The media's lab leak fiasco • Hacker News Board

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#261

Post by throw0101a » Thu, May 27, 2021, 11:42 PM UTC

deadalus wrote: post #5

Reminder that Facebook and Twitter banned users for talking about the lab-leak theory. Youtube accounts also got demontized/banned.

> Reminder that Facebook and Twitter banned users for talking about the lab-leak theory.

Can we define/refine the concept of "lab-leak theory" a bit? Because some of the stuff floating around a year ago was a bit unhinged from reality:

> You’ve probably heard the rumor: The new coronavirus is a bioweapon. Some malicious country—perhaps the United States, maybe China, depending on who’s talking or tweeting—purposefully unleashed the virus that causes Covid-19 on the world.

* https://thebulletin.org/2020/03/why-do-politicians-keep-brea...

> Ebright helped The Washington Post debunk a claim that the COVID-19 outbreak can somehow be tied to bioweapons activity, a conspiracy theory that’s been promoted or endorsed by the likes of US Sen. Tom Cotton, Iran’s supreme leader, and others.

> But Ebright thinks that it is possible the COVID-19 pandemic started as an accidental release from a laboratory such as one of the two in Wuhan that are known to have been studying bat coronaviruses.

* https://thebulletin.org/2020/03/experts-know-the-new-coronav...

"In the Shadow of Biological Warfare: Conspiracy Theories on the Origins of COVID-19 and Enhancing Global Governance of Biosafety as a Matter of Urgency":

> Two theories on the origins of COVID-19 have been widely circulating in China and the West respectively, one blaming the United States and the other a highest-level biocontainment laboratory in Wuhan, the initial epicentre of the pandemic. Both theories make claims of biological warfare attempts. According to the available scientific evidence, these claims are groundless.

* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7445685/

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#262

Post by wearywanderer » Thu, May 27, 2021, 11:42 PM UTC

xbar wrote: post #220

tomjakubowski wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The theory that "SARS-CoV-2 leaked from the Wuhan lab" overlaps some with the theory that "SARS-CoV-2 was man-made", but they're not the same thing. According to the article Facebook's policy change is towards posts saying "SARS-CoV-2 was man-made". Did Facebook's policy ban posts which supported the "lab leak" theory but didn't claim the virus was "man-made"? Facebook's April 2020 covid-19 policy notice only mention…

It's important to be clear: they don't overlap at all. They are objectively independent arguments. If they overlapped you couldn't say this: "SARS-CoV-2 leaked from the Wuhan lab" and "SARS-CoV2 was not man-made". But you can.

It's not clear to me what you mean by "they don't overlap at all". If I create a truth table for the two binary possibilities of 'leaked?' and 'created?', I get something like this:

    Created, Leaked:  It was created in a lab, and accidentally got out.
    Not Created, Leaked: It was being studied in a lab, and accidentally got out.
    Created, Not Leaked: It was created in a lab and deliberately released (the biowarfare hypothesis.)
    Not Created, Not Leaked: The lab had nothing to do with it at all (the wet market hypothesis.)

Created/leaked are independent, but since both or either could be true or false, there seems to be 'overlap.'

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#263

Post by wuwuno » Thu, May 27, 2021, 11:42 PM UTC

Another political article about how it's not possible that the Chinese were studying the virus and some underpaid lab tech screwed and and exposed himself and then did what humans always do, the tech tried to cover up the mistake.

Nobody has still explained how the Chinese knew they had a problem in early December when they only had a handful of cases, like less than 100 cases. This is the question that needs to be answered. Until this question is answered satisfactorily the lab leak is the most reasonable explanation.

The normal ways you detect a new virus is because:

a) you have novel symptoms, COVID presents as the flu and early on tests didn't exist. b) you have a statistically significant number of cases, early on the number of cases didn't exceed the seasonal variability of the flu. c) you have a statically significant number of deaths, early on the number of death's didn't exceed the seasonal variability of the flu.

When the Chinese knew they had a problem, there was NOTHING that would indicate anything out of the ordinary was taking place, so then how did the Chinese know they had a problem?

If the virus really jumped species in the wet market, the Chinese wouldn't have known they had a problem until either the cases or the death totals started to exceed the normal variability of the flu. If that had happened we wouldn't have know about COVID until Late Jan or early Feb, and then it would have been really, really ugly. But that's not what happened, the Chinese knew about it in early December. The only way they could have known is if they had prior knowledge.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#264

Post by TechBro8615 » Thu, May 27, 2021, 11:43 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #218

scottrogowski wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should be the top comment. Social media companies can either be monopolies or they can put limits on the speech of their platform... but they can't do both. While not against the law of freedom of speech, political moderation processes are certainly against the intent. Every once in a while we get a case like this where an unpopular fringe opinion becomes mainstream and underlines the point. But this isn't just…

This argument seems to assume that Internet hosting is like air — a natural resource which by default is available for everyone to use, but social media companies restrict unfairly. As everyone here should know, it’s not like that: hosting can be awfully expensive, especially for media content. Social media companies receive money from advertisers, and use that money to host content from users and partners that hopef…

It’s not about hosting. It’s about distribution and eyeball minutes. As long as social media sites deliver content through an algorithmic feed, there are a limited number of slots available for the “next page.” The user will stop scrolling eventually. Their limited attention is valuable real estate. It’s also why social media has an incentive to maximize the time on feed.

The best regulatory approach to social media is simple: any algorithmic newsfeed must be opt-in. It must default to a chronological option. The default preference must also be applied retroactively for all existing users.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#265

Post by defaultname » Thu, May 27, 2021, 11:43 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #201

defaultname wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the articles you cite demonstrate what you seem to think they do. When the number of cases was minuscule, the threat to Americans was low and those articles were spot on: Keep vigilant, get your flu shot, but don't stress too much yet. Citing Pelosi visiting San Francisco (at a time when there were zero cases in the region, but a growing number of anti-Asian hate crimes) again doesn't make a point to any reas…

No, every bit of cynicism about the media coverage of travel bans seems 100% justified. For context, I'm from the UK where we have a right-wing Brexit-supporting government that's perceived very much as a Trump analogue - except they didn't impose travel bans on places like China early in the pandemic. Which means that over here, people blame our pandemic deaths on the supposed fact that our Government avoided placin…

I love that my other comment is at -4 already. The "MAGA" side of HN is flooding in, desperately thinking this is their moment of redemption.

"but it had to be a ban on all travellers who'd been in China within 14 days and not just direct travel"

Weird to call that "Trump-style" given that Trump's travel "ban" excluded Americans and their family members which already comprised the bulk of people traveling to and from China. One critic of the ban pointed out that in a single day, 30 aircraft from China landed in San Francisco, full, during the "ban".

"Also, remember that the current US president literally went from using the idea that travel bans were dangerous, counterproductive and made things worse"

This is either ignorance or an intentional lie. Which is it?

Contrary to the shrill lies from a certain camp, zero Democratic leaders opposed the "ban". They opposed that it was the singular action taken during a very dangerous period. That quarantines or even tracing weren't put in effect. Etc. That the literal implementation of it was "only people carrying other passports can possibly be carrying COVID".

And I mean...we all know how things turned out, right? Maybe this "he was right" victory lap might be in poor taste, 600,000 dead Americans later.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#266

Post by roca » Thu, May 27, 2021, 11:43 PM UTC

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #37

Call me cynical...but... What would any government do about it if it was proven to be a lab leak? They could declare it an accident (probably this would be true) and that would be the end of the story. No country would dare to impose sanctions or engage beyond diplomacy. I do not think that the Chinese governments reaction or handling of the case is suspect, they likely want to shut down potential fake news. To label…

If you don't think the CCP handling of the case is suspect, why has Huang Yanling disappeared?

If we knew SARS-CoV-2 was leaked from a lab, that would add a lot of weight to the calls for tighter restrictions on lab security and gain-of-function research, worldwide, that have been going on since before COVID.

Sure, Chinese labs might go on doing whatever they want, but science is an international community. Scientists who break international norms aren't able to collaborate with other scientists or receive cross-border funding.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#267

Post by kovvy » Thu, May 27, 2021, 11:45 PM UTC

dougmwne wrote: post #185

RV86 wrote: post #107

IMO, determining the origin of the virus is of much more consequence than who was right and who was wrong back in 2020. If the virus crossed over naturally, it's reasonable to conjecture that this sort of thing is going to happen more and more often in the future. If it was human error in a lab, I would actually be relieved -- this seems like something that's much easier to correct. FWIW, I do think available evidenc…

I agree that it's extremely important. If it was a lab leak, there are many safety process and regulation improvements we might be highly motivated to make. It's a thing we can actually have some control over. If it was a natural virus, there's good reason to collect and study more pathogens so we have a head start if one of them crosses into humans. Not that both of these things aren't good responses to the pandemic…

Politics has made it very likely that we will never know where it started, but that's okay. More important is how the next one could start, which is being investigated more thoroughly now. If we survive the current and future variants of covid we'll be better placed for the next plague. If not for the systems put in place because of SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2 could have spread far more widely before being detected.

Regardless of the politics, it's likely that many labs have reviewed their procedures to be sure people won't be infected by their work/contaminate their work.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#268

Post by LasEspuelas » Thu, May 27, 2021, 11:45 PM UTC

dougmwne wrote: post #185

RV86 wrote: post #107

IMO, determining the origin of the virus is of much more consequence than who was right and who was wrong back in 2020. If the virus crossed over naturally, it's reasonable to conjecture that this sort of thing is going to happen more and more often in the future. If it was human error in a lab, I would actually be relieved -- this seems like something that's much easier to correct. FWIW, I do think available evidenc…

I agree that it's extremely important. If it was a lab leak, there are many safety process and regulation improvements we might be highly motivated to make. It's a thing we can actually have some control over. If it was a natural virus, there's good reason to collect and study more pathogens so we have a head start if one of them crosses into humans. Not that both of these things aren't good responses to the pandemic…

Is it? We can assume that both things happened and prepare better for both types of development in the future. In the case of lab release, details would have to emerge to be reactive about fixing any issues with procedures. That doesn't mean that we can't be proactive in analyzing current procedures and trying to find and correct weaknesses.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#269

Post by quag » Thu, May 27, 2021, 11:45 PM UTC

wuwuno wrote: post #263

Another political article about how it's not possible that the Chinese were studying the virus and some underpaid lab tech screwed and and exposed himself and then did what humans always do, the tech tried to cover up the mistake. Nobody has still explained how the Chinese knew they had a problem in early December when they only had a handful of cases, like less than 100 cases. This is the question that needs to be a…

Isn’t the article about misreporting by multiple organisations? Rather than about the source of COVID-19?

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#270

Post by lamontcg » Thu, May 27, 2021, 11:46 PM UTC

lamontcg wrote: post #133

etcet wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rootclaim has some fairly compelling analysis which suggests the lab leak scenario is more likely: https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COV...

Yeah except that is a really bad analysis: - There's still no evidence that WIV was doing GOF research there. The SARS-1 GOF research was done in the USA. - There are horseshoe bats with sarbecoviruses in Hubei province, their range is large. - Similar to this virus, for SARS-1 there closest known virus in bats is in Yunnan, but SARS-1 emerged in Guangdong, about the same distance away from Yunnan as Wuhan is. - Call…

- There's no evidence that WIV had live RaTG13 virus either, they took samples from the mine in Yunnan and sequenced it, but that isn't cultured, viable infectious virus.