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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]

#321

Post by fierarul »

robbiep wrote: post #47
cryptica wrote: post #35

When Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier suggested that COVID-19 could be man-made, I started taking this view more seriously. Now seeing additional papers coming out supporting this, the case is getting stronger. I'm not a biologist but I do find it strange that COVID-19 is so infectious in humans. How can a virus which supposedly 'naturally evolved' in a totally unrelated animal species (bats) be so well adapted to sprea…

By the same logic, was the H1N1 spanish flu designed to perfectly flourish and kill possibly 10% of hosts? You say it in your second paragraph. You're no biologist. But you find it strange. Very few biologists find it strange. They have in fact been warning of a ticking time bomb [0 for brevity, 1 for article]. May I respectfully suggest that you stick to your lane regarding the science? WHO ups and downs and politic…

Is Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier not science worthy enough to give credit or what is your point? Or is science a democratic forum where the most votes win and not facts? If it's not facts but guesstimates then everybody has equal input into that, some intuitively more so.

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

#322

Post by jakeogh »

sudosysgen wrote: post #301
poof131 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It strikes me as reducing virulence would be a responsible first step before conducting research on increasing transmissivity of a deadly virus.

Do you have the study where they would have reduced virulence for these reasons? Because reducing the virulence of a virus to such a level that a large part of the population don't even get any symptoms seems odd to say the least. Also, it's not even clear that COVID-19 is that much more infectious (or at all) than SARS, it seems to me that its explained well enough by so many people brushing it off or not even reali…

Reasons a [malicious|altruistic] actor might do that:

You have the ability to use it to induce fear and therefore behavioral changes. Positive cases are valuable.

Plausible deniability.

Mistakes.

Response.

Testing (as parent pointed out).

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

#323

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

sudosysgen wrote: post #247
stx wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The thing I just don't understand is why gain research would take the effort of making the virus much less deadly. This virus is around ten times less deadly that SARS, wouldn't gain research at least maintain virulence?

Depends, what if you had a virus that caused the same antiviral response as SARS on the immune system but had no deaths (couldn't cause death)?

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

#324

Post by coldtea »

sudosysgen wrote: post #269
holler wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A virus being engineered to be an order of magnitude less virulent seems unlikely to say the least. From what I gathered it’s not suggesting specific genetic traits were engineered, but rather that they were experimenting and one of those experiments could have accidentally been released(?).

Yes, but is the theory is that one experiment, in the context of a gain analysis, was made in order to see how the virus might evolve to be much less severe? Why would a gain analysis try to find ways in which a virus could be made weaker? I don't doubt that an accidental release is feasible, though very very unlikely, but why would an experiment make a less severe virus in the first place?

>Why would a gain analysis try to find ways in which a virus could be made weaker?

To better understand the mechanisms that make it weak or strong?

Plus, why would it have to be "made weaker" as opposed, accidentally made weaker? If they were experimenting they would have all sorts of varieties/results... it's not like every experiment to make it stronger would make it stronger... surely some could fail and make it weaker!

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

#325

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

ezVoodoo wrote: post #251
jkhdigital wrote: post #127

Here's the Cliff Notes version of the argument in this paper: 1. SARS-CoV-2 has a number of unique and unusual genetic features, when compared to close relatives, many of which explain its high virulence and infectivity among humans. 2. A series of research papers published by a group of virologists, dating back a little over a decade, demonstrate (1) a progressively increasing understanding of viral features which m…

It is a false claim that the Covid-19 outbreak started from Wuhan. Scientists from Spain, Italy and Brazil have independently reported the detection of the coronavirus in their city waste water samples dating back to early 2019. China was the first country to detect the existence of the coronavirus, but it does not mean the virus started in China. If a country announces the finding of a new virus, it makes that count…

This has been considered to be a problem with cross-contamination, only one sample was found in Spain for example.

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

#326

Post by SZJX »

makeramen wrote: post #315
sudosysgen wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That trade off is made by evolution. I don't see why scientists in a lab would make that trade off in a gain of function analysis - you can just make it more infectious and keep (likely increase) the level of virulence. Since evolution isn't involved in the proposed mechanism, I see no reason why such a trade-off would occur.

Perhaps depends on your goals. Virulent enough to cause global panic and show how a totalitarian state can respond better to a pandemic than democratic stated. But not virulent enough to actually kill everyone. Similarly SARS and MERS were perhaps too virulent and could thus easily be controlled by screening for symptoms, while the new coronavirus can spread without symptoms, which could possibly be attributed to the…

Now this sounds exactly like something Donald Trump has been saying all this time, and such conspiracy theories don't contribute much to the discussion.

If thousands of deaths in China, a complete lockdown that hit the economy incredibly hard and perhaps more crucially, the total breakdown and potential reshaping of the global supply chain, which China has been benefitting from massively, is something that the Chinese gov wants to to achieve, then such conspiracy theories might hold water. I think it's plain to see how nonsensical they are.

Also, nobody made the US look bad but themselves. This is obvious if you compare COVID responses in countries like Germany with those in the US.

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

#327

Post by _wmhc »

This version has not been peer reviewed, the peer reviewed version has many of these claims about it's man-made-ness removed

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/qrb-discovery/articl...

https://fullfact.org/health/richard-dearlove-coronavirus-cla...

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

#328

Post by dwd »

hakfoo wrote: post #166
FabHK wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the “hypothesis of zoonotic outbreak from a wet market in mid-Dec” is still very relevant, and the few papers claiming to have evidence of SARS-CoV-2 prior to Dec 2019 outside China are still very questionable. It’s not like they tested old samples in a few places and the virus promptly showed up. Rather, lots of old samples were tested all over the place, and the virus almost never showed up, except in a ver…

Why not both? There could have been a baseline level of the virus or a close brother of it in circulation early in 2019, but the conditions of the wet market ecosystem in late 2019 let it suddenly spiral out of control, or make a final evolution to its current high-transmissiveness form. Sort of like how we can find, retrospectively, intermittent cases of HIV back to the early part of the 20th century, but it suddenl…

I would consider the final evolutionary jump to not have been at the wet market, but the virology lab where someone who works with the bat virus caught the one in circulation worldwide - this more deadly virus broke out in Wuhan because that was where the last jump occurred.

Some viruses lie dormant in our bodies for years, was someone at the lab infected with a bat SARs virus at some point, and all it needed was this other virus to come along for it to share some of its virulence?

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

#329

Post by Izkata »

zaroth wrote: post #217
IAmEveryone wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote Feynman: "I just saw a car with the license plate . The probability of that happening is far lower than being hit by lightning! As to the laboratory being close: it wasn't accidentally located in Wuhan. The city is the regional centre for a region that only recently expanded into somewhat pristine nature. With ongoing and constant encroachment of natural habitats, there is far more contact between wild speci…

Feynman is making a joke which people who understand priors would get, but you’re using the punchline as if it means something. If Feynman had guessed the plate number before seeing it (say, written a research paper identify the exact number ahead of time) then something miraculous indeed just occurred.

Fun example time!

Sylvia Browne's book End of Days predicts a pneumonia-like illness that spreads around the globe in 2020. Published in 2008.

Additional details do not yet match what's happening, though.

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

#330

Post by jakeogh »

SZJX wrote: post #326
makeramen wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps depends on your goals. Virulent enough to cause global panic and show how a totalitarian state can respond better to a pandemic than democratic stated. But not virulent enough to actually kill everyone. Similarly SARS and MERS were perhaps too virulent and could thus easily be controlled by screening for symptoms, while the new coronavirus can spread without symptoms, which could possibly be attributed to the…

Now this sounds exactly like something Donald Trump has been saying all this time, and such conspiracy theories don't contribute much to the discussion. If thousands of deaths in China, a complete lockdown that hit the economy incredibly hard and perhaps more crucially, the total breakdown and potential reshaping of the global supply chain, which China has been benefitting from massively, is something that the Chines…

Which professional published best case death estimate did the US not beat?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23407130

Excess deaths are the only accurate measure.

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