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Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

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Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#381

Post by esja »

woodruffw wrote: post #158

My understanding of the author's central thesis is this: the US, despite its world-class virology and disease study labs, regularly has lapses in procedure that regularly lead to situations in which the public might be exposed. Given that this is happening in our own backyard, we might reasonably expect countries of similar status (like China) to experience similar lapses. That reads as reasonable to me, but raises a…

In general labs are not both a) bad at safety, and also b) doing gain of function research to make dangerous viruses more infectious to humans. The latter has been banned a few times due to the risk (see below). Both A and B were happening in Wuhan.

"In 2014, after a series of accidents involving mishandled pathogens at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the NIH announced that it would stop funding gain-of-function research into certain viruses — including influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) — that have the potential to unleash a pandemic or epidemic if they escaped from the lab. Some researchers said the broad ban threatened necessary flu-surveillance and vaccine research."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00210-5

p.s. The US NIH did ultimately stop funding that research locally, but continued funding it in Wuhan. Including the exact type of virus we're dealing with now.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#382

Post by louloulou »

Fricken wrote: post #329
btilly wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly there are a bunch of people voting down anything that is too critical of China. WHY there are a bunch of people voting that down I leave to others to speculate. But I'm going to vote up any verifiable factual statements that have been voted down.

There are no pertinent facts anywhere in this thread. There are no pertinent facts available. We just don't know, and likely won't ever know.

And we should ask that is. The fact that investigations to find patient 0, either never happened or were covered up is strong evidence for the WIV leak theory.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#383

Post by Pyramus »

akira2501 wrote: post #296
hospadar wrote: post #260

Like, so what? Should we care a lot about the safety and security of places where dangerous infectious diseases are studied? sure! I think we should care A LOT MORE about our [apparent total lack of] ability to quickly deploy effective public health responses to new infectious diseases (regardless of their source). Maybe it was an accident at a sloppy lab, ok, so labs on the other side of the planet in sovereign coun…

> I think we should care A LOT MORE about our [apparent total lack of] ability to quickly deploy effective public health responses to new infectious diseases (regardless of their source). Then we shouldn't be doing _gain of function_ research on the types of viruses that can cause these outbreaks. > Maybe it was an accident at a sloppy lab, ok, so labs on the other side of the planet in sovereign countries we do not…

I agree with parent's point to focus on defence, because a) defence is where the US leadership, but arguably also large parts of society, horribly failed and b) defence lies within your locus of control.

Before the pandemic, the US was actually rated #1 for endemic preparedness. No one had imagined that wearing a piece of cloth to protect others would become a political statement. No one was dreaming of the loss of half a million (!) American lives being remotely acceptable.

I would even go so far as to argue that from a psychological perspective the situation is similar to losing a war. US society will have to come to terms with what happened and how to prevent it in the future, and that's at the heart of parent's post.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#384

Post by mrfusion »

cowmoo728 wrote: post #184
woodruffw wrote: post #158

My understanding of the author's central thesis is this: the US, despite its world-class virology and disease study labs, regularly has lapses in procedure that regularly lead to situations in which the public might be exposed. Given that this is happening in our own backyard, we might reasonably expect countries of similar status (like China) to experience similar lapses. That reads as reasonable to me, but raises a…

COVID-19 is one of the few serious diseases that can transmit when the carrier is asymptomatic. That could be a credible reason why a potential lab leak went unnoticed for long enough to begin uncontrolled community spread.

CNN sold us on asymptomatic spread but it’s actually highly unlikely: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#385

Post by gsk22 »

pageandrew wrote: post #285
carols10cents wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Even if this particular virus didn't originate in our own house, if we want to demand openness and security from other countries, we in the US should start by being open with records of accidents and enhanced measures to prevent future accidents.

Safety issues at US labs are not kept secret, as the author of the linked article has literally reported on them before, and they have also never caused a deadly global pandemic.

> Safety issues at US labs are not kept secret

No, they are "inadvertently" misclassified [1] or kept secret because of bioterrorism laws [2].

> and they have also never caused a deadly global pandemic.

Neither has a Chinese lab, to the best of our knowledge. Doesn't rule it out, but let's not jump to conclusions.

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/06/23/undisclosed-c... [2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/17/report...

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#386

Post by waheoo »

tryonenow wrote: post #359
ryandrake wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worrying about where it came from is misdirection to distract us from the real issue that you pointed out: That nearly all countries totally failed to effectively deal with it and contain the spread, resulting in a body count that should be totally unacceptable. We got extraordinarily lucky that it wasn't super deadly. Imagine if the next COVID is 20X deadlier and hits uniformly across age ranges. We're doomed if we…

I imagine if it were deadlier, people would have been more incentivised to deal with it. Bodies piling up on the streets is a much better motivator for staying inside and socially distancing than news reports of regional hospitals being gradually overwhelmed by a predominantly mild or asymptomatic virus. The fact is that even ignoring government response, all of our medical institutions seemed to presume that this wa…

Medical professionals are commonly wildly uninformed about recent research. Most GPs don't keep up on new research decades old let alone cutting edge research out of lancet.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#387

Post by alacombe »

whytaka wrote: post #180

Regardless of its origin, what I cannot possibly figure out is why China didn't close its own borders while they were putting travel restrictions within.

Because China first reflex is to deny anything is happening. By the time shit hit the fan, it's too late to do anything.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#388

Post by tryonenow »

danudey wrote: post #334
hsitz wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly. I would add, though, that the "Wuhan lab leak theory", in many people's minds, seems to be combined with a suspected intentional act by the Chinese government, to unleash a dangerous virus on the rest of the world. I think we should dismiss that part of the theory (it's of course not impossible, just not likely, mostly fun fodder for conspiracy nuts). But as far as infectious disease labs all across the…

Let's also add in that the "Wuhan lab leak theory", combined with the "China virus" nomenclature, has resulted in huge increases in racist and white supremacist violence against people of Asian descent.

Then the solution is to teach people not to mistake Chinese people for the CCP, not to police language. And this narrative of "white supremacist" violence is a concoction by the media. Whatever increase that can't be accounted for by increased reporting is most likely not coming from the white supremacists or even the white demographic. It's an increase in inner city tensions that have been around for decades. And the people predominantly committing these acts (and I assure you statistics point to a single demographic in particular) are probably not the type to follow Trump's speeches.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#389

Post by stevenhuang »

the_jeremy wrote: post #287

As a layperson whose activism only amounts to charitable donations, yard signs, and voting, why should I care whether this virus was a lab escapee or naturally spread? This is an earnest question, not a blind "I don't care". I think this is interesting, and I can see some amount of merit in these claims, but at the end of the day it doesn't feel like it matters to me which one it was. It seems like the only change wo…

History exists for a reason. It's there to learn from.

If we can establish that a lab leak lead to a worldwide pandemic, we'd place much more importance on lab security and better handling procedures.

If it was naturally spread then we'd look at the feasibility of reducing the chances of this happening again, like improving sanitation of wet markets, implementing regulations, or even banning them entirely.

Frankly the notion of it not mattering to someone how covid came to be is absurd.

If you don't want something to happen again, you first need to understand the circumstances that lead to it.

Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed

#390

Post by tbenst »

tomp wrote: post #370
tbenst wrote: post #122

This article is written by a journalist who is clearly knowledgeable about safety practices and mistakes in US labs, but does not consider the extensive knowledge we have about the sequence of SARS-COV2. The preponderance of evidence supports a natural origin of the virus. This is no way exonerates the Wuhan government from possible culpability—indeed government officials did deliberately suppress information—but thi…

> Misinformation. from the article you linked to: > Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus. You're the one spreading FUD, intentionally misinterpreting the original article and making up a fake argument that "lab leak" hypothesis somehow contradicts "natural origin" and implies that the virus was "designed". (If I understand the article correctly, "…

If you’re open hearing new information and revising your position, please consider listening to the podcast from Nature that I linked to in another comment. It’s not controversial nor misleading to say that [edit: much of] the scientific community views the “lab leak” hypothesis as a conspiracy theory. The main segment starts around 6:30.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00599-7

Edit: wanted to highlight that, while the Lancet and other publications have highlighted the mainstream views that “lab leak” is a conspiracy theory, that there is a prominent minority of scientists that disagree: https://undark.org/2021/03/17/lab-leak-science-lost-in-polit...

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