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Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

sciencemag.org

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Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://archive.is/kMl5m

Did anyone check out the claim that the address of the Wuhan Lab was moved in google maps?

https://goo.gl/maps/mt1nrMnP6A8QAXpn9

Looks like it’s in both places but wasn’t “moved” like in that link

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#152

I'm not a fan of this title. It's verbose without being explicit. Should be "Wuhan seafood may not be source of coronavirus outbreak". Everyone already knows it's a novel virus spreading globally, just call it by its name.

Its name is novel coronavirus or more specifically "2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)". There are many coronaviruses that just cause colds. There's also SARS, MERS, and now nCoV that are a lot more deadly.

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#153
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Every laboratory exposure-related outbreak I've encountered has been trivially easy to trace back to that event. - Most high-end virology labs are doing research on human to human transmission of corona viruses. They're a major emerging type of virus we don't understand, and a Chinese lab working on them is even less surprising. - If this was a bioweapon, it sucks .

>If this was a bioweapon, it sucks. Bioweapons aren't all that effective in general for the reasons seen here: they're too slowly acting, to easy to treat, and not as lethal as, say, chemical weapons (which are also not that effective as weapons). Biological weapons are most dangerous as terror weapons.

I am not sure I agree completely. Yes, the panic they induce ( and that media happily augment ) is in itself dangerous, but.. well, weaponized ebola has apparently been in existence for a while. What makes you think progress was not made since then to.. add new traits to existing strains?

I hate to say anything more, because we would easily move into wild speculation territory.

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#154
post #131

The idea of this being an engineered virus wittingly unleashed on the world by some malevolent Party conspirators strains credulity--the notion is preposterous, especially from a country as obsessed with internal stability as China. However, the Wuhan pathogen research laboratory is still a worthy source to consider relating to this virus. Accidents DO happen, and China has a history of making mistakes leading to dan…

Given the rapidity with which the Harvard chemical-biologist was arrested after we received a sample and sequenced it (~36 hours), I think it is possible (possible! not likely!) that we engineered it , and they paid a researcher to give them a copy. * Some pretty heavy researchers in the US say that it (the virus) was not human-engineered. I find their reasoning spurious, but they know more than I do.

> Given the rapidity with which the Harvard chemical-biologist was arrested after we received a sample and sequenced it

I'd love to read more. Do you have a link?

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#155
post #56

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... Quote: 75 815 individuals have been infected in Wuhan as of Jan 25, 2020. The epidemic doubling time was 6·4 days. We estimated that if there was no reduction in transmissibility, the Wuhan epidemic would peak around April, 2020, and local epidemics across cities in mainland China would lag by 1–2 weeks.

Yes, 75815 individuals in Wuhan on Jan/25, with 4-6 day doubling is a more reasonable number. Better fits end of January, 3/200 of Japanese evacuation statistics and 4/400 of the Korean one. Assuming ~11M Wuhan population.

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#156
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the rapidity with which the Harvard chemical-biologist was arrested after we received a sample and sequenced it (~36 hours), I think it is possible (possible! not likely!) that we engineered it , and they paid a researcher to give them a copy. * Some pretty heavy researchers in the US say that it (the virus) was not human-engineered. I find their reasoning spurious, but they know more than I do.

> Given the rapidity with which the Harvard chemical-biologist was arrested after we received a sample and sequenced it I'd love to read more. Do you have a link?

I did and so much was going on (US politics-wise, and Brexit-wise), I was kind of sloppier than I generally am. I will try to recover and post within a day.

EDIT: Because it was me hypothecating (generating hypotheses), it will be more than one link that may turn out to be unrelated.

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#157
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given the rapidity with which the Harvard chemical-biologist was arrested after we received a sample and sequenced it I'd love to read more. Do you have a link?

I did and so much was going on (US politics-wise, and Brexit-wise), I was kind of sloppier than I generally am. I will try to recover and post within a day. EDIT: Because it was me hypothecating (generating hypotheses), it will be more than one link that may turn out to be unrelated.

Thanks!

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#158

I've more faith in the bat origin theory than the others so far. Don't know if the science is solid, but given how riddled bats are with all kinds of nasty stuff, you probably don't want to be eating that unless you're particularly keen on developing an exotic disease.

I don't know which theory is bat shit crazy, a virus with suspicious resemblance to SARS, HIV or just EATING bat shit is crazy

this outbreak proves humans are doomed to repeat the same mistake

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#159
post #84
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modified, not synthetic.

A couple of days ago I posted a link to the BLASTN sequence alignment between the 2003 SARS virus and the Wuhan virus in a comment on one of the other discussions here. You can see they are closely related, at about 88% sequence identity. There are point mutations spread more or less evenly over the entire genome. This is how evolution works on genomes, and basically rules out genetic engineering, since researchers w…

i looked up the discussion you mentioned, and a comment right next to yours came to an opposite conclusion, also based on some BLAST result (all of them now expired). I am just a confused laymen.

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#160
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did and so much was going on (US politics-wise, and Brexit-wise), I was kind of sloppier than I generally am. I will try to recover and post within a day. EDIT: Because it was me hypothecating (generating hypotheses), it will be more than one link that may turn out to be unrelated.

Thanks!

If I forget, within 48 hours please bump me - I do have it around here somewhere! :-)

Besides, we're moving into a weekend; This is the time for clearing off decks.

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