The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins • Hacker News Board

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#371

Post by TheBigSalad » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:11 AM UTC

tmp404 wrote: post #155

While this article is quite illuminating on the political side of the lab leak theory, on the evidence side it's mostly a rehash of some long-standing speculations. The only recent evidence it contains is the fact that 3 researchers from WIV sought hospital care back in autumn of 2019 with symptoms similar to COVID. However, this piece of evidence is hardly consequential without further details: - First, most common…

It would be interesting to know how many scientists there are and how often they are admitted to the hospital. Then you could say how likely or unlikely the event was. Obviously there would be other factors like season, etc. But maybe this is a big outlier. We can't say without more numbers.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#372

Post by johncena33 » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:11 AM UTC

jcrawfordor wrote: post #205

harryf wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying it's shady to provide that funding. What I'm saying is it demonstrates conflict of interest. Last year in May 5 2020 Fauci dismissed the idea that the virus came from a lab that his own organisation was providing funds to - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-fauci-wuhan-lab-coronav... Whether or not anything shady was happening, the conflict of interest is clear.

Would Fauci have even known? Budget numbers say NIAID clears around $5 billion in grant funding per year and this grant was more at the $100k per year level. Another source shows that NIAID receives around 3,000 grant applications per year and that's just in two of their multiple grant types. It seems most likely to me that the grant was approved and funded by a subject-area committee without Fauci being involved at…

Fauci definitely knew about funding gain of function research. [1] Whether he was aware of funding going to WIV, that's a different question.

[1] https://twitter.com/ydeigin/status/1400321255824371714

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#373

Post by knowaveragejoe » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:12 AM UTC

chitowneats wrote: post #361

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a totally fair reaction to all "trump theories".

It's so bizarre to me to view him in this way. "Trump thinks something; therefore I must be against it". I understand not taking his word for anything. But it's such an important issue. To just dismiss it and not try to investigate it, even at the highest levels of our government and public health bureaucracies, strikes me as negligent at best.

> To just dismiss it and not try to investigate it, even at the highest levels of our government and public health bureaucracies, strikes me as negligent at best.

But this is the opposite of what's happened.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#374

Post by johncena33 » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

jtbayly wrote: post #368

jcrawfordor wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would Fauci have even known? Budget numbers say NIAID clears around $5 billion in grant funding per year and this grant was more at the $100k per year level. Another source shows that NIAID receives around 3,000 grant applications per year and that's just in two of their multiple grant types. It seems most likely to me that the grant was approved and funded by a subject-area committee without Fauci being involved at…

Would Fauci have known that gain of function research was now legal again?! Of course he would. Whether or not to fund that sort of risky research that has gone back and forth in legality is precisely the kind of thing that his job required him to know, isn't it?

Yes, he knew. Here's the presentation he did on gain of function research back in January 2018 [1].

[1] https://twitter.com/ydeigin/status/1400321255824371714

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#375

Post by timelincoln » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #309

timelincoln wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think anyone is suggesting you learn about virology and fly to wuhan and start looking around. Maintaining multiple explanations as possibilities until one is proven, while resisting political tribalism shrouding your view of the truth, is I suppose hard for many people to pull off. But that is what we’re suggesting you try to do, maybe next time we have a global pandemic…

> Maintaining multiple explanations as possibilities until one is proven Why are you assuming my beliefs on this topic were set in stone previously?

I’m not, it’s clear you’re too lazy to even consider anything until it’s kicked down to you by the political machine

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#376

Post by deugo » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

lamontcg wrote: post #295

Throwawayaerlei wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not in Nicolas Wade's article, which I now see has been unfairly maligned along with David Baltimore who's been selectively quoted to leave out the technical detail of what made the latter say the SARS-CoV-2 is a smoking gun, see the 4) A Question of Codons: https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-th... If correct, that's getting strongly into bioengineering evidence. You are of course more lik…

So you don't have any idea what you're talking about and don't have any ability to weigh if what you're looking at is human bioengineering or natural bionengineering, but you're going to strongly assert that its evidence of human tampering.

Yes.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#377

Post by TheBigSalad » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:14 AM UTC

bglazer wrote: post #323

tmp404 wrote: post #155

While this article is quite illuminating on the political side of the lab leak theory, on the evidence side it's mostly a rehash of some long-standing speculations. The only recent evidence it contains is the fact that 3 researchers from WIV sought hospital care back in autumn of 2019 with symptoms similar to COVID. However, this piece of evidence is hardly consequential without further details: - First, most common…

I'm quite astounded and confused at the sudden shift in discourse towards assuming that the lab leak theory must be true. It's not so much the theory itself that's surprising. Lab leak remains plausible but less probable then natural origins. The sudden shift is just baffling to me though. This huge new furor is due to anonymous CIA sources saying three people got sick? That's extremely tenuous evidence, as you state…

What makes you think it's less probable than natural origins? The wet market has probably been there for 1,000 years and this hasn't happened. Compared to the virus appearing in one of 3 labs in the world that would be studying it.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#378

Post by timelincoln » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:14 AM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #316

timelincoln wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps begin by entertaining ideas as possible until proven otherwise. No scientists ever provided conclusive proof the virus didn’t originate in a lab. If you were to look at what some scientists were saying such as the former director of the CDC you would hear explanations including evidence that suggested it probably did leak from a lab. But since the dawn of search engines, we’ve been suggesting that lazy people…

> Perhaps begin by entertaining ideas as possible until proven otherwise You're assuming I didn't already do that. I'm just objecting to the exhortation to "do your own research". I'm not going to do that, because we live in a modern society with labor specialization. > No scientists ever provided conclusive proof the virus didn’t originate in a lab. Where the virus originated from is nice to know for later. But I re…

I understand you’re self interested, so why are you even commenting on this thread? Get back to your ‘life’ for however rewarding that is to you

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#379

Post by krrrh » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:15 AM UTC

rhodozelia wrote: post #325

Gatsky wrote: post #164

Assuming the chance of a lab leak is non-zero, it is worth considering how this will ever end. - If there was any hard evidence actually proving they had SARS-CoV-2 in the lab before the pandemic, it will be long gone. Only an independent full access forensic level investigation would ever find any sign that evidence was destroyed, and that is never going to happen. - It seems extremely unlikely to me that anyone fro…

They did have samples of a 98% similar virus collected from the miners working in the bat cave who had died years earlier. The virus had a different name like ratg or something.

It’s covered in the article and it’s called RaTG13 and no one can get a straight answer on where it was acquired or when. However independent researchers found it is identical to a virus previously known as RaBtCoV/4991 that made several miners ill in 2012.

It’s 96.2% similar not 98%. The issue is that coronaviruses in nature don’t mutate fast enough for that to be the missing link, and they have tested something like 80,000 animals since the outbreak without finding anything closer. One possibility is that the gap was closed through gain-of-function or serial passage research.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#380

Post by haram_masala » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 4:15 AM UTC

mikem170 wrote: post #332

kaesar14 wrote: post #54

It’s crazy to me how many people on even this forum, a place purportedly of science, continue to dismiss a lab leak origin out of hand citing it as some sort of crackpot theory. The serious questions raised in this article have been around since last April but it’s only now it’s even allowed to talk about them on digital forums. Excellent write up by Vanity Fair.

I too am disappointed at how politicized this is. That includes the Vanity Fair article, which was mostly about press coverage, funding, memos, and circumstantial evidence. Here's some good science sources: - Comprehensive reddit post [0] from a virologist (table of contents, also linked as a 34 page pdf), referencing over 150 sources, with several sections going into the details of the genetic evidence, also interes…

Whether or not I agree with everything you wrote and sourced here, let me offer some enthusiastic praise for such a comprehensive and well-informed writeup. We should all aspire to be able to post something as substantive as this.