semimojo wrote: "Not exactly what he said. Right. He said every administration has faced disease outbreaks and Trump's would be no different.
Let me address this point with the clarification of the term: "Gain-of-function" = the ability to weaponize the virus.
Now consider the detail: "Gain-of-function" waivers were issued under the Obama administration - hence, Trump's administration faced a significantly different situation.
As further background, consider this lengthy twitter thread documentation provided by Christine Brim tracing the timeline/documentation on the waivers given "gain of function" flu projects during the Obama administration. I've gone through the trouble to provide screen caps for your convenience:
As further background, consider this lengthy twitter thread documentation provided by Christine Brim tracing the timeline/documentation on the waivers given "gain of function" flu projects during the Obama administration.Right. The government temporarily stopped funding research that would make the MERS virus transmissible to other animals. Being able to infect mice with MERS would help the researchers study the virus and work on vaccines.
The halt was temporary and lifted when the labs convinced the government that they had necessary precautions in place.
There's been a lot of research on Ebola, SARS, MERS and now Covid-19, some of it in Wuhan, and the research has been funded by public, academic and private players.
None of this is unusual or particularly remarkable given the history of Ebola and MERS.
Brim throws out a lot of data points but I don't ever see her bring it home.
Does she have a claim or accusation about Covid-19 being an engineered virus or is it all just innuendo?
