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Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?

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Re: Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?

#51

Post by mancerayder »

tropo wrote: post #50
burntoutfire wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coronaviruses are actually created in labs as part of virology research (see my original link). It just seems that, in light of links that people posted, it did not escape/was released from the Wuhan lab - the strain that created the pandemic originated via natural processes.

Nah, see my comment above. Those links only tell us that we did not find evidence of the use modern gene-editing technology in the virus. It's misdirection with a straw man. The lab was breeding viruses the old-fashioned way long before modern gene-editing technology was invented. Bat coronaviruses would be mixed with other viruses and repeatedly passed through human cells. That leaves no evidence in the genome. It l…

There's a lot of supposition here. If this extraordinary claim is true, why isn't it screaming at the top of headlines?

Re: Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?

#52

Post by throwaway963577 »

tropo wrote: post #48
throwaway963577 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SARS-CoV2 shows no signs of genetic manipulation. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 The absence of a confirmed source does not put disproven conspiracy theories about its origin on the same footing as actual science.

That article is misdirection. It says that we have not been able to find anything in the genome that proves modern gene editing technology was used. Well, so what? People aren't generally making that claim. The only thing disproven is a straw man. Nothing in the article rules out the possibility of a lab creating the virus via conventional breeding, by passing the virus through human cells and/or by infecting cells s…

I spent 5 years doing QA on synthetic oligos/genes used by just about everyone in synthetic biology. In my experience, edits are easy to detect if you know where to look--methylation patterns, unusually large numbers of start codons, and relatively few areas of high GC content.

But I'm also a Chinese agent, so take that with a grain of salt.

Re: Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?

#53

Post by tropo »

throwaway963577 wrote: post #52
tropo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article is misdirection. It says that we have not been able to find anything in the genome that proves modern gene editing technology was used. Well, so what? People aren't generally making that claim. The only thing disproven is a straw man. Nothing in the article rules out the possibility of a lab creating the virus via conventional breeding, by passing the virus through human cells and/or by infecting cells s…

I spent 5 years doing QA on synthetic oligos/genes used by just about everyone in synthetic biology. In my experience, edits are easy to detect if you know where to look--methylation patterns, unusually large numbers of start codons, and relatively few areas of high GC content. But I'm also a Chinese agent, so take that with a grain of salt.

By "edits", you seems to be referring to something else. I think you mean something like CRISPR Cas9.

That is a straw man. I'm definitely not claiming that any such technology was used. The virus modifications in the Wuhan lab are older than the existence of most of that technology.

We didn't need modern technology to create the dog from the wolf. It's the same here, with viruses.

Breeding viruses in a lab is not detectable compared to what happens in nature.

Re: Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?

#54

Post by tropo »

mancerayder wrote: post #51
tropo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, see my comment above. Those links only tell us that we did not find evidence of the use modern gene-editing technology in the virus. It's misdirection with a straw man. The lab was breeding viruses the old-fashioned way long before modern gene-editing technology was invented. Bat coronaviruses would be mixed with other viruses and repeatedly passed through human cells. That leaves no evidence in the genome. It l…

There's a lot of supposition here. If this extraordinary claim is true, why isn't it screaming at the top of headlines?

Lots of reasons:

There is a difference between "seems obviously correct" and "proven well enough to avoid a lawsuit".

China exerts control over American media companies. Ones that don't play ball get banned in China. Remember that these companies are usually involved in many businesses, including the sale of movies to China's large population. Everybody is afraid to upset China.

Even the publisher of Nature has ditched about 1000 articles that were upsetting to the Chinese government.

Much of the US media is strongly in opposition to the US president. (They even stopped airing his virus updates, despite good ratings, because it was making him look good.) There is no desire to spread any news that could support his opposition to China.

Re: Ask HN: What's Missing from Covid19 Reporting?

#55

Post by throwaway995 »

mancerayder wrote: post #13
burntoutfire wrote: post #8

The origin of the virus. The mainstream media assumes the virus was created in a natural process of mutation and jumping species, while there's this little paper [1] in Nature Medicine from 2015 where authors (virologists) confirm that they created a novel, human-transmisible coronavirus, based on a new virus they discovered among bats. Some of the authors of the paper are from Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and…

"This was created in a lab" has been the whisper of conspiracy-theorists. How likely is it? And a vial broke and it got released like in a Marvel comic?

Okay, I'll bite:

1. The Chinese initially tried cover up and conceal reports new of the virus. E.g., the police intimidation of Dr. Li Wenliang before he succumb to the virus.

2. Wuhan, where the virus was first reported, is coincidentally China's best and only BSL-4 virus research lab, specifically focused on SARS. COVID is a close relation to SARS.

3. Chinese were caught doing unethical and dangerous DNS editing on human embryos. China later sent this "rouge" scientist to prison after a raucous global outcry.

4. Its been reported some Chinese researchers sell laboratory animals to street vendors after they have finished experimenting on them.

All this said, I don't think China deliberately released released virus. More likely, this will turn out to be China's Chernobyl. Plain and simple greedy incompetent people.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/world/asia/china-coronavi...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7922379/Chinas-la...

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-...

https://www.genengnews.com/insights/guilty-as-charged/

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