Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it

rootclaim.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 372 posts

Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it

#181

Post by cyode »

rcoveson wrote: post #177
Torwald wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please clarify your date format. Is that 1st of March or the day before 4th of January? According to my European sentiment it's the 3rd of January, is that correct?

There are many ambiguous date formats, but this is not one of them. Four digits, delimiter, two digits, delimiter, two digits always means year, month, day, no matter where you are in the world[0]. Well, except in Kazakhstan, but only when writing in the Khazakh language. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country

> There are many ambiguous date formats, but this is not one of them.

The comment you've replied to is a counterexample to this claim.

Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it

#182

Post by lazyjones »

thelittleone wrote: post #136
benjohnson wrote: post #8

The Chinese sure acted like it was a possibility that it came from their own lab - their initial reaction was to downplay and cover up.

One of the strongest indicators is China's fierce opposition to an independent investigation in to the origins of the virus. Why wouldn't they want that?

I don't think that's a strong indicator. Why would you want an investigation that likely requires you to grant foreign investigators access to your bioweapon labs and their records?

Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it

#183

Post by dvsfish »

hrktb wrote: post #150
rcpt wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very calm response to this https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246 > Why do these distinctions matter? If we find more concrete evidence of a “spill-over” event with SARS-CoV-2 passing directly from bat to human, then efforts to understand and manage the bat–human interface need to be significantly strengthened. But if SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab to cause the pandemic, it will become critical to understand the…

Does it still matter that much once we have a series of effective vaccines ? It seems the crux of the argument is to better react in the short term, but it looks to my untrained eyes that we already passed that level of investigation if we have effective means to prevent infection. I also guess we’d still need to explore all other tracks anyway (we can’t just focus on lab spills for instance, if that was the root cau…

What about other potential viruses though? We don't have vaccines for those.

Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it

#184

Post by NationalPark »

casefields wrote: post #145
cle wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, it's because this claim, or rejection of it, is strongly tied to political identity. Because the US is highly polarized right now, once political identity comes into play, you've left the realm of rationality and entered the realm of tribalism.

This is on par with election fraud. No matter if there is any, one side will downplay while the other screams it’s the tip of the iceberg. Both sides know presidential elections are a zero-sum game and will do whatever it takes to win. Again, I don’t think there was that much, let alone enough to swing the election, but we can’t even discuss any of it honestly.

But you aren't even trying to discuss it honestly! The prior probability of voter fraud is so low that it demands really incredible evidence. When you frame it like "vote fraud or not voter fraud", you're implicitly lending a whole lot of credibility to something that is, well, not the least bit credible.

Also, to borrow from a completely different polarizing thread, you're making a classic motte-and-bailey argument in record time. You start out broad - "election fraud", a "zero sum game" that they must be cheating at - but by the end of the comment you're already on, "Okay, not election fraud, but there were votes that were incorrectly cast somehow, and thats what I'm actually upset about..." which of course is obviously a defensible position that nobody would disagree with.

Another way to think about how silly this is: Can you conceive of a world were Trump and his supporters don't claim there was fraud, but accept a Joe Biden win?

Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it

#185

Post by lazyjones »

alphabettsy wrote: post #54
benjohnson wrote: post #8

The Chinese sure acted like it was a possibility that it came from their own lab - their initial reaction was to downplay and cover up.

Using this logic isn’t it likely it came from the US? Simultaneously saying it’s nothing and China did it seems suspicious.

The whole world said it was nothing until February or so, when Italy had its first casualties. The reason for this was the WHO's downplaying of the virus.

Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it

#186

Post by philippoi »

hrktb wrote: post #150
rcpt wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very calm response to this https://www.pnas.org/content/117/47/29246 > Why do these distinctions matter? If we find more concrete evidence of a “spill-over” event with SARS-CoV-2 passing directly from bat to human, then efforts to understand and manage the bat–human interface need to be significantly strengthened. But if SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab to cause the pandemic, it will become critical to understand the…

Does it still matter that much once we have a series of effective vaccines ? It seems the crux of the argument is to better react in the short term, but it looks to my untrained eyes that we already passed that level of investigation if we have effective means to prevent infection. I also guess we’d still need to explore all other tracks anyway (we can’t just focus on lab spills for instance, if that was the root cau…

I would say it matters for future considerations. Gain of function research is happening in many places. Leaks can happen. An unrelated virus could cause another pandemic if there are flaws that go unaddressed. The probability of a pandemic occurring doesn't decrease because this one has occurred, as they are independent events. For all we know, another pandemic could be brewing and we're so occupied with COVID19 that we're not observing it.

Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it

#187

Post by philippoi »

mcbits wrote: post #176
bearbin wrote: post #36

Whenever this topic comes up, the discussion seems to consist largely of _extremely_ strong opinions against the perfectly plausible hypothesis (don't forget, the evidence of zoonotic origin is equally thin on the ground). My question is, why? What does it matter whether the virus originated from a lab or from a wet market - it isn't any more dangerous if it came from a lab, nor does knowing the origin really help de…

> ... whether the virus originated from a lab or from a wet market Maybe this is pedantic, but the introduction to humans could have happened in a wet market whether the virus itself originated in a lab (where bats could have escaped or been smuggled out and sold, etc.) or zoonotically.

Right. One scenario could be: escaped from the lab with a technician who visited the wet market on the way home from work, sparking the first identifiable cluster.

Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it

#188

Post by frombody »

sradman wrote: post #135

The Chimera section claims: > Pangolins and bats don't usually cohabitate, making this somewhat unlikely in nature. Horseshoe bats are nocturnal animals that roost in caves during the day but sometimes practice perch feeding at night [1]: > The other strategy is known as perch feeding: Individuals roost on feeding perches and wait for prey to fly past, then fly out to capture it. Pangolins [2] and palm civets [3] are…

SARS-CoV-2 itself is not a recombinant of any sarbecoviruses detected to date, and its receptor-binding motif, important for specificity to human ACE2 receptors, appears to be an ancestral trait shared with bat viruses and not one acquired recently via recombination.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4

Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it

#189

Post by tomp »

thelittleone wrote: post #136
benjohnson wrote: post #8

The Chinese sure acted like it was a possibility that it came from their own lab - their initial reaction was to downplay and cover up.

One of the strongest indicators is China's fierce opposition to an independent investigation in to the origins of the virus. Why wouldn't they want that?

I'm inclined to agree with you based on my political views, but in this case.... Chinese were pretty reserved about outsiders meddling in their internal affairs already before Covid, so this isn't necessarily indicative.

Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it

#190

Post by incrudible »

Barrin92 wrote: post #179

Good lord is this startup trying to draw attention to themselves with this analysis by spinning up bogus stories? Just look at this: However, Wuhan stands out for housing the Wuhan Institute of Virology, one of only a few labs engaged in gain-of-function research. How does this imply causality? Why do they not consider the simple alternative, that a location that specialises in gain-of-function research of coronaviru…

> Why do they not consider the simple alternative, that a location that specialises in gain-of-function research of coronaviruses has the highest concentration of people who are able to DETECT novel coronaviruses with a much higher likelihood? If the virus originated in a city that has no lab specializing in these viruses, how would they ever have distinguished it from pneumonia?

SARS has a distinct clinical pathology different form ordinary pneumonia. Physician Ai Fen was the first to identify pneumonia cases in Wuhan as SARS, based on her clinical experience. This was then publicized by colleague Li Wenliang. Only later was the virus identified as distinct from previous SARS viruses by virologists.

Post reply on HN