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The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

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Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#271

Post by sudosysgen »

tomp wrote: post #267
sudosysgen wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that SARS-CoV-2 is much, much less powerful. So that doesn't really follow.

What do you mean by this? I heard that it has incredible affinity to ACE receptors, which is why it sprrads so quickly (combined with asymptomatic infection)

Yes, it binds to ACE2 receptors more strongly, but once you're infected it's about one order of magnitude less severe.

To note, receptor affinity is not the only mechanism by which infectivity is modulated. You would already expect that a virus that is ten times less severe would spread more easily, and SARS was already able to spread efficiently through air at great distances, so it seems likely that me that receptor affinity is stronger but that other mechanism are weaker. This would explain the fact that it is less severe and not much more infectious.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#272

Post by esalman »

stx wrote: post #159
sandworm101 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, and this is a really crazy theory, they were studying it in China because it was a local virus that they were worried might one day infect humans. Maybe they were studying which changes would make it most dangerous because they wanted to be ready if those changes happened naturally. Honest hard work can sometimes look like evil plans, and not every coincidence is the result of conspiracy.

I actually believe this to be the case. From what I have read researchers often do something called gain of function research. In this research they add genetic features to viruses that could make it more infective. This is done, at least in part, to help learn how to protect society from such a virus if it were to evolve naturally. I thought I heard somewhere that one of the functions coronavirus has that its closes…

I do not have experience in virology either but what you heard is correct. Researchers do work on creating new strains of viruses, with the goal being development of vaccines before epidemics start.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#273

Post by catears »

thinker912345 wrote: post #123
zenhack wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't speak for the OP, but for myself: I am not qualified to evaluate the evidence in this case; I just don't have the biology background. But sometimes when you get some out-there questionable sounding stuff research, and you spend a minute googling, you quickly find out that the journal the thing is published in is chaired by the author and itself has no credibility, the author is selling some form of snake oil di…

> I am not qualified to evaluate the evidence in this case; I just don't have the biology background. A "background check" does not change this fact, nor does your point actually negate the comment you are responding too. No one here is arguing that you must listen and believe everything that someone has written in a paper, but things must be proven and disproven. "Background checking" in any form is not science. It…

Most things that climate change deniers post are factually accurate. If you would target the basis of their claim with the data they provide, you will always lose. Being a climate change denier when you only have access to facts that don't support climate change is only logical.

To disprove them requires you to have even greater subject matter knowledge than they do, which is unfeasible for most normal people. Even at a top university you would need several years to become a subject matter expert. Clearly not a feasible strategy for every commenter on HN.

So what can we do? Most "Climate Skeptics Science", while not being factually disproven, can lose a great amount of credibility by background checking things like authors, what scientific conferences or journal a paper has been submitted to, if it is peer reviewed, etc. In fact, with enough loss of credibility it becomes the burden of the author to prove that they/their paper is credible (see what I did there?).

If there was a clear bias in the authors' background, this would call into question the credibility of the paper. Humans are well-equipped to understand bias without a university degree, less so with bioengineering.

To summarize: HN commenters are generally ill-equipped to prove/disprove arguments in a scientific paper. Like in most sciences this isn't always necessary since you can put the credibility of the authors up for test. If they fail that test, they must prove their credibility before their scientific argument carries any weight. Most HN-commenters are adept at judging other peoples biases.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#274

Post by sudosysgen »

bb2018 wrote: post #264
sudosysgen wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsurprisingly one of those is in a city of 19 million people next to a reservoir of coronaviruses that already caused epidemics.

I've had some trouble understanding this claim though. From my understanding the bats that the virus most likely came from are thousands of miles away from Wuhan. This also is the area that the Wuhan researches went every year to collect samples. My understanding of Chinese geography is a bit weak - but it is a bit like if a cow disease broke out in Boston near a BS4 lab. There are certainly some cows in Boston a few…

Yes, the institute of Virology in Wuhan did research on bats up to thousands of kilometers away. There are, after all, only two BSL-4 labs.

However, there is a large population of bats right outside Wuhan, and you can find research by the WIV cataloguing different viruses found in the same province. For example : https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31009304/

The key here is that the bats the virus (likely) came from are not actually thousands of miles from Wuhan, but only a few dozen. It's just that since the WIV is a huge institute they sometimes also do research in bats in other regions too, because they don't have such facilities.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#275

Post by DarthGhandi »

ixacto wrote: post #231
boomboomsubban wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even taking the worst possible view of the Chinese government, they have strong economic reasons to have been preparing for a new SARS type epidemic over the past twenty years. They don't need the benefit of the doubt.

[flagged]

Comments like these make HN threads with even the slightest mention of China completely unbearable.

Some people actually want to have a discussion on the original post, not this predictable, tiring flamewar nonsense that appears every single day, hopefully you can respect that Ray.

There's dozens of other places that would welcome this long-winded conspiratorial rant with open arms.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#276

Post by esalman »

chrisco255 wrote: post #30
maest wrote: post #11

This is a really big claim, so some background checking: The paper was published in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics[0] (this accepted version is materially different from the original link posted here). Only thing I could find about Birger Sorensen's was his Linkedin page [1a] and the Immunor page where he's listed as the Chairman [1b]. Angus Dagleish looks legit, although it's notable that he did stand for Parlia…

Why do the background checking? Why not just consider the arguments on their merits alone? That's what science is.

Actually it makes sense to background check from an ethical point of view. There's a reason you are supposed to disclose your affiliation, source of funding, conflict of interest, human subject consent statements etc when publishing any bio paper.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#277

Post by chaostheory »

sudosysgen wrote: post #268
nomoreservices wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SARS-CoV-2 is much less virulent than SARS or MERS. Can you provide sources for that? I thought it was the opposite.

Virulence : 1. the severity or harmfulness of a disease or poison. COVID-19 - has an fatality rate of around 0.5-1%, according to the best methodologies we have, in various environments, with recent papers suggesting that it might be even less lethal in places where medical care is sufficient. In comparison, the best data for SARS fatality rates is of around 11% (!). This means that SARS-CoV-2 is around ten times les…

Should we go by the crude fatality rate since the data around COVID-19 isn't rock solid yet right? Shouldn't we measure COVID-19's virulence by the IFR aka infection fatality rate instead? As of today with 14,194,795 cases and 599,438 deaths, COVID-19's infection fatality rate is 4.23%. By comparison, SARS only had 8,098 cases and only 774 deaths, giving it an IFR of 9.56%.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#278

Post by mieses »

ezVoodoo wrote: post #259
arrayjumper wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you link some sources for that claim?

Brazil https://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/3091757/ear... Spain https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-spain-... Italy https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53106444

November 17 in China?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/first-covid-19...

Possibly in October..

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/coronavirus-...

as early as September?

https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-outbreak-september-not-...

I'm getting tired of Googling fake news

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#279

Post by madriffsin »

ALittleLight wrote: post #265

As an aside, if you look at that person's comment history, pretty much every comment they've made is about China and defending China. An odd focus for a hackernews account.

Can we stop with these posts where we dig through someone's post history and accuse them of shilling/being paid trolls if they hold a constant view that differs from our own? If you disagree with something you can debate it without having to resort to such nasty, underhanded tactics.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#280

Post by DarthGhandi »

theknocker wrote: post #58
bshoemaker wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it's exhausting to debunk idiots & those operating in bad faith (often both); it takes several orders of magnitude more work to respond and debunk that unicorns don't exist than it does to post that they do.

Consensus should be determined by science, not the other way around. Otherwise, what is the point of science? edit: "Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills." t. redditadmin.txt

Is there any real reason you created this account solely for this post?

I find it hard to believe you're an epidemiologist trying to stay anonymous here.

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