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

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

#161

Post by clairity » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 6:46 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #137

arcticbull wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also not xenophobic to suggest the possibility of a lab leak because lab leaks happen regardless of who's doing the research; even at BSL-4 facilities, mistakes are made. And also because there were two separate SARS-CoV-1 leaks/outbreaks from Chinese labs which the PRC admitted to. [1] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC403836/

I just want to add: "A government is not the people and the people are not the government." Just in case this needs to be stated for anyone here or reading. If you disagree with a people's government that doesn't mean you should treat the people of said government in a critical manner. Their views do not necessarily reflect that of their government (often they do not, just look at us here in America where criticizing…

the american experiment in democracy was to make the government synonymous with the people. certainly that was pulled back a bit by the republican (as in republic, not the political party) elements by our founders, who were themselves 'elites' of the time. in china, the communist party is meant to be the same: a party of (all) the people.

certainly xenophobia expresses itself acutely in mediopolitical contexts where power and money are on the line, but also in forums like this where such ego boosts are basically costless. it's not really about a distinction between the people and the government.

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

#162

Post by legolas2412 » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #54

s__s wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consequences for gross negligence. Updated international laws. Possible banning of gain of function research. Stronger safety procedures.

How would you know if it's gross negligence or an accident? What consequences are you thinking of that we haven't already done? Hilarious that we want to punish China but we won't punish our own politicians.

> How would you know if it's gross negligence or an accident?

That's a different question from "what difference does it make"

> What consequences are you thinking of that we haven't already done? Sanctions, trade tariffs, political condemnation of an authoritarian state? There are many steps to pressure China before an open war is declared.

> Hilarious that we want to punish China but we won't punish our own politicians.

Why not both? I think Trump is already punished a bit, he lost the election.

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

#163

Post by crooked-v » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

lurquer wrote: post #148

s5300 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if I'm reading this incorrectly and misinterpreting... But Asian hate crimes are waaay up since the beginning of Covid-19 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684 Do you not call this xenophobia? It would be my elementary understanding that this rise in hate crime against Asians may be related to the President of the U.S. aggressively referring to the virus as the "china virus" and broadcasting…

Strange how Asian is equated with Chinese. How insulting. It’s often the typical virtue-signaling liberals who group disparate languages, races, religions, and cultures in one monolithic block. What do you mean by Asian that would encourage one to use the term synonymously with “Chinese”? Are you referring to “people with slanty eyes”? White urban liberals do this a lot... to them, all “brown” people are the same. A…

> Strange how Asian is equated with Chinese.

It's "anti-Asian hate crimes" and not "anti-Chinese hate crimes" because the people being harassed and attacked are from eastern Asian ethnic groups in general, not specifically Chinese ethnic groups.

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

#164

Post by jeduehr » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

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…

Hi, I have a PhD in virology focused on emerging viruses, and a few months back I wrote a very lengthy and involved piece full of sources.

And in there, I describe exactly how wrong your point 1 is. And how misguided your point 3 is.

The post also won a "best of r/science 2020" award!

You can find it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did...

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

#165

Post by Gerardo1 » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

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:…

> but there's no evidence disproving the idea that it was the result of gain of function research.

That's not a lens that can be used to usefully evaluate claims.

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

#166

Post by 99_00 » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 6:55 PM UTC

endisneigh wrote: post #42

Every time this comes I ask - "so what?" So again, I ask - even if it's true, so what? It's impossible to conclusively prove, and even if proven what exactly is proven? That an accident occurred? OK, so what? The article attempts to answer this: > The vitriol also obscures a broader imperative, Relman says, which is that uncovering the virus’s origins is crucial to stopping the next pandemic. Threats from both lab ac…

There are obvious and profound geopolitical implications.

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

#167

Post by jeduehr » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

COGlory wrote: post #106

The evidence is circumstantial, but there has yet to be any evidence ruling it out. To be clear, the lab leak hypothesis is always possible. Things can always leak out of labs, let's not kid ourselves. Some things (going by memory here) that seem to support the hypothesis: 1) Major point of differentiation for this virus is that compared to it's closest known relatives, it has acquired a furin site (eukaryotic protei…

Furin cleavage sites very similar if not largely identical to this one have also been found in nature, and have been generated in nature in very short spans of time (on the order of a few decades, which is what is suspected to have happened with SARS-CoV-2).

I describe the evidence in detail in this detailed longform post I wrote on reddit a few months back: Hi, I have a PhD in virology focused on emerging viruses, and a few months back I wrote a very lengthy and involved piece full of sources.

And in there, I describe exactly how wrong your point 1 is. And how misguided your point 3 is.

The post also won a "best of r/science 2020" award!

You can find it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did...

See under "Addendum to Q2"

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

#168

Post by fsh » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

EMM_386 wrote: post #76

The 2018 US state department cables warning about this possibility can be read here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-state-depart... Please note part (6) regarding WIV scientists studying human-disease causing SARS coronaviruses. Also note this report with the science to back it ("The genetic structure of SARS-CoV-2 does not rule out a laboratory origin"): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.10…

Could you cite where exactly the cable warns about this possibility? I could not find such a statement in the text.

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

#169

Post by jeduehr » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

EMM_386 wrote: post #76

The 2018 US state department cables warning about this possibility can be read here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-state-depart... Please note part (6) regarding WIV scientists studying human-disease causing SARS coronaviruses. Also note this report with the science to back it ("The genetic structure of SARS-CoV-2 does not rule out a laboratory origin"): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.10…

VERY VERY importantly, the cables were not written by or authored by scientists. It was all Trump State Department-hired businessmen and diplomats who inspected the facility and wrote that cable.

Why should we expect them to be good at determining what is a dangerous or risky lab facility?

Notably, in the same cable, they also requested more funding be sent to the facility, so they could conduct more pandemic surveillance work (and possibly prevent outbreaks like this).

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

#170

Post by lamontcg » Fri, Apr 09, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

All of this can be explained by a real simple alternative hypothesis.

Farmed animals like minks and racoon dogs were kept in cramped breeding conditions. Rhinopholous bats infected with sarbecoviruses are also present in Hubei. Those bats probably roosted above the animal pens and shit down on the animals below for years. The animals would periodically become infected. Eventually through mutation or recombination a strain became epidemic in the animals and evolved to be successful in a very closely related ACE2 receptor to humans.

Then you had a large bioreactor which spread the virus doing "gain of function". Eventually it swapped backwards and forward from humans to those animals until it acquired the ability to spread epidemically in humans in late 2019.

That process absolutely could have evolved a furin cleavage site, or it may have simply been present in the bat version of the virus (like the RacCS203 sample from Thai bats). Recombination with human HCoVs may have also happened in this process where the intermediate animal coronavirus infected a worker who also had a cold.

When you read last year about the Danish mink farms with millions of mink being infected with SARS-CoV-2 you should realize that is a much better bioreactor to do natural "gain of function" experiments in than any BSL lab in the world has. Something like that, with a similar species, is likely how the virus hopped from bats to humans.

This actually better explains all of the suspect features of SARS-CoV-2 than a BSL program does.