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

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 664 posts

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

#251

Post by yters »

nickysielicki wrote: post #241
ttz wrote: post #53

First gen Chinese, grew up in NA. Have contact with relatives "on the ground". My own experience: Don't ever trust the Chinese government on issues that could potentially involve the reputation of the party. Note that I'm not saying don't trust what CCP says, ever (sometimes they actually do good things) - just not on issues that involve anything to do with how the world might perceive them. Which is exactly what thi…

To me, both the official explanation and the conspiracy theory are both embarrassing for China and the CCP. SARS was supposed to have originated the same way -- in these disgusting third-world wet markets. The CCP shut them down after SARS for the sake of optics, but was too inept to "up" their health standards, and they conceded to pressure and reopened the disgusting third-world wet markets again. If this was some…

In the lab scenario their lax standards wiped out 2 million people and they covered it up. In the wet market scenario, it mostly reflects on the local inhabitants doing the usual black market stuff most local inhabitants of most countries do, and the CCP can only do so much to control their people. Plus, lab source has many other possible implications that are concerning, e.g. engineering bioweapons, IP theft, more nefarious conspiracy if it turns out to be a purposeful leak, etc. Wet market is overall much more benign. Also, from an evidential standpoint, lab outbreak seems much more plausible. Very easy to connect the dots with researchers, funders, etc. On the other hand, they cannot even determine the proximate transmission animal for the wet market theory, and the supposed bat source assembly is based on a faked dataset from the wuhan lab.

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

#252

Post by makomk »

esja wrote: post #31

I am yet to see a single piece of evidence which rules out the lab leak hypothesis. Meanwhile the circumstantial evidence in favour of that hypothesis (including China’s behaviour) continues to pile up. We may never discover the truth, but I really hope we do.

There's also evidence pointing to the theory that the virus didn't originate in China and came in on frozen food being false - in particular, the fact that when traces of virus have been found at frozen food processing facilities the evidence pointed to it being caused by the outbreak there rather than vice-versa, the lack of major outbreaks causing hospitals to collapse in other countries at the same time as Wuhan, and the current scientific consensus being that contact with surfaces isn't even a major source of transmission anyway. That didn't stop the WHO team from pushing the idea that this is plausible and needs investigating. The only thing their positions have in common is that they're following the Chinese government line.

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

#253

Post by AmericanChopper »

duxup wrote: post #192
IIAOPSW wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just assume the ccp default mode is to cover up, even when there is nothing to cover up. When legitimacy derives from competence rather than from election, you better never have any high profile incompetence.

That's been a problem even internally in China where local government hides things from those up the chain and then things get out of hand.

It’s how all centrally planned systems work. Avoiding accountability for failure is always the most optimal strategy, which inevitably ends up involving concealing failure. It was one of the defining characteristics of the soviet system. You can even see it play out in large companies (which essentially operate as miniature planned economies), where political actors promote bad ideas, and then somehow end up rewarded after they fail. The only difference being that companies in a free market (usually) have to suffer the consequences of their failures, and politicians in a democratic system can (usually) be replaced if they fall out of favor.

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

#254

Post by mr_toad »

tripletao wrote: post #145

I don't know whether SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab. But if it did, then not only is it probably not the first lab-origin pandemic, but it's also not the first time the WHO initially excluded that possibility. The 1977 Russian Flu pandemic was genetically near-identical to a strain from 1950, without the expected mutations that should have appeared after 27 years of undetected circulation among humans or animals. It's…

> how could you possibly not wonder whether our current standards for the sampling and manipulation of poorly-understood pandemic-candidate viruses are adequate?

Wait are we looking to improve and make sure that this doesn’t happen again, or do we just want someone to blame so we can continue to do nothing?

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

#255

Post by stickfigure »

Udik wrote: post #225
bottled_poe wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It disingenuous and lazy to make broad statements of equivalence like this. There are very obvious differences in how the world’s governments operate.

Oh yes? Shall we trust the US government in a good investigation on their motives to finance the bloody disaster that is the civil war in Syria? How about we send a Chinese delegation to check the documents inside the Pentagon or the CIA?

Every 4-8 years the US government gets a new executive head, often from the opposition. That puts significant constraints on what kind of corruption can flourish.

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

#256

Post by hayst4ck »

tripletao wrote: post #145

I don't know whether SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab. But if it did, then not only is it probably not the first lab-origin pandemic, but it's also not the first time the WHO initially excluded that possibility. The 1977 Russian Flu pandemic was genetically near-identical to a strain from 1950, without the expected mutations that should have appeared after 27 years of undetected circulation among humans or animals. It's…

I found this quite convincing:

https://project-evidence.github.io/

Summary (IIRC): The most likely explanation of its origins is a person who collected bats for a lab in Wuhan contracted the disease in the cave where bats were collected.

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

#257

Post by refenestrator »

hayst4ck wrote: post #247
refenestrator wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there's no upside and guaranteed downside. People are accusing them of building the virus in a lab with literally zero evidence. Give the US a bunch of raw data to spin and it just makes that easier.

I don't think that's a very enlightened perspective. Maybe with people like Trump in the world who would definitely capitalize on that type of thing to cast blame there is inherent risk, but at least amongst civilized educated people, its obvious a virus could show up anywhere and disseminating information shows a clear desire to fight the virus as a member of the world, rather than a desire to use it as a political…

Enlightened or not, it's accurate. Trump was actually president and now Biden's administration is raising 'deep concerns'.

We knew or should have known the virus was coming for months before it was a problem in the US. It would take an incredibly enlightened politician not to try and scapegoat China for our failures, and they know this. Why gamble on our goodwill amidst all this rhetoric?

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

#259

Post by perryizgr8 »

mc32 wrote: post #3

Beside the danger of adding function to an infectious virus, the biggest danger is the complete politicization of the virus. The WHO has changed their tune back and forth, often vehemently with little to back up its position. In that light the US should consider withdrawing completely from this body.

I agree. WHO is no longer a legitimate body reflecting the interests of the United nations. It has been turned into a CCP propaganda tool. There is no point associating with it. Trumps decision in this case was the right one, and the current administration goes against it to the detriment of the non Chinese world.

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

#260

Post by AmericanChopper »

fiftyfifty wrote: post #239
duxup wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's been a problem even internally in China where local government hides things from those up the chain and then things get out of hand.

This is the kind of behavior you see in organizations where the penalty for making mistakes is overly severe, the only recourse for people is to lie and cover-up the truth at all costs. This is how projects at some companies continue despite being way behind schedule and overbudget until eventually the weight of the truth brings everything crashing down.

Everybody will always have a motive to prevent others from discovering their failures. A democratically elected politician has just as much reason to want their failures covered up as a CCP member does. The reason governments like the CCP have such a hard time dealing with that issue is that their entire system is set up so that you have one party, with no opposition, all working in concert to conceal the truth from the people. The “voters” have no mechanism to scrutinize their government, and no alternative to “vote” for if they don’t like what they’re doing. A natural consequence of this is that the opacity the CCP relies on to protect itself from scrutiny, also prevents central committee members from being able to effectively scrutinize the system themselves. A good story is always made available for public consumption, but what’s known internally is equally controlled by individual political actors trying to protect their own interests.
Post reply on HN