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How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com

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Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#231

Post by newacct583 »

hungryforcodes wrote: post #157
handmodel wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would believe that Covid started elsewhere in China before believing in started in a wet market in Wuhan. It is extremely unlikely to start there given that isn't where the bats in China are or where new corona viruses are. In fact, if you read any research that had been published by the WIV on coronoaviruses pre-2020 they all start by talking about expeditions to collect bat droppings 1500 miles away.

So one bad flew 2400 kilometers, bit some people in Wuhan, then died? It started in Wuhan spontaneously. There are no intermediary COVID19 infections in a migration trail of any kind from those bat reservoirs in Yunnan to Hubei.

> There are no intermediary COVID19 infections in a migration trail of any kind from those bat reservoirs in Yunnan to Hubei.

Can you cite a few other diseases where the evolution was traced back in multiple species across that kind of distance? Where did ebola come from? MERS? At best you get the immediate host, or as with covid a somewhat close relative.

You're demanding proof that simply doesn't exist for any other disease and then citing the absence of that impossible proof as evidence for your conspiracy theory that has even less evidence in support.

I mean, fine, we only have that one bat in Yunaan. OK. Fair point. You have zero samples from that lab.

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#232

Post by newacct583 »

thu2111 wrote: post #212
newacct583 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if the lab leak theory turns out to be true, how will people deal with the fact that they've been vehemently disregarding it as a "Q-anon conspiracy theory"? If the lab leak theory turns out to be true, I'll admit I was wrong about my intuition. It's not impossible, but it's extremely unlikely. We've had literally thousands of new virus strains evolve in the past century of viral research and like three known "l…

Three leaks? Where did you get that number? Lab leaks are extremely common, far more common than 3 in the last century! Quoting the Wade article this article starts by referencing: The smallpox virus escaped three times from labs in England in the 1960’s and 1970’s, causing 80 cases and 3 deaths. Dangerous viruses have leaked out of labs almost every year since. Coming to more recent times, the SARS1 virus has proved…

Lab leaks of novel diseases. I mean, duh, if you culture stuff that's already endemic it's going to get out.

I'm saying that if you take any strain of any human disease anywhere, and ask the question "is this a naturally evolved pathogen or was it cultured in a lab?", Darwin wins by a factor of like ten thousand. Yet... somehow no one thinks that's a relevant fact?

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#233

Post by theptip »

3327 wrote: post #172
InTheArena wrote: post #2

Just so people know who is posting this - Donald McNeil Jr was the chief voice at NYT focusing on covid. He was ousted earlier because of some remarks that he allegedly made to a school group a few years ago, but before that, the NYT was pushing for him to get a Pulitzer for his reporting on COVID. Him starting legitimize the lab-leak theory as possible is reflective of the people more generally taking the lab-leak h…

Its astonishing “scientist” in labs are so detached from the real world and dismissive as always. The virus wasn’t tampered with. Th lab in Wuhan is “GAIN OF FUNCTION” testing. read it again. Gain of function means nudging viral samples so they gain functions on their own without human gene editing or modification that can easily be traced. Why now? Why not 5 years ago? The animal markets have always been there. Occa…

Your logic here isn’t sound. “Why not 5 years ago?” - the mechanism here is that each year there is a low but non-zero probability of a virus jumping to humans.

That is why you have infrequent intermittent epidemics like Spanish Flu, or more recently SARS, and not constant evolution of new crossover viruses.

It seems that crossovers happen more on the timescale of decades than mere years. (Though I’m excluding crossovers of unviable infections that don’t go anywhere, of course).

None of the above argues against the lab escape theory. As the OP details it’s possible. Just your specific line of reasoning here oversimplifies, hence the downvotes.

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#234

Post by Godel_unicode »

katbyte wrote: post #169
swader999 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 68 flu killed between 1-4 million, so the high end in that one would be comparable to what we see with covid.

1-4 that didn’t shutdown the wold isn’t comparable to covid nearing 4 million verified and likely far higher despite many actions and lockdowns taken. I’d much rather have lived through a 68 flu then covid thank you

In 1968:

- The population was much less densely gathered

- The world population was roughly half what it is today

- There was much less air travel

- Testing was much worse

- Statistics about mortality were much less evenly gathered

There are worse things than lockdown.

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#235

Post by Rapzid »

I think this ignores why the "lab leak" theory was being squashed in public:

1. There was no evidence

2. The conspiracies going around in early days prompting the response was that China manufactured the virus as a weapons and/or released it on purpose.

3. There was no evidence

People were reading the WHO reports as information was coming in and they were talking about no transmission outside familial groups and saying "Ahah! The WHO is in China's pocket, they were lying about the virus!" or "They are incompetent and don't know what they are doing!". Zero understanding that the reports were pretty much just raw information and analysis on what was known at the time.

This was just over a year ago peeps, but people were forgetting like 2 months on haha.

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#236

Post by ddingus »

AstralStorm wrote: post #183
ddingus wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of cooperation complicates all of this, which was my primary point.

The problem is, there is nothing to cooperate in. Any source or fact given by Chinese government or scientists will not be trusted.

It is necessary for global involvement. Direct research, investigations, data collection, the works.

Being open enough to understand what is actual is the cooperation.

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#237

Post by encryptluks2 »

cudgy wrote: post #134
encryptluks2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the heresay comes from people like Donald Trump and the longer the Democrats ignore the theory the more credibility they lose and give to him, even if the way he said it was inflammatory. Seems like it would be far less destructive to bring it out into the open now than to just let people think that someone calling it the Kung Flu was more transparent than the political party that pretended like the lab leak is…

The Democrats (and the many “gullible” reporters like the one that wrote the referenced link) are simply waiting this out in hopes the average reader forgets that Trump and others including a few brave scientists pointed towards the obvious possibility of a lab leak early in the pandemic.

And were subsequently labeled racist and likely lost their jobs.

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#238

Post by titzer »

randomdude402 wrote: post #213
swader999 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always ask these flat earthers to explain how we see the coriolis effect when firing long range rifles or artillery. Naw, I'm lying, I've never met a serious flat earther online or in person. I think it's a device used in lazy debate rather than a set of real breathing thinking people. Even the flat earth society appears to be just a fun group that meets socially more than scientifically.

I have also never met a flat earther, or seen any discourse online that seems like such. I am not convinced that they exist in nearly the kinds of numbers that folks like to suggest.

Just watch this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behind_the_Curve

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#239

Post by lamontcg »

tripletao wrote: post #195
lamontcg wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They know an investigation of the origins pins it on China. With a zoonotic source China is still at fault. As an authoritarian regime that outcome undermines them. A bunch of Americans angry about the lab leak theory works fine for them, that just enhances the bunker mentality for their own domestic consumption. And they're more worried about domestic politics now and spinning propaganda than they are about preventi…

I agree that the CCP's incentives are to oppose such an investigation regardless of the true origin, especially after they've spent months digging in to that position. But if our goal is to reduce the risk of future pandemics, then do you have a better idea for a policy action to achieve that?

Yes. That's why I'm pointing it out.

People get Big Mad at China over the lab leak theory.

I'm quite annoyed at China over deflecting investigation of the zoonotic origins because we're risking SARS-3 more or less.

But the people yelling about the lab leak hypothesis are also useful idiots in deflecting investigation of the zoonotic origins, so I'm equally annoyed at them.

It wasn't a lab leak. We aren't going to do anything about it. Something like it will probably happen again.

I'm just stockpiling some nice N95s once the prices crash in a year or three. The human race, in general, is too collectively stupid and too easily manipulated to stop this from happening again (and everyone in this thread is part of the problem).

[ And yes, everyone in this thread angry at the CCP I view as equally as bad as the CCP in being useless at preventing learning anything that'll prevent a future pandemic. A pox on both your houses. ]

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#240

Post by monkeycantype »

School-Cotton wrote: post #48
monkeycantype wrote: post #26

The accidental lab leak theory proven would actually be great news, as the alternative is that civilization has reached the threshold where we have a hyper connected population in contact with so many natural disease reservoirs that pandemics are emerging spontaneously. If it’s a lab leak we change pathogen containment practices, otherwise we curtain our freedom of movement and association

Are you claiming that Covid is particularly severe relative to historical pandemics, or that Covid-level issues are a particularly modern phenomenon? In fact the opposite is true. If it had emerged in any other century, Covid would barely even be on anyone’s radar.

Hello Umanwizard, I'll try to make that less ambiguous. What I mean is, over the last century it has become common to believe that we are taming pathogens - smallpox, polio, maybe malaria next, diseases that have been with us for a very long time. As our technology enables this, I fear another trend pushes us in the opposite direction, that as we encroach further and further into fuller exploitation of remaining wilderness we are encountering novel potential pathogens at a greater rate, and our highly connected single global population means that transmission happens very quickly. So my question doesn't concern the lethality of Covid, rather that is is novel and has spread globally quickly - whether this might be an early data point in a future data set, that will indicate we are now be generating new novel pandemics at a greater rate. If that is the case, that will be a more difficult problem to solve than the problem of lax lab safety.

There are interesting points in this thread, about how well we would respond to confirmation that the pandemic was triggered by a lab leak, so I'm not saying that there would be a good outcome from knowing it was a lab leak, rather that even if we never know the truth, it would probably be a better thing for the future of our civilisation it was a lab leak, rather than the first significant event in accelerating sequence of naturally generated pandemics. These are not the only two options of course, but that was the ambiguously stated meaning of my comments

cheers

monk

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