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

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

#971

Post by dang » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 12:11 AM UTC

saas_sam wrote: post #955

dang wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This breaks the site guidelines. Please review them and stick to the rules when posting here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I don't see any guidelines I violated.

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#972

Post by 2-tpg » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 1:00 AM UTC

bgandrew wrote: post #951

Uberphallus wrote: post #886

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in Wuhan, but it's not that clear that it's where it originated. The genetic divergence between RaTG13 and SARS-CoV-2 is explained with about 20 years of natural evolution, which puts the common ancestor somewhere in late 2000s, and given that bats migrate, the ancestor occurred potentially anywhere in Eurasia or even Africa. Post-hoc analysis of waste water and patient samples in Europe…

"Post-hoc analysis of waste water and patient samples in Europe shows that it was circulating in Europe by mid-late 2019, way before the patient 0 in Wuhan." now this is what's called a conspiracy theory.

> ROME (Reuters) - The new coronavirus was circulating in Italy in September 2019, a study by the National Cancer Institute (INT) of the Italian city of Milan shows, signaling that it might have spread beyond China earlier than thought.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-tim...

It is plausible that the virus was spread before recognized and treated as a global pandemic. Few flights were banned for months. Chinese tourists were in Italy up until the lockdowns.

But very often this "appeared outside China" is deflection and falsely invoked. Mind you that Reuters write: "it might have spread beyond China earlier than thought". Not: It came from Italy to China, and only became problematic in Wuhan. Every time China is reluctantly forced to move back the timeline on its patient 0, it starts pushing a narrative of COVID outside of China just a few months before their patient 0. It is a tiring use of an obvious and plausible bait-and-switch.

We already knew that Western expats and their relations in Wuhan got viral pneumonia in November 2019, while by January 2020, China did not consider it wise to inform the world of human-to-human transmission.

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

#973

Post by kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 1:12 AM UTC

josefresco wrote: post #917

plibither8 wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Frankly, I'm tired of this tip-toed attitude - there hasn't been any sort of consequences suffered or imposed on the Chinese government for how they surreptitiously dealt with the virus, initially. I'm not condoning or advocating conspiracy theories, but where they are wrong, they should be penalised.

Based on your logic, should US political leaders face repercussions or be penalized for their mishandling of the virus?

Yes, absolutely. Leaders who knew about it (many senators, trump, etc) and did nothing are criminally liable for deaths.

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

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Post by mensetmanusman » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 1:45 AM UTC

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.

You may be misunderstanding expert opinion in prior elicitation. Many labs in the last century have had lab leaks. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incide...

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

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Post by strogonoff » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 1:46 AM UTC

heavyset_go wrote: post #965

twelve40 wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But some things make no sense at all. The most populated country on the planet - a vast, vast population across the area almost as big as the US - has been inexplicably reporting almost zero infections since like March 10, 2020 (way before any vaccines) while the rest of the world (except small and isolated regions), the richest and presumably the most advanced societies still can't get their shit together, are still…

Some sick people had the doors to their homes welded shut by the government in China so that they wouldn't spread COVID.

Not just sick people. Videos showed how this was done on entire apartment buildings, if you happened to live in one you’re out of luck even if you didn’t get infected.

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

#976

Post by strogonoff » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 1:52 AM UTC

twelve40 wrote: post #774

unishark wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But some things make no sense at all. The most populated country on the planet - a vast, vast population across the area almost as big as the US - has been inexplicably reporting almost zero infections since like March 10, 2020 (way before any vaccines) while the rest of the world (except small and isolated regions), the richest and presumably the most advanced societies still can't get their shit together, are still…

A lot of the area is countryside and is to large extent ignored. Read articles on one-child policy, which was mostly followed in large cities only and resulted in millions of “extra” children growing up essentially outside of the system with no access to healthcare or education.

It seems plausible that infection stats from deep country are not faithfully reported or even collected. That said, what they did do is really complicate domestic travel, which means infections stay contained as a result.

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

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Post by newbie2020 » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 2:38 AM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #158

My understanding of the author's central thesis is this: the US, despite its world-class virology and disease study labs, regularly has lapses in procedure that regularly lead to situations in which the public might be exposed. Given that this is happening in our own backyard, we might reasonably expect countries of similar status (like China) to experience similar lapses. That reads as reasonable to me, but raises a…

Covid is special because it arrived at just the right time to be politically useful.

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

#978

Post by thedailymail » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

MichaelBurge wrote: post #539

IgorPartola wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My naive reasoning on why China didn’t create COVID-19 with the intention of using it is that I suspect (unburdened by education or the thought process) that engineering a virus is as difficult as coming up with a vaccine or treatment. If you are developing some kind of super virus to shut down the world economy and then immunize your own people to take advantage of the situation, wouldn’t you have the cure ready to…

> Quite possible that engineering a deadly and very infectious virus is easier than creating a cure or a vaccine by orders of magnitude. "Moderna designed its coronavirus vaccine in 2 days" was a headline I saw. And it's been approved by the FDA. So that seems demonstrably false. Multiple companies have come up with a vaccine by now, too.

To be fair, "designing" a vaccine is not the same as testing it to show that it is acceptably safe and effective in humans. That said, the time from design to deployment was amazingly short.

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

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Post by justpassing9 » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 3:03 AM UTC

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…

Yes, let’s agree not to demonize the country committing genocide against uighurs or they might throw us in camps next.

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

#980

Post by alephr » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 8:09 AM UTC

tripletao wrote: post #537

alephr wrote: post #276

A lot of the discussion I see on this hinges on possibility and not strongly believing the claim is false. Sure, this theory is "possible" in some sense but I rarely see anyone presenting concrete evidence for it and I don't think I've seen anyone who supports it suggest a piece of evidence that would change their mind on it. If most of the discussion on an idea is about how people dismiss it or how any evidence is b…

I believe it's quite possible (p ~ 0.5) that the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic originated from a lab accident. If the proximal animal host were identified--as it was for both MERS and the original SARS within about a year--then I'd drop that probability by at least a factor of ten. For references see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26127197 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26129052

well that's a start, kudos for the probability and evidence that would shift it.

Like most people I haven't looked into any of this much before the last year so I'm far from knowledgeable here but:

.5 is a surprising number without any additional explanation because it suggests you think this is about as likely as a zoonotic origin (or at least not specifically the result of an accident). Does that probably extend to other viral outbreaks or is it specific to something? My baseline probability would be significantly lower (although non zero because I'm not denying the possibility; the article makes the case that lab safety is a concern worldwide) based on my, admittedly limited, understanding of past outbreaks. Is it the case that you think about as many viral outbreaks were due to lab accidents as not? or maybe this is more specific to coronaviruses or this specific virus? I'm curious how you'd model this, even if informal.