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The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

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Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#221

Post by ethor »

pizza234 wrote: post #192

I'm very confused by the article. There has been an extensive analysis by a virologist on Reddit[¹], who claimed that, very simply, SARS-COV2 is a so-called "mosaic" virus, while man-made viruses are inevitably "chimera" ones. The article does not seem to make this distinction. The virologist also chimed on HN (besides, calling BS on people who were, out of ignorance, spreading false beliefs), but it seems he's not p…

I think you should be wary of your semantics, there is seemingly a consensus that the virus is not man-made - the question is if the virus "escaped" from a laboratory in Wuhan (originating from nature, however studied in a controlled environment).

The link you provided does discuss the probability of the virus accidentally leaking from a laboratory, however the reasons provided does not really provide much facts, seemingly more speculation (except for facts regarding who we think is patient zero):

"The WIV, and Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi’s lab group, are extremely well-respected in the virology community. As well respected as many US scientists.

● All the WIV’s sampling of bats and the genomes that they find in bats are publicly available information. Why isn’t SARS-CoV-2 on any of those lists? We would know.

● This doesn’t look anything like any laboratory accident that we’ve seen before.

● The evidence we have points to Patient Zero being nowhere near the City of Wuhan." (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kAHSEx9-eIyVIahczH8itHaUm9j...)

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#222

Post by johncena33 »

astrange wrote: post #131
strogonoff wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with COVID is the precedent of attempts of trying to identify the origin of this new disease being sabotaged for seemingly political reasons (and with no obvious repercussions). It seems intuitive that knowing the origin of the virus (sample escaping a lab or pure nature) could help prevent similar cases in the future or deal with them more efficiently. Is my intuition wrong here?

Even if it's a natural sample that escaped a lab, cleaning up the lab doesn't necessarily help anything because it's not the actual reservoir of the virus.

This sort of reasoning seems very ideologically and politically motivated. It's sad that we live in political climate where millions of people died and almost every single person's life in the planet has been affected and it's absolutely okay to make a statement that "no investigation is necessary".

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#223

Post by darkerside »

pizza234 wrote: post #192

I'm very confused by the article. There has been an extensive analysis by a virologist on Reddit[¹], who claimed that, very simply, SARS-COV2 is a so-called "mosaic" virus, while man-made viruses are inevitably "chimera" ones. The article does not seem to make this distinction. The virologist also chimed on HN (besides, calling BS on people who were, out of ignorance, spreading false beliefs), but it seems he's not p…

It's a false dichotomy between natural and manmade. What about a virus that naturally occurred in a bat cave, was studied in a lab, and escaped from the lab later? What if that virus mutated unintentionally while in the lab? And what if its mutation was encouraged by researchers in the lab?

Occam's Razor, to me, suggests that it's more likely the virus came from the nearby infectious disease lab than from the wet market that operated probably for centuries.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#224

Post by maxerickson »

_trampeltier wrote: post #170

For me it felt allways a bit strange how fast china acted. The virus was very fresh, nothing was known, just a few cases and china totaly locked down millions if people. Two, three months later, when we already had high numbers if cases in the west, lockdowns started in the west also. But everybody said, "we know nothing about this new virus". For me it allways like, china knew much more about the virus early on.

The local officials spent weeks covering up the extent of a fast spreading disease cluster. China didn't act fast.

The expectation should be that officials would act once they determined it was fast spreading, not once thousands of people are sick.

Of course this mistake was repeated in many countries.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#225

Post by exegete »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #196
throwaway4good wrote: post #165

Earlier 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 burden of proof is on the one making the claim and the more extraordinary the claim the more extraordinary the evidence needs to be in my opinion.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#226

Post by darkerside »

anoncake wrote: post #141
koonsolo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you are getting downvoted, because your statement is 100% correct.

I wonder what people who disagree think malice actually is. Randomly harming others without even enjoying it?

It's called masochism

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#227

Post by [deleted] »

didericis wrote: post #214
ximeng wrote: post #157

Earlier 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…

[deleted]

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#228

Post by anoncake »

darkerside wrote: post #226
anoncake wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what people who disagree think malice actually is. Randomly harming others without even enjoying it?

It's called masochism

Masochists like being hurt, and sadists enjoy hurting others which means doing so is in their interest.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#229

Post by DoreenMichele »

johncena33 wrote: post #222
astrange wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it's a natural sample that escaped a lab, cleaning up the lab doesn't necessarily help anything because it's not the actual reservoir of the virus.

This sort of reasoning seems very ideologically and politically motivated. It's sad that we live in political climate where millions of people died and almost every single person's life in the planet has been affected and it's absolutely okay to make a statement that "no investigation is necessary".

Other than in your comment where it's apparently a fabricated quote, I don't see anyone saying that no investigation is necessary.

My assertion is that where it started is unlikely to yield real solutions because I don't think that's what caused it to turn into a giant and ongoing global crisis. I would like more focus on solutions and I don't think finding someone to pin the blame on is likely to move that needle at all.

My life experience suggests that finding a scapegoat tends to do the opposite: After someone's head is on a pike and calls for "justice" have been thereby nominally satisfied, the problem will rage on. Meanwhile, people may make less effort to solve it because they got some sense of satisfaction out of watching heads roll and justice get loudly declared.

Putting heads on a pike won't stop the spread of the virus. It's what many people want because millions have died.

It's not what I want and it has nothing to do with politics. I want people to live and be healthy and I simply don't think this is how that is most likely to be achieved.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#230

Post by FabHK »

andreareina wrote: post #127
Clewza313 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I've been pretty skeptical of the lab theory to date, but: > We visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is an impressive research facility, and looks to be run well, with due regard to staff health. We spoke to the scientists there. We heard that scientists’ blood samples, which are routinely taken and stored, were tested for signs they had been infected. No evidence of antibodies to the coronavirus was fou…

I'm reading it as shorthand for, "The prior probability of a lab escape is low, and we didn't see much evidence for it in this particular case, therefore we conclude that this instance being a lab escape is low", which is a fine argument.

Sure,

> The prior probability of a lab escape is low

but the prior probability of "a pandemic from natural causes envelops the world" is also low, say below 1% a year. But now, given that "a pandemic does envelop the world", the posterior probability of lab escape and natural cause of course rises dramatically... and then saying "we didn't see much evidence for it" on a superficial tour organised by those responsible for the lab does not strike me as a very powerful rebuttal.

It's akin to "the prior probability of labour camps is low", and "on our tour of North Korea (accompanied by several North Korean tour guides showing us just those places they wanted to show us when they wanted to show us) we didn't see any labour camps, therefore we conclude that the probability of labour camps in North Korea is low".

While we're invoking statistics: Take the null H_0 = "the virus emerged naturally in any large Chinese city with > 1m inhabitants". In 2017, there were 102 of those. Thus, the probability under H_0 that the virus emerged in the one city in China with a level 4 biolab has p < 0.01.

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