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

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

#441

Post by hazeii » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

trevelyan wrote: post #440

hazeii wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is convincing evidence it developed via evolutionary origins. Er, yes. Not sure what you're saying here (the title is "..Covid-19 is not a naturally-evolved virus...')?

Gain of function serial infection techniques do not constitute natural evolution: they constitute lab-directed evolution. That is for all intents and purposes man-made, unless one is splitting hairs, which much of the politicized media is doing.

Very unlikely to be the case here though, in particular because the same receptor domain is found in the wild (e.g. pangolins).

Yes, quite a lot of media have become politicised (the reason for which being quite well understood). None the less, the science is what it is - provisional. It is not surprising that commercial entities take particular positions to benefit from said politicisation.

In most countries at least, the science will ultimately give us the answer.

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

#442

Post by Natsu » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

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 an experiment make a less severe virus in the first place?

Wouldn't that make it seem safer to study?

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

#443

Post by Izkata » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 7:24 PM UTC

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…

> How can a virus which supposedly 'naturally evolved' in a totally unrelated animal species (bats) be so well adapted to spreading between humans? Intuitively, that doesn't make sense.

Rather than simply berate as sibling comments have done, I'm going to try and explain it as I understand it (also as a layperson).

Basically, you have the compatibility at the wrong level, and the effect backwards.

Bats and humans are very different from each other when taken as a whole, but if you dive into the smaller structures, they're much more similar. Lungs, heart, blood, etc, and well as deeper to cells. Viruses adapt at those levels, able to attack cells with specific structures, so when they jump species those similar structures are what get attacked. This is why it appears well-adapted to humans, because it is well-adapted to similar cell structures shared between animals.

As for the effect: The viruses in total exist at that same level, and our bodies haven't adapted to them, so we have no strong defense* in the form of antibodies. On top of that, it's a respiratory virus, where simple breathing can spread it rather than requiring some sort of physical contact. Those two reasons combined are why it spreads so fast.

* Not exactly true, I'm simplifying. We do have defenses, they just don't seem to be as effective against this virus. See "innate immune system" for un-targeted defenses that work on a variety of invaders, and "adaptive immune system" for the one that creates antibodies.

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

#444

Post by Natsu » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 7:32 PM UTC

catears wrote: post #273

thinker912345 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

The problem is that this... methodology... works for both true & false claims. Pure credentialism held up Lysenkoism, among other things, for quite some time, after all. I mean, I read this:0

> If there was a clear bias in the authors' background, this would call into question the credibility of the paper.

And I can't help thinking how there would always be a "clear bias" of people who weren't strongly in support of the Party against Lysenkoism, so it just puts people into a stronger bubble, it doesn't defend any truth.

I think that those not capable of defending a position scientifically shouldn't attempt to do so and should leave it to those who can. I think this because I see these failed attempts as a way of weakening the point they're attempting to support.

> To summarize: HN commenters are generally ill-equipped to prove/disprove arguments in a scientific paper.

I disagree strongly with this, we have a lot of good scientists here who are better equipped than the vast majority of sites. Maybe not everything can be written into a single post, sure, but most of the people here have blogs or what have you and it's not uncommon to see someone post a rebuttal on their blog and for that to make the front page of HN.

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

#445

Post by Izkata » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

anikan_vader wrote: post #198

It is interesting to think about the origins of Covid-19 with Bayesian statistics in mind. We believe that the virus originated in Wuhan, and the two competing "mainstream" theories are whether the virus came from a wet market or a bio lab. I don't know exactly how many wet markets exist in China, but I would guess that there are thousands spread across China. A wet market is simply a place where fresh produce/meat i…

Additional data point: Of the earliest identified cases, less than half had any connection to the wet market.

Also there's one misconception here:

> A wet market is simply a place where fresh produce/meat is sold (think farmer's market).

Farmer's markets, if they even have live animals, are kept distanced from food being sold. Wet markets, live animals are often being sold for food and/or butchered in front of you upon sale.

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

#446

Post by thu2111 » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 7:59 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #286

chaostheory wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%.

4.23% is a case fatality rate, or CFR, not IFR. The issue is the SARS had a lot less cases, and was more virulent. There is no evidence for asymptomatic spread of SARS, and almost every single infection was accounted for using contact tracing. Therefore, it makes sense to use the best guess at IFR for both. The best guess for IFR for COVID-19 is around 0.3-0.9%, depending on the state of the healthcare system. SARS h…

We need to be really careful about the claims of asymptomatic infection.

The problem with this concept is it becomes impossible to detect false positives. In fact it makes the test the ground truth rather than actual observable clinical sickness. Any bug in the test thus creates a pseudo-epidemic:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00047325.htm

If you look at that paper you can see it admits that other research studies found no asymptomatic infection at all. Others on the other hand said they saw it. So there's no real consensus that this phenomenon actually exists in this case, and the asymptomatic people didn't seem to transmit the virus at all (so why are we all wearing masks now then?).

The numbers involved are tiny. Their conclusions are based on the antibody test returning positive without symptoms for just 6 people. The amount of antibodies found in the asymptomatic cases was significantly lower than for other cases, leading to the question of whether they were picking up noise at the edge of the test's capabilities and whether they truly understand how the test works (given that there weren't many SARS-CoV-1 cases, there'd be limited cases on which to test or calibrate it).

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

#447

Post by catears » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #444

catears wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

The problem is that this... methodology... works for both true & false claims. Pure credentialism held up Lysenkoism, among other things, for quite some time, after all. I mean, I read this:0 > If there was a clear bias in the authors' background, this would call into question the credibility of the paper. And I can't help thinking how there would always be a "clear bias" of people who weren't strongly in support of…

I think I understand your argument, but I think you misunderstood me. I agree that just looking at credentials isn't the way to go. It does create these echo chambers where only those wearing "my colors" can be correct (when perhaps people need to see and hear those without "their colors"). But my argument was never to resort to pure credentialism. Looking at someones background is an important tool in our toolbox for finding the truth. My argument wasn't that a background check should replace scientific debate.

> I think that those not capable of defending a position scientifically shouldn't attempt to do so and should leave it to those who can.

Exactly! And to the 95+% of people who commented or clicked the opening link who do not have a background in bioengineering, how could they take a critical and informed stance to what the paper claims? The claim of the pandemic being man-made affects them, wheter they can fully understand the scientific discussion or not! I never meant to say that there is no-one on HN that cannot have the scientific discussion. I meant to say that most people simply have other skills than bioengineering in their toolbox, but they do have the ability to judge someones character if they find background information about them.

Maybe I should have put more emphasis on "generally" when I wrote it, but I hope I have clarified my point here and that you see it is very much in line with your thinking.

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

#448

Post by tim333 » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 8:32 PM UTC

m0hit wrote: post #209

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…

Thank you for this summary. A slightly tangential question I'd love to get more perspective on is the impact of the virus being "man made" on our current predicament. Even assuming that the virus was not naturally evolved, and its characteristics are partly caused due to human interventions we're still stuck finding a vaccine, medication and ways of reducing transmission. Is there still a thread here that this virus…

>the impact of the virus being "man made" on our current predicament

One good aspect could be the lack of an animal reservoir would make it less likely to come back. So far minks seem to be the only animals to catch it in a major way.

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

#449

Post by tim333 » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 8:39 PM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #226

mjirv wrote: post #79

Epidemiologist Ellie Murray said it better than I could, so I’ll just quote her: “Yes, the chance of a virus like SARS-CoV-2 suddenly arising is fairly low. That’s why we have so few pandemics!! But conditional on being in a pandemic the chance that the virus that arises to cause it is like SARS-CoV-2 is super high!! There’s no conspiracy, just statistics”[0] That said, the fact that the outbreak started so close to…

There are virus labs all over the place so this could be a birthday paradox. There's one here in rural Montana (the data we quote often about sars-cov-2 survival times on surfaces was generated there).

Not many that were running job ads for coronavirus researchers at the time the coronavirus emerged.

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

#450

Post by senderista » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 8:44 PM UTC

anikan_vader wrote: post #198

It is interesting to think about the origins of Covid-19 with Bayesian statistics in mind. We believe that the virus originated in Wuhan, and the two competing "mainstream" theories are whether the virus came from a wet market or a bio lab. I don't know exactly how many wet markets exist in China, but I would guess that there are thousands spread across China. A wet market is simply a place where fresh produce/meat i…

> "none of them [wet markets] trade in exotic or wild animals" That's not what we've been hearing at all. Did the Huanan Seafood Market have live wild animals or not? If not, why does your quote contradict literally everything I've ever read about this market?