There’s is a French book just released about this : « Sars-CoV-2, aux origines du mal » by Brice Perrier and an interview also in French https://youtu.be/1wul4z8pmzU
The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?
211–220 of 578 posts
Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. It seems that proponents of the lab leak theory wants to turn the burden of proof upside down: I am claiming conspiracy starting with Anthony Fauci and ending up in a Chinese lab. It is up to you to provide hard evidence on why it is not so. Sure you can do that as in freedom of thought and speech. But honestly; this is not really a constructive way to go about things.
There is nothing to turn upside down. The burden of proof is equal for both theories.
The null hypothesis is "we don't know".
Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187350612... Here is a paper that states that the furin cleavage site appears naturally in a number of viruses. I looked into these lab origin theories for the furin cleavage site last year. The problem with it being a laboratory insertion was that although performing an insertion is relatively easy once you know what to insert, generally it’s beyond current science…
The furin cleavage site in SARS-Cov-2 does not appear in any other SARS-related beta coronavirus (sarbecovirus).
From 2014, Host cell entry of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus after two-step, furin-mediated activation of the spike protein [1]:
> Such furin-mediated activation is unusual in that it occurs in part during virus entry. Our findings may explain the polytropic nature, pathogenicity, and life cycle of this zoonotic coronavirus.
MERS-CoV uses furin cleavage of S1/S2 but it does not bind to ACE2 like SARS-CoV-2.
Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
The natural origin hypothesis is also pushed for ideological reasons - at this level of meta analysis we are at a stalemate. The article was good at revealing that there is not just ideology - but also material interests involved and that the two prestigious letters that were so categorical in dismissing the lab escape hypothesis were quite a bit tainted by conflicts of interests.
I believe the lab origin theory is flawed based on the scientific reasoning, not the meta analysis. I agree that the meta analysis is inconclusive as it is not emphasising the science enough. The feeling I get is China doesn't really want to talk about it because it encourages ideologically motivated people to attack China, and serious scientists are mostly not convinced that this is a lab escape and so don't feel th…
I lean towards the lab hypothesis due to China’s behavior early in the pandemic. I have a difficult time understanding why they would have been arresting doctors who were talking about the virus if it were natural.
The transition from arresting doctors to locking down cities doesn’t make much sense otherwise. You could argue they had motivation to arrest doctors talking about a natural infection if they thought they were spreading fear and disrupting lunar new year festivities, but going to locking down whole cities is about as fear inducing and disruptive as it gets. If that were the motivations for arrest, I’d expect more reluctant and less heavy handed mitigation efforts.
If this were a natural disease and the motivations were to control it as quickly as possible, I’d expect early doctors to be painted as national heroes/propagandized positively very early, similarly to the portrayal of the people that built extra hospital spaces early on.
It’s possible there were different officials involved that changed motivations halfway through, but the lab leak hypothesis offers a more consistent explanation. It makes sense that they would have tried to control the virus quietly if it were a lab leak/wanted to keep it secret, and that they would engage in drastic measures to control it when that didn’t work.
Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?
#215For an alternative perspective on this - the official WHO report covers the lab hypothesis: https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus/origins-of-the... Origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus And unlike the arrticle here, this report is based upon interviews with employees at the lab and various form of documentation provided by the lab. Including health records of the employees. For more from one of the WHO people: http…
Sorry but, interviewing staff at the lab to see if they are responsible? This is like putting a murderer who just pleaded not-guilty in the stand and asking them "did you do it?". What kind of answers were the WHO expecting to get?
Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not trying to quibble on the wording of your comment, but the thing is maybe you find it easy/obvious/whatever to combine those factors to explain this, but to me it's a fair bit of a jump. Here's one way to look at it: if we had asked "how will China respond?" back in the beginning, how well would you have been able to predict their response if you had known the virus was of zoonotic origin? What if you had know…
China responded because they had already suffered from a previous outbreak of SARS. They probably were aware the risks of a highly infectious disease and possibly had contingencies drawn up for this very thing. The UK had planned for what would happen during a global outbreak and the Conservative government scrapped them and 140,000 people died.
The Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingency Committee (THRCC) was scrapped by Boris Johnson in July 2019, and had previously been "mothballed" by Theresa May to focus on Brexit efforts.
Whether the existence of a group of 15 MPs including such luminaries as Michael Gove, Matt Hancock and Gavin Williamson would have made a marked difference is not so obvious.
Existing plans were not scrapped and some believe using these plans actually was a big factor in the lacklustre initial response. The plans were too specific on what had come before (SARS most recently) and didn't allow accommodation of the differences of covid. It took a notable amount of time to change direction.
I'm sure there's plenty of blame to go around if one was inclined to do so, but I don't think disbanding one committee (despite its prescient name) was particularly notable.
Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?
#217If we apply Occam's razor [1] decision between "Wuhan, however, is home of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a leading world center for research on coronaviruses" and "Wuhan, there is a wet market where under certain conditions virus can jump from bat to monkey to person" is relatively straightforward But then, we should probably also apply Hanlon's razor [2] "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explain…
Hanlon's razor does not apply here. The theory outlined in the article does not suggest the lab leak was intentional, but rather an accident. To me, Occam's razor strongly suggests an accidental lab leak.
Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe the lab origin theory is flawed based on the scientific reasoning, not the meta analysis. I agree that the meta analysis is inconclusive as it is not emphasising the science enough. The feeling I get is China doesn't really want to talk about it because it encourages ideologically motivated people to attack China, and serious scientists are mostly not convinced that this is a lab escape and so don't feel th…
I lean towards the lab hypothesis due to China’s behavior early in the pandemic. I have a difficult time understanding why they would have been arresting doctors who were talking about the virus if it were natural. The transition from arresting doctors to locking down cities doesn’t make much sense otherwise. You could argue they had motivation to arrest doctors talking about a natural infection if they thought they…
That's not enough to draw any conclusion - authoritarian governments led by a tiny few are the geopolitical equivalent of a schizophrenic. The smaller the group with absolute power, the more individual personalities, arbitrary interests, and even day-to-day mood dominate the decision making process. The more power is distributed beyond the group, the more policies return to the mean and the less it varies from day to day.
China has the added wrinkle that it's so large that national authorities policies' can vary wildly from local and regional responses for a long time while the bureaucrats play a game of telephone.
Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find it hard to take seriously any “scientist” that dismisses an idea as a “conspiracy theory” (i.e. a concept developed by the CIA specifically to discredit political opponents) as opposed to using actual rational / scientific arguments. At best, it demonstrates intellectual laziness, at worst a political / ideological conviction, neither of which is a hallmark of a good scientist.
Conspiracy theories are as old as humanity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories What makes you think that they are a concept developed by the CIA?
Even the exact phrase "conspiracy theory" predates the CIA by at least 40 years. So it seems the poster's theory about the origin of the conspiracy theory is, reflectively, a conspiracy theory itself. Given that the CIA is so often the subject of such conspiracy theories, I suspect irony might have been employed.
Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe the lab origin theory is flawed based on the scientific reasoning, not the meta analysis. I agree that the meta analysis is inconclusive as it is not emphasising the science enough. The feeling I get is China doesn't really want to talk about it because it encourages ideologically motivated people to attack China, and serious scientists are mostly not convinced that this is a lab escape and so don't feel th…
I lean towards the lab hypothesis due to China’s behavior early in the pandemic. I have a difficult time understanding why they would have been arresting doctors who were talking about the virus if it were natural. The transition from arresting doctors to locking down cities doesn’t make much sense otherwise. You could argue they had motivation to arrest doctors talking about a natural infection if they thought they…
> [...] China’s behavior early in the pandemic. I have a difficult time understanding why they would have been arresting doctors who were talking about the virus if it were natural.
I'm ambivalent about the two hypotheses, but China's early behaviour fits either, I think. I do think that the instinct of the regional bureaucracy is to control the flow of information, and punish those that proceed outside the party hierarchy (even if there was no foul play/bad conscience/anything to hide).