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was involved in the creation, promulgation, and cover-up of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Public and Racket are the first publications to reveal the names of the three sick WIV workers and place them directly in the lab that collected and experimented with SARS-like viruses poised for human emergence.

Next week, the Directorate of National Intelligence is expected to release previously classified material, which may include the names of the three WIV scientists who were the likely among the first to be sickened by SARS-CoV-2.

A bill signed by President Biden earlier this year specifically called for the release of the names and roles of the sick researchers at the WIV, their symptoms and date of symptom onset, and whether these researchers had been involved with or exposed to coronavirus research.

On Dec. 29, 2017, two years before the pandemic began, Chinese state-run television aired a video that includes a scene of Ben Hu watching a lab worker handle specimens. Neither are wearing protective gear. The same video shows WIV scientists hunting for bat viruses with little protective gear. “If they were worried about being infected in the field, they would need full body suits with no gaps” to be safe, said Chan. “That’s the only way.”

The WIV research with live SARS-like viruses was performed at too low of a safety level, “BSL-2,” explains Chan, “When we now know that the pandemic virus is even capable of escaping from a BSL-3 lab and infecting fully vaccinated young lab workers.”

While scientists justify such research as necessary for developing vaccines, President Barack Obama banned federal funding for gain-of-function research of concern in 2014, because experts had come to the consensus that it was too dangerous. However, the National Institute of Health and NIAID headed by Francis Collins and Fauci, and a major U.S. government grantee, EcoHealth Alliance, deemed their work on SARS-like viruses as not falling under the gain-of-function research of concern definitions and funded this project in China and Southeast Asia.

[Michael Shellenberger @shellenberger]

After years of official claims to the contrary, strong new evidence suggests the virus known as SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a Chinese lab. According to multiple sources, the researchers who led gain-of-function research, which increases infectiousness, were the first to be infected.

[Dame Sa 🐝 3.5% @LongCovidHell]

@Artemizia_123 Facts matter:

Long Covid predates vaccines globally.

The term Long Covid was first used by Dr Perego in May 2020.

UK Long Covid clinics opened in Oct 2020.

Long Covid studies (this one showed organ damage👇) were conducted in 2020.

All pre vaccines.

https://t.co/dqFTrgrqS4

[jac @jaccccc]

@CameronRenilson @MetalcoreMagpie @undefinedhandle @annalise_webb @Leo_Puglisi6 Western standards have nothing to do with it. Get any non-Melbournian (including any other Australian) to drive around trams without any prior education and most freak the fuck out or have no idea what to do/how to drive safely. Tests/education when changing license is logical.

[jac @jaccccc]

@dj1au @davidbradford65 I’ve had a lot of people tell me they’re sick every other week, to which I recommend they wear masks. It’s always met with a “too hard basket” vibe, so I ask them when was the last time they were in a car crash, and when was the last time they wore a seatbelt… 🤨

[The Vertlartnic @TheVertlartnic]

Nope. All Those Life-Threatening Medical Conditions Are Caused By Something Else. No, Not That Thing You Said, Some Other Thing.

[jac @jaccccc]

@djf0001 @NjbBari3 @KatePri14608408 Was watching the new series of Party Down which actually has covid in its storyline, and in various scenes throughout, a handful of people scattered in the background are masked. It was refreshing to see.

[jac @jaccccc]

@metrotrains I’ve just left the train and confirm he’s now in a seat.

[jac @jaccccc]

@metrotrains there is a man laying on the ground of carriage 1132T. Not sure if he is passed out or not.

Craigieburn line, approaching Melb Central now.

[jac @jaccccc]

@metrotrains I am not on that carriage anymore so I cannot see clearly with all the people in the way. I believe they are still on the train, but I’m not sure if is urgent as I can’t see properly.