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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

#931

Post by Izkata »

nemothekid wrote: post #583
Graffur wrote: post #461

Science, like journalism, is supposed to be about facts and about getting to the truth. No source of covid-19 has been found. Similar lab leaks happen frequently. BUT.. you're not allowed to discuss it with the undertones that you're a bad person. If you say china virus you could be accused of being a racist. But if you say South African or British variant it's okay. The mental acrobats are insane. If you suggest peo…

I’m baffled at what branch of science involves being able to call it the “China virus” rather than COVID. When was Science about prescribing blame?

Well, to be a bit pedantic those aren't the same thing. "China virus", or an alternative that used to be more common, "Wuhan virus", refer to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 - a disease that not everyone who is infected with the virus gets.

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

#932

Post by coliveira »

koheripbal wrote: post #246
coliveira wrote: post #129

Except that experts have visited Wuhan and never found evidence of the theory proposed in this article. I think it is time to stop spreading even more disinformation about this deadly disease. If the US government had taken the virus seriously as the Chinese did, we most certainly wouldn't be in this situation.

China blocked investigators from going to Wuhan Institute of Virology.

This is a conspiration theory, it doesn't matter how much the investigators do, they'll aways say that China is still hiding something.

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

#933

Post by esja »

boringg wrote: post #920
esja wrote: post #888

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Part 1, from 2014-2019, for 3.7M: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8674931 Part 2, from 2019 until it was cancelled in April 2020: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9819304 Both led by Peter Daszak who is now also the lead WHO investigator. The same person who decided the WHO didn’t need to see the deleted virus databases, and the same person who co-ordinated the Lancet statement which minimised…

Seems like there continues to be more to this story. Still doesn't change my opinion that that is likely the source of the outbreak. I will adjust my priors as more information becomes available. It does complicate things quite a bit - would be great to know how much funding the US portion is vs the Chinese.

I agree the Wuhan lab leak remains the most likely explanation. I think these additional details support that theory, as they verify that this activity was indeed taking place in Wuhan, while also helping explain the unusual behaviour of all the people who should be investigating but seem instead to be constantly deflecting.

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

#934

Post by boringg »

esja wrote: post #933
boringg wrote: post #920

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like there continues to be more to this story. Still doesn't change my opinion that that is likely the source of the outbreak. I will adjust my priors as more information becomes available. It does complicate things quite a bit - would be great to know how much funding the US portion is vs the Chinese.

I agree the Wuhan lab leak remains the most likely explanation. I think these additional details support that theory, as they verify that this activity was indeed taking place in Wuhan, while also helping explain the unusual behaviour of all the people who should be investigating but seem instead to be constantly deflecting.

Agree seems like we have the incentives lined up and the least plausible scenario without new information. Likely will never get to the bottom of this.

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

#935

Post by bosswipe »

ttt0 wrote: post #173
bosswipe wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From FB's policy https://www.facebook.com/help/230764881494641 " Claims that it was created by an individual, government, or country Excluding claims that it was studied in, came from, or leaked from a lab without specifically calling it man-made" So discussing possibility of a lab leak is not a problem, it's the deliberate bioweapon aspect that they're banning. "The goal of this policy is to remove common viral hoax…

> So discussing possibility of a lab leak is not a problem, it's the deliberate bioweapon aspect that they're banning. And the virus being man-made is not a possibility? https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debat...

Things aren't black and white, free-speech vs evil. The editor's note on your link illustrates the problem.

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

#936

Post by garmaine »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #894
garmaine wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

It's much more than just a "guess." Calling it a "guess" is trivializing quite well established evolutionary biology. > "Decades" worth of mutations can happen in a single immune-compromised host in a matter of weeks. SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating for a year now. The number of mutations it has undergone is a tiny fraction of the number of mutations separating RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2. > fwiw I'd love a source for that…

> Second of all, RaTG13 has never been isolated. It exists as fragments of RNA in a fecal swab. Its genome has been reconstructed from sequences of RNA samples, but actually extracting a replicating virus from a fecal swab is a major undertaking.

The lab in question was sent tissue samples extracted from the miners who died of RaTG13. These presumably would have live virus on them.

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

#937

Post by tripletao »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #801
tripletao wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying this, but it's not true; SARS-like viruses haven't been found in nature near Wuhan. In the words of Dr. Shi herself: > We have done bat virus surveillance in Hubei Province for many years, but have not found that bats in Wuhan or even the wider Hubei Province carry any coronaviruses that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2. I don't think the spillover from bats to humans occurred in Wuhan or in Hubei…

You've said elsewhere that you think it's reasonable to to suppose they have unpublished samples that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2, indeed that's your central claim. So why do you trust this statement about their sampling results but not the one about not having anything closer than RaTG13 [18.5, p6]?

Honestly, I don't fully. From a standpoint of a lab accident, evidence of natural zoonosis near Wuhan would be exculpatory and they'd have no reason to conceal it. But the CCP also seems to be pushing to exclude any origin whatsoever within China, like with their frozen food theory (which is thoroughly rejected by almost all scientists physically outside China, but which the WHO team nonetheless seems to be considering).

So I think it's entirely possible e.g. that China has confidently determined the non-lab origin of SARS-CoV-2, but that it's from an agricultural practice so reckless that they've decided it's better for their reputation to leave everything shrouded in doubt. It's much more obvious to me that China is concealing something than what they're concealing. (Of course, that's usually how concealing stuff works.)

That said, I still think zoonosis near Wuhan is unlikely. In a pre-pandemic publication with no incentive to lie, the WIV studied antibodies to SARS-like viruses in the blood of people living near bats in Yunnan province. They used blood from people living in Wuhan as a negative control:

> As a control, we also collected 240 serum samples from random blood donors in 2015 in Wuhan, Hubei Province more than 1000 km away from Jinning (Fig. 1A) and where inhabitants have a much lower likelihood of contact with bats due to its urban setting.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6178078/

So while it's possible that natural zoonosis did occur in Wuhan, I believe that would require the WIV staff to be genuinely mistaken.

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

#938

Post by codezero »

wayoutthere wrote: post #893
codezero wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve come to terms in understanding China’s actions by this assumption, which is made up by me, but seems true enough and maybe even true for most nation states when pushed against a wall: They are acting without any concern for the outside world - not for how they are perceived, not for any consequences. They are acting with pure self-determination. This works because they know they can be self sufficient and have a…

I think this is an oversimplification. Chinese culture places a lot of value on saving face — so low and mid-level bureaucrats will massage the numbers so as not to appear to be the weak link in the chain. Do this at every level of an enormous country and you can see how hard it is to even know the truth when the first instinct is to cover everything up, even if it’s a scandal that won’t be published outside China. O…

100% agree it's an oversimplification, and appreciate the view on how white people would be treated there socially.

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

#939

Post by varjag »

tehjoker wrote: post #928
varjag wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a conspiracy in the sense of pre-meditated plan by a group of villains. It can well be a cover-up, which is a daily life in places like China. In USSR, every technological, radiologic or biological disaster was covered up, surfacing only when it was impossible to conceal.

I urge you to google "cover-up" and "conspiracy" and see how often those words are used together. Yes, governments tend to avoid releasing embarrassing info. Witness the way the US government failed to prepare for the virus and pretended everything would be fine and then only made changes when they couldn't possibly do anything else which probably is responsible for killing 500,000 people.

There is a reason these are two different words: they describe somewhat overlapping, but distinct concepts.

I'm not sure why you bring the American COVID response into this: its ineptitude was never even close to a secret, and the role of 45th administration in it is hardly disputed. If this is a kind of a "no u" response, well am not an American anyway.

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

#940

Post by varjag »

epakai wrote: post #916
varjag wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happens in the comments here still, and not necessarily a malice. A kneejerk reaction to any claim amplified by the former administration, even if it's "the sky is blue". Same reason many otherwise sane folks mourned Soleimani.

Nobody was mourning Soleimani. This is a ridiculous straw man. Soleimani's assassination was problematic on a number of fronts, and people were right to criticize it.

Plenty were mourning Soleimani, and Twitter just couldn't shut up for a while about how the world is on the way to WW3 over this. It however turned out to be perhaps the most useful FP action of that administration.
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