US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins • Hacker News Board

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#41

Post by LMYahooTFY » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #21

Forgive my ignorance but even if it was lab created, so what? I don’t really understand why it matters or not. Didn’t the entire world basically have a nearly 3 month heads up on this either way?

I think there are social/political ramifications to seriously consider.

Similar to if we had a sudden large radiation hazard and it was unclear if it was some spontaneously emerging phenomenon with essentially no direct human cause, or a power plant/enrichment facility/warhead manufacturer/etc.

And beyond that, there are supposedly methods of (even purely scientifically motivated) research that would involve engineering a virus with certain properties that also happen to make it extraordinarily deadly.

Ethics committees determine all sorts of experiments to be prohibitively unethical, and a virus with particularly deadly design should certainly be held under such scrutiny.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#42

Post by methodsignature » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #5

The WHO is a useless organization. For political reasons, it will be necessary to engage, but hopefully US authorities will not treat it as an information source. The US should use its own primary sources in future to evaluate disease spread. China will lie to the WHO and the WHO will protect it. But to know the truth, we should use our modern equivalents of Key Hole. There is no truth but that which you have examine…

Sure, if data from US would be enough to understand and fight disease. Otherwise, you need to create some sort of world health organization to share meaningful data and investigate inside all country participant without the appearance of [or actual] invasion of sovereignty.

Thus, we have the WHO. You wanna replace it, it's gonna take a decade to get to another agreement if one even is made. Then it will have its own set of issues. During a pandemic, seems better to me to work with and hold accountable the one we have... kinda like the WH is doing today.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#43

Post by ZoomerCretin » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

f430 wrote: post #16

mgamache wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was from early last year and really focuses on Pangolins which have been downgraded as a zoonotic source. Serial Passage is the most likely source (as all sources are low probability).

The thing is they claimed it originated from the seafood market yet couple blocks across the street there was a BS4 bio lab literally working with the materials. It's amazing so many people will just take CCP's narrative at face value, there are still many that think it came from the seafood market. Nature has lied to protect the CCP before: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/world/asia/china-springer...

>Nature has lied to protect the CCP before:

>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/world/asia/china-springer...

Your article does not support your claim. "One of the world’s largest academic publishers was criticized on Wednesday for bowing to pressure from the Chinese government to block access to hundreds of articles on its Chinese website."

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#44

Post by jchook » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

throwaway4good wrote: post #33

Boo. The Americans need to shut up or actual provide evidence for their outrageous claim that the virus escaped from a lab.

I've seen papers from several scientists who believe that SARS-CoV-2 had laboratory origins. You can find them on Google Scholar or similar search engines, but you cannot post them to HN or Twitter because they get instantly censored.

The evidence against laboratory origins seems flimsy to me as well. The most cited paper says because the virus infects humans suboptimally it must not be lab grown in human cells. Also they examined the "only" 3 relevant features of the virus and determined they evolved naturally from other SARS strains. Not exactly convincing.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#45

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #5

The WHO is a useless organization. For political reasons, it will be necessary to engage, but hopefully US authorities will not treat it as an information source. The US should use its own primary sources in future to evaluate disease spread. China will lie to the WHO and the WHO will protect it. But to know the truth, we should use our modern equivalents of Key Hole. There is no truth but that which you have examine…

[deleted]

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#46

Post by Supermancho » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #21

Forgive my ignorance but even if it was lab created, so what? I don’t really understand why it matters or not. Didn’t the entire world basically have a nearly 3 month heads up on this either way?

You are correct. It makes no difference. This has been an exercise in "bad things will happen" used to reform political views and stoke sabre rattling. China is a bad actor in many arenas, just as the US is a bad actor in many arenas. The idea that any country releases some lab-grown bug will never be politically admitted, so the theory is irrelevant.

I tend to think China is a danger to humanity at-large, but I could be wrong. These specific events have not surprised me (new virus, spread, etc) but the sheer amount of incredulity at the behavior of countries (China, US, etc) is disheartening.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#47

Post by sjg007 » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

If it was lab created independent scientists would be able to figure it out and there would be evidence that it was. But it looks like there is not:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

Now maybe the virus mutated from those initial 174 cases but that's unlikely.

China does have a narrative that covid19 reinfections are coming from imported frozen foods though so I'm not sure why they are pushing that angle. It's probably an economic one and to save face. But maybe it's real.. if it is we are screwed.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#48

Post by 2bitencryption » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

godelmachine wrote: post #7

dm319 wrote: post #2

This is worth a read: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

>>*Although the evidence shows that SARS- CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here.* From the conclusion section

my understanding of primitive/early vaccines is this:

1. take a virus that is highly adapted to humans, and inject it in another animal (like a rabbit)

2. the virus will cause a very low-grade infection in the rabbit, since the virus is adapted to humans, not rabbits - but it will still be a non-zero level of effectiveness

3. at the peak level of the rabbit's low-grade infection, the mutants of the virus that are more effective against rabbits will be expressed more than any others, and replicate themselves more than any other mutant

4. capture these variants from the rabbit, and inject them into another rabbit.

5. step 3 and 4 repeat as the virus becomes less human-specific and more rabbit-specific

6. if all goes well, you will have transformed the human-effective virus into a rabbit-effective virus. But the virus still has enough of the same characteristics that it will provoke an immune response in humans that will also protect against the human-specific variant

I imagine if you wanted to do the opposite, and craft a virus that is more effective against humans instead of less, you would simply follow the steps in reverse.

Since these steps are so simple, and require no direct modification of the genetic material (you simply encourage it to drift in a certain direction) it seems like it would be hard to tell which viruses were manipulated in this way.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#49

Post by aaomidi » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #40

addicted wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean primary sources like the program that had US scientists embedded in Chinese laboratories that Trump dismantled in 2019? Also, you clearly don’t understand what the WHO does and how critical it has been in the reduction and even eradication of disease spread across the world over decades. Further, the WHO, much like most multilateral organizations is dependent on its member states for strength. When the most…

Has the WHO really been that critical or are we ascribing successes to them that are really the result of business and technological innovation? At least in the recent decade or two, they seem to consistently be bad at their job and mired in politics. Even before the coronavirus there were issues like their failures in managing the Ebola outbreak ( https://time.com/4123858/ebola-crisis-who-response-failure/ ).

WHO is like your IT team. You only see their failures.

Re: US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins

#50

Post by throwawaysea » Sat, Feb 13, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #21

Forgive my ignorance but even if it was lab created, so what? I don’t really understand why it matters or not. Didn’t the entire world basically have a nearly 3 month heads up on this either way?

It’s not necessarily lab created but it could have been leaked from a lab (which studies coronaviruses and bats) even if it wasn’t artificial. It matters because it lays more blame on China and creates the political expediency needed for sanctions. I do agree that there should be consequences for the Chinese government regardless of whether the virus was a leak or not (or artificial or not), and that it isn’t dependent on such investigations. My reason is that the CCP suppressed early reports of the virus and delayed the entire world’s response. They also did not shut down their airports for months and exported the virus to the rest of us as a result.