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

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

#171

Post by jeduehr »

ab7675226 wrote: post #18
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…

Occam's Razor indeed. The lab in Wuhan was studying bats and coronaviruses. Animal transmission is completely consistent with a lab leak, especially given that the virus in question is transmissible before symptoms. The wet market in Wuhan was not selling bats.

Actually occam's razor would say that the many many many more instances of bat-human contact throughout the Chinese countryside are likely responsible, not a lab leak.

Did you know that people use Bat Guano (literally bat shit) eyedrops to cure visual ailments in rural china? Among other risky practices. Bat guano is often handled with bare hands and used to fertilize fields without proper sanitary practices. The many tens of thousands of these events that happen everyday are a MUCH more likely scenario.

I have a PhD in virology and wrote a post all about this on Reddit a while back: 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

#172

Post by citrusybread »

lazide wrote: post #111
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…

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 brough…

>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?

Have you seen one in the last decade? It's changed dramatically, and ranges from an open-air grocery store to yes something more depressing like what is in that wiki article.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whbyuy2nHBg

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

#173

Post by powerapple »

yumraj wrote: post #142
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…

> It's not xenophobic for people from the US.... While racism and xenophobia is real, it has been and is being used very effectively, especially by China but others too, to deflect/blunt genuine criticisms and claims. Just as an amusing example, we talk openly about UK variant, SA variant, Brazil variant - but never talk about original as Wuhan variant - it is simply coronavirus.

the reason behind it is that almost 70% asian experience racism, and we don't see British people being attacked in street randomly

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

#174

Post by temp8964 »

powerapple wrote: post #173
yumraj wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not xenophobic for people from the US.... While racism and xenophobia is real, it has been and is being used very effectively, especially by China but others too, to deflect/blunt genuine criticisms and claims. Just as an amusing example, we talk openly about UK variant, SA variant, Brazil variant - but never talk about original as Wuhan variant - it is simply coronavirus.

the reason behind it is that almost 70% asian experience racism, and we don't see British people being attacked in street randomly

"almost 70% asian experience racism"? Only if you mean how college admission in the U.S. discriminates against Asian kids.

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

#175

Post by AdamJacobMuller »

loveistheanswer wrote: post #67
eightysixfour wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 can say the vast majority of us are not qualified to answer the question either way though. It's also worth noting that even the leading experts can get these things wrong, as was the case with the Sverdlovsk lab leak. Soviet authorities covered it up by blaming local meat markets, and leading US experts concurred with them, only to reverse their conclusion 6 years later. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk…

Never heard about Sverdlosk, interesting story.

> Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar issued a decree to begin demilitarization of Compound 19 in 1992. However, the facility continued its work. Not a single journalist has been allowed onto the premises since 1992. About 200 soldiers with Rottweiler dogs still patrol the complex.

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

#176

Post by xadhominemx »

99_00 wrote: post #166
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.

Such as?

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

#177

Post by Viliam1234 »

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?

What exactly are the good guys supposed to do in a situation where bad guys enjoy the truth: support the noble lie, or hiss "you are not supposed to talk about this"?

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

#178

Post by yumraj »

powerapple wrote: post #173
yumraj wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not xenophobic for people from the US.... While racism and xenophobia is real, it has been and is being used very effectively, especially by China but others too, to deflect/blunt genuine criticisms and claims. Just as an amusing example, we talk openly about UK variant, SA variant, Brazil variant - but never talk about original as Wuhan variant - it is simply coronavirus.

the reason behind it is that almost 70% asian experience racism, and we don't see British people being attacked in street randomly

And other people of color, referring to South Africa and Brazil variants, do not face racism?

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

#179

Post by dandare »

>... for scientists to voice suspicions about a possible lab leak,... especially when there was already a long history of viral disease outbreaks spilling over from nature.

This is a really wired formulation whe we actually know, with absolute certainty, that every pandemic ever suffered was natural.

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

#180

Post by bluGill »

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…

Wet markets are not as sanitary as others. However all evidence we have suggest that covid was first spread there, not that it originated there. Someone got covid - we don't know who or how - and then went to the wet market. That person could have gone to any crowded local venue and spread it just as well, but it seems they didn't.
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