https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/8417296...
Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
241–250 of 372 posts
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#242The 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…
The official position is that the start of this pandemic was in 'Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market' in Wuhan. [0] So are you proposing that a pangolin from Lancang was transported more than 2000km to a seafood wetmarket in Wuhan? At face value, this sounds like a very unlikely scenario for a zoonotic event/origin. [0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/04/coronavir...
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't prove a negative though. The burden of proof is on them.
I wonder if that's why they're making the bet.
In other words, a curiosity that begs to be proven wrong. We have a saying over here.. "A fool throws a pebble in a pond, and ten wise men can't recover it".
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#244The 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…
The official position is that the start of this pandemic was in 'Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market' in Wuhan. [0] So are you proposing that a pangolin from Lancang was transported more than 2000km to a seafood wetmarket in Wuhan? At face value, this sounds like a very unlikely scenario for a zoonotic event/origin. [0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/04/coronavir...
Assuming a zoonotic origin in China, it's much more likely that an infected individual from rural Southern China happened to travel to Wuhan and that the seafood market just happened to be the kind of location where such a virus would spread. There is some evidence that there is a degree of immunity to COVID-19 in areas that had SARS-outbreaks. It would therefore be plausible that an initial COVID-19 outbreak in Southern China, the epicenter of SARS1, could have gone unnoticed.
The actual animals sold at the market would then be irrelevant, but there's a narrative that "animal cruelty and human encroachment are to blame for COVID" that is being pushed here.
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#245The 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…
The official position is that the start of this pandemic was in 'Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market' in Wuhan. [0] So are you proposing that a pangolin from Lancang was transported more than 2000km to a seafood wetmarket in Wuhan? At face value, this sounds like a very unlikely scenario for a zoonotic event/origin. [0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/04/coronavir...
Likewise, Italy contained the virus from May to September, then it exploded again. Nothing particularly happened in September, yet by chance it spiked.
Just speculating though, I’d like to hear others’ opinion on this thought.
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#246With that in mind, I am surprised that no one in this conversation has mentioned Zero Hedge yet. Earlier in the year, Zero Hedge wrote about the possibility that the virus may have originated in a particular Wuhan lab (which was close to wet markets, and advertised research involving bats and coronaviruses). Zero Hedge received a lot of criticism from those who politicized this topic or were anti-Zero Hedge for other reasons. Just like with those other disasters I named above, the critics insisted that there is absolutely no possible way this virus originated from a lab. The same critique then extended to Trump and became further politicized when he correctly suggested halting inbound flights from China as a precaution. The focus on Trump poisoned civil discourse around the coronavirus. In the middle of all this chaos, Zero Hedge was banned from Twitter for "doxxing" researchers at the Wuhan lab (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/01/twitter...) although if you look at the actual Zero Hedge article in question, the researcher they named listed his contact information publicly, as he's the public face of the lab (so there's no doxxing). Zero Hedge later wrote an article covering the extremely biased attacks they were subject to from news media outlets (https://www.zerohedge.com/political/zerohedge-suspended-twit...), which is worth reading if you're into truth seeking. Embarrassingly, Twitter ultimately reversed their "permanent ban" of Zero Hedge (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-zerohedge/twitter...) but the damage was done.
Remember, we have no reason to believe the Chinese government's claims about the virus. They sought to oppress initial reports of the coronavirus, which delayed the world from knowing about it and being able to take the necessary actions (banning travel from China to their countries). The WHO was complicit in this by blindly relaying the CCP's claim that SARS-nCoV-2 does not transmit between humans (https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152), and in refusing to investigate the Wuhan lab themselves (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-world-health-...). And it is remarkable that after all these months of secrecy and denial, the scientists at this lab are only NOW (in December 2020) saying they are open to a visit and probe into the lab - after any evidence would be scrubbed (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55364445). This is obviously an underhanded offer given that the Chinese government just recently sentenced the Chinese journalist who challenged the government's early coronavirus narrative to 4 years in prison (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/world/asia/china-Zhang-Zh...).
All that is a long way of saying: please don't politicize this topic. Let's allow the open discussion, investigation, and research into the possibility that this virus originated from a lab or any other source.
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#247Peter Daszak, the president of the EcoHealth Alliance researching the origins of pandemics, pointed out in April that nearly 3% of the population in China's rural farming regions near wild animals already had antibodies to coronaviruses similar to SARS. "We're finding 1 to 7 million people exposed to these viruses every year in Southeast Asia; that's the pathway. It's just so obvious to all of us working in the field…
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#248The 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…
The official position is that the start of this pandemic was in 'Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market' in Wuhan. [0] So are you proposing that a pangolin from Lancang was transported more than 2000km to a seafood wetmarket in Wuhan? At face value, this sounds like a very unlikely scenario for a zoonotic event/origin. [0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/04/coronavir...
> Shi’s team used the antibody test to narrow down the list of locations and bat species to pursue in the quest for genomic clues. After roaming mountainous terrain in most of China’s dozens of provinces, the researchers turned their attention to one spot: Shitou Cave, on the outskirts of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, where they conducted intense sampling during different seasons over five consecutive years.
Distance from Kumming to Wuhan: 1,566 km [2].
Distance from Kumming to Foshan (SARS-1): 1,315 km [3].
I am saying that horseshoe bats, pangolins, palm civets, and humans overlap in Yunnan province and along the Langcang/Mekong. This is the most likely ground zero for a natural recombination event. When and how the first SARS-CoV-2 virus made its way to Wuhan is a separate question; I'd think a human on a train is the most likely vector.
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-wo...
[2] https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Wuhan,+Hubei,+China/Kunming,...
[3] https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Foshan,+Guangdong+Province,+...
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#249Whenever 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…
Internally they are heavily pushing the preposterous claim that the virus is of foreign origin, possibly imported via frozen food.
Objectively lab origin seems likely. The virus started in the city housing the only P4 laboratory in China. This laboratory is known for its lax security (see the 2018 American embassy cables and the declarations of multiple sources in France who participated in its construction) and research on bat coronavirus transmission to humans were conducted there. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder if an accident didn't happen especially considering that we still can't find the missing link which would firmly establish a zoonotic origin.
Of course, as China is extremely uncooperative on this question, we will probably never know.
Re: Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it
#250Peter Daszak, the president of the EcoHealth Alliance researching the origins of pandemics, pointed out in April that nearly 3% of the population in China's rural farming regions near wild animals already had antibodies to coronaviruses similar to SARS. "We're finding 1 to 7 million people exposed to these viruses every year in Southeast Asia; that's the pathway. It's just so obvious to all of us working in the field…
Yeah, I initially thought having a big bio lab in the city where the pandemic started, in a country with a history of managing security in their bio labs poorly, in a lab known for studying sars like coronaviruses, including gain of function research to better bind to human ace2 receptors was just too many coincidences. You have to admit it's believable. But then when you realize how many people in rural China have b…
It is like putting an earthquake lab in the middle of a seismically active area, then blaming the lab when an earthquake occurs.