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New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#101

Post by powerfoolx »

akiselev wrote: post #43
moulei wrote: post #22

>I think this is just a massive overcorrection due to China's 2003 SARS outbreak but we'll start seeing more and more of these large scale quarantines as our civilization comes to terms with the realities of cheap air travel. I don't think is an "overcorrection". Lockdown is a top-level warning. Most Chinese people have no so much medical common sense, only a warning like this can stop them from trying to return home…

> Most Chinese people have no so much medical common sense, only a warning like this can stop them from trying to return home for the Chinese New Year. The most important factor during public health crises isn't common sense, it's trust. The quarantines are worthless if they cause over 50 million people to go into a panic because they don't trust the central authorities. The predominant commentary I'm seeing coming f…

It's not only thousand cases and a few dozen deaths. It's over a thousand cases over a few days of development from over a dozen. Learn your math, dude, especially on exponential growth. That multiply dangerously fast. Besides the confirmed cases, there would be at least few times more suspected cases, which could easily overload a handful of well-equipped hospitals. Once the the number of those infected go well beyond the capacity of the local hospitals. It will be the beginning of a an unstoppable disaster. So again, learn how exponential growth works.

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#102

Post by throwawaylolx »

joeyspn wrote: post #42
DevX101 wrote: post #30

I'm bordering on conspiracy theory territory here, but I'd also like an real investigation into whether the virus actually originated from the Wuhan Biosafety Laboratory. It's the only level 4 (BSL-4 highest rating) lab in all of China designated to handle the most dangerous pathogens. And it's located 20 miles from the reported epicenter in the wildlife market. It was first opened two years ago and at the time multi…

Also from Nature (2017): "Bat cave solves mystery of deadly SARS virus — and suggests new outbreak could occur" https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-07766-9 (Wuhan lab apparently carried out the research)

>and suggests new outbreak could occur

An outbreak caused _by bats_, which is opposed to GP's theroy.

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#103

Post by pxue »

CydeWeys wrote: post #51
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The odds of this naturally occurring in China are probably close to 1 in 4. And the odds of it happening in Wuhan are probably close to 3%. The odds of the Chinese government making a super virus based on Coronavirus seem smaller than that, and the odds of it escaping the laboratory might be decent, but when you combine them, it's pretty slim. If this were some super strain of Smallpox, that would make a more convinc…

I really hope nobody is working on the (insanely irrational) idea of creating a super virus. There's no way in hell you could use that as a weapon of war because there's no way you could ensure it doesn't leave the target country. And even the act of trying to make one is insanely dangerous; if it accidentally gets out, which is easily possible, now you're killing all your own people. I want to say that all governmen…

if some genius decided using mustard gas was a good idea, some "genius" somewhere probably decided using bio-chemical super virus is also a good idea.

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#104

Post by dwnvoted2hell »

reaperducer wrote: post #61
neffy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a perfectly valid question, although the wildlife market is equally valid on the evidence we have. We know that the Chinese Government is hugely overreacting to public information at this point in time - terrible as the published numbers are they are not that out of whack with a normal bad flu epidemic, which also causes significantly higher death rates. So it's either the actual death rates are higher (…

We know that the Chinese Government is hugely overreacting Do we know that? All of the criticism I've seen has been of the government under-reacting. In fact, in a speech yesterday Xi told the local authorities that they weren't doing enough. Non-Chinese estimates (as of 24 January) are that there's 6,000 people infected vs. 1,300 from the Chinese government. The 6,000 figure comes from the Laboratory for the Modelin…

Your statements are too broad. The government actively denies anything is wrong among its own citizens until the disease is spread outside the country. This has been well documented both with this and with SARS. To medical professionals, they have them recommend those sick people stay home and not go out. To the cities where infected people are, it seems they have established some kind of lock down of those areas. Oh, and of course they have spread some anti-american sentiment stating that the United States is somehow responsible.

Of course it's hard to tell which story is right, the seafood or the medical facility. And honestly, it doesn't have to be one or the other - it could be both. They could have been practicing the breeding of viruses which had been harvested from local areas known to harbor diseases and infestations. If procedures were in question, or being retested, they might use a novel less deadly virus as a mechanism to practice with. It's plausible.

It would be nice if governments didn't blatantly lie to their citizens, but I guess that's what "progress" is in 2020.

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#105

Post by throwawaylolx »

cheuv wrote: post #95
joeyspn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also from Nature (2017): "Bat cave solves mystery of deadly SARS virus — and suggests new outbreak could occur" https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-07766-9 (Wuhan lab apparently carried out the research)

You forget thise one : https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debat... The original paper is provided by virologists researchers and two of them are from Wuhan Biosafety Lab (Zhengli-Li Shi & Xing-Yi Ge)

This paper claims that their "work suggests a potential risk of SARS-CoV re-emergence from viruses currently circulating in bat populations," which is opposing the theory that the virus originated from Wuhan Biosafety Laboratory.

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#106

Post by svara »

DevX101 wrote: post #30

I'm bordering on conspiracy theory territory here, but I'd also like an real investigation into whether the virus actually originated from the Wuhan Biosafety Laboratory. It's the only level 4 (BSL-4 highest rating) lab in all of China designated to handle the most dangerous pathogens. And it's located 20 miles from the reported epicenter in the wildlife market. It was first opened two years ago and at the time multi…

This seems rather unlikely. We have the genome sequence of the Wuhan seafood market coronavirus, and it's consistent with it being a so far unknown relative of the SARS virus and other coronaviruses (see my other comment where I have posted links to the sequence alignments).

So did the Wuhan BSL-4 lab virologists discover a new relative of the SARS virus, study it in their lab, didn't publish it, then accidentally set it free? Sounds substantially less likely to me than people coming in contact with it while handling bush meat. That happens all the time, unfortunately ...

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#107

Post by briandon »

Aperocky wrote: post #84
DevX101 wrote: post #30

I'm bordering on conspiracy theory territory here, but I'd also like an real investigation into whether the virus actually originated from the Wuhan Biosafety Laboratory. It's the only level 4 (BSL-4 highest rating) lab in all of China designated to handle the most dangerous pathogens. And it's located 20 miles from the reported epicenter in the wildlife market. It was first opened two years ago and at the time multi…

> I'm bordering on conspiracy theory territory here Yes. All of the initial cases are people who have been to a specific seafood market, which also sells wild animals. You would be suggesting that somehow Biosafety Laboratory dropped it's virus specifically in that market, which sold animals known to naturally carry the coronavirus. I call bs based on principal: Simple explanation is almost always right over complex…

"No link with seafood market in first case of China coronavirus, Chinese scientists revealed"

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3047646/no-l...

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#108

Post by csomar »

verroq wrote: post #79
CydeWeys wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe (hopefully?) China will shut down these markets after this outbreak. They've been known to take serious measures in the past when necessary. Surely the benefit of these markets cannot outweigh their costs (including on the local wildlife, not just infectious diseases).

Won’t that just drive it underground? Then nobody would even know where it started when the next outbreak happens.

You can drive it underground because, I think, the problem is coming from having too many animals/people in a small crowded place. If people were to raise their own cattle it'd be much healthier[-].

- Not really an expert, might be wrong.

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#109

Post by endorphone »

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #58
nexuist wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> >The former Israeli military intelligence doctor also said suspicions were raised about the Wuhan Institute of Virology when a group of Chinese virologists working in Canada improperly sent samples to China of what he said were some of the deadliest viruses on earth, including the Ebola virus. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/24/virus-hit-w...

Why is Canada sending Ebola to China?

By all accounts all procedures were followed, beyond that apparently some intellectual property protections weren't.

China studies major viruses too. They are a party to the research. That part isn't so insidious.

Re: New coronavirus can spread between humans, but started in a wildlife market

#110

Post by monort »

CydeWeys wrote: post #51
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The odds of this naturally occurring in China are probably close to 1 in 4. And the odds of it happening in Wuhan are probably close to 3%. The odds of the Chinese government making a super virus based on Coronavirus seem smaller than that, and the odds of it escaping the laboratory might be decent, but when you combine them, it's pretty slim. If this were some super strain of Smallpox, that would make a more convinc…

I really hope nobody is working on the (insanely irrational) idea of creating a super virus. There's no way in hell you could use that as a weapon of war because there's no way you could ensure it doesn't leave the target country. And even the act of trying to make one is insanely dangerous; if it accidentally gets out, which is easily possible, now you're killing all your own people. I want to say that all governmen…

Actually scientists are working on super viruses, it's called gain of function.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08837-7

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