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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?

#391

Post by raducu »

COGlory wrote: post #340
neonological wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why in your opinion is the lab leak so low in probability?

Primarily Occam's razor. The total area available to coronaviruses in the wild to replicate and mutate in is orders of magnitude greater than the area available in a laboratory.

But weren't they doing that exact thing in the Wuhan laboratory -- making coronaviruses infect humanized cells(with the ACE2 receptor)?

Wouldn't the fact that it started in Wuhan point the razor in the direction of lab-escape theory?

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

#392

Post by celticninja »

Jeema101 wrote: post #275
uvesten wrote: post #251

I think most people are confused because of CCP’s successful disinformation campaign, and also out of fear of being seen as prejudiced. The fact is that an epidemic with a corona virus (never before or since seen in the wild) with a peculiarly efficient ability to infect humans started in the _only city in the world with a lab where gain-of-function experiments on corona viruses_ is located. Just apply occam’s razor,…

It could be that you're confusing cause and effect, though. How do we know that the virus (or a precursor) wasn't already circulating in China, and was simply detected in Wuhan because of the fact that there are experts in coronaviruses who reside there? (Also I'm not entirely sure your statement about the gain of function research is correct. A Google search doesn't seem to provide any evidence one way or another.)

Because the problem was not brought to our attention by scientists working in the Wuhan lab, it was brought to our attention by a doctor in a hospital there who noticed the problem. A doctor the CCCP tried to gag and who subsequently died.

So these experts didn't notice/detect a virus right under their noses, or they knew about its existence but could not tell anyone because of fear of the CCCP

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

#393

Post by celticninja »

epistasis wrote: post #355
unclebucknasty wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do we know that the virus [wasn't]...simply detected in Wuhan because of the fact that there are experts in coronaviruses who reside there? Even if true, that would not explain the elaborate story, regarding the wet market there and species-jumping. Also, seems unlikely, as there'd have to be reason to suspect a new virus was circulating at scale that required investigation by these scientists, which could have…

What you misleadingly call an "elaborate story" is exactly the common story of how new disease emerges. It was even in the Sodergbergh movie Contagion from 2011.

Perhaps the story was chosen because of its existence in popular culture, making it more believable.

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

#394

Post by celticninja »

dont__panic wrote: post #350
Consultant32452 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to add another factor in your favor for this hypothesis. Naturally occurring viruses/bacteria tend to evolve to spread most effectively in conditions similar to how animals live: outside. COVID-19, conversely, seems to fair poorly outside and spreads most rapidly in indoor conditions not unlike one would expect in a human run laboratory environment.

Just to play devil's advocate, wouldn't COVID-19 also spread particularly efficiently in, say, a cave? Where bats live?

Wouldn't they have located the cave by now, and a load of bats infected with the virus.

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

#395

Post by jjcc »

bondarchuk wrote: post #206
dataflow wrote: post #199

Earlier 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…

OP made the argument China acted more competently than the west, and that this is suspicious and supports the lab leak hypothesis. Another explanation is that the west simply acted incompetently, while China acted "normally". Unfortunately it's not conceivable to many westerners that their governments are hilariously incompetent. Unfortunately, because it precludes improvement.

There are many stories were filtered out by Western media. Some not by media but could be filtered out by individuals selective ignoring.

For example: China built makeshift hospitals in very short period of time. This one is not filtered. Even Fauci suggested India should do that but in reality not many country can mobilize the resources. Another example is by strict locked down, Wuhan was sacrificed for the sake of all nation. Meanwhile the hospitals over the all country supplied volunteer medical personals and equipment pouring to Wuhan. There were too many registered volunteers even beyond the organizers requested. With enough resource concentrated in one place, covid was quickly under control.

It's mainly due to dictatorship system that other countries can not easily duplicate. This can explain most countries are "incompetent".

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

#396

Post by kmonsen »

TN1ck wrote: post #283
Jeema101 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be that you're confusing cause and effect, though. How do we know that the virus (or a precursor) wasn't already circulating in China, and was simply detected in Wuhan because of the fact that there are experts in coronaviruses who reside there? (Also I'm not entirely sure your statement about the gain of function research is correct. A Google search doesn't seem to provide any evidence one way or another.)

Interesting point, similar to why the „Spanish flu“ is called like that even though it originated in the US.

I thought the Spanish flu originated in China but came to Europe from the U.S., but came to the U.S. from Canada?

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

#397

Post by celticninja »

dirtyid wrote: post #233
didericis wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>I have a difficult time understanding why they would have been arresting doctors who were talking about the virus if it were natural. No doctors were arrested early on. Few got cold tea lectures about spreading rumors that literal SARs returned not novel SARs like virus. Signed boilerplate paperwork and was released back to work. This is generic behavior for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" tier infractions.…

Your first sentence is a complete lie.

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

#398

Post by amriksohata »

The origin of Covid is our greed and lust for wealth. China never ate or consumed Bat of wild animal meat until the last few centuries. Lets ask the Whys?

Why did they start consuming it? Because of the lack of food.

Why was there a lack of food? Because of poverty

Why was there poverty? Multiple years of bad rule.

Why was there so much bad rule? Multiple years of invasions which hooked the population on poppy drugs.

Why were they hooked on these drugs and made poor? So another country could get rich.

Thats the reason we have Covid today. Its called Karma.

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

#399

Post by trompetenaccoun »

followtheplot wrote: post #294

"... proponents of lab escape can explain all the available facts about SARS2 considerably more easily than can those who favor natural emergence." "The natural emergence theory battles a bristling array of implausibilities." This is a fantastic article, but amazingly almost all of it is year-old news. Most of this was known in March 2020, and nearly all of it by the end of 2020. How does it take so long for the trut…

Your article mentions the "Wuhan Institute of Virology", which one also finds named in a couple of news articles and scientific publications. However what is rarely discussed is that the Wuhan CDC (武汉市疾病预防控制中心), which also has a virus lab and was also researching coronaviruses is in walking distance from that wet market! I took a screenshot of it, in the top right is the Huanan Seafood Market, in the bottom the CDC, which includes a virus lab: https://i.imgur.com/smODVQe.png

Unfortunately you won't find it on Google Maps but anyone who is able to read Chinese can check this themselves. All the early cases were centered around this area, including the hospital that treated the first cases. It's absurd that this is almost never talked about anywhere. On the CDC website they had an open position looking for a researcher to study, among others, exactly the kind of bat CoV that's been identified as most closely related to SARS-CoV-2. This has since been deleted but it could still be accessed during the early days of the outbreak.

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

#400

Post by agnosticmantis »

FabHK wrote: post #230
andreareina wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is incorrect to consider only one year. If the probability of an event is 1% each year, you expect the event to happen every 100 years or so. In fact with probability 1 it will happen at some point.
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