[paganel]

The Czech Republic and Bulgaria had harder/more restrictive lockdowns during the entire year compared to my country (Romania) and yet they have a death-rate higher than ours. Indeed, they managed to ride the first wave pretty much unscathed, but the second one looks like it hit both of them comparatively harder than it hit us.

[trhway]

it may as well happen that lockdowns put selective pressure on the virus for higher virulence.

Anyway, the government bureaucrats are naturally go for simple short-term game like lockdowns without doing any complex long-term thinking (which for example would be the things like efficient preparation for the second wave and achieving herd immunity with minimal losses and minimizing the total losses).

[edmundsauto]

Do you have any evidence for your first graph, or is it something that you contributed in order to add more zest to your internet comment?

[trhway]

Unfortunately i'm about 160 years too late - the zest was added by Darwin.

Covid itself is a result of such accelerated selection performed in that Wuhan lab - what is called "gain of function" experiments.

A natural example of a global virus evolution phenomenon was observed in the 2nd wave of Spanish flu - that strain was mostly killing by causing hyper-reaction of immune system and especially in the healthy 20-50 years old individuals, as the strains normally killable by immune system were cleaned in the first wave.

While all that is obvious, if you need a reference to authority there is a virus evolution discussion by a Harward guy:

https://myvoice.opindia.com/2020/04/evolution-of-virulence-a...

"Let’s assume that every propagule generated from the quarantined individuals has a very small chance of escaping isolation and infecting someone. Just because the virulent ones can make more propagules, they have a higher chance of surviving than the milder varieties. This means we are giving a selective advantage to the more virulent ones over the milder ones and as a result virus will evolve for increased virulence."

[edmundsauto]

> Covid itself is a result of such accelerated selection performed in that Wuhan lab - what is called "gain of function" experiments.

Are you saying this form of the virus was created in a Wuhan lab? As far as I know, that's 100% dead red conspiracy theory, but I'm open to learn more from reputable sources.

[trhway]

it wasnt created, i.e. it isnt synthetic - in that regard those "debunking" articles are almost correct. The point here is that the "creation" is a red herring. The virus wasn't "created", it was selectively bred for higher virulence among mammals (as a way of getting closer to humans - "gain of function" experiments) like you'd do to get a new apple or corn breed. At some point either an employee got infected (or may be some limited human testing of a "flu" on some easy volunteer-able population like say prisoners as part of the experiments) or a carcass of a lab animal was sold at the market ...

[AnimalMuppet]

I'd like to see actual evidence that Covid does in fact come from "gain of function" experiments in the Wuhan lab. So far as I could see, your reference doesn't do that.

[trhway]

Considering 1. the concerns that had been raised about that research in general (and so such a research was halted in US, and US granted funds to that research in Wuhan instead) as well as about safety specifically in those Wuhan labs and 2. exceptional coincidence in time and space I think the onus in on the labs to prove it isn't their virus or at least come maximally open about their situation. If anything we've so far observed completely opposite - there is absolutely no credible information nor about the labs and the related research nor about virus origination investigation.

[AnimalMuppet]

You made the claim that "Covid itself is a result of such accelerated selection performed in that Wuhan lab - what is called 'gain of function' experiments." Not "might be". You said "is".

When I asked you for evidence, you try to reverse the burden of proof. No, you made the claim, you're the one who's supposed to prove something.