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

321–330 of 372 posts

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

#321

Post by dathinab »

whammywon wrote: post #7
BEEdwards wrote: post #3

Earlier 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.

Yes, it's a common approach to trick people into believing things:

1. Open a public "bet" or similar

2. Make it so that you can always wiggle yourself out of the bet (on nitpicking and legalese)

3. If someone challenges you wiggle yourself out hope that person sues you and then use nitpicking and legalese to win the court case about that proof of you being wrong not being applicable for the bet

4. Then claim that the court agreed with you that you have right with your bet (which isn't what the court case was about but people don't know and sometime don't (want to) understand).

There had been some case of this pattern in Germany wrt. to (I think) vaccines and autism. If I remember correctly (I might not) their trick was to require a single scientific paper formulated in a way so that if you paper has other papers it refers to it's no longer eligible for that bet and in turn to win the bet you would have to do multiple large case studies from scratch in cram them into one massive paper covering multiple topics and the joint conclusion. I.e. it's not very feasible.

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

#322

Post by thinkingemote »

joaomacp wrote: post #320

Many people are asking for the truth to come out, for China to be cooperative on investigations, etc. I would say "be careful what you wish for". Imagine it did come out that it was an accidental lab-leak. Public opinion around the world would be super critical of China. The US would have to step in, demand certain investigations and lab inspections from China, who would of course disagree. This could very well be Wo…

China has had lab leaks from viral research labs before a few times. However these were all for existing viruses (Sars, bird flu), and it didn't spark much controversy. Mostly because the external impacts were low. The impacts were low because they were identified in the community and isolated etc in time. I doubt it was an accidental leak but if it was then it doesn't follow how how labs have dealt with leaks before.

Leaks have happened in other countries too but I don't the consequences.

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

#323

Post by dathinab »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #231
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…

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...

Going from:

The often believed but not proven

>"start of this pandemic was in 'Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market' in Wuhan."

To:

> It was produced in a Lab.

Is IMHO a fully unreasonable jump of conclusions. Given that analysis in the recent year showed that the virus spread much earlier and initially undetected to the EU it is quite feasible that the epidemic in China started earlier and potential in different places then Wuhan.

Also one big point ignored is both pangolin and bat are captured (sometimes alive) and kept/transported potentially close together. So even if there is a natural place where they would interact there are "unnatural" places created by the nature of the (not just seafood) marked in Wuhan...

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

#324

Post by dathinab »

incrudible wrote: post #244
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

As far as I'm aware, there is no "official" Chinese position on where and how the virus originated. 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 area…

Given that the Covid 19 outbreak in Italy (and I think France too but I'm not sure) went unnoticed(1) for well over a month this is quite likely...

(1): I probably should use "unidentified", it was noticed that there was a unusual spike in pneumonia related death. It was just not linked to a "new" virus.

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

#325

Post by [deleted] »

SpaceRaccoon wrote: post #226
freddie_mercury wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people might use it that way. No one who lives in Asia around wet markets uses it that way. Regardless, it doesn't change my point that China never banned wet markets, not even for one day.

But they should be, because research and reasoning indicate that Chinese wet-markets are uniquely dangerous in their propensity to create, or spread, novel viruses. See "Infectious diseases emerging from Chinese wet-markets: zoonotic origins of severe respiratory viral infections" [2006]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16940861/

[deleted]

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

#326

Post by dathinab »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #318
bamboleo wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that apparently the virus was outside China in early December already, is it possible that Wuhan was simply the first fast-spreading location rather than the place where the transmission happened? If the virus was in Milan’s sewers in December, it feels that it might as swell have started spreading there first. Likewise, Italy contained the virus from May to September, then it exploded again. Nothing particular…

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There is no direct air flight from Italy to Wuhan without going through Amsterdam Schipol or Beijing. There are no Shipping ports in inland Wuhan. Do you truly believe it is a realistic scenario that a virus this infectious could traverse from northern Italy to Wuhan, Hubei, without creating multiple infection hotspots along the way? If I am to put on my tinfoil ha…

> Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Assuming that Wuhan is the Orginal point of infection and there not being any previous infections spreading it to some parts of china including (or mainly) Wuhan is the actual extraordinary claim.

> There is no direct ...

Doesn't matter people travel. My sister had during that time a roommate from China from a large city without any direct flights or port or similar if that would have been Wuhan here bringing the virus to Germany before any travel restrictions started would have been well in the area of possibitly (and no joke as far as I remember it actually was Wuhan but I'm not fully sure about and no Virus was transmitted in this case it's just an example that the argument why virus transmittance is unlikely is IMHO not making much sense)

EDIT:

> without creating multiple infection hotspots along the way?

1. There where other hotspots then Wuhan.

2. Detection and reporting of SARS-Cov-2 was initially not very responsive.

3. Look at how SARS-Cov-1 spread.

4. You just need a exchange student from Wuhan to Italy.

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

#327

Post by mytailorisrich »

dathinab wrote: post #323
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Going from: The often believed but not proven >"start of this pandemic was in 'Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market' in Wuhan." To: > It was produced in a Lab. Is IMHO a fully unreasonable jump of conclusions. Given that analysis in the recent year showed that the virus spread much earlier and initially undetected to the EU it is quite feasible that the epidemic in China started earlier and potential in different places t…

I believe that the preferred theory at the moment is that MERS originated in bats and was transmitted to camels before jumping to humans.

Bats can easily come in close contacts with people and cattle even when they are not actively hunted.

You also make a good point that we're discovering very early cases in the EU and US, which show that this all started earlier than the explosion in Wuhan.

I seem to recall reading articles suggesting that the jump to humans may have occurred more than a year before Wuhan.

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

#328

Post by dathinab »

brmgb wrote: post #249
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…

It's a geopolitical matter. China doesn't want to be seen as the culprit. It goes against its global ambition. 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 e…

And there is also a difference between a natural virus brought for analyses into a Lab and an accident happens and a lab created virus and a lab created virus released intentionally.

But without question their internal propaganda is about it is super questionable.

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

#329

Post by mytailorisrich »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #318
bamboleo wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that apparently the virus was outside China in early December already, is it possible that Wuhan was simply the first fast-spreading location rather than the place where the transmission happened? If the virus was in Milan’s sewers in December, it feels that it might as swell have started spreading there first. Likewise, Italy contained the virus from May to September, then it exploded again. Nothing particular…

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. There is no direct air flight from Italy to Wuhan without going through Amsterdam Schipol or Beijing. There are no Shipping ports in inland Wuhan. Do you truly believe it is a realistic scenario that a virus this infectious could traverse from northern Italy to Wuhan, Hubei, without creating multiple infection hotspots along the way? If I am to put on my tinfoil ha…

He's not making an extraordinary claim, just a sensible possible conclusion based on established facts. In fact this is the most likely scenario (Wuhan was the first known outbreak but the virus does not originate from there)

Could we also stop dropping "CCP propaganda" everytime someone writes something others disagree with?

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

#330

Post by dependsontheq »

rawgabbit wrote: post #281
defen wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The govt still funds crackpots to argue against Chinese people originating in africa, to call greco-roman and egyptian history faked, and don't even get me started on their insistence on 5k years Wait what? The Chinese government does this? Who do they claim faked Greco-Roman and Egyptian history, and to what end? And what is 5k years supposed to be? The age of the earth or something?

Chinese propaganda claims 5000 years of unbroken history. One Han people. One language etc. They conveniently ignore when China was ruled by ethnic Khitan-Jurchen-Manchus. The Chinese literary classic On the Water Margin aka All Men Are Brothers is about local heroes of the Song rising up against a corrupt government which was completely ineffective against the Liao.

For all foreigners China has a long and impressive history, for whom is this 5K claim relevant?
Post reply on HN