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Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

technologyreview.com

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Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#111

Post by lazide »

lhorie wrote: post #75
metalliqaz wrote: post #37

it's not xenophobic, but xenophobic people really love to talk about it. that's the problem with the discourse. of course the irony is that it doesn't even matter. We already know China (1) tried to cover it up, screwing the rest of the world, and (2) has poor wet market sanitation practices that seem designed to cultivate these kinds of diseases. Those issues are already bad enough.

> has poor wet market sanitation practices Honest question: Is that a fair/accurate generalization to make? If Hell's kitchen episodes and accounts from food industry workers are any indication, sanitation practices in food handling establishments elsewhere are not necessarily always stellar either. And surely China has some equivalent of WholeFoods? One ought to be careful not to attribute a characteristic different…

Have you seen a easy Asian wet market in person before? If you’re comparing it to Whole Foods I’m not sure you have?

The term itself is somewhat ambiguous [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_market] in that it can cover both cases. However the style common in many places in China (and many other areas in east Asia) is one where there is no refrigeration or adequate sanitation. To avoid spoilage, animals are brought in live and slaughtered as needed to provide meat. It can be when a customer picks it, or when needed to stock a counter.

These styles of market are problematic disease wise because it brings many species of animals together in crowded and often unsanitary conditions, high stress, with humans in close contact with them, and lots of people and animals coming and going constantly.

If you’re looking for a way to encourage Zoonotic disease, it’s hard to do better.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#112

Post by Buttons840 »

eightysixfour wrote: post #55
loveistheanswer wrote: post #23

Judging by the comments in this thread, it seems a lot of people are still unaware that: 1. Gain of function research primarily uses samples collected from nature, and seeks to stimulate their evolution in as natural a way as possible to learn how viruses evolve in nature. If such viruses were to escape the lab, they would appear "natural" 2. It's not xenophobic for people from the US to suggest the possibility of a…

I feel like people are doing a poor job distinguishing between "engineered" and "leaked." There is, from my understanding, reasonable evidence to conclude the virus was not engineered from the perspective of "we took genes from one virus and moved them to this virus," but there's no evidence disproving the idea that it was the result of gain of function research. My personal feeling is that these statements are true:…

I like this presentation of evidence. Rarely do you see such a short acknowledgement that there are multiple contradictory theories, each having some evidence, and making no attempt to pick which theory is correct.

Sometimes its wrong to present "both sides" like that. Like pretending the evidence against the moon landings is equal to the evidence for the moon landings. But if you're going to be wrong, this is probably the best kind of wrong.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#113

Post by moosey »

The most likely candidate for this virus, and most future viruses that produce pandemics, will be environmental destruction and animal agriculture.

We know there are novel viruses out there, too many to count. Even if this started in a lab the most likely reason is that scientists need to study the viruses that we will be coming into contact with as we commit, as a species, to more environmental destruction. I'm really exhausted of watching scientists get blamed repeatedly for the failures of our economic and social systems to act responsibly.

Sure, the lab hypothesis might have some weight, some possibility of being true. It's still a red herring, either a distraction from the real issues we face by accident or design, or both.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#114

Post by T-A »

newacct583 wrote: post #2

Almost no theories can be "ruled out" in this space. Viruses evolve in crazy and essentially unobservable ways. Nonetheless, we know there was a close relative documented in bats on the same continent within a comparable timeframe. The clearly obvious hypothesis is that animal transmission was the vector, for the simple reason that this is the way every single other pandemic, human or otherwise, has happened. There i…

> The clearly obvious hypothesis is that animal transmission was the vector

Except nobody has been able to identify that animal. With SARS it was quickly determined to be civets, with MERS camels. With Covid, more than a year on, we still don't know.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/26/1021263/bat-covi...

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#115

Post by [deleted] »

endisneigh wrote: post #92
engineer_22 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good, I'm glad we agree that investigation matters :)

You've completely misunderstood my point. My point is that we're McDonalds - not Chipotle. Should McDonalds be investigating Chipotle's problems or their own? It's really that simple... If you believe McDonalds in this analogy should be investigating the origins of Chipotle's problems as opposed to resolving their ongoing issue then we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[deleted]

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#116

Post by guerrilla »

brigandish wrote: post #69
metalliqaz wrote: post #37

it's not xenophobic, but xenophobic people really love to talk about it. that's the problem with the discourse. of course the irony is that it doesn't even matter. We already know China (1) tried to cover it up, screwing the rest of the world, and (2) has poor wet market sanitation practices that seem designed to cultivate these kinds of diseases. Those issues are already bad enough.

> but xenophobic people really love to talk about it All too often I see this used as the standard for labelling someone a xenophobe and it becomes a classic case of begging the question. Since we all agree it's not xenophobic to speak about it, perhaps it's time we wait for actual xenophobia before making what should be serious accusations?

It's not the worst rule of thumb as long as the social context is taken into account (i.e. it wouldn't be as appropriate here.) Heuristics do save time.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#117

Post by cthalupa »

lhorie wrote: post #75
metalliqaz wrote: post #37

it's not xenophobic, but xenophobic people really love to talk about it. that's the problem with the discourse. of course the irony is that it doesn't even matter. We already know China (1) tried to cover it up, screwing the rest of the world, and (2) has poor wet market sanitation practices that seem designed to cultivate these kinds of diseases. Those issues are already bad enough.

> has poor wet market sanitation practices Honest question: Is that a fair/accurate generalization to make? If Hell's kitchen episodes and accounts from food industry workers are any indication, sanitation practices in food handling establishments elsewhere are not necessarily always stellar either. And surely China has some equivalent of WholeFoods? One ought to be careful not to attribute a characteristic different…

They aren't equivalent, and it's not even solely a factor of sanitation. You are keeping tons of live animals in cages in close proximity to each other and tons of people. Stress is extremely effective at weakening immune response, which makes it easier for pathogens to replicate, jump hosts, and jump species. Now the pathogen is an a different environment, which begins to force adaptation, which is to say the pathogens that mutate in beneficial ways to their new environment begin to outcompete the rest. And this just keeps happening. And happening. And happening. And with new strains of disease brought in from pathogen reservoirs in the wild.

There's only so much good sanitation processes could even achieve here, in the same way there's only so much that bad sanitation processes at a restaurant can do. Bad sanitation in a restaurant almost always means an increase in known pathogens that we can either take care of fairly easily, or even in the worst case scenarios of something such as botulism, have limited ability to spread among the general population.

The risk of an unsanitized kitchen is just totally different from that of even a somewhat sanitized wet market.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#118

Post by 99_00 »

moosey wrote: post #113

The most likely candidate for this virus, and most future viruses that produce pandemics, will be environmental destruction and animal agriculture. We know there are novel viruses out there, too many to count. Even if this started in a lab the most likely reason is that scientists need to study the viruses that we will be coming into contact with as we commit, as a species, to more environmental destruction. I'm real…

The question of a lab leak is not incidental. The virus has caused massive suffering (and will continue to as we understand the fallout IMO).

If it leaked from a lab and that was hidden from the world we have to wonder how much suffering could have been avoided if all the information was given freely as Chinese authorities knew it.

There are some who suggest the virus was allowed to spread beyond China as a way to ensure China didn't fall behind competivley. Pure speculation, but we need to knowing if it came from a lab is a hugely important question.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#119

Post by hnbad »

cthalupa wrote: post #117
lhorie wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has poor wet market sanitation practices Honest question: Is that a fair/accurate generalization to make? If Hell's kitchen episodes and accounts from food industry workers are any indication, sanitation practices in food handling establishments elsewhere are not necessarily always stellar either. And surely China has some equivalent of WholeFoods? One ought to be careful not to attribute a characteristic different…

They aren't equivalent, and it's not even solely a factor of sanitation. You are keeping tons of live animals in cages in close proximity to each other and tons of people. Stress is extremely effective at weakening immune response, which makes it easier for pathogens to replicate, jump hosts, and jump species. Now the pathogen is an a different environment, which begins to force adaptation, which is to say the pathog…

I've been to "fish markets" in Germany that kept live animals (mostly poultry and rabbits) in cages in close proximity to each other and tons of people. Just because it's uncommon or illegal in the US doesn't mean it's exotic or unusual in the rest of the world. We only freak out about "wet markets" because 1) the name sounds gross (but it's catchier than "perishable goods street market", I guess) and 2) orientalism.

Re: Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

#120

Post by ufo »

T-A wrote: post #114
newacct583 wrote: post #2

Almost no theories can be "ruled out" in this space. Viruses evolve in crazy and essentially unobservable ways. Nonetheless, we know there was a close relative documented in bats on the same continent within a comparable timeframe. The clearly obvious hypothesis is that animal transmission was the vector, for the simple reason that this is the way every single other pandemic, human or otherwise, has happened. There i…

> The clearly obvious hypothesis is that animal transmission was the vector Except nobody has been able to identify that animal. With SARS it was quickly determined to be civets, with MERS camels. With Covid, more than a year on, we still don't know. https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/26/1021263/bat-covi...

IIRC it took more than a year for people to conclude it was the civets.
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