[HN Gopher] Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-... ___________________________________________________________________ Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out Author : todd8 Score : 268 points Date : 2021-04-09 13:42 UTC (9 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.technologyreview.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.technologyreview.com) | metalliqaz wrote: | it's not xenophobic, but xenophobic people really love to talk | about it. that's the problem with the discourse. | | of course the irony is that it doesn't even matter. We already | know China (1) tried to cover it up, screwing the rest of the | world, and (2) has poor wet market sanitation practices that seem | designed to cultivate these kinds of diseases. Those issues are | already bad enough. | SubiculumCode wrote: | The opposition to the idea comes down to one thing 1)Donald | Trump et al supported this hypothesis, and thus disagreeing | with the hypothesis becomes reflexive for many. | fermienrico wrote: | Just shows how politics have divided us. No one seems to be | thinking independently and that includes myself - I try but | often the first reaction is otherwise. | | You can despise someone deeply, but if they are citing facts, | reason, logic, etc - have no association, they stand on their | own. Doesn't matter who uttered it. | abecedarius wrote: | > xenophobic people really love to talk about it | | Guilt by association + Overton Window enforcement. | | I guess you're pointing this out and not endorsing it? | kolbe wrote: | Which is obviously a problem. The US more or less has two | sides, and both are routinely responsible for(or at least | align with) morally reprehensible things. It should not be a | problem to choose truth regardless of where if falls in a | political spectrum. And no one who wants to just find the | truth should have to second guess their findings because | they're politically inconvenient for someone. | metalliqaz wrote: | that's correct | nicoburns wrote: | It does matter in the context of deciding whether we ought to | fund gain of function research going forwards. | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | I suspect that the Chinese government actively works to | conflate criticism as xenophobia. This same strategy is exactly | why it's so hard to discuss Israel in anything other than a | positive light. | brigandish wrote: | > but xenophobic people really love to talk about it | | All too often I see this used as the standard for labelling | someone a xenophobe and it becomes a classic case of begging | the question. Since we all agree it's not xenophobic to speak | about it, perhaps it's time we wait for _actual_ xenophobia | before making what should be serious accusations? | Viliam1234 wrote: | What exactly are the good guys supposed to do in a situation | where bad guys enjoy the truth: support the noble lie, or | hiss "you are not supposed to talk about this"? | guerrilla wrote: | It's not the worst rule of thumb as long as the social | context is taken into account (i.e. it wouldn't be as | appropriate here.) Heuristics do save time. | lazide wrote: | Since some of the very first discussion of the topic in | public was by the president using it as a political football | alongside a trade war with China and a nontrivial amount of | public fear and aversion to random people that happened to | look Chinese, that well is pretty solidly poisoned at this | point? | s5300 wrote: | I'm not sure if I'm reading this incorrectly and | misinterpreting... | | But Asian hate crimes are waaay up since the beginning of | Covid-19 | | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684 | | Do you not call this xenophobia? | | It would be my elementary understanding that this rise in | hate crime against Asians may be related to the President of | the U.S. aggressively referring to the virus as the "china | virus" and broadcasting that this was all China's fault | during this time. | lurquer wrote: | Strange how Asian is equated with Chinese. | | How insulting. | | It's often the typical virtue-signaling liberals who group | disparate languages, races, religions, and cultures in one | monolithic block. What do you mean by Asian that would | encourage one to use the term synonymously with "Chinese"? | Are you referring to "people with slanty eyes"? | | White urban liberals do this a lot... to them, all "brown" | people are the same. A person from Mexico, Honduras, | Guatemala, etc... they're all equivalent and exchangeable. | | Sad to see this same racist mindset used now for all of | Asia. | s5300 wrote: | I thought about including something about this in my | post, but as we're on HN, I deleted it as I didn't feel | it was needed. | | While you could be trolling, I'll never know - but simply | put, the average person who would commit a hate crime - | especially physically and publicly - is likely completely | unable to distinguish/genuinely unaware of the various | Asian ethnicities along with their distinguishing | features. To them, it's all the same. Note, this has | nothing to do with me - it's just a truth. | neilparikh wrote: | News articles are not equating Chinese and Asian. | | It seems very obvious to me that those doing racist hate | crimes aren't going to ask their victims if they're | Chinese or not before attacking them, so you'd see an | uptick in anti-Asian hate crimes in general, not just | anti-Chinese hate crimes, and so it makes sense to talk | about anti-Asian hate crimes as a whole. | lurquer wrote: | > It seems very obvious to me that those doing racist | hate crimes... | | Who are doing racist hate crimes? | | There is nothing obvious about it. | | The media narrative is that Trump's use of the term | "China Virus" or "Kung Flu" has led to attacks on ALL | Asians. | | I've never seen any evidence of this. | | And what is disgusting is assuming any old lady anywhere | -- be she Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, etc-- | who get pushed or mugged is the result of "anti-Asian | racism" fueled by criticism of China. | | That somebody would push an old lady because of their | dislike of the CCP, is unbelievable enough. But, now I'm | supposed to believe some mysterious 'racists' are | harassing Japanese people because they dislike the CCP... | | Where's is the evidence for this 'obvious' state of | affairs? | | It's absurd on its face. | | Their is more 'racism' against Chinese from Vietnamese | populations for instance... and vice versa. Ditto for | Japanese v. Korean and Chinese v Japanese. | | The fabled 'white supremacist' out there certainly know | the difference between the various ethnicities. Your | fabled red-neck Bubba knows the difference between | Chinese and Vietnamese and the rest... many of these red- | necked bubbas come from families that fought in the | Korean War, Vietnam war, have been stationed in Japan, | and took R&R in Thailand. | | It seems the only segment of society that lumps them all | together are white liberals who blithely assume all | "people with slanty eyes" are the same. Just as they do | with all "brown" people. | mywittyname wrote: | My best friend is from Vietnam. He's face harassment in | public for "being Chinese" since Covid started. I've seen | it first-hand a few times. One of which, the instigators | were clearly planning to escalate until they saw the | company he keeps (very fit, very tired of this shit | guys). | | So yeah, it's fair to say that the racist assholes | engaging in this harassment don't care where you're from. | It doesn't matter if your a 9th generation American. If | you "look Chinese" that's a convenient enough excuse for | them to start shit. | crooked-v wrote: | > Strange how Asian is equated with Chinese. | | It's "anti-Asian hate crimes" and not "anti-Chinese hate | crimes" because the people being harassed and attacked | are from eastern Asian ethnic groups in general, not | specifically Chinese ethnic groups. | kolbe wrote: | Causal inference may not be important to media campaigns, | but it is to reality. Can you honestly say that you have | found causal evidence that people earnestly talking about a | Wuhan having a lab leak is the cause of 24 extra hate | crimes in a city of 8 million people? | hef19898 wrote: | Regarding 1), _local_ authorities tried to cover it up. Or did | we all forget how fast China built hospitals in late 2019? | | I just want to add, so, that SARS-Cov 2 was found in blood | samples from November 2019 in Europe. And also, what does it | matter anymore where it came from? We don't need the host to | develop a cure, we have a couple of working vaccines by now. | lhorie wrote: | > has poor wet market sanitation practices | | Honest question: Is that a fair/accurate generalization to | make? If Hell's kitchen episodes and accounts from food | industry workers are any indication, sanitation practices in | food handling establishments elsewhere are not necessarily | always stellar either. And surely China has some equivalent of | WholeFoods? | | One ought to be careful not to attribute a characteristic | differently depending on whether they belong to the class of | people in question[0]. If it turns out that reality is that | _some_ chinese establishments have poor sanitation practices | just like _some_ US establishments do, and it just so happens | that they got unlucky (perhaps partially due to not-so- | directly-related aspects like zoning law differences or | propensity for higher bat populations due to local fauna /flora | ecosystems), the us-vs-them blaming game doesn't necessarily | have as strong legs to stand on. | | [0] https://xkcd.com/385/ | lazide wrote: | Have you seen a easy Asian wet market in person before? If | you're comparing it to Whole Foods I'm not sure you have? | | The term itself is somewhat ambiguous | [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_market] in that it can | cover both cases. However the style common in many places in | China (and many other areas in east Asia) is one where there | is no refrigeration or adequate sanitation. To avoid | spoilage, animals are brought in live and slaughtered as | needed to provide meat. It can be when a customer picks it, | or when needed to stock a counter. | | These styles of market are problematic disease wise because | it brings many species of animals together in crowded and | often unsanitary conditions, high stress, with humans in | close contact with them, and lots of people and animals | coming and going constantly. | | If you're looking for a way to encourage Zoonotic disease, | it's hard to do better. | srean wrote: | > If you're comparing it to Whole Foods I'm not sure you | have? | | From the way I read it, he is not making that comparison | ska wrote: | > for a way to encourage Zoonotic disease, it's hard to do | better. | | CAFO style agriculture is a front-runner also. | citrusybread wrote: | >Have you seen a easy Asian wet market in person before? If | you're comparing it to Whole Foods I'm not sure you have? | | Have you seen one in the last decade? It's changed | dramatically, and ranges from an open-air grocery store to | yes something more depressing like what is in that wiki | article. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whbyuy2nHBg | lazide wrote: | That is great to see, though for instance half that video | would have flagged a US health inspector. Much cleaner | than what I saw in Vietnam, Malaysia, or less high end | areas of Hong Kong, or friends in Beijing or Fujian were | used to when they lived in China. I can't be sure how | serious to take Foxnews in this regard, since you can | pick and choose a lot of course. | | Cities have been improving, and I don't doubt Covid is | helping. SARS seemed to help a lot in Singapore. | | The comparison to Whole Foods with consistent | refridgeration, regular clearing, limited supplies, | regular health inspections still seems unlikely anywhere | outside of the major metros. | lhorie wrote: | To be clear, I didn't mean to compare a butcher shop to a | Whole Foods, but rather to point out that not all food | markets are live animal markets, and that blanket | statements like "China does X" can gloss over the fact that | every country has nuances. | | Your link suggests that the primary factor of disease | transmission in live animal markets is the exoticness of | the slaughtered animals. It certainly makes sense to make a | distinction based on that criteria, since, for example, I | can find high traffic markets that sell live animals in | North America as well, though typically they sell less | exotic animals (most commonly, lobsters). | | This distinction, I feel, is meaningful because of the | implications: north american diet is relatively restricted | in terms of meat variety (we do mostly beef, pork, chicken, | maybe lamb and few other meats on fairly rare occasions - | even chicken gizzard isn't commonly consumed, for example). | I'm not familiar enough with China to say to what extent | exotic meat consumption is cultural vs driven by necessity | vs other factors. | | However, I do still feel that it might be crass to say | things like "well chinese people ought to stop eating weird | shit and close those filthy markets", without understanding | the circumstances that lead to the status quo, and | consequently how they could be changed realistically. (To | be clear, I'm not saying you specifically are making these | types of comments, but it's not an unpopular sentiment) | VintageCool wrote: | There is a big wet market in Wuhan, pretty close to the | virus research lab. | | According to the below video, eating exotic wildlife | dates back to the starvation conditions of the Mao years | and is now mostly practiced by the rich. The conditions | in which these animals are kept are unsanitary, even by | comparison to a market with live animals that you might | be familiar with in the US. | | There was a push to end the practice after SARS-CoV-1, | but they came back a few years ago. | | https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/videos/2020/3/6/21168006 | /co... | lazide wrote: | Definitely a valid point - there is a huge variety in | what it looks like on the ground. Your other point re: | availability, cost, etc is also right on point and part | of what I was trying to cover. | | The variety angle is because 1) the more factors you can | roll the dice on at any given moment, the more likely you | can come up 'winning' with a magically terrible combo | through mutation. That ocelot flu mutate to something | that could infect bats? Groovy. No bats though, so | doesn't go anywhere. If you have bats though..... | | 2) Many animal viruses can be low or no impact in a | species, and some can infect others to different effects. | This gives a given virus more chances to roll the dice | and get the 'magic' combo without killing itself off by | killing the host. The more other species it gets exposed | to; the better. | | 3) some species have elements more common with humans | than others. If a virus gets mostly infectious in one | host, adapting in another environment can get it closer | to dangerous to humans. | | Also, if you live in an area without solid electricity or | reliable refrigerated trucks - what else are you supposed | to do? If you grew up in one of those areas, why bother | with the more expensive option if you're used to this (or | poor and don't have a choice). | | A lot of our simplification in diet now is due to the | ability to choose higher grade options coupled with | strict government regulations on how food sold to the | public can be sourced and the conditions it can be 'made' | in. It used to be (several generations ago now), wild | hunted deer, pidgeons, squirrel, a side of pork from your | neighbor, etc. were common parts of daily food intake, | and you HAD to cook your food or you wouldn't go a week | without something really nasty happening to you. There | are many parts of the county that still do this, though | usually more out of convenience than necessity. | | Now you can pick from animals raised for purpose, with | supply chains inspected and complying with a books worth | of regulations. In many cases, you could go years without | getting sick if you didn't cook your food (don't try | this, it's still a dumb idea). | | It's easy to point fingers, but if you haven't seen it | and lived in the environment, you can't just change it | without a lot of other things happening first or very | nasty side effects (starvation, nutritional issues, etc). | bluGill wrote: | Wet markets are not as sanitary as others. However all | evidence we have suggest that covid was first spread there, | not that it originated there. Someone got covid - we don't | know who or how - and then went to the wet market. That | person could have gone to any crowded local venue and spread | it just as well, but it seems they didn't. | cthalupa wrote: | They aren't equivalent, and it's not even solely a factor of | sanitation. You are keeping tons of live animals in cages in | close proximity to each other and tons of people. Stress is | extremely effective at weakening immune response, which makes | it easier for pathogens to replicate, jump hosts, and jump | species. Now the pathogen is an a different environment, | which begins to force adaptation, which is to say the | pathogens that mutate in beneficial ways to their new | environment begin to outcompete the rest. And this just keeps | happening. And happening. And happening. And with new strains | of disease brought in from pathogen reservoirs in the wild. | | There's only so much good sanitation processes could even | achieve here, in the same way there's only so much that bad | sanitation processes at a restaurant can do. Bad sanitation | in a restaurant almost always means an increase in known | pathogens that we can either take care of fairly easily, or | even in the worst case scenarios of something such as | botulism, have limited ability to spread among the general | population. | | The risk of an unsanitized kitchen is just totally different | from that of even a somewhat sanitized wet market. | hnbad wrote: | I've been to "fish markets" in Germany that kept live | animals (mostly poultry and rabbits) in cages in close | proximity to each other and tons of people. Just because | it's uncommon or illegal in the US doesn't mean it's exotic | or unusual in the rest of the world. We only freak out | about "wet markets" because 1) the name sounds gross (but | it's catchier than "perishable goods street market", I | guess) and 2) orientalism. | cthalupa wrote: | If the wet markets in china were just poultry and | rabbits, it would not be an issue. We have a good | understanding of the potential zoonotic diseases from | those vectors. | | We - including China - do not have a good understanding | of the potential zoonotic diseases from the large variety | of wild game that is captured and sold in these markets. | lancebeet wrote: | >If Hell's kitchen episodes and accounts from food industry | workers are any indication, sanitation practices in food | handling establishments elsewhere are not necessarily always | stellar either. | | The issue with wet markets isn't the sanitary practices of | their workers so much as the fact that meat and other food is | handled in very close proximity to live animals being | slaughtered, and this combined with a large volume of foot | traffic. Granted, I haven't seen all episodes of Kitchen | Nightmares, but I've never seen slaughter of any kind taking | place at a restaurant in that show, let alone at a restaurant | that is visited by tens of thousands of people each day. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | >it's not xenophobic, but xenophobic people really love to talk | about it. that's the problem with the discourse. | | People love to talk about stuff that supports their world view. | draw_down wrote: | > it's not xenophobic, but xenophobic people really love to | talk about it. that's the problem with the discourse. | | AKA, "you're not allowed to say that". The problem with the | discourse is that it exists; its existence is problematic. ( | _Considered_ problematic, I 'm not claiming that) | dang wrote: | We detached this subthread from | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26751680. | alphabet9000 wrote: | a collection [0] of these kinds of 'lab leak' related stories | over the past year | | [0] http://jollo.org/LNT/public/wuhan.html | cletus wrote: | Look, this is simple: the lab leak theory shouldn't be discounted | until the WHO or some independent body does their due diligence | on, at an absolute minimum, these points: | | 1. Account for what coronaviruses Wuhan labs actually have. The | Chinese authorities have been circumspect on this; and | | 2. Examine the virus database that was taken offline right before | all this started. | | To be clear: I'm not insinuating that this is true or that China | has covered something up here. I consider it more likely that no | one simply knows (including in China) but for China there's | little upside in being open about this so we can explore these | avenues of inquiry. This "not wanting to know" isn't uniquely a | China problem either. | | The WHO simply hasn't done the due diligence warranted to | eliminate this theory. That's all. | jjhawk wrote: | https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/opinion/2021/03/22/why-cov... | | Similar article which made the same case. This one provided a few | more interesting stories about just how close we have come to | potentially similar leaks in the past (and based in US labs). | dandare wrote: | >... for scientists to voice suspicions about a possible lab | leak,... especially when there was already a long history of | viral disease outbreaks spilling over from nature. | | This is a really wired formulation whe we actually know, with | absolute certainty, that every pandemic ever suffered was | natural. | dhimes wrote: | The only issue here is that lab safety protocols may have to be | tightened up in the lab responsible. Scientists mutate things in | the lab all the time in order to have a tool for effective study. | If this came from a lab, then it would be the same thing (not | some sort of weapon, like the hysterical Right wants people to | believe). | | Most believe that it didn't, but rather that it was in the human | population a few months before we knew. But maybe not. | modzu wrote: | i'm curious what you would add to biosafety level 4 to tighten | it up? | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#Biosafety_leve... | dhimes wrote: | I didn't hear that it was a level 4 lab. Those are for the | viruses deemed most severe. Plenty of work goes on at other | labs- at least in the US. Not sure about China. | | Maybe you can enlighten me. | devit wrote: | Only allowing robots and disallowing all human presence in | the lab. | jkelleyrtp wrote: | The BSL prescribes the precautions that must be taken to | maintain safety, but it's up to human oversight to actually | enforce those practices. It's not uncommon for viruses to | escape even BSL4 both in the US and abroad. | | Both labs in Wuhan have had accidental contamination | incidents while collecting field samples in caves. Working | with hazardous materials is always dangerous, and history has | no shortage of lessons to teach us. | ab7675226 wrote: | It's not that you need to tighten up the rules... it's that | you need to actually follow them. The Wuhan lab had a | reputation for not following the rules for the CCP-Claimed | Biosafety Level 4. | tastyfreeze wrote: | If there is a leak at a BSL 4 lab that implies that the lab | is not strictly adhering to protocols not that the protocols | are loose. | EMM_386 wrote: | We warned about this lab. | | https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-state- | depart... | | Note part 6. | kaliali wrote: | Looks good on paper but what is actually happening in | reality? How do I know they follow those procedures? How do I | know they're not paying someone to give a checkmark for | inspection? | | What would be the punishment if they were caught not | following procedures? Would they publicly punished or would | the embarrassment for the Chinese government be quietly swept | under the rug? | HPsquared wrote: | Eliminate or reduce the hazard is the most effective measure. | | A commonly used hierarchy is "ERICPD", from most to least | effective: Eliminate, Reduce, Isolate, Control, PPE and | Discipline | moosey wrote: | The most likely candidate for this virus, and most future viruses | that produce pandemics, will be environmental destruction and | animal agriculture. | | We know there are novel viruses out there, too many to count. | Even if this started in a lab the most likely reason is that | scientists need to study the viruses that we will be coming into | contact with as we commit, as a species, to more environmental | destruction. I'm really exhausted of watching scientists get | blamed repeatedly for the failures of our economic and social | systems to act responsibly. | | Sure, the lab hypothesis might have some weight, some possibility | of being true. It's still a red herring, either a distraction | from the real issues we face by accident or design, or both. | 99_00 wrote: | The question of a lab leak is not incidental. The virus has | caused massive suffering (and will continue to as we understand | the fallout IMO). | | If it leaked from a lab and that was hidden from the world we | have to wonder how much suffering could have been avoided if | all the information was given freely as Chinese authorities | knew it. | | There are some who suggest the virus was allowed to spread | beyond China as a way to ensure China didn't fall behind | competivley. Pure speculation, but we need to knowing if it | came from a lab is a hugely important question. | lamontcg wrote: | All of this can be explained by a real simple alternative | hypothesis. | | Farmed animals like minks and racoon dogs were kept in cramped | breeding conditions. Rhinopholous bats infected with | sarbecoviruses are also present in Hubei. Those bats probably | roosted above the animal pens and shit down on the animals below | for years. The animals would periodically become infected. | Eventually through mutation or recombination a strain became | epidemic in the animals and evolved to be successful in a very | closely related ACE2 receptor to humans. | | Then you had a large bioreactor which spread the virus doing | "gain of function". Eventually it swapped backwards and forward | from humans to those animals until it acquired the ability to | spread epidemically in humans in late 2019. | | That process absolutely could have evolved a furin cleavage site, | or it may have simply been present in the bat version of the | virus (like the RacCS203 sample from Thai bats). Recombination | with human HCoVs may have also happened in this process where the | intermediate animal coronavirus infected a worker who also had a | cold. | | When you read last year about the Danish mink farms with millions | of mink being infected with SARS-CoV-2 you should realize that is | a much better bioreactor to do natural "gain of function" | experiments in than any BSL lab in the world has. Something like | that, with a similar species, is likely how the virus hopped from | bats to humans. | | This actually better explains all of the suspect features of | SARS-CoV-2 than a BSL program does. | cicero wrote: | An alternative hypothesis does not rule out the other | possibilities, even if it provides a better explanation. What | matters is what actually happened, not what provides the | neatest explanation. | endisneigh wrote: | Every time this comes I ask - "so what?" | | So again, I ask - even if it's true, so what? It's impossible to | conclusively prove, and even if proven what exactly is proven? | That an accident occurred? OK, so what? | | The article attempts to answer this: | | > The vitriol also obscures a broader imperative, Relman says, | which is that uncovering the virus's origins is crucial to | stopping the next pandemic. Threats from both lab accidents and | natural spillovers are growing simultaneously as humans move | steadily into wild places and new biosafety labs grow in number | around the world. "This is why the origins question is so | important," Relman says. | | However the reality is from the perspective of the USA it doesn't | even matter. Even if China was malicious and deliberately sent it | off to us, it could've been easily stopped but we didn't do it. | Unless we're going to go to war over this it seems like a | pointless exercise as conclusive evidence will never emerge as it | requires cooperation from China. | | We're worrying about whether it was created from labs in China, | meanwhile we couldn't even prevent a massive superspreader event | in Boston via the Biogen conference, filled with people who | already has an awareness of the virus to begin with. | | Even now as I type this cases of the variant are increasing and | the amount of people taking the vaccine is decreasing and silly | accidents like the J&J fiasco are occurring. Not to say that we | can't explore both things simultaneously, but it's pretty obvious | that the return on investment will differ - one will do... what | exactly? And another will prevent more cases. | 8note wrote: | The biggest so what is that if it's a lab leak, the failure can | be analyzed and improvements be made to the safety process | chasd00 wrote: | to me the biggest so what is if it's a lab leak then that lab | is liable for millions of deaths and trillions of dollars in | economic damage all over the planet. | rossdavidh wrote: | "Even if China was malicious and deliberately sent it off to | us, it could've been easily stopped but we didn't do it..." | | Hmmm...if it could "easily" have been stopped, then why did | every single country in Europe and North America simultaneously | fail to do so? | disambiguation wrote: | > It's impossible to conclusively prove | | no it's not. it might be impossible to prove the negative, but | if it did come from the lab there should be physical records | and first hand witnesses. | | > so what | | so maybe we make it a point to have the lab shut down so this | doesn't happen again? maybe we publicly acknowledge there are | secret teams working on secret science and viruses that can | kill people en masse? | | but you have a point, it's always easier to embrace nihilism | than tackle hard problems head on. | endisneigh wrote: | You have a misunderstanding of reality. The USA has done the | exact same research before, and we have (also) had accidents | around pathogens being mishandled, and we have had a | consequent ban. | | However we ended up unbanning it and we still do it now. If | the goal is to simply stop this type of research in its | entirety, there's still no point of trying to get China to | stop as we have no authority in China (or any other country) | to begin with. Even if China were to claim they've stopped we | have no way of knowing. | | Let's just assume China did have a lab accident. OK, then | what? We tell them to stop doing it? Let's say they agree. In | the future they decide to start doing it again. The entire | thing is pointless to begin with. We can't get our own | citizens to consistently wear masks and we think we're going | to substantially change China's behavior here - hilarious. | | https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00210-5 | johncena33 wrote: | By that logic, we shouldn't have judicial systems. We shouldn't | have any post-mortems. There shouldn't be any kind of | accountability. | ericb wrote: | On the one hand, yes, many who ask this seem to have something | political in-mind, so on that score, I kind of agree that | there's no "there" there. | | Aside from that, though, we can consider international treaties | against gain of function research? International inspections? | Have a debate on whether this type of research is allowed? | Create improved international procedure standards for Biolab | safety? | | I mean, it has killed more people than American killed in WW2. | Maybe a root cause analysis and better procedures are | justified? | | edit: corrected stat | engineer_22 wrote: | You're off by an order of magnitude. | | Total deaths in WW2 estimated at approx 70 million. [1] | | Johns Hopkins estimates COVID-19 deaths are approaching 3 | million. [2] | | [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties | | [2] https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html | ericb wrote: | Mis-remembered. Number of _Americans_ who died in WW2. | | https://www.npr.org/sections/health- | shots/2021/02/03/9628119... | engineer_22 wrote: | Roger that. | | Americans killed in WW2: 410,000 | | Americans killed by Covid: 550,000 | endisneigh wrote: | > I mean, it has killed more people than WW2. Maybe a root | cause analysis and better procedures are justified? | | Yes, I agree. However I believe what should be analyzed is | why certain countries failed to contain it. Whether it was a | lab accident or wild game doesn't really matter. There's no | way the entire world could prevent accidents or people from | interacting with wild animals. | | At the end of the day the most effective thing is to ask why | it spread as much as it did in your own country. | | There are politicians in our (USA) own country that denounced | COVID even as recently as this January. People who fabricated | data (Cuomo), who peddled poor science (Trump), etc. etc. | | Don't misunderstand me, China definitely deserves their share | of the blame, but I just believe that share is small. | Ultimately the USA's response to COVID could've been much, | much better by pretty much every metric imaginable. | | And let's just act like COVID is over, either. | abecedarius wrote: | All else aside, the attempt to squelch these inquiries as off- | limits justifies resistance. The more scientific consensus is | about social power, the worse for science. | TameAntelope wrote: | FWIW I think it would be possible to prove conclusively in the | form of documents leaked from whatever lab was conducting the | experimentation. | axiosgunnar wrote: | The same difference it would make to try to figure out if a | plane crashed because a meteorite flew into it or because the | human engineers screwed up some software component - to know if | we should put more scrutiny on human activity that can cause | catastrophes. | s__s wrote: | Consequences for gross negligence. | | Updated international laws. | | Possible banning of gain of function research. | | Stronger safety procedures. | endisneigh wrote: | How would you know if it's gross negligence or an accident? | What consequences are you thinking of that we haven't already | done? | | Hilarious that we want to punish China but we won't punish | our own politicians. | legolas2412 wrote: | > How would you know if it's gross negligence or an | accident? | | That's a different question from "what difference does it | make" | | > What consequences are you thinking of that we haven't | already done? Sanctions, trade tariffs, political | condemnation of an authoritarian state? There are many | steps to pressure China before an open war is declared. | | > Hilarious that we want to punish China but we won't | punish our own politicians. | | Why not both? I think Trump is already punished a bit, he | lost the election. | 8note wrote: | Really it's a scape goat for gross negligence. Governments | everywhere have been incredibly negligent in handling covid, | and they really want to be able to pin it on china, taking no | responsibility for their own response | EMM_386 wrote: | > Even if China was malicious and deliberately sent it off to | us, it could've been easily stopped but we didn't do it. | | I don't think this is the argument. | | China was affected by it immediately to, so it would seem that | this wasn't intentional. | | The question is what exactly was the Wuhan lab studying, why, | and funded by whom. We already know part of this was funded by | the US Government. | | The information is all online about their studies specifically | with ACE2 and coronaviruses, and suddenly we end up with a | global pandemic where the virus latches onto human ACE2. | Originating in Wuhan. | erdos4d wrote: | I'm with you, this has a borderline culture-war vibe to it, | especially how some people are very into it and bring it up a | lot. I don't see how an accident or natural origin changes | anything. | tacitusarc wrote: | The gain of function research was at least in part US funded. | We probably shouldn't fund gain of function research in Chinese | labs if the resulting viruses are going to cause a global | pandemic, for a start. | engineer_22 wrote: | The conflict over the investigation is justifiable. It's | necessary to understand how the virus got started. If it's lab- | grown we will want to be very careful to scrutinize each | other's labs. If it's natural we will want to be very careful | to scrutinize wild game. The implications of any scenario are | broad and complex, but clearly we don't want a repeat of 2020 | if we can avoid it. | | Another point: just because there's some uncomfortable conflict | over the investigation doesn't mean we should abandon and | investigation, in fact it probably means we should investigate | more vigorously. | endisneigh wrote: | Thank you for your comment, but your comment is precisely the | kind of comment I disagree with. | | What difference does it make? Let's say that it's both lab- | grown and wild game. OK, so that means we should scrutinize | both. OK, then. Now what? | | No amount of scrutiny can prevent an accident from occurring. | It's not as if this pandemic happens every year. We're | talking about a once in a century event. Not to mention some | countries prevented the virus from spreading within their own | countries very effectively, and others, well, did not. | ckw wrote: | If the virus was a product of gain of function research, | the primary purpose of which is to reduce the risk of | pandemics, then the research becomes much more difficult to | justify. The argument I guess becomes then, yeah, | periodically we'll cause a pandemic, and millions of people | will die, but we'll be so much better at dealing with | diseases that arise naturally, as SARS and MERS did, that | on balance it will be worth the extra pandemics... | | Whatever you think about this, it seems unbelievably | foolish to locate these labs in the middle of metropolises. | endisneigh wrote: | OK, so what. What can we do to make China stop doing this | research if they want to? Are we going to go to war over | this? No. Are we going to have an embargo with China? No? | | So effectively this becomes a situation of "oh yeah they | should've not had that accident, oh well." In the USA | we've had the same problem ourselves (lab accidents with | pathogens), and we banned gain of function research and | ended up removing the ban a few years later. | | The entire exercise is meaningless. Note - I'm not even | saying we shouldn't research the origins of COVID, what | I'm saying is, the result doesn't really matter. | troyvit wrote: | Why does it have to be a "we" vs "China" discussion at | all? Why don't we think non-politically about it for a | minute and recognize that as a global species we have a | chance to learn as much as we can from a pandemic that | affected us globally so that we can try to do better when | the next one inevitably comes along? | | And yeah, maybe China doesn't wanna think that way, but | let's find out first, and second find out why. | | On the other hand there are some great ways to think | about this politically. If by "we" you mean the U.S. we | don't really have a leg to stand on as far as respect | from the international community right now anyway, so any | fight we bring to China is basically one on one. | | Other countries besides the U.S. would be able to wring | significant concessions from China if they chose to a) | believe collectively that it was China's malfeasance that | caused the pandemic, and b) stood together to demand a | response. | SpicyLemonZest wrote: | We're not talking about a once a century event. This is the | third novel coronavirus outbreak in the past 2 decades, and | it seems clear that SARS at least _could_ have been | pandemic if we hadn 't gotten lucky. | endisneigh wrote: | Sure, but ultimately what's relevant here are the number | of deaths. The other two killed orders of magnitude fewer | people worldwide given the amount of time, no? | engineer_22 wrote: | Here's an example: one of your local health department's | jobs is to scrutinize private businesses sanitation | practices so you don't get sick from contaminated food. | Ditto the water systems, so you don't get sick from | contaminated water. The idea is to prevent complacency. | | Prior to that, people did get sick, and public | investigations were mounted to pinpoint the problem. Nobody | wanted to admit to themselves that they were to blame, that | they had hurt or killed someone, but the society benefited | from the momentary discomfort and those hard truths. | endisneigh wrote: | I don't think your example is relevant nor is it a good | analogy. | | The situation is more like you're McDonalds and everyone | at your store and your competitors stores are getting | food poisoning. | | Instead of properly understanding why contaminated food | is arriving at your store and stopping the poisoning | within your store, you're researching whether or not the | contaminated food originated at Burger King. | | It's not bad to research whether or not the contaminated | food originated at Burger King, but regardless knowing | that isn't going to stop the food poisoning from | spreading within your store. | | I like this analogy because there are already food safety | laws just like how there are safety standards for working | within a lab. Regardless, accidents happen, and people | get poisoned. Kind of like the Chipotle outbreaks. | [deleted] | engineer_22 wrote: | Yes! Exactly like the Chipotle outbreaks! | | If you buy tacos from Chipotle and they sell you a | tainted taco on accident. You get sick. Hopefully you | survive. In any case you will want Chipotle to do a | thorough investigation to prevent it from happening | again. | endisneigh wrote: | Yes, I completely agree. | | Now would you want McDonalds to research Chipotle or stop | outbreaks in their own stores? Seems pretty obvious to | me. Perhaps I'm missing something? | | Ultimately Chipotle is already incentivized to figure it | out themselves, unless the argument is Chipotle is | intentionally infecting their own customers? | | Going back to the original point - what the USA should do | for its own citizens won't change regardless of whether | COVID was an accident, from wild game, etc. | engineer_22 wrote: | Good, I'm glad we agree that investigation matters :) | endisneigh wrote: | You've completely misunderstood my point. My point is | that we're McDonalds - not Chipotle. Should McDonalds be | investigating Chipotle's problems or their own? It's | really that simple... | | If you believe McDonalds in this analogy should be | investigating the origins of Chipotle's problems as | opposed to resolving their ongoing issue then we'll just | have to agree to disagree. | cronix wrote: | I don't understand your analogy. If a sizeable population | of the world got sick from eating at Chipotle...and it | was easily communicably spreadable infecting even those | that never ate there...and people died as a result (3 | MILLION)...and it caused massive world-wide economic | damage...I'd bet they'd be quite interested in the cause | no matter where they worked. In your analogy, the impact | wasn't just limited to those who ate at Chipotle. It was | everyone. | neolog wrote: | American Airlines can't reduce its risk by reading | Delta's FAA incident reports? | endisneigh wrote: | That situation isn't analogous, but American Airlines | would reduce its risk _more_ by reading its own incident | reports compared to Delta 's, yes. In general focusing on | one's own failings is superior to focusing on another's. | | Are you serious? | [deleted] | 99_00 wrote: | There are obvious and profound geopolitical implications. | xadhominemx wrote: | Such as? | 99_00 wrote: | Political, social, and economic decoupling. | avmich wrote: | > 2. It's not xenophobic for people from the US to suggest the | possibility of a lab leak, because the US was itself funding gain | of function research on novel coronaviruses in the Wuhan BSL4 lab | | It's not necessarily a Chinese lab where the leak originated from | (hypothetical, of course). It could be a Russian lab - there are | arguments for Novosibirsk Vector biology center as the origin of | the leak. | ncmncm wrote: | What nobody seems willing to say out loud to a reporter is that | even talking at high levels about SARS-CoV-2 having possibly | escaped from the lab would very probably sabotage Chinese | cooperation in finding out more about its origins, whether it did | or did not in fact did escape the lab. | | Now it appears that whatever damage could be done was, and China | did block access to key information. I haven't seen anything to | indicate it did come from the lab, or didn't. China's actions are | consistent with either scenario. It would be very embarrassing to | Chinese leadership if the lab-escape idea became popular, | regardless of whether it was true, but especially if it were | found to be true. China will be acting mainly to try to stop the | idea gaining popularity, and be much less concerned with whether | the international community actually learns its true origin. | | But if the Chinese leadership had confidence that it escaped the | lab, my interpretation is they would probably do a lot more | stone-walling than they are doing. But that doesn't mean it | didn't. | | My brother flies freight in and out of Wuhan, never leaving the | airport, and says border-patrol behavior at that airport is very | strange, unlike at any other Chinese city. Before they are | allowed to take off, the whole plane is carefully searched by | soldiers in complete-isolation bunny suits, and passports | collected on arrival are then carefully matched, one by one, to | each crew member before departure. His interpretation is that | China wants to be certain that nobody in Wuhan leaves China whom | they would rather have stay. | | What that would mean, if correct, I cannot guess. | twobitshifter wrote: | They have been stone walling. The WHO was not allowed into the | lab for a long period providing time for a cover up there was | no agreement investigation until September 2020. They were then | told to take the lab workers testimony at face value and not | investigate the lab leak hypothesis any further. | | Doctors have escaped and claimed that it was lab engineered | | https://bgr.com/2020/09/15/coronavirus-whistleblower-wuhan-l... | marsven_422 wrote: | Covid-19 is a biological weapon released by "the elite" in order | to achieve there agenda. | newacct583 wrote: | Almost no theories can be "ruled out" in this space. Viruses | evolve in crazy and essentially unobservable ways. | | Nonetheless, we know there was a close relative documented in | bats on the same continent within a comparable timeframe. The | clearly obvious hypothesis is that animal transmission was the | vector, for the simple reason that this is the way every single | other pandemic, human or otherwise, has happened. There is | _nothing_ unique or notable about covid from the perspective of | viral evolution. Period. So Occam says we go with the simplest | theory. | | Attempts to wave away that fact have nothing to do with science | about what was happening in Wuhan and everything to do with | modern political opinions about a government 1000km away in | Beijing. | gfodor wrote: | Occam's Razor doesn't really apply to this one, because each | side has different priors on which theory is actually the | "simplest." | | Given that, as far as I know, we don't have a single human case | documented before those in Wuhan - something which a) should | have been likely and b) China would be _highly_ incentivized to | root out since it would disprove the lab hypothesis, it implies | patient zero was probably in Wuhan. If that 's true, Occam | could cut the other way, since the notion that case zero of a | virus making a species transition would just so happen to occur | in a city with a virology lab doing research on the same kind | of viruses is a bit hard to believe. | marcosdumay wrote: | > we don't have a single human case documented before those | in Wuhan | | The disease spread all over the world before people | discovered the first cases, so it's not very surprising if | previous cases on a less developed area than Wuhan were | ignored. | gfodor wrote: | Well, sure, but my point is that now that people are | suspecting it was the lab, we ought to expect China to be | digging furiously for evidence of an earlier case. At least | so far, I haven't heard of any such evidence. | ricksunny wrote: | Willful ignorance is the first posture I would expect | from the CCP - that would be the specific avoidance of | gathering evidence that would be embarrassing if found to | exist. | | The second posture I would expect (if the first posture | was not takwn) is that if they did seek and find evidence | of particularly embarassing variety, they would actively | stonewall access to awareness of that evidence and do | everything they could to suppress that evidence. The | statement, | | >we ought to expect China to be digging furiously for | evidence of an earlier case | | is prima facie either incorrect or irrelevant to whether | your ever becoming aware such evidence exists. | | China does not possess Western democratic institutions, | (however flawed as even those might be), to achieve | accountability. To wit, over here on the Western side of | things, it's going to be hard enough getting NIH to | examine whether NIH funded this work in contravention of | US gov mandates not to (see HHS Potential Pandemic | Pathogen Care and Oversight (P3CO) Framework, 2017). | learnstats2 wrote: | > a) should have been likely | | Given that coronavirus would not be observable until there is | a cluster of symptomatic cases in a city (and a doctor with | relevant experience who can observe multiple cases - here Li | Wen Liang ), I find it highly _unlikely_ that we could | observe earlier cases, if they spread less rapidly or outside | a city - or even within another city with less institutional | knowledge. | | > b) China would be highly incentivized to root out | | Even if so, this doesn't form part of any prior. China being | incentivized to act in that situation, doesn't affect how | likely or unlikely that situation was. | gfodor wrote: | The point is that even if we didn't observe such cases | originally, given the incentives now, I would have expected | China to investigate and surface evidence of such cases, | even if circumstantial. So your second point is not a real | point: the incentives don't determine the likelihood of it | occurring, but they do dictate the likelihood of an | investigation to determine if it did occur. | infogulch wrote: | > China being incentivized to act in that situation, | doesn't affect how likely or unlikely that situation was. | | China being incentivized to find evidence supporting the | CCP's desired image absolutely does affect how likely it | would be for such evidence to surface if it exists. | | We see virtually no such evidence; we can assume that's not | because China's lack of trying to find it; which should | adjust our prior against such evidence existing at all. | Yes? | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | Wuhan is a gigantic city, bigger than NYC. You'll be able to | find an example of nearly anything in any category there. But | it's also completely unsurprising they were researching the | coronavirus category: the 2003 SARS outbreak was a | coronavirus too, and obviously motivated an incredible amount | of research across the world, but particularly in China. | gfodor wrote: | You're flipping the condition on the probability here. | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | Yes, quite deliberately. | space_fountain wrote: | Are they incentivized to do that? Remember they're dealing | not just with The west's opinion, but also home opinion, | where I don't know that documenting that they should have | found this weeks earlier would go over well. Not to mention I | think they're happy with the current local conspiracy theory | that this was actually the US's fault. It also seems likely | that a big city especially one with a big lab would be more | likely to be able to identify that the disease going around | was new | gfodor wrote: | I'm not an expert on China but I would generally assume | that the consequences and reputational damage of being seen | as responsible by the rest of the world for COVID-19 would | outstrip nearly any other possible consequences being | mitigated against by not seeking to clear themselves. | newacct583 wrote: | > Given that, as far as I know, we don't have a single human | case documented before those in Wuhan - something which a) | should have been likely | | Um... why? The virus has to jump species somewhere. If the | first documented case was in Shanghai, you could make the | same argument. | | I think what you're trying to say is that the jump had to | have happened in Yunnan, because that's where that particular | bat sample was found. But that's not what the data says at | all. The Yunnan virus was a _relative_ , not an ancestor. | There are uncounted millions of wild coronavirus strains we | _don 't_ see for every one we sequence. There is no reason at | all to believe that some Wuhan-local bat, say, had a related | strain that became the covid ancestor. Or some other species, | etc... | | Again, that's the way viruses evolve. It's the way pandemics | start. It's the way pandemics have _always_ started. | Demanding that this is somehow a crazy engineered virus | dropped on us by a despotic foreign government is... how | pandemics start in bad movies. | gfodor wrote: | Your argument is clearly being made in bad faith because | you are creating a strawman in your final point. The claim | is not that the virus was one that was engineered and | deliberately dropped by a despotic government. Given that | you don't have a basic understanding of the good faith | hypotheses being promoted, I'll have to assume you are at | best ignorant at worst a state actor. | | edit: lol at getting flagged for this. | dang wrote: | Your comment was rightly flagged because you broke the | site guidelines and took the thread a big step further | into flamewar hell. Please don't do that. Please do | review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | and stick to the rules when posting to HN. | gfodor wrote: | pg knows as well as anyone else that if someone makes an | attempt to paint you into alignment with a right-wing | conspiracy theory, they're probably doing it with ill | intent, especially if you made no such claim. | | If you want the HN guidelines to be consistent, they | shouldn't demand people presume good faith when the | tactics of cancel culture are wielded in threads to try | to tag people with the label they are promoting right or | left wing conspiracy theories, which can direct a mob in | their direction if not strongly pushed back against. | T-A wrote: | > The clearly obvious hypothesis is that animal transmission | was the vector | | Except nobody has been able to identify that animal. With SARS | it was quickly determined to be civets, with MERS camels. With | Covid, more than a year on, we still don't know. | | https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/26/1021263/bat-covi... | ufo wrote: | IIRC it took more than a year for people to conclude it was | the civets. | T-A wrote: | https://science.sciencemag.org/content/302/5643/276 | ricksunny wrote: | >for the simple reason that this is the way every single other | pandemic, human or otherwise, has happened | | prima facie false. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Russian_flu#Virology | | " it is widely believed that the virus was leaked to the public | in a laboratory accident (may have been kept frozen in some | laboratory beforehand).[4][5][10][11][12][13][17][19" | | And on top of that, the original SARS leaked from Chinese, | Taiwanese, and Singapore labs a minimum of 4 times. | | So parent's cited statement is false and does not apply. | nicoburns wrote: | We also know that a very closely related strain of the virus | was being studied in the only BSL 4 lab in China, located less | than a mile from the meat market where the virus supposedly | originated. | | For me Occam's razor says unintentional lab leak. | ab7675226 wrote: | Occam's Razor indeed. The lab in Wuhan was studying bats and | coronaviruses. Animal transmission is completely consistent | with a lab leak, especially given that the virus in question is | transmissible before symptoms. | | The wet market in Wuhan was not selling bats. | pvaldes wrote: | If there are insects, bats will come sooner or later, and | tiny bat-bombs will follow. | jeduehr wrote: | Actually occam's razor would say that the many many many more | instances of bat-human contact throughout the Chinese | countryside are likely responsible, not a lab leak. | | Did you know that people use Bat Guano (literally bat shit) | eyedrops to cure visual ailments in rural china? Among other | risky practices. Bat guano is often handled with bare hands | and used to fertilize fields without proper sanitary | practices. The many tens of thousands of these events that | happen everyday are a MUCH more likely scenario. | | I have a PhD in virology and wrote a post all about this on | Reddit a while back: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comment | s/gk6y95/covid19_did... | thedrbrian wrote: | And despite the tens of thousands of people rubbing bat | turds in their eyes the first cases come from people living | in the middle of a massive city. | | I just find it incredibly suspicious that the massive city | with a BSL4 lab doing research into bat viruses is where a | bat virus first turns up. | newacct583 wrote: | > And despite the tens of thousands of people rubbing bat | turds in their eyes the first cases come from people | living in the middle of a massive city. | | Uh... yeah. Because massive cities have, y'know, _more | people_ mixing together with more varied activies. It | would be very surprising indeed if a new pandemic just | happened to pop up in a tiny hamlet in rural Tibet. But | cities are absolutely where we expect to see this happen. | martin_bech wrote: | But the distance inside China is the equivilant of a known bat | virus in a remote location somewhere in Budapest, where only | farmers live, and ground zero of the virus beeing downtown | London streetfood market.. (were all the food and everything | tested negativ..) | newacct583 wrote: | You don't think bats exchange viruses between Budapest and | London? That's nothing. Viruses in interacting populations | are routinely continent wide. | | Let me flip this around: do you have even one example of a | virus within a compatible species spectrum that does _not_ | expand across continent scales over the "few year" timeframe | we're discussing? | Loughla wrote: | I don't understand what your argument is. Can you please | expand? | zthrowaway wrote: | We should really be considering this if we want to make sure | something like this doesn't happen again. | | Unfortunately this theory coming out during the Trump era made | people knee-jerk shoot it down for political reasons, and you can | also say the CCP is very invested in making sure they don't have | pie on their face if this ends up being what truly happened. | PicassoCTs wrote: | Also the CCPs investments into "political" careers in the WHO | helped them alot there. | matthewdgreen wrote: | What is the actionable "fix", though? I mean: there are very | real questions to be asked about gain-of-function research. | There are other questions to be asked about standards for lab | safety. But we should be asking these questions _anyway_ , | especially now that we've seen how devastating a real pandemic | can be. | | Whatever happened in Wuhan it seems like the primary evidence | is gone now. Trading in unverifiable theories about a lab leak | is only useful insofar is that it kicks the ball forward on | these issues. However the risk here is that these debates will | make the issues controversial and politicized in ways that | actually make safety improvements _more_ difficult and not | less. | xiphias2 wrote: | One actionable fix is not putting virus labs in big cities | (just like Nuclear and industrial plants), the other is | stronger regulation of animal markets. Both make sense | independent of where the virus originated from. | metalliqaz wrote: | The problem is evidence. What is the evidence? As far as I can | tell, what we have is either circumstantial (for example, the | location of the first detected cases) or outright hunches (the | virus seems to be more adaptive than expected for normal corona | viruses). | | Compare that to what we know: it's a SARS variant, in a place | where SARS outbreaks have already occurred in the past, with | DNA showing it came from pangolins, in a place where pangolins | are caught, sold, and eaten by people. | tacitusarc wrote: | It originated in a city with a research lab that was | criticized for bad safety practices. That lab performed gain | of function research on coronaviruses, and the strangest | element of covid-19 is the spike protein furin site, which | enables the infectivity in humans, and is not present in | other coronaviruses. | | Or we can take the Bayesian approach, and look at the base | rate of novel pathogens coming out of China over the past 70 | years and determine how many were lab leaks versus not, and | realize the majority were lab leaks. | | This doesn't mean it for sure was a lab leak, but it does | mean it should be investigated, which is all any one | reasonable has been saying for the past year anyway. | EMM_386 wrote: | There is a lot of evidence. The lab in question was | specifically warned about by the US State Department for | studying coronaviruses that affect human ACE-2. | | I mentioned this in another comment, but here's the 2018 | State Department warning. | | Please note part (6) about human ACE2 coroniavirus: | | https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-state- | depart... | | > with DNA showing it came from pangolins, in a place where | pangolins | | This is false. You can read the science here (note the | "receptor binding studies of reconstituted RaTG13 showed that | it does not bind to pangolin ACE2." | | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/bies.2020002. | .. | ChemSpider wrote: | > in a place where SARS outbreaks have already occurred in | the past, | | Not correct. All previous SARS outbreaks were in a totally | different places (~1000 km away). | | Prof. Shi (Shi Zheng Li , the head of the Wuhan virus lab) | herself said in her March 2020 interview that she was totally | surprised of a SARS outbreak in Wuhan. It is _not_ a location | where it was expected. | EMM_386 wrote: | > The problem is evidence. What is the evidence? | | I'd wager our intelligence services have it. That's why many | who has seen classified information is sticking with the lab | theory. | | Forget the politics for a minute with regards to people like | Trump, Pompeo, Redfield (CDC) ... they have seen information | we don't have access to. How can we say they're wrong on this | without seeing the same classified information? | dragonwriter wrote: | > That's why everyone who has seen classified information | is sticking with the lab theory. | | That's false. | | > Trump, Pompeo, Redfield (CDC) ... forget the politics, | but they have seen information we don't have access to. | | Yes, one _would_ need to forget the politics in order to | overlook how selective a misrepresentation this is of | "everyone who has seen classified information", so its | clear why you ask us to do that. | EMM_386 wrote: | I changed "every" to "many", I wasn't intending to paint | that with a broad brush. But they are making public | statements with access to information that we don't have. | So who's to say they are wrong? | | Personally I am no fan of Trump but on this particular | subject I can't say he's right or wrong, and he has more | information than I do on it. | dragonwriter wrote: | > But they are making public statements with access to | information that we don't have. So who's to say they are | wrong? | | Anyone with any experience with any public statements any | of them have made that have subsequently been subject to | scrutiny on virtually any topic is in a position to say | that them saying something based on nondisclosed evidence | on an issue that aligns with factional/partisan | propaganda interests has, at best, zero evidentiary | value. (In Trump's case _specifically_ , his habit of | stating falsehoods even when it doesn't particularly help | his case might lead one to conclude it has actually | _negative_ evidentiary value.) | 8note wrote: | Trump's administration couldn't keep secrets, so somebody | would have blabbed if there was classified evidence. | | Trump himself would give the evidence to boost his own ego | on fox and friends | mylons wrote: | we should definitely shout down anyone who says it, though! | VBprogrammer wrote: | When someone's reasons for saying it are simply because it | aligns with their own prejudices, shouting it down is | reasonable. | arminiusreturns wrote: | And you presume to know peoples reasons for saying things? | Perhaps you are the prejudiced one. | silicon2401 wrote: | That's literally the ad hominem fallacy. We should | investigate the claim on its own merits, not the merits of | whoever is making the claim | VBprogrammer wrote: | Uh-huh, lets have a polite conversation sprinkled with some | Latin. Mean while racists are empowered to attach Asian | Americans in the street because they "created the virus". | bscvbscv wrote: | Whoa, I found someone who actually believes in the | "racists attacking asians because they created the virus" | narrative. Holy shit. | | Black people are attacking asians. You say that's because | of this idea that Asians created the virus. Do you have | any actual evidence of their motivations? | Nemrod67 wrote: | Hyperbole isnt helping anything | mylons wrote: | let's just turn our brains off because there might be | racism around | benmmurphy wrote: | The premise should be up for debate but we shouldn't | accept the implication that because a lab in China leaked | the virus it is moral to attack Chinese looking people in | the street. You are effectively accepting the racist's | reasoning if you ignore the implication and devote your | energy to attacking their premise. I see this over and | over again. Someone says A can't be true when A is a | statement of fact because a group will make the argument | A => B where B is something they find morally repugnant. | When it comes to statements of fact you are much better | arguing over A => B than hoping facts about the world | conveniently line up with your moral conclusions. | tzs wrote: | It is ad hominem but not ad hominem fallacy. Wikipedia | gives a good summary [1] of when ad hominem is not a | fallacy: | | > Valid ad hominem arguments occur in informal logic, where | the person making the argument relies on arguments from | authority such as testimony, expertise, or on a selective | presentation of information supporting the position they | are advocating. In this case, counter-arguments may be made | that the target is dishonest, lacks the claimed expertise, | or has a conflict of interest. | | For example, if someone tells you that hydroxychloroquinea | will cure COVID and cites a doctor, it is an ad hominem not | but not a fallacy to counter that the same doctor also says | that infertility, impotence, cysts, and various other | reproductive medical problems are caused by witches and | demons that have sex with people in the dreamworld, where | they also gather sperm from people and use it on other | people to produce more demons. (And yes, there really is a | doctor who says all that). | | It's not a fallacy because it is not offered to refute the | claim that hydroxychloroquine cures COVID--it is offered to | show that the person making the claim is not competent to | make the claim. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem | HPsquared wrote: | How do you determine a person's reasons for saying something, | and how can you tell what a person's prejudices are? | VBprogrammer wrote: | Presenting the idea of laboratory escape as a remote but | possible scenario is perfectly reasonable. Presenting it as | a fact, without backing it up with evidence or subtly is a | good indication that they are speaking from a place of | prejudice. | mylons wrote: | it must be nice to understand everyone's intentions all the | time | kgwxd wrote: | Researchers should be discussing it. Until conclusive evidence | is found, the only reason to post it on social media is to add | fuel to the conspiracy fire, a fire that's inspiring people to | kill people that couldn't possibly have anything to do with the | origin of the virus. | adamrezich wrote: | who has killed someone because of a belief related to any of | this? | mylons wrote: | maybe Facebook/Twitter/Youtube/Other multi-billion dollar | entities should censor their platforms and stop inciting | violence algorithmically? why do I have to self censor | because I'm smart enough to consider this with a beginner's | mind, and not a bigot's? | kaliali wrote: | SHOUT DOWN ANYONE WHO WONT FOLLOW THE NARRATIVE | dang wrote: | Please don't take HN threads into flamewar. It's not what this | site is for. | | If you wouldn't mind reviewing | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking | to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. They include: | | " _Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not | less, as a topic gets more divisive._ " | Rochus wrote: | _"If we are at the point where all science is politicized and | no one cares about truth and only being politically correct," | he [Petrovsky] says, "we may as well give up and shut down and | stop doing science."_ | tinntin22 wrote: | Ironic, if you said this during the Trump era you were a racist. | dang wrote: | Please don't take HN threads into flamewar. It's not what this | site is for. | | If you wouldn't mind reviewing | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking | to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. They include: | | " _Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not | less, as a topic gets more divisive._ " | tebuevd wrote: | no guys, the proximity of the Wuhan Lab to the Wuhan wet market | is just a huuuge coinkidink ;) | dang wrote: | Please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments | here. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | rossdavidh wrote: | So, I agree, but I find myself thinking it doesn't matter now. | What matters is: | | 1) could an accident at a lab lead to another pandemic in the | future? yes, certainly | | 2) ok then, how are we going to prevent that? | | This seems much like what the world had to figure out after | nuclear power became widespread; how do we keep this new | technology from leading to catastrophic problems? It required | international inspection, sanctions for nations who don't comply, | and even big powers had to play along. | | Whether this pandemic started in a lab or not, we need a system | to prevent the rapid proliferation of biologically advanced | research, in more and more countries, from resulting in | pandemics. So, the question of whether China had a lab leak that | caused this one seems irrelevant at this point; what we need to | do going forwards is the same regardless. | defen wrote: | > ok then, how are we going to prevent that? | | By not doing bioweapons or gain-of-function research? Wasn't | the whole point of that research to _prevent_ these sorts of | pandemics? Even if COVID-19 wasn 't from a lab leak...were | those experiments actually helpful in being able to combat the | pandemic? The answer seems to be no. | fasteddie31003 wrote: | I've read that https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/ was funding | coronavirus gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab prior to | the pandemic. My question is why Eco Health Alliance wanted this | research? What benefits come from artificially evolving a | dangerous pathogen? Here's the article | https://www.independentsciencenews.org/news/peter-daszaks-ec... | chenster wrote: | TL;DR | | Inconclusive evidence. The real message is "We don't know." | fullshark wrote: | I'd add "and the CCP really doesn't want us to know" | EMM_386 wrote: | The 2018 US state department cables warning about this | possibility can be read here: | | https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-state-depart... | | Please note part (6) regarding WIV scientists studying human- | disease causing SARS coronaviruses. | | Also note this report with the science to back it ("The genetic | structure of SARS-CoV-2 does not rule out a laboratory origin"): | | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/bies.2020002... | fsh wrote: | Could you cite where exactly the cable warns about this | possibility? I could not find such a statement in the text. | jeduehr wrote: | VERY VERY importantly, the cables were not written by or | authored by scientists. It was all Trump State Department-hired | businessmen and diplomats who inspected the facility and wrote | that cable. | | Why should we expect them to be good at determining what is a | dangerous or risky lab facility? | | Notably, in the same cable, they also requested more funding be | sent to the facility, so they could conduct more pandemic | surveillance work (and possibly prevent outbreaks like this). | twobitshifter wrote: | This is just an ad hominem. You do not know who inspected the | facility, their qualifications, and what research went into | the cable. | jeduehr wrote: | Actually I do. | | I have A) direct relationships with the people who study | viral biodefense at USAMRIID and serve on the government | panels, and they were very surprised to hear about these | cables. They didn't find the authors credible at all. One | is an entrepreneur and the other a career diplomat. | | And for all those who don't have a PhD in the subject or | know the people who know people, B) it's detailed closely | in this washington post article who was there and what they | wrote: | | https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/nationa | l... | | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state- | dep... | twobitshifter wrote: | >The U.S. delegation was *led* by Jamison Fouss, the | consule general in Wuhan, and Rick Switzer, the embassy's | counselor of environment, science, technology and health. | | The first article lists the "leaders" of the delegation | only. Diplomatic business always needs diplomatic | leaders, so it doesn't tell us anything of the Doctors | who were with them. Reading the rest of it, there's a | very convincing case that China is hiding something. The | doctors that have "disappeared" are especially troubling | as well as the information lockdown they imposed. | engineer_22 wrote: | In light of the disruption COVID-19 has caused, it's necessary to | understand how it got started. If we are going to keep our | intellectual honesty, nothing should be dismissed from | consideration, including the lab hypothesis. In the middle of all | that, geopolitics is getting in the way, and rightly so. China | increasingly considers itself a peer nation to USA - so an | unfettered foreign-led investigation is unlikely. | didibus wrote: | I'm going to jump to the next step... So what? | | Does it really matter where the virus emerged from? What changes | would we make if it came from bats by nature's own doing? Or of | it came from wet markets? Or if it leaked from a research lab? | COGlory wrote: | The evidence is circumstantial, but there has yet to be any | evidence ruling it out. To be clear, the lab leak hypothesis is | always possible. Things can always leak out of labs, let's not | kid ourselves. | | Some things (going by memory here) that seem to support the | hypothesis: | | 1) Major point of differentiation for this virus is that compared | to it's closest known relatives, it has acquired a furin site | (eukaryotic protein cleavage site) that enhances its virulence. | | 2) That furin site RNA contains a non-canonical amino acid codon | | 3) That non-canonical codon contains a restriction site that | could easily be used to track, whether, say, your added furin | site is surviving multiple cell passages, by performing a | restriction digest and running the fragments on a cell. | | Like I said above, it's circumstantial, but this is all very | normal. Both adding the furin site (how does coronavirus evolve | into something more virulent?) and tracking it that way. Then all | it takes is someone to get infected (EVERYONE working in biology | has broken at least one lab safety rule in their life, even in | BSL4) and either not be symptomatic and realize, or not say | anything. | jeduehr wrote: | Furin cleavage sites very similar if not largely identical to | this one have also been found in nature, and have been | generated in nature in very short spans of time (on the order | of a few decades, which is what is suspected to have happened | with SARS-CoV-2). | | I describe the evidence in detail in this detailed longform | post I wrote on reddit a few months back: Hi, I have a PhD in | virology focused on emerging viruses, and a few months back I | wrote a very lengthy and involved piece full of sources. | | And in there, I describe exactly how wrong your point 1 is. And | how misguided your point 3 is. | | The post also won a "best of r/science 2020" award! | | You can find it here: | https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did... | | See under "Addendum to Q2" | EMM_386 wrote: | > Furin cleavage sites very similar if not largely identical | to this one have also been found in nature | | I don't believe this is correct. | | There are no other examples of a CoV within the sub-genera | Sarbecovirus of a species/strain that shows evidence of | insertion of a polybasic furin cleavage site. | COGlory wrote: | I read through your post and it was incomplete and hand wavy, | although that makes sense because it was written for Reddit. | The bias was also obvious, and remarkably unscientific in how | you approached the "problems" in a deterministic manner. You | cherry picked examples (for instance, saying we can detect | Cas9 mutations) that make no conclusive point (for example, | there are a variety of ways to add a furin site to a genome | that don't involve Cas9) but are indistinguishable as proof | by the Reddit audience. The bottom line is, though, you are | cherry picking arguments that lay people are more or less too | unaware of their cherry picked status to argue with. | | As a virologist, who "engineers viruses", I also take some | offense to this line: >The virus itself, to the eye of any | virologist, is clearly not engineered. | | I also suspect that the viruses referenced in the featured | article would object to that line as well. | jeduehr wrote: | That's interesting, because of the scientists featured in | the above article... None of them are virologists. | | Petrovsky, for instance, if you look at his google scholar, | hasn't published a paper in a virology journal in the 10 | years that I looked. He's published in some predatory | journals, ones I wouldn't be caught dead publishing in. | | He's also gotten /close/, I guess, by publishing about | tuberculosis. But it really is different and the man | clearly has never done any viral biosafety work or worked | or supervised work in any secure facilities working with | viruses. | | If he did, I think he might be more cautious about being so | cavalier with the probabilities here. | | David Relman studies the gut microbiome. | | I have no reason to believe you're a virologist with any | training other than your word, but that isn't actually all | that important to my argument. | | Using viruses in your research doesn't make you a | virologist any more than using pens in an art school thesis | makes you an expert in ballpoint pens. | | All of that aside, the consensus among people who actually | use or study dangerous viruses in biosafety labs (both | those for and against gain of function research, btw) is | that the virus likely came from a wild zoonotic crossover | event. | | Not a malicious lab leak. | EMM_386 wrote: | I agree with you that I am uncomfortable with the "hand- | waviness" of the OP's response. If you are a virologist, I | would really like your opinion on the _science_ of the | following document: | | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/bies.202000 | 2... | | Like you, I don't enjoy when facts I post are de-railed | without actually addressing any of them. It happens a lot, | but I try my best to not let them be the last word. | | There is plenty of factual information out there that makes | an accidental lab-leak hypothesis strong. | rndmize wrote: | I feel that for people paying attention to COVID news, this has | always been the case; there's never been any kind of conclusive | evidence on the origin of the virus (that I've read of). The | article outlines three main possible origins - natural, | accidental combination in lab, deliberate construction in lab. | (There's a fourth option I've seen floating around - deliberate | release of a constructed virus.) It seems that most of the | scientists in the article are considering the second option; | however, right-wing media has apparently in multiple instances | sought to take their work to push the third, or even fourth | option. | | It is thoroughly unsurprising to me that most scientific | publications would take a stance against releasing studies or | articles considering option two or three, as right-wing media and | politicians were/are fishing for anything with a suitable | scientific veneer they could throw out as evidence of someone to | blame. (And its not hard to see why - telling your constituents | they have to deal with job losses, family deaths and lockdowns | because someone in China ate a bat leaves people without | something to blame, and the politicians tend to be the closest | relevant people.) Given the amount of anti-asian | racism/crime/murder we've seen spiking in the last year, I think | the publications' stances (and the more mainstream media) to lean | heavily towards option one is understandable - no one wants to be | the used as justification for hate crimes or political action a | la the Iraq war buildup. | | Perhaps in another year or two things will have cooled down | enough that stuff like this can be considered without collateral | damage. | rossdavidh wrote: | Absolutely. Lots of issues that are just way too high-emotion | right now for rational and objective discussion. | | One other reason it's way too hot to discuss right now: it | would suggest that scientists were at least partly to blame for | the pandemic. Even if you're not Chinese, you might not want to | be discussing that idea if you were a scientist yourself. | rsync wrote: | Once again, I will ask for (what I believe is) an interesting | piece of context ... | | How many labs _like this one_ are there in the world ? Are there | 20,000 of them ? Are there 7 ? | | Of the labs _like this one_ in the world, how many of them are | doing GoF research on coronaviruses ? 1200 of them ? 1 of them ? | | This won't be conclusive but given the reasonable heuristics that | I work with, having a sense of these proportions would go a long | way ... | phyalow wrote: | According to Wikipedia there are 56 BSL-4 labs globally, I cant | find any good references on the amount of labs (BSL-3/BSL-4) | doing GoF research on coronaviruses, but I cant imagine it is a | significant amount. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#List_of_BSL-4_... | | There is one fascinating article I came across published by | Nature in 2017 which has all sorts of innuendo given the state | of facts on the ground today. | https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to... | loveistheanswer wrote: | Judging by the comments in this thread, it seems a lot of people | are still unaware that: | | 1. Gain of function research primarily uses samples collected | from nature, and seeks to stimulate their evolution in as natural | a way as possible to learn how viruses evolve in nature. If such | viruses were to escape the lab, they would appear "natural" | | 2. It's not xenophobic for people from the US to suggest the | possibility of a lab leak, because the US was itself funding gain | of function research on novel coronaviruses in the Wuhan BSL4 lab | | 3. Lab leaks happen more often than most people realize[1] | | [1]https://www.vox.com/future- | perfect/2019/3/20/18260669/deadly... | tinus_hn wrote: | It's because they have been trained to think: corona leaked | from a lab is tin foil hat conspiracy theory. | AndrewBissell wrote: | Heh when can we start discussing the "lab intentional | release" hypothesis? | tinus_hn wrote: | As far as I'm concerned you can start right now, I'm not | afraid of ideas. I think however that, unless someone makes | a really big mistake, it'll never be possible to prove such | a hypothesis. | AndrewBissell wrote: | Of course; if we wait around for documentary proof of | covert operations to emerge it almost invariably arrives | long after the point where anything can be done with the | information. | | There are oddities in the whole timeline which stand out | to me. The social media videos of people keeling over in | streets and buildings in Wuhan from the virus, which | doesn't appear to be a genuine phenomenon of its | pathology and therefore looks planted for psyop purposes. | The CDC behaving so incompetently around testing and | acknowledging the threat of the virus that it beggars | belief (see: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health- | coronavirus-cdc-re...). No one from the global ruling | class succumbing to the virus even as it claims multiple | Covid-skeptical leaders in Africa where its impact is | otherwise quite muted. Cuomo, Newsom, and Whitmer | implementing policies which grossly amplified nursing | home deaths in the early stages of the pandemic. Various | maneuvers of public consent management, e.g. "15 Days to | Slow the Spread" to get people to start lockdowns, | followed by "we have to keep going until we get the | vaccines" alongside zero investment in new ICU capacity | and even reductions in hospital staff. The obvious wealth | transfers and consolidation of the economy away from the | middle class and small businesses which has occurred, | along with the accelerated adoption of surveillable tech | platforms as the primary means of interpersonal | communication. Doctors reduced to begging on Twitter for | people to run trials on repurposed generic treatments | while all the stops are pulled out for the vaccines (even | the Washington Post has recently acknowledged that | financial incentives and political considerations are | preventing cheap drugs from getting a fair shake: https:/ | /www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/04/08/ivermectin-...) | . | | But yeah, certainly nothing I can point to as hard proof. | [deleted] | allemagne wrote: | This top comment and the thread caused by posting it actually | seems to be the main source of heated discussions about whether | lab leak suggestions are xenophobic or not. | yumraj wrote: | > It's not xenophobic for people from the US.... | | While racism and xenophobia is real, it has been and is being | used very effectively, especially by China but others too, to | deflect/blunt genuine criticisms and claims. | | Just as an amusing example, we talk openly about UK variant, SA | variant, Brazil variant - but never talk about original as | Wuhan variant - it is simply coronavirus. | mywittyname wrote: | It's cuts both ways. Some of the UK Politicians happily | throwing around "China/Wuhan virus" got butt-hurt on Twitter | when people called the B117 strain the "UK Variant." | | We shouldn't be using that terminology for variants either. | While I understand that people largely use location names for | the sake of convenience, it really doesn't feel good to be a | person from one of those locations. | wisty wrote: | Were they "butt-hurt" or were they feigning outrage to | point out the hypocrisy of their opponents? I feel the | later happens a lot on the internet (and some people even | loose sight of the original intent). | | It's like "censorship is OK if a private company does it". | This makes a bit of sense if you're attacking a | Libertarian, but for left wingers to earnestly think that | private companies should have the right to shut down | discussion they don't like is very odd. | | Sometimes I worry that large portions of online debate has | been overrun by people making claims they don't really | believe because they're a bad slippery slope take on the | views of the people they disagree with; and sometimes | people have even started to buy the deliberately bad | arguments their side has created. | muskox2 wrote: | In my opinion, location names are the easiest and most | memorable way to refer to variants. The tradition is as old | as the "Spanish flu"... which isn't from Spain at all. | DharmaPolice wrote: | They might be the easiest way to refer to variants but it | does seem to incentivise countries/regions not | disclosing/testing for new variants in the first place. | proc0 wrote: | Really? Why would it bother anyone there is a strain after | your city/country/continent? Seriously I can't think of one | reason it would bother me. It's so much easier to NOT take | things personally. It's easier, and feels better. | ChemSpider wrote: | "Some...". Well, a few right wing idiots. Even the BBC | calls it UK variant: | https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55659820 | | > it really doesn't feel good to be a person from one of | those locations. | | I am from one of these locations and could not care less. | kube-system wrote: | I think that's a little bit different because the origin has | a different perceived connotation of blame. | powerapple wrote: | the reason behind it is that almost 70% asian experience | racism, and we don't see British people being attacked in | street randomly | yumraj wrote: | And other people of color, referring to South Africa and | Brazil variants, do not face racism? | temp8964 wrote: | "almost 70% asian experience racism"? Only if you mean how | college admission in the U.S. discriminates against Asian | kids. | amznthrwaway wrote: | Hey @dang -- I know you love to let dumb racist shit | stand on this website, but where do you draw the line? | newacct583 wrote: | > 2. It's not xenophobic for people from the US to suggest the | possibility of a lab leak | | Inherently? Of course not. But does xenophobia motivate a lot | of this argument? It certainly seems to. Look at how quickly | proponents of this nonsense jump from detached discussion about | the possibilities to outraged condemnation of the PRC. Just | read the discussion here in this thread. | | If you only wanted to discuss the lab and the virus and try to | put relative likelihoods on the natural evolution vs. Andromeda | Strain theories, that would be one thing. But... that doesn't | seem to be all you want. | danielrpa wrote: | Just because the motivation for the argument is bad, it | doesn't mean that the argument itself is bad. I think you | agree by saying it's not "inherently" xenophobic. | | All we need to do to take xenophobia out of this discussion | is to not be xenophobic ourselves. The xenophobes may talk to | themselves. But let's make sure we are talking about this | problem instead of falling for the "guilty by association | fallacy". | newacct583 wrote: | > Just because the motivation for the argument is bad, it | doesn't mean that the argument itself is bad. | | Inherently? Of course not. But in practice it tends to act | as a good prior for detecting bullshit. How many of these | people would _really_ be making the same argument in this | way had the virus appeared in Bonn or Montreal? | bruiseralmighty wrote: | Excuse me but PRC = People's Republic of China correct? | | How would it be xenophobic to criticize a government? This | conflation is so pervasive and toxic to the discourse. | | The Chinese government _does_ bear some of the responsibility | here. The Chinese people _do not_. At a minimum, they | actively tried to cover-up an investigation into a leak and | leaned on the World Health Organization in order to do so. | | This had two negative affects globally. First is the slowed | response time from the rest of the World as they were assured | this was mild and contained. Second is the rightfully | degraded trust in the WHO which will impede ongoing and | future efforts not only to stop Covid-19 but also future | pandemics. | | The reason right-wing media sources are the only ones talking | about this is because they are the only ones with the freedom | to do so. If we do not like that some of these source are | implying that Chinese people as a group are to blame, then | that is an invitation for more mainstream outlets to stop | carrying water for the Chinese and American governments. | | Be upfront, the WHO was compromised by the Chinese | government. There could have been a leak, a hypothesis that | is looking more likely with each passing week. If this was in | fact a leak, then gain of function research could also be | implicated. This produces a conflict of interest with experts | in the field because their funding and research may utilize | gain of function methods. | | Done. | | This was a known unknown over a year ago, but stifled due to | political interests. The casting of xenophobic aspersions | onto the right-leaning media sources who got this correct is | an attempt at damage control for the same political | interests. | | I get it. Admitting those media sources were better when it | really mattered means fewer people will get vaccinated and we | may get a Trump 2.0. That is the political price of lying and | getting caught. Jacketing all these conversations with | underlying accusations of "well they were right but also | racist" is not going to be a win. If you want to win you have | to actually be better. | newacct583 wrote: | With all respect, this sounds very much like "It's not | xenophobia if your fear of the foreigners is justified". | throwaway4good wrote: | You are missing the important bit: The lab leak would have to | be covered up by the Chinese authorities and the WHO would some | how have had to be in on it. | | Read the section in the WHO report on COVID19 and listen to the | reputable international scientist that actually went and | visited the lab and interviewed the people who worked there. | | https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus/origins-of-the... | loveistheanswer wrote: | >The lab leak would have to be covered up by the Chinese | authorities and the WHO would some how have had to be in on | it. | | Indeed. There's another important bit that you seem to be | missing. | | Did you know that Peter Daszak, one of the "reputable | international scientists" you speak of who helped investigate | and author that report was himself the _project lead_ for the | US funded gain of function research at the WIV? | | Who would be more inclined or in a better position to cover | that up than him? | rebelos wrote: | To think that China couldn't or wouldn't carefully control | this situation and what information is available to external | parties is being credulous to the point of this sounding like | propaganda. They did everything they could to downplay the | severity of the issue for months while they had people in | hazmat suits trying to decon Wuhan. | jeduehr wrote: | Why didn't they do the same for the SARS-CoV-1 leaks that | happened in Beijing over a decade ago, then? | rebelos wrote: | That's a terrible counterargument full of logical holes | coming from someone who's supposedly a "PhD in virology". | But you're also a green account that's so rabidly and | suspiciously coming to China's defense throughout these | comments that I literally assign no credence whatsoever | to anything you've said. Several other scientists here | have already eviscerated the arguments in your r/science | post as well. | | I don't know who you are, but "unbiased virologist | commenter" is definitely not it. | eightysixfour wrote: | I feel like people are doing a poor job distinguishing between | "engineered" and "leaked." | | There is, from my understanding, reasonable evidence to | conclude the virus was not engineered from the perspective of | "we took genes from one virus and moved them to this virus," | but there's no evidence disproving the idea that it was the | result of gain of function research. | | My personal feeling is that these statements are true: | | * The virus is unlikely to have been engineered (in the way I | described above) and leaked. | | * There is circumstantial evidence the virus was the result of | gain of function research and it leaked. | | * There is circumstantial evidence the virus was a natural | research sample and it leaked. | | * There is circumstantial evidence the virus was introduced by | an animal/person who traveled to the wet market. | | Some of these are more likely than others, and an individual's | own calibration for what is likely or unlikely will probably | come into play more than evidence in the short term and | possibly long term as well. I can say the vast majority of us | are not qualified to answer the question either way though. | Buttons840 wrote: | I like this presentation of evidence. Rarely do you see such | a short acknowledgement that there are multiple contradictory | theories, each having some evidence, and making no attempt to | pick which theory is correct. | | Sometimes its wrong to present "both sides" like that. Like | pretending the evidence against the moon landings is equal to | the evidence for the moon landings. But if you're going to be | wrong, this is probably the best kind of wrong. | beowulfey wrote: | well, often the benefit of listing out as much evidence as | possible (basically, look at the facts on hand) is that it | can help clarify WHICH theory makes the most sense | eightysixfour wrote: | I think this is one of those areas where our day-to-day | probability heuristics do not align with the actual | probabilities. So, as an individual, trying to decide | which theory makes the most sense is a Sisyphean task. | | For example, I have seen a lot of comments that the | closest natural COVID reservoir is 500 miles away, that | sounds like a lot! But the average tractor trailer can | cover that in a day no problem, so our heuristic needs to | include how many trucks are moving between those areas, | how many have come in contact with wildlife or are | transporting it, etc. Since it only takes one | transmission the problem rapidly becomes too complex. | | Fortunately the answer has no bearing on decisions being | made in the here and now, so we can afford to wait and | let experts do their jobs and hope we take the right | steps long term if it was something that could have been | avoided. | ricksunny wrote: | > we can afford to wait and let experts do their jobs | | We can emphatically _not_ expect the experts to do their | job. Those cited as having the most expertise | (virologists who undertake gain-of-function research, | symbolically under the auspices of HHS' toothless P3CO | regulation framework) have the most to lose from a | finding that the pandemic's source was a lab leak. They | lose all the grants and public financial support, not to | mention endure unending public scorn that will haunt the | their careers for the duration. | | For evidence that the relevant, oft-cited scientists act | precisely this way, one need no more than to look at | @BlockedVirology's retweets: | https://twitter.com/blockedvirology | | Scientists are human - I would highly recommend | disabusing oneself of the notion that they might act | contrary to overwhelming human incentives in as weighty a | context as investigating the origins of the greatest | pandemic in a century. | | The only alternative in the face of this embedded | conflict of interest in our (society's) ability to | credibly investigate the pandemic's origins is for | technically-minded individuals (who _don't_ run | multimillion dollar virology labs) to avail themselves of | the findings gathered to date on the origins (there's | lots! Just need to take a look, the contributors to the | above feed are a good place to start), and advocate to | their representatives for a credible & even-handed | origins investigation. | | Failing that, expect no origin beyond all reasonable | doubt to be credibly identified in our lifetimes. | eightysixfour wrote: | Scientists are human, and they will make mistakes, the | benefit is that there are many of them with different | incentives. The "Blocked Virology" twitter account | references a lot of previous lab escapes to say that lab | escapes are possible, this is good evidence against your | point - how do you think we know about the previous | escapes? It wasn't a random group of technically-minded | individuals, it was experts that tracked it down. | | The level of arrogance necessary to believe that any | "technically minded" individual can find where the virus | originated is mind blowing to me. Logic isn't the end- | all-be-all, for many fields you must also have knowledge. | We should not ignore the blindspots that deep knowledge | can introduce but to just dismiss it is absurd. | jeduehr wrote: | Actually a lot of virologists are also critical of GOF. | | Just look at public health people, epidemiologists. Folks | like Andrea Sant, Michael Osterholm, David Topham, etc. | | These folks criticize GOF all the time, and are a big | part of the group that helps write regulations to make | Virology research safe. | | But you know what these same virologists also don't | believe? That SARS-COV-2 was cooked up in a lab. | | That should tell you something. | | Science is adversarial, and virology is no exception. | | That's why when consensus exists about something, you | should respect it. There is quite a large consensus about | this one. | ChemSpider wrote: | > That SARS-COV-2 was cooked up in a lab | | This is a straw man argument. No one is seriously | claiming that this is a "cooked up" (artificially | created) virus. It could be a natural virus that escaped | the lab. | Banyonite wrote: | > That's why when consensus exists about something, you | should respect it. There is quite a large consensus about | this one. | | Respecting a consensus is reasonable. That having been | said, I would be interested to hear what the virologists | to whom you refer think about Ralph Baric's work. Ralph | Baric is a very well-known virologist specializing in | corona virology. His group synthesized quite a few SARS- | CoV variants, a number of years before SARS-CoV-2 made | its appearance. While there's no proof that SARS-CoV-2 | was created in a lab, there are quite a few studies | describing the synthesis of different SARS-CoV variants, | some quite dangerous. | | From one of many papers on which he was a co-author | (https://www.pnas.org/content/113/11/3048.full): | | "Using the SARS-CoV infectious clone as a template (7), | we designed and synthesized a full-length infectious | clone of WIV1-CoV consisting of six plasmids that could | be enzymatically cut, ligated together, and | electroporated into cells to rescue replication competent | progeny virions (Fig. S1A). In addition to the full- | length clone, we also produced WIV1-CoV chimeric virus | that replaced the SARS spike with the WIV1 spike within | the mouse-adapted backbone (WIV1-MA15, Fig. S1B)" | | EDIT: jeduehr, given your background in virology, I would | be interested in any technical critique you may have | regarding the Yuri Deigin article referenced in my post | below. | jeduehr wrote: | It's important to understand the distinction between | chimeric and mosaic viruses. | | Baric makes Chimeras. CoV-2 in comparison to the other | closely related viruses in nature, is a mosaic. Lots of | little changes all over the genome, not big copy and | pastes. | | See here for more detail on that distinction: https://www | .reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/-/fqpbagf | [deleted] | darepublic wrote: | You can present evidence for and against moon landing being | a hoax and if done properly the delusional theory among | them (hoax) should be really clear. Presenting the evidence | as plainly as possible should be elucidating not misleading | cameldrv wrote: | I'm not sure you can rule out "engineered as you described | above." | | WIV had recently published research on, and had an active | grant to perform (at the time of the outbreak), chimeric | Coronavirus research, and they were one of the two world | leading labs in this. In that research, they were | transplanting the spike gene from one virus to the "backbone" | of another. You could call this "engineering" or "gain of | function" depending on your perspective. | | The thing that raised people's suspicions about this is that | the spike RBD strongly resembles a virus sequence they | released recently (Pangolin-CoV), and the backbone strongly | resembles another virus they recently published (RaTG13). | That suggests that there was some sort of recombination | event. That recombination could have occurred in nature, in | an animal that was simultaneously infected with two viruses, | or it could have occurred in the lab. | selimthegrim wrote: | 96% is strongly resembles? | andi999 wrote: | Sources, please. | AndrewBissell wrote: | This article delves into the spike protein and its furin | cleavage site which some have argued looks engineered: | https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab- | esca... | | Incidentally (or perhaps not?), there is some evidence | that the furin-cleavage site is what makes the virus | resistant to hydroxychloroquine, which can be countered | by combining it with a TMPRSS2 inhibitor: https://journal | s.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j... | loveistheanswer wrote: | >I can say the vast majority of us are not qualified to | answer the question either way though. | | It's also worth noting that even the leading experts can get | these things wrong, as was the case with the Sverdlovsk lab | leak. | | Soviet authorities covered it up by blaming local meat | markets, and leading US experts concurred with them, only to | reverse their conclusion 6 years later. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak#Acci. | .. | NineStarPoint wrote: | It's worth noting that in both the Sverdlov case and in | this one, world scientists are only being given access to | the situation in an extremely controlled fashion. A primary | reason we can't say more on what happened in this case is | the CCP's tight control over access that could help clarify | the situation. | | Which will always look suspicious, whether it was actually | a completely natural virus or not. | AdamJacobMuller wrote: | Never heard about Sverdlosk, interesting story. | | > Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar issued a decree to | begin demilitarization of Compound 19 in 1992. However, the | facility continued its work. Not a single journalist has | been allowed onto the premises since 1992. About 200 | soldiers with Rottweiler dogs still patrol the complex. | eightysixfour wrote: | Absolutely, without multiple trust-worthy first-person | accounts backed by evidence, the likely best we can hope | for is an eventually-consistent story that we are "pretty | sure" about. Considering the size of the impact on the | world, that will take a long time. | tootie wrote: | Even the WHO report didn't rule out the possibility of a | leak. They just said the evidence is weak and the evidence of | animal to human transmission is stronger. | Bukhmanizer wrote: | My personal feelings are that all 3 are possible, but | approximately 0.0001% of people will actually consider the | likelihood of each one, but rather, most will choose | whichever one is most convenient and comfortable to believe | in. | | Of course as an Asian person, whatever people believe in will | have a direct impact on me. I remember after 9/11, the amount | of awful things that were said and done to the Sikh | population in my city. It didn't matter they had literally | nothing to do with the attacks. People were angry and wanted | someone to blame. | anonymousisme wrote: | As a white American in Beijing during the 9/11 attacks, I | experienced lots of not-so-surprising behavior from my | Chinese hosts. Many Chinese felt that America deserved what | they got. Tensions were still high from the "Hainan Island | Incident" only a few months earlier. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_Island_incident | Banyonite wrote: | There is a rather detailed description of circumstantial | evidence that leans towards the gain of function statement: | https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy- | throug... | cdblades wrote: | > but there's no evidence disproving the idea that it was the | result of gain of function research. | | That's not a lens that can be used to usefully evaluate | claims. | arcticbull wrote: | It's also not xenophobic to suggest the possibility of a lab | leak because lab leaks happen regardless of who's doing the | research; even at BSL-4 facilities, mistakes are made. And also | because there were two separate SARS-CoV-1 leaks/outbreaks from | Chinese labs which the PRC admitted to. [1] | | [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC403836/ | elif wrote: | There are also cases isolated from US blood samples taken | before any known infection in China's outbreak, so the racist | nature of this discussion is really misplaced. In reality, | statements about the origin of this virus are almost purely | geopolitical speculation, and it is from these politics that | racism is injected into the etymology. | | [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-01/covid- | inf... | drran wrote: | The First covid-like symptoms were registered in November | 2019 in Russia. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMh11FtfaP0 | Pokepokalypse wrote: | It is not xenophobic to suggest that. | | However; since the "leaked virus" narrative was mostly | parroted by rightwing media, and promoted from an overtly | racist and xenophobic administration and political party, (in | the USA) - it very much muddies the waters. There's also some | very strong, direct evidence, that political appointees | discussed (over email) strategies for subverting messaging | from actual scientific experts who had actual data and | studies backing up alternative explanations. | | It would be nice if such narratives arose organically from | actual events, and could be discussed openly. But that's | impossible in our present political environment, and that's | one of many many hazards of far-right politics. Any | questions? Just ask Galileo his opinion on the matter. | godelski wrote: | This is why it becomes important for us to have good faith | conversations. I don't think it is impossible to have said | conversations, but more difficult. We have to act in good | faith and determine who is using this language as a dog | whistle vs who is using it normally. We've seen how | assuming everything is a dog whistle has backfired on us, | so I'm not sure erroring in that direction is correct. But | at the same time I don't think we should necessarily act as | if there is no possibility someone is using language in | that way (muddied waters). I think we just proceed with | caution and do our best. | godelski wrote: | I just want to add: "A government is not the people and the | people are not the government." Just in case this needs to be | stated for anyone here or reading. If you disagree with a | people's government that doesn't mean you should treat the | people of said government in a critical manner. Their views | do not necessarily reflect that of their government (often | they do not, just look at us here in America where | criticizing the government is the great American past time) | clairity wrote: | the american experiment in democracy was to make the | government synonymous with the people. certainly that was | pulled back a bit by the republican (as in republic, not | the political party) elements by our founders, who were | themselves 'elites' of the time. in china, the communist | party is meant to be the same: a party of (all) the people. | | certainly xenophobia expresses itself acutely in | mediopolitical contexts where power and money are on the | line, but also in forums like this where such ego boosts | are basically costless. it's not really about a distinction | between the people and the government. | refenestrator wrote: | The fact that this particular theory reaches the front page | of hacker news every week, despite zero evidence besides the | existence of a lab.. hey, we're just asking questions, here, | right? | | Frankly, it would be irresponsible NOT to provacatively | suggest this thing we have no evidence of, repeatedly. | jeduehr wrote: | Hi, I have a PhD in virology focused on emerging viruses, and a | few months back I wrote a very lengthy and involved piece full | of sources. | | And in there, I describe exactly how wrong your point 1 is. And | how misguided your point 3 is. | | The post also won a "best of r/science 2020" award! | | You can find it here: | https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did... | mistermann wrote: | In what way is point 3 misguided? | jeduehr wrote: | Everyone is citing the evidence of the SARS-CoV-1 leak as | reason to believe that viruses escape labs. | | But you know what's interesting about that? | | We know about the CoV-1 leak because /the chinese | scientists told us about it./ | | They owned up to it and told the world and the biosafety | community (the people with degrees in these things) helped | china become more standard and respectable and safe. | | And now 15 years later, with zero evidence, we're accusing | them of covering up the same thing. | | Scientists are not their government, and China's government | is not a huge fan of it's scientists. Just look at the | great leap forward. And how they're treating Shi Zhengli | now that she is arguing the virus came from a zoonotic | event in the provinces. China's party line no longer | agrees, and she's been silenced. | | Why would she lie for her government when they don't even | agree? | mistermann wrote: | What you wrote here is not wrong, but point number 3 | stated: | | > 3. Lab leaks happen more often than most people | realize[1] | | As I see it, there are two variables involved: | | - how frequently lab leaks happen (total number of | historic leaks - known + unknown) | | - people's realization / awareness of how often they | happen | | > And now 15 years later, with zero evidence, we're | accusing them of covering up the same thing. | | Regardless of whether there is evidence or not (have they | been perfectly transparent and enthusiastically | encouraging of inspections?), a leak did happen, or it | did not happen...and then on top of it, there is the | problem of whether we have knowledge of it or not. | | > Why would she lie for her government when they don't | even agree? | | Like many other things in life, it is not known. | jeduehr wrote: | Re: inspections, Shi Zhengli has been yes. | | Her government, not so much. | | I am definitely not a fan of the Chinese government. But | the scientists I've met at conferences and the papers | I've reviewed from their labs have been of a very high | quality. | | Not saying such people could not commit atrocities or | coverups like this. But I do find it personally less | likely. | | That isn't the evidence I rely on most in my personal | assessment, though. The epidemiology and molecular clock | data points to a zoonotic origin outside of Wuhan. Check | out here to see what I mean: https://www.reddit.com/r/sci | ence/comments/gk6y95/-/fqpcfs2 | | Which makes the lab leak a whole lot less interesting of | an idea since its' circumstantial evidence isn't actually | the circumstance anymore. | mistermann wrote: | Agreed, I've read other plausible claims of ~evidence | suggesting the Wuhan origin theory is incorrect. | | Generally speaking, I think the whole world would be | better off if we aligned our perceptions of our knowledge | more closely with its likely true quality: very often, we | think we know things, but we are actually just estimating | if not outright guessing, and then declaring it to be | true. Unfortunately, very few people seem to be | comfortable with this idea regardless of their political | orientation or education level. But as I see it, it is | simply applying the discipline and methodology of science | to the real world, so it's kind of weird how unpopular it | is with educated people who are _otherwise_ enthusiastic | promoters of Scientific Thinking. | [deleted] | loveistheanswer wrote: | >But you know what's interesting about that? | | >We know about the CoV-1 leak because /the chinese | scientists told us about it./ | | Sometimes humans tell the truth, sometimes humans don't. | | Pointing to one group of people who told the truth, and | asserting that means another group _must_ be telling the | truth is just silly. | | Especially considering the former example was in regards | to a small accident relative to potentially the greatest | accident in human history. | | I know I would be _strongly_ inclined to lie if I was | responsible for the accidental death of millions of | people. | | If a human being was not inclined to lie about their | responsibility for greatest accident in human history, | why would humans ever lie about any mistake? | jeduehr wrote: | But at the time when it was important, in both of these | leak events, only extremely few people had died. Not | millions. | | It was far from the worst accident in human history at | that point, it looked like nothing and in America lots of | people thought it would never affect us at all. | | That's when it came up and when Zhengli had her lab | searched and checked their freezers etc. | | It's also important to think about the other BSL4 labs | around the world they sent tons of samples to. If they | were hiding SARS-CoV-2, why wouldn't it have slipped into | any of these many thousands of inter-lab samples? | | Releases aren't all that common but cross-contamination | within and between secure sites actually is. | | Why has no one found SARS-2 in any of the samples sent | out of Wuhan to Australia, Singapore, Canada, or the US? | loveistheanswer wrote: | Which part of #1 is false? | | 1.1 Gain of function research primarily uses samples | collected from nature | | 1.2 and seeks to stimulate their evolution in as natural a | way as possible to learn how viruses evolve in nature. | | 1.3 If such viruses were to escape the lab, they would appear | "natural" | jeduehr wrote: | 1.3. you cannot take any virus known in nature (like | Ratg-13 for example) and "cook" it for long enough or in | any specific way to make it look like SARS-CoV-2. | | You can't do it in the time we've been able to handle | viruses like this or modify them in the ways we can. You'd | have needed to start a few decades ago, have tools that | we've only just invented, and a huge number of willing test | subjects. | | I cover this in extreme detail in the post I linked under | Q2 and Q3. | | https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/-/fqpbt6o | | https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/-/fqpc7c8 | | One of the most compelling pieces of evidence is the | synonymous/nonsynonomous ratio of the genome and it's | mosaic mutations. | | That's not something you can just cook up over night, it | takes many millions of viral generations which require A) | diverse hosts (like you find in a natural ecosystem), B) | many millions of hosts, like you find in nature, and C) | decades of time. | | The chinese virology labs don't have the resources, time, | or space to do something like that. And maybe it would be | kind of possible today with CRISPR and many thousands of | oligonucleotides printed off of a desktop printer, but that | technology hasn't existed for more than a few years. The | timelines just don't add up. | AndrewBissell wrote: | > _and a huge number of willing test subjects_ | | Who said the test subjects have to be willing? That's | never stopped our government before. | jeduehr wrote: | Okay they at least need to stay quiet, sit in their | warehouse of cages, and no journalists need to find out | about it. And there can't be any leaks from anyone | involved suddenly gaining a deathbed conscience. | | The conspiracy becomes so immense it's absurd the many | thousands of people who would have to keep quiet. | loveistheanswer wrote: | Thank you for the detailed response. As a layperson, | these specifics are over my head. | | Assuming everything you say is true, that still would not | rule out a lab leak of a virus collected from nature, | would it? | | >You can't do it in the time we've been able to handle | viruses like this or modify them in the ways we can. | You'd have needed to start a few decades ago, have tools | that we've only just invented, and a huge number of | willing test subjects. | | Does this imply that covid19 has been circulating among | humans for a very long time? | jeduehr wrote: | Yes, a lab leak of a virus collected from nature is the | most plausible of these lab theories. | | But the epidemiological evidence points to covid-19 | originating outside wuhan entirely, that's why I find | that theory less likely, among other reasons. See here: | | https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/-/fqpcfs | 2 | | Also if they had collected it in nature, it would have | been in their freezers, or likely that people involved in | that research would have been patient zero etc. See here: | | https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/-/fqpcf3 | 3 | | https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/-/fqpce2 | z | | Wuhan institute of virology also aren't the labs I'm | worried about. They were built and designed by very | reputable people in the virology community. Not saying | you should trust them, but at least recognize that the | people who are most qualified to distrust them think it's | unlikely. | | See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y9 | 5/-/fqpccr1 | | >Does this imply covid-19 has been circulating in humans | a long time? | | No, it implies it was relatively stable passing amongst | several species of bats (and other related mammals) | before a single or a few crossover events into humans | recently. | | It's behaving exactly like we would expect a zoonotic | transmission to behave. It's not very well adapted to | bats, it's not very well adapted to humans. It's sort of | "promiscuous" likely because it has infected several | different species over several decades before arriving in | humans. | abecedarius wrote: | WIV had many unpublished coronavirus samples, and took | their database offline in fall 2019. RaTG13 is just the | least distant relative to SARS-CoV-2 that they did | publish. | AlarmALlama wrote: | Hi. Do you still stand by your point 3.1.1, specifically your | mutation rate of 2 changes/month, given that newer variants | are believed to have arisen from intense mutational events in | a small number of immunodeficient people? | jeduehr wrote: | Hi, yes I do. | | Because those mutation events in a small number of people | still require a longer time to become "stable" in the | overall population of viruses. | | Generally speaking, the more virus "generations" you have, | the more likely you are to generate a successful variant. | But then it takes time for that variant to achieve dynamic | equilibrium in the greater population of viruses. For it to | take over. | | And the initial SARS-CoV-2 had so little diversity for so | long, that we can say it likely had been stable before | passing into humans, or there would have been more initial | diversity in it compared to its closest viral relatives. | | It is a picture overall consistent with a random crossover | event. Not ruling out a lab leak (because that's quite | difficult if not impossible to do). The absence of evidence | is not evidence of absence. | | But we have just as much evidence to say the virus came | from aliens who planted it in humans as we do to say it | came from a human lab that has no trace of the virus | anywhere in it. | itssssotrue wrote: | The fact that you state that your article won a "best of | r/science 2020" award is a bit like stating you came in first | at the special olympics. | dlp211 wrote: | This is frankly an ignorant comment. Many of the best | Special Olympic athletes would absolutely thrash your | average in shape adult. Many of the men in their respective | disability category for the 100m dash are sub 11-second, | putting them in or near world class athlete times. And | while those aren't Usain Bolt times, and not every category | of Special Olympic athlete is equal, your average athletic | male would be lucky to be in the 11-12 seconds range. | jeduehr wrote: | I would rather you criticize the facts of my argument than | the platform it's raised on. | | I was under the impression HN has a certain sense of | propriety in its "comment guidelines." | | Or do you want to stoop as low as the forums you criticize? | | Thanks | axiosgunnar wrote: | You can't expect him to restrict his criticism to the | content of your arguments and not your person if you | claim your argument must be true because you have a PhD | and no time to retype your essay for us lowlifes. | jeduehr wrote: | I didn't say my argument must be true because I have a | PhD. I said you should trust that I'm not talking out of | my ass because I have a PhD. | | I'd much rather you read my arguments and criticize my | content. | | The fact is, criticisms in these things come from all | angles. I was simply preempting one type of criticism in | saying I have a PhD so I have thought about this and | studied it a lot. | | And then directly responding to another (that reddit is | full of crap) by saying the content is what's important | anyway. | | I'm not saying I'm right because I have a PhD. In the | post I drectly say "I'd much rather you read the | arguments anyway" | axiosgunnar wrote: | I would like to criticise your content but you haven't | posted any. You have simply claimed the posters claims #1 | and #3 were false "because you said so". | | Anyways I applaud and respect you for working your way up | to the PhD and I am sure you are trying your best to | spread the truth, but it would be more effective if you | rehashed the main parts of that essay for all the readers | here to see if you want to clear up whatever errors the | poster has put out into the world. | rPlayer6554 wrote: | I'm sorry man, but wouldn't you be able to just reply | directly if you feel inclined to disagree with the parent. | I'm not saying HN is entitled to your opinion but it feels a | little lazy and disrespectful to the parent to say "you're | wrong" then drop a link off site to a massive general summary | of the situation in order to respond to a few specific | points. Especially since point 3 has a source from a decently | reputable news site with reputable sources. | jeduehr wrote: | Hi, I actually ended up responding below to point 3 in | particular but I also respond to it in my original post. | Very few, if any of these arguments are novel. | | The reason you will find extremely few people with actual | credentials in the science we're discussing in these | discussions is that working scientists don't have the time | or will to get into these debates with people who wouldn't | have the faintest idea how to actually conduct the research | they're criticizing. | | That post I linked took like dozens and dozens of man hours | to write, workshop, source, and edit. | | And I wrote it so I could link it in situations like this, | and not repeat myself dozens or hundreds of times. | | Personally, I'm studying for the biggest exam of my | professional life at the moment, and I'm procrastinating | here because I find these discussions so horrifying. | | This entire thread could be a valuable case study in the | Dunning Krueger effect. | | Not saying it's not worth talking about, but rather that | the amount of time and effort it takes to refute bullshit | is several magnitudes more than the amount of effort it | takes to create it. | | In my case, that's 10+ years studying viruses so people on | the internet with no credentials can tell me I'm wrong. | phyalow wrote: | Firstly it is "Dunning-Kruger". Secondly you are engaging | in an argument from "authority" without evidence which is | often fallacious and always disingenuous. | jeduehr wrote: | I'm typing on a phone keyboard so forgive my typo. | | And I linked to a literal mountain of evidence describing | both my credentials on this topic and then an extremely | detailed and heavily sourced set of arguments. | | I'm not talking out of my ass, I'm sorry it sounds that | way. After you have several hundred of these discussions | and they keep popping up with zero new evidence, it tends | to color your attitude. | | Please accept my apologies | rPlayer6554 wrote: | That's fair if you don't want to engage because you feel | you don't have time, but the spirit of the website is to | have an open discussion. That means people will say wrong | things. If you don't have time to engage with | that....it's totally fine. But just saying I'm right and | dropping a large read goes against the spirt of | discussion. No one is forcing you to. If you wanted to | just do a general response to everyone just make a | comment on the main article with your link. | | Good luck on your exam as well. | jeduehr wrote: | I am engaging, against my better judgement! | chimprich wrote: | Thanks for posting this - really interesting and valuable | in my view. | | > The reason you will find extremely few people with | actual credentials in the science we're discussing in | these discussions is that working scientists don't have | the time or will to get into these debates with people | who wouldn't have the faintest idea how to actually | conduct the research they're criticizing. | | We have such a big problem with public perception of | science. I think many people are willing to be educated, | but internet forums tend to degenerate into arguments | between people who think they know a lot more than they | do (even in (especially?) places like HN). | | Controversial idea: I think in the future we should pay | researchers to spend x% of their time just interacting | with people on internet forums answering questions and | correcting misperceptions. The amount of disinformation | out there is staggering. | ChemSpider wrote: | Alina Chan seems at least equally qualified and | disagrees: | | https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1374108473571557377 | jeduehr wrote: | Alina Chan, also not a virologist. | | She's a geneticst or biochemist. She just uses some | viruses in her research sometimes, like basically all | biochemists. | | Calling her qualified in virus biosafety is like saying | someone with a PhD in Visual Arts is qualified as an | expert in ballpoint pens because they've used them to | draw. Sure they know some things about using ballpoint | pens and which ones they prefer, but would you trust them | to tell you how to design one from scratch? Or how to fix | pens? | | Not as much as some guy with a PhD in engineering and | design at Mont Blanc, get what I'm saying? | | I have also responded to her criticisms substance | elsewhere, but she makes some big leaps in judgment that | show she hasn't ever worked in a BSL4 lab before. Or | studied the nitty gritty of virus genetics in nature | before. | [deleted] | ChemSpider wrote: | > I have also responded to her criticisms substance | elsewhere, | | Link? | maxerickson wrote: | This idea that everything always needs to be litigated from | first principles is stupid. They pointed out what they | thought was salient about their write up, if you don't want | to read it don't, if you do and think they are wrong, you | can write about why. | rdxm wrote: | real-politik and nation state realities are too often discounted | on this topic. was there a lab leak? yes, that's highly likely. | What was the genesis of this event? also highly likely it was | related to pushing the bio-weapon envelope. | | China is obviously pushing hard to catch-up, and doing so in | every offensive dimension is highly likely given past behavior, | to think otherwise is dangerously naive. What makes this crazy is | the hubris(or discounting) of the numerous close calls for | disaster during the cold war on this topic. | | The lack of real transparency on this with WHO exploration tells | you all you need to know about whether this was a simple protocol | eff-up or a blown military program.. | hnbad wrote: | While interesting on a purely intellectual level, I think people | unhealthily obsess over this. | | Epidemiologists have warned about the possibility of a pandemic | for years. They've even been pretty clear about factors that | manifested in SARS-CoV-2, like it having flu-like symptoms and | originating in China. | | Whether the virus leaked from a lab, from a chicken or from some | guy eating a bat, doesn't matter. This was going to happen one | way or another and many countries, especially in the West, were | incredibly arrogant thinking it wouldn't be a problem for them. | | Consider Vietnam: they followed the news very closely early on | and already had procedures in place that would reduce the | likelihood of transmission. While Europeans and Americans were | only talking about some new disease in China, they started | wearing masks and tracing contacts. When we only just started | recommending people make masks at home, they already had the | situation under control and were providing free meals to | quarantined foreigners. | | We didn't take SARS-CoV-2 serious because we expected our | "superior" hygiene, technology and healthcare systems to protect | us even if authoritarian China had to "wall people in" to contain | the spread. Surely we wouldn't need draconian uncivilized | measures like lockdowns. In Germany we even maintained this | arrogance when Italy had to send in military convoys to get rid | of the bodybags -- of course _they_ wouldn 't be able to contain | this, because everybody knows they're careless and flamboyant and | disorganized. | | At several points, the US lost as many people to COVID per day as | it lost to 9/11. Germany is already riding the third wave with no | real plans in sight and a dysfunctional vaccine rollout. New | mutations are arising and taking their toll in Western countries. | This isn't on China, this is on us. | | So if you follow these stories out of pure curiosity, good on | you. If you follow them because you desperately want someone to | blame: stop. Blame your own country's government. This is on | them. All they needed to do was take the experts seriously and | not listen to industry lobby groups instead. Countries like | Australia have understood this. Countries like Germany are too | busy cutting backroom deals and playing party politics instead. | spaetzleesser wrote: | Agreed. Putting blame is not helpful at the moment or at best a | sideshow. What counts now is how to deal with the situation. | Knowing that China is to blame or not won't save lives. | lamontcg wrote: | > The virus does have an inexplicable feature: a so-called "furin | cleavage site" in the spike protein that helps SARS-CoV-2 pry its | way into human cells. While such sites are present in some | coronaviruses, they haven't been found in any of SARS-CoV-2's | closest known relatives. | | This is false. First of all it should be stated clearer that | there has been parallel evolution across several branches of | coronaviruses which have independently evolved a furin cleavage | site (so there is evolutionary pressure and advantage for | coronaviruses to follow this path): | | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187350612... | | And then the statement is just wrong. The related sarbecoviruses | found in Thailand have similar furin cleavage sites: | | > The RacCS203 S gene is most similar to that of RmYN02 | (Supplementary Fig. 3a). The two viruses shared part of the furin | cleavage site unique to SARS-CoV-2 (Supplementary Fig. 3b) and | have an almost identical RBD aa sequence with only two residue | differences out of 204 aa residues | | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21240-1 | superkuh wrote: | Yes. And making it even more obvious the extremely well known | (now) story of how the researcher that discovered the technique | of stablizing the spike in it's pre-fusion conformation with | proline substitutions (before being acted on by furin | proteases) did so while working with MERS-CoV. It's not even | obscure knowledge anymore that MERS had the same furin cleavage | site. It's filtered out into public non-expert awareness. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-04-09 23:01 UTC)