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

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

#631

Post by mardifoufs » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 1:59 AM UTC

TremendousJudge wrote: post #565

IAmGraydon wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You should look up some of the leaked videos on the Internet. There was in fact a huge spike in cases early on and people were dropping dead in the street. Which is also weird because we all know Covid doesn't make people suddenly drop dead in the street.

>Covid doesn't make people suddenly drop dead in the street They do if they don't get treatment. Usual course for deadly covid is, high fevers, feeling terrible, then there's an improvement in symptoms for a couple of days, then blood oxygen levels drop and the person drops dead

Any source on that? Genuinely curious as I seem to have completely forgotten about the early videos from china until now and what they pictured was very at odds with what we now know the virus can do.

Wouldn't everything you described happen gradually? as in people wouldn't be able to walk normally before reaching the point where they drop dead from oxygen levels low enough to be immediately lethal? From my own experience and based on what I've read, covid can cause a quick deterioration in respiratory function but across at least hours or days.

The videos also pictured people that weren't really showing any trouble breathing, it felt more like the plague than any respiratory illness. But maybe the videos were meant as "PSA's" for local consumption to get people to treat the disease more seriously? Because they were really over the top

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

#632

Post by dv35z » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #494

hokumguru wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking a step back, does he not at least bring up some valid points? The CCP did bar scientists from early investigation and has gone to considerable lengths to suppress national news outlets from properly reporting on the issue at hand. This does at least deserve some criticism.

Of course. The issue is simply that it needs to happen within the site guidelines, for example this one: " Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. " ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ) Commenters here need to learn the difference between posting in the flamewar style and having curious conversation. The issue is not the topic—it's which mode peopl…

Excellent comment. Bookmarking this & stealing for future references. Thanks Dang for such insightful comments. It’s refreshing.

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

#633

Post by garmaine » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

karmasimida wrote: post #517

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 virus likely didn't jump from bats to human directly, there are intermediate hosts involved. The hosts could be from anywhere, like SEA, nobody can locate the particular host and the particular moment. Connecting dots == You believe because you want to Unless someone came with causal evidence that someone gets infected from the lab, it is only your belief and there is no way to prove it. You can believe whatever…

There is direct evidence of a similar disease outbreak in 2012 among miners who came in contact with bats in caves. Maybe even the same disease. It was being studied in the Wuhan lab.

The theory that there must be intermediate hosts is attempting to fit the natural origin theory to the evidence, not the other way around. It is perfectly capable of jumping straight to humans, but there is no way for it to make that jump in Wuhan at that time so therefore it must have come through another species. That’s the logic.

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

#634

Post by garmaine » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 2:05 AM UTC

soperj wrote: post #310

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…

If it was within a few weeks of the outbreak, then it wasn't likely the cause. As seen in other countries, the # of cases takes a while to ramp up, and it wouldn't go from a release to a couple thousand deaths in such a short time span.

It was half a year earlier iirc.

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

#635

Post by geoduck14 » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 2:09 AM UTC

geoduck14 wrote: post #450

mrfusion wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I personally know people who went to a party and got sick from an asymptomatic person.

Why was this down voted?

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

#636

Post by unishark » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 2:11 AM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #607

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…

My impression was that "lab escape" was conflated with "deliberate release" by conspiracy types early on, and once that took hold it became impossible to talk rationally about the accidental escape hypothesis.

Conspiracy theorists are always going to weave conspiracy theories, though. That doesn't absolve the media or the rest of us from being the adults in the room.

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

#637

Post by marcus_holmes » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 2:12 AM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #611

Aeolun wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You gotta remember the culture, and that everything in China is political. You can't just say "oops" and learn the lessons.

Any investigations will have the goal not of finding the truth, but of minimising damage to the political powers that control it.

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

#638

Post by kube-system » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 2:12 AM UTC

bgandrew wrote: post #614

rssoconnor wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

How many wet markets are in a city of 11 million people?

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

#639

Post by ethbr0 » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

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…

Or, you know, we may just be talking about a paranoid autocracy with an obsession for controlling information?

This is a government that bans talking about multiple periods of the country's history.

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

#640

Post by dang » Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 2:14 AM UTC

btilly wrote: post #624

dang wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN has plenty of people who feel strongly on both sides of this issue. In my experience there are many more on your side than the other (probably by an order of magnitude)—certainly the number of times I've had to moderate comments breaking the site guidelines on China-related topics is over 10x lopsided, and no we're not looking to moderate one side more than the other. (Just the unpleasantness of being accused of u…

I agree with all of that. However the fact that all of the Chinese supporting votes showed up at once, and then the others show up slowly is supportive of a group of people working together.

I really don't think that's correct. Rather it's the eternal problem that randomness contains sequences that look and feel non-random—these are more likely to get noticed, and then get (over)interpreted to fit a pre-existing narrative.

I don't mean to pick on you personally! Everyone does this.