The problem is that this is a too rational theory. Not enough of a conspiracy (these people prefer to think it was released on purpose to control global population etc). The other end of the spectrum the rationalists and scientists fear that they may go down a slippery conspiracy slope so they dismiss it the first moment another fellow scientist says so. Then the politicians don't want this hot potato in their hands, it could cause global wars economic or otherwise and half the planet resenting the other.
Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
841–850 of 1001 posts
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#842Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every BSL-certified lab should be doing gain of function research. If leaks are a problem, then certifications should be better enforced. Burying our head in the sand and waiting for nature to kill us is a losing move.
"Should" is a pretty strong statement. GoF studies, like social media-based disease surveillance, are one of those things that has a compelling "Just So" story justifying its existence, but has yet to show that it actually does what it's supposed to do. Also, the alternative is not burying our head in the sand. It's monitoring and studying nature, instead of forcing the issue in a lab, and investing in infrastructure…
What can be done, will be done.
Eventually, computational biological modeling is going to be good enough for mutation exploration purposes. From the papers I've seen during this pandemic, it largely already is.
At that point, it becomes straightforward (not easy, but not unknown) to share and realize those modeled organisms.
But at some point, we don't know what we don't know. And putting strains into biological models is important.
Investing in infrastructure and capability against a broad range of threats is important too. mRNA-based rapid vaccine platforms (and especially lipid encapsulation) will probably win a Nobel in a few years, and thank god we've spent the last 30+ years working on them.
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#843Earlier quoted context omitted.
The lab had samples of a disease that is remarkably close to COVID-19: https://nypost.com/2020/08/15/covid-19-first-appeared-in-chi...
No, they didn't. The ancestors of RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 diverged decades ago. RaTG13 is not the progenitor of SARS-CoV-2.
You have no way of knowing that it diverged decades ago. That's a guess based on the number of mutations. But as we've seen with COVID-19, these viruses have more of a punctuated equilibrium behavior around mutations. "Decades" worth of mutations can happen in a single immune-compromised host in a matter of weeks. (And fwiw I'd love a source for that "decades" claim. The strains are much more closely related than that.)
RaTG13 is the closest virus found in the wild to SARS-CoV-2. Samples of it were shipped to the Wuhan lab, which does so-called "gain of function research"--AKA experimenting with artificially sped up mutation rates. Not very long thereafter, SARS-CoV-2 shows up in the surrounding metropolitan area with a very, very similar genome. They're the nearest siblings on the phylogenetic tree.
It's only politics which keep people from calling this the smoking gun it really is.
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#844Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#845Peter 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
Peter Daszak was also signatory to this weird paper "in support of Chinese scientists".
> We sign this statement in solidarity with all scientists and health professionals in China who continue to save lives and protect global health during the challenge of the COVID-19 outbreak. We are all in this together, with our Chinese counterparts in the forefront, against this new viral threat. The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins. We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife, as have so many other emerging pathogens.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339367143_Statement...
Scary piece of propaganda, considering it was China who started rumours and misinformation, and tying the lab leak hypothesis to not supporting health professionals. All-in-all, a grave conflict of interest for a supposed objective investigation into the origins.
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#846Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's quite accurate: https://thewest.com.au/news/health/who-team-visits-wuhan-res...
I uh, don’t see anything in this article except fluff? It basically says ‘researchers were in wuhan’. The original I read had such helpful statements as ‘the chinese government insisted that every outside researcher was accompanies by a chinese partner’, ‘the government took days to procure the data, and when they finally did, a lot was missing’ and ‘a visit to x was denied for unclear reasons’. I’m sorry, I’m vaguel…
Also an interesting thing - the WIV used to put all their virus sequences in a publically available database. Around autumn 2019 they took it down they said because people were trying to hack it. I think it's still confidential even to the WHO. I mean if they were worried about hackers they could just publish a copy of the data.
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#847I mean, seriously. How many such labs, specialized in research of Coronavirii, are there in China? It certainly looks like a weird coincidence that the first know hotspot is actually close to such a lab.
But of course there are many reports about the virus circulating long before the Wuhan cluster was exposed. Maybe the lab was responsible for that cluster but not the actual first outbreak?
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#848I find it odd that there's no mention at all of the University of North Carolina in any of these articles and threads concerning the handling of deadly pathogens.
Before the BLS4 facility in Wuhan was established in 2017, there was a lot of SARS / Coronavirus research going on at UNC (alongside people from Wuhan's Institute of Virology).
This included 'gain of function' research which attempts to create the means to 'deliver' pathogens via aerosol.
I'm not saying UNC had anything to do with Wuhan itself, but I do notice many articles avoid mentioning that very similar work goes on in other parts of the World.
(I was also amazed that the distance from the Wuhan lab to the fish market is startlingly close).
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#849This 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…
Occam might say there's a bat coronavirus appeared in Wuhan, now where's the nearest source of bat coronaviruses?
I'm not sure that's terribly extraordinary and exotic.
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#850I find it odd that there's no mention at all of the University of North Carolina in any of these articles and threads concerning the handling of deadly pathogens. Before the BLS4 facility in Wuhan was established in 2017, there was a lot of SARS / Coronavirus research going on at UNC (alongside people from Wuhan's Institute of Virology). This included 'gain of function' research which attempts to create the means to…
Can't cover everything in one article I guess.