Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by Pyramus » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 10:13 PM UTC

loveistheanswer wrote: post #286

Pyramus wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe grand-parent was talking about a lab leak, not necessarily with gain of function research being involved, and scientists dismissal. Which is not a dismissal at all. What scientists are saying is that both zoonotic transfer and lab leak are plausible, but that we don't have evidence for the latter (yet!) and the former is more likely. In many media articles this simplifies to 'scientists say virus origins ar…

>the former is more likely. Is this likelihood differential being calculated using data, or is it just a hypothesis?

Just a binary variable 'A more likely than B' or vice versa formed from prior zoonotic transfers and lab escapes.

I don't think at this point it is credible to assign probabilities to either hypothesis (which are assumed to be exclusive here).

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

#422

Post by tasssko » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #205

cowmoo728 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> COVID-19 is one of the few serious diseases that can transmit when the carrier is asymptomatic. Is this actually true? It is certainly not true for HIV, and of course is not relevant to diseases like Zika that are transmitted by mosquitos. Edit: I found the answer to my own question: https://www.kff.org/infographic/ebola-characteristics-and-co... (see second bullet point). Given that this lists Hep C, HIV, Influenz…

Why is Malaria in the list?

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

#423

Post by r00fus » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

esja wrote: post #354

r00fus wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ^^^ so very much. Think of it like infosec angle: Yes, it's interesting to identify and neutralize hostile actors, but the 100% more effective solution is to have defense-in-depth and system resilience in place - because you control that, but you can't control the external actors unless you have a god-complex.

What sort of defence in depth can work against a virus that's been engineered to infect humans very easily, and which can only be stopped by shutting down the world economy and waiting months or years for vaccination? I think the last year has proven comprehensively that we simply cannot implement any sort of defence in depth and need to try very hard to eliminate these problems at source. Just like we do with chemic…

How about reasonable health insurance without employment requirement?

The defense is NOT to stop the virus (unrealistic defense solution) - it's to make sure we can withstand/resist it so things like vaccines can be put into place so we can go back to some sort of normal (e.g. New Zealand)

The USA (only major western country without healthcare) was unique in how many deaths we had. 90% of those were unnecessary.

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

#424

Post by loveistheanswer » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

musha68k wrote: post #332

loveistheanswer wrote: post #88

Peter Daszak, member of the WHO Covid origins team, was also the project lead for the US funded gain of function research of novel coronaviruses that was going on at the Wuhan BSL4 lab. There is historical precedent of authorities blaming local meat markets to cover up a lab leak. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak

Interesting pointer there but his answer on the issue seems plausible as well. Apparently they were "just fishing for funding": https://twitter.com/PeterDaszak/status/1292819714935271424 I'm not a virologist but every TWiV episode I listened to, there was convincing talk about natural reservoirs being the most likely source of the virus. AFAIR they also expect similar events to happen increasingly all over the world…

>I'm not a virologist but every TWiV episode I listened to, there was convincing talk about natural reservoirs being the most likely source of the virus.

In no way whatsoever does that detract from a potential lab leak. The vast majority of viruses used in gain of function research are taken from natural reservoirs.

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

#425

Post by pmiller2 » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 10:15 PM UTC

2-tpg wrote: post #402

pmiller2 wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about that article convinced you? All I saw was some concern about safety protocols 2 years before the outbreak, some content free insinuations, and a whole lot of "we don't have any evidence." It's not a crazy theory by any means, but, if it happened, then there's evidence. So, where is the evidence? Literally, where is there any actual evidence it happened?

If you put two columns: zoonotic transfer, lab leak. And you list circumstantial evidence for both. Your zoonotic transfer column will be terribly empty in comparison. There is no patient 0, and the wet market was not the source, and we still do not have a zoonotic chain established. All those facts could be added to the lab leak hypothesis instead. For the most prominent clue of a biological attack is Single cause o…

So, you're saying I should just believe it escaped from a lab because reasons? And you're asking me to believe the administration of a president who lied publicly 30,000 times over 4 years and who may soon be facing criminal charges? Sorry, but that's just not good enough. Actual evidence in the zoonotic origin column greatly surpasses that in the lab leak column. I'll go with what I can see, thanks.

Example: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55998157

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

#426

Post by hayst4ck » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #336

hayst4ck wrote: post #154

https://project-evidence.github.io/ I found this to be an extremely engaging read and compelling story. TLDR; The likelihood of it being lab related is high. The likelihood of it being directly malicious low. My Take form reading it: The lab in question needed to collect bats for research. A person who collected the bats did so with insufficient safety and is likely patient 0.

Based on your takeaway, I'm looking for this to convince me that it's more likely that it's a researcher caught it first than anyone else handling bats.

There is pretty good evidence for that as well. I think section 9 is most relevant.

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

#427

Post by boomboomsubban » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

lamontcg wrote: post #289

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…

The biggest difference between all of those and this virus is that those were leaks of already-known viruses. SARS-CoV-2 wasn't known to exist before 2019 and there's no known precursor virus. There's a somewhat closely related virus that infected the miners in Yunnan but it was only 96% similar. There's nothing at all in this article on how SARS-CoV-2 was discovered or created. The problem I have is that China isn't…

>The problem I have is that China isn't interested in investigating the start of the pandemic.

Why should they be interested? We know how SARS type viruses can spread to humans, we know what other species are vulnerable, and we know what things make it more or less likely. A new outbreak was not a surprising result. What benefit is there to aggressively investigating the exact transmission method?

If your mink idea was found to be accurate, would you advocate closing mink farms? It being the source this time doesn't make it likely to cause the next transferrable virus.

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

#428

Post by Stupulous » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

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.

There were 49 incidents of anti-Asian hate crime in 2019 and 122 in 2020. I get that those numbers should be zero. But am I way out of line in saying that something that affects ~.00006% of Asian-Americans, and makes up ~1.6% of total hate crimes, should have no bearing on how we approach this subject?

My genuine apologies if I am crossing a line. I know this is a potentially touchy subject. Hate crime is serious and has many negative externalities that other crimes and accidents don't carry. They have also been on the rise, and could continue to grow more significant. It just feels very strange to me that 70 additional crimes in a year that saw thousands of additional murders has been such a common talking point for months now.

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

#429

Post by EMM_386 » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

benlumen wrote: post #6

Related - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26389690 (In 2018, US Diplomats Warned of Risky Coronavirus Experiments in a Wuhan Lab - politico.com)

MIT Technology Review, last week:

"Did the coronavirus leak from a lab? These scientists say we shouldn’t rule it out."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/18/1021030/coronavi...

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

#430

Post by BoorishBears » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 10:18 PM UTC

I think the theory should be dismissed because it's not falseable.

Right now, there is no question that say, the US military has samples of Coronavirus. Not for nefarious reasons mind you, but of course it's of military importance to study a global virus if only to work on vaccines and such.

Even if Coronavirus originated in nature, going forward if there is ever a new outbreak, you technically can't prove it wasn't the US military accidentally messing up can you?

You don't know the characteristics of the strain they're holding, and if it originated in nature then any study of it will show it came from nature.

Likewise you can't prove it wasn't the lab. They could have had samples of it from before, how can you prove the negative of that? It's hard to prove you didn't have access to a given thing.