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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

#611

Post by agumonkey »

Aeolun wrote: post #571
strogonoff wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An eerily prescient quote from a paper[0] published in 2015, two of the authors of which are with Wuhan Institute of Virology: > Understanding the bat origin of human coronaviruses is helpful for the prediction and prevention of another pandemic emergence in the future. China has clearly contributed valuable research into bat coronaviruses. They had all the motivation to look into these after the first deadly SARS. I…

> However, CCP’s resistance to a proper thorough study of the origins of COVID is IMO not exactly appropriate. It is, in fact, highly suspect. I’m not at all positive that it indeed leaked from a lab in Wuhan, but the fact they won’t let an independent investigation anywhere near it makes me lean more strongly towards that as a possibility. The description of the last investigation into the origins of the virus felt…

It can be pride over shame of incompetence maybe ? the wuhan labs are said to be lacking in standard safety biohazard practices.. so investigating may reveal that.

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

#612

Post by dang »

viklove wrote: post #71
dang wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish they would come under scrutiny more often—it would mean people are reading them! Everything on https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html is derived from (a) HN's core value of intellectual curiosity, which is the sole thing we're optimizing for ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... ), and (b) well over 10 years of experience operating this place. Not only that, but they're ga…

It's very hard to be intellectually curious when I'm only allowed to post 3-4 comments an hour. What if I'm having a conversation with someone? Why am I not allowed to respond?

We rate limit accounts when they post too many low-quality comments too quickly and/or get involved in flamewars. We're happy to take the rate limit off if people give us reason to believe that they understand the site guidelines and sincerely want to use HN in the intended spirit. But it's best to email hn@ycombinator.com and ask us to look into it.

I realize it's annoying to be rate limited, but it's one of the few (crude) software tools we have to try to put off the descent of the forum into flamewar, so dropping the mechanism isn't really an option.

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

#613

Post by standardUser »

thereisnospork wrote: post #603
nemothekid wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we call it the chinese variant then? Ok sure. What did you win? Have you now advanced science and solved all unknown problems in virology? Was the progress of mankind so impeded by the inability to call COVID-19 the Chinese variant? Seriously ask yourself why you are so hung up on being able to call it the China virus. Are doctors around the world completely unable to sequence this virus because they can’t say…

It is important to be able to call it the 'China virus' for all the reasons China doesn't want it to be called that - names have power and squelching one to avoid offending a country is at best a slippery slope.

You can call it the China virus if you want. You can't be cited or sued for doing so. But most people prefer to avoid terms that can reasonably be linked to harassment and violence against minorities.

Your argument also assumes that there is some need to inform people of the origin of COVID-19. There is not. We all know it originated in China and most people now even know the name of China's 9th largest city.

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

#614

Post by bgandrew »

rssoconnor wrote: post #593
mensetmanusman wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roll a dice representing all the locations of possible human bat interactions. How many of those land next to research labs that study this.

That's not the correct calculation because you've selected the research lab hypothesis post-facto. The correct calculation is to roll a dice representing all the locations of possible human bat interactions and see how many of those land next to some landmark that you can form some sort of conspiracy about.

And if you add all the sane hypotheses to the equation, how many would that be? 2?

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

#615

Post by drocer88 »

rhodozelia wrote: post #595
tkinom wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WHO should sequence all the Virus DNAs from that lab in 2015-2019 compare that with all the Covid sequences.

I can’t find the link but the virus they took from sick miners to study and what is now called covid-19 were 95-99% the same. A fellow did their masters thesis on it in 2016 or so

This https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6981198-Analysis-of-... ?

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

#616

Post by dang »

benlumen wrote: post #488
dang wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't. I know it doesn't feel this way, but replying is worse than the original comment. If people follow the site guidelines and flag such provocations without replying, the thread grounds out. By feeding it, you furnish a circuit and all the current necessary for a prolonged electrocution. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Understood, thanks for taking the time to explain.

Appreciated!

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

#617

Post by gregwebs »

ajross wrote: post #598
gregwebs wrote: post #397

This is a great article explaining why a lab leak should always be a suspect. The alternative theory is that a virus traveled on its own (via bats or other animals) from bat caves 900km away to Wuhan where there are 2 labs researching bats. One of the labs is lesser known but is right next to the seafood market and the hospital where the outbreak was first known. [1] This article points out that a lab outbreak could…

There is no requirement that bats be transported to Wuhan. It's close to a known bat virus, and that's all we know. There are local bats in Wuhan, needless to say. Other species can easily be involved. The truth is that there is nothing particularly surprising about the way this virus evolved. Fundamentally this is a pandemic like any other. They happen in some species or another every year. And that, more than anyth…

It is exotic to claim that the virus was engineered by humans, but that is not what this article (or myself) are claiming. Just that there is a lab outbreak.

Researchers have gone to a particular region of China and otherwise gone to great effort to find these particular bat viruses. I agree it is possible that they could be ignorant of the fact that the virus is in their own backyard. But it must a lower probability event that people got infected by such city bats given that we already know for certain the labs were transporting the bat viruses directly. Additionally, I would be surprised if they have not been testing nearby bats for such viruses since the outbreak happened. If they got a match it would be highly publicized.

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

#618

Post by coder4life »

8note wrote: post #319
garmaine wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are cases in Wuhan which predate the wet market cluster. That appears to have been a super spreading event but not the origin. The bats this disease come from we’re not being sold in the market at this time. They’re out of season. So already the theory is assuming a multi-animal hop (some other wild animal got in contact with a bat and got infected, then captured and moved a thousand kilometers to the wet marke…

The open question is: are there cases even before those, and outside Wuhan?

We already knew by summer there were cases going back to October 19 in Italy, from saved sewage samples

Recently (3 days ago)

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210318185328.h...

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

#619

Post by the_local_host »

Aeolun wrote: post #577
DrJaws wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

an immediate immunization of your population would drive to a raise of suspicion and if someone found china guilty of that, would mean a world war against them.

Given how many people died of the virus VS how many would die in a world war that seems like a highly illogical course of action.

The reasoning wouldn't be how many people died of the virus vs. how many in a world war; it would be how many people die in a world war vs. how many might die if the adversary does increasingly worse things going forward. The threshold for fighting all-out can't be "as soon as the adversary does".
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