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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

#681

Post by ethbr0 »

bitreality wrote: post #673
ethbr0 wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For that very reason, we cannot accept their narrative at face value. We certainly don't have enough information to confidently eliminate the lab escape theory. The media has largely suggested that the lab escape theory has been disproved.

If you ask a liar a question, and they lie, then the strongest conclusion isn't that you asked the right question -- it's that they're a liar.

China stonewalls pretty much every attempt by the international community to interfere with their internal control.

So this is more "business as usual" than "Clouseau found the smoking gun."

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

#682

Post by lamontcg »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #427
lamontcg wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

That means that mink, and particularly the practice of mink farming is likely to lead to another outbreak (or whatever the actual species is determined to be). That animal would have sufficiently similar biology to humans, including the ACE2 receptor so that zoonotic transmission could happen. Those farms would definitely need to be closed.

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

#684

Post by lamontcg »

dillondoyle wrote: post #548
lamontcg wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

CCP would also not release serology from blood banks and other blood from before dec which from what I understand would be a gold mine showing earlier spread. Which wouldn't that be in China's interest? I don't get why the 'cover up' (maybe i'm too biased with that term, utter lack of cooperation) beyond just the top down controlling nature of the CCP. Their actions don't lend us any trust so we do have to ask why..…

Because the intermediate animal is likely animal farming, and they don't want to take the economic and political hit of shutting down an entire industry. We don't have the will to do that either, we still haven't shut down our mink farms.

And just for domestic propaganda reasons. If it came from China they could be blamed for it, and they want to deny/deny/deny and defect blame. Serves their propaganda purposes to have people believe it was imported and generates an us-vs-them bunker narrative where the rest of the world is unfairly blaming them. That leaves their citizens questioning the rest of the world and not their own government.

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

#686

Post by FPGAhacker »

gregwebs wrote: post #617
ajross wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I suspect that it may have been "bred." That is, engineered in the same way that dog breeds are engineered, which isn't so exotic.

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

#687

Post by wuwuno »

sparrc wrote: post #594
watertom wrote: post #452

A lot of smart people in this forum. Someone please explain to me how the Chinese were able to identify that that had a new virus. I’ve done pandemic drills with homeland security. They said they way you know you’ve got a new virus floating around is either new symptoms; significantly more “flu like” cases; significantly more cases escalating to pneumonia; increased deaths. Covid presents like the flu, so much so you…

Flagged for misinformation. There definitely was an uptick in deaths and pneumonia. Scans of patient's lungs showed new symptoms not normally associated with pneumonia. This happened over the course of a few months and is what tipped off doctors in Wuhan that there was something new spreading.

Not enough, and not in November when the Chinese first discovered the cases.

flu cases year to year have a very wide variety. In the U.S. the low number of cases one year was 16M two years later it was 68 Million cases.

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

#688

Post by dragonwriter »

dionian wrote: post #685

China is pushing real hard to discount it and try to hype up zoonotic transmission. That should tell you something.

> China is pushing real hard to discount it and try to hype up zoonotic transmission. That should tell you something.

That's what China would be expected to do:

(1) if it knew the Wuhan lab leak theory was correct,

(2) if it knew zoonotic transmission was correct.

(3) if it had no idea what was going on.

(4) if it wasn't a lab leak but a deliberate biological weapons test that went wrong, and they has engineered both their overt argument and the lab leaks story as layers of cover.

So, no, their behavior here tells us nothing.

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

#689

Post by wuwuno »

m0llusk wrote: post #483
watertom wrote: post #452

A lot of smart people in this forum. Someone please explain to me how the Chinese were able to identify that that had a new virus. I’ve done pandemic drills with homeland security. They said they way you know you’ve got a new virus floating around is either new symptoms; significantly more “flu like” cases; significantly more cases escalating to pneumonia; increased deaths. Covid presents like the flu, so much so you…

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. That was the freak out that led to the Communist Party not being able to keep a lid on the whole mess. It wasn't just sick people showing up in hospitals in huge numbers, it was dead bodies lying in the streets. The thing is that whether this came from a lab or no…

Not in November when the Chinese "discovered" the virus.

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

#690

Post by sumedh »

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…

> We need to avoid demonizing China over this if we want to ever find out the truth

Or China can start to be more honest if it does not want to be demonized.

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