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

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

#571

Post by txru »

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…

The furor about the lab leak theory isn't solely due to the 3 hospitalized workers, but also due to a well-sourced article [0] written by a editor of the Science section of the New York Times (as well as for Science and Nature), Nicholas Wade. Those two broke on the same day. Papers hadn't been covering the theory in depth since last summer.

In my opinion the most damning part of the article is the section about the human-adapted furin cleavage, I recommend reading that part. The working assumption is that we should find people with precursors to covid without that furin cleavage adaptation, and we don't. If China wants to prove it wasn't a lab leak, they'll need to find instances of the virus that predated that adaptation- as was the case with SARS.

[0] https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...

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

#572

Post by AstralStorm »

rayiner wrote: post #329
version_five wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, the only really horrible thing is the way that anything other than the mainstream version of events was treated. I think there are different plausible theories, and I'm not surprised they have different adherents that are mostly all motivated by something other than a pure quest for the truth. That's life. If this was e.g. a civil or criminal trial, you'd see the same thing. The only difference is, in a trial,…

That’s another symptom of the same disease. People have an idea that “trust the experts” can replace all the messy, gross, and often wrong processes we have developed to deal with the fact nobody can be trusted. Trusting scientists involved in gain of function research will neutrally investigate the origins of the pandemic is one manifestation of that conceit. So is trusting fact checkers and review panels to decide…

There is a problem though. Without access to source material of any real journalist (not a reporter) you have no way of knowing whether whatever they're saying is true.

Marketplace of ideas is just measuring the average of views at best and fringe views may on occasion be valid, or not. It is also gameable by promoting "truthy" or plausible explanations with no data behind them.

In this case, it is irrelevant what the source of the pandemic was, securing the labs doing viral research to BSL-4 is prudent. The only issue faced is one of funding, which is vastly insufficient to maintain these facilities. Or at least placement in remote locations with quarantine in place to prevent leaks.

Data only weakly suggests a composite and does not categorically exclude natural origin. Leak of a natural or modified virus would be just as bad. Same if it's from consumption of rare animals sent from remote places or research on the samples from them. In either case, only different degree of luck is required for a pandemic.

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

#573

Post by systemvoltage »

karmasimida wrote: post #564
systemvoltage wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3/6 fatality rate of researchers dying should be absolutely chilling evidence of something that’s gone wrong.

Those are miners, not researchers. And it was in 2012.

Thanks for correction, I think that's still an alarming rate for a specific mission to fetch samples of Bat feces for virology research. That should be a clear, undisputably abnormal indication of something wrong.

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

#574

Post by ttt0 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #229
actuator wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that Trump's use was to definitely please his supporter base and blame China. But except for some racist bigots, I really doubt calling it the China virus/flu means that someone is trying to blame Chinese people for it, just like you are arguing for variants. My point was, the same concerns people had for not using the country name on virus were applicable for variants too. If we chose one standard for the vi…

You don't see a difference between: "the virus that killed at least 3.5M people worldwide came from " and "as the pandemic spread globally, and as expected for almost any virus and for coronaviruses in particular, variants of the virus emerged in , and " ?

No, not really. Both are just a statement of fact.

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

#575

Post by DevKoala »

>> When Trump himself floated the lab-leak hypothesis last April, his divisiveness and lack of credibility made things more, not less, challenging for those seeking the truth.

Bullshit. It was the media which rejected this theory. How is this also Trump's fault for suggesting it? Are they also going to rewrite this part of the record?

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

#576

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

yarcob wrote: post #524

One thing that's baffling to me is that I've not seen any discussion from scientists who actually know what they are talking about. All we get are articles who talk about the political side, and try to prove things by how certain actors behaved. Most of the actual science that all the articles cite are pop-sci simplifications at best. People talk about how parts from multiple viruses would be joined together etc, how…

That's because the theory is being pushed for political reasons, and most virologists think it's nonsense. The evidence for a lab leak is the same as it's ever been: nothing.

There's no evidence the lab even had SARS-CoV-2 on hand before the pandemic, which is an absolute prerequisite for the lab leak theory to be possible, and all the evidence points to the lab not having had the virus. They regularly publish the genetic sequences of the viruses they have, and SARS-CoV-2 is not among them. For comparison, the now-famous RaTG13 was published in 2016. But given the way that conspiracy theories work, proponents of the lab-leak theory will just assert that the lab secretly had SARS-CoV-2, but unlike with all their other viruses, they didn't publish it. The theory is unfalsifiable, and it will constantly morph to remain so.

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

#577

Post by sgt101 »

wombatpm wrote: post #159
deeviant wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is the most shocking article you have ever read in your life, I feel you haven't read many articles in your life. There is absolutely no evidence in it. Just a pile of conjecture. It is absolutely the stuff of conspiracy theories. The truly shocking thing is that world does not hold China liable for this disaster. It really doesn't matter if it started in a lab or in one of their wet markets; it was incompete…

When China started welding doors on high rises to keep people in, that was the signal to take it seriously-despite what the WHO was saying

This did not happen as far as I can discover - there were stringent lock down measures in Wuhan, but they came very late. In fact six weeks into the outbreak the Wuhan authorities held a party for 40k people. So - in fact it was the opposite, they treated it recklessly, which makes me think that they didn't have much to hide (until they realised that they had recklessly let it, whereever it came from, get out of control).

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

#578

Post by nchie »

GavinMcG wrote: post #501
corty wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lab workers getting sick should be a starting point to begin analyzing archived blood samples for instance. Also, you don't usually visit a hospital for seasonal flu. And three people from the same lab at the same time suggests a wider outbreak in the lab. Even if it were the seasonal flu, it would have warranted a wider investigation, given what that lab was working on.

Plenty of people visit hospitals for seasonal flu, fyi. They shouldn't, but they do.

I think lab workers researching viruses are some of the less likely to do so, unless they're in a really bad state. If they were in a very bad state, it's less likely that it was the seasonal flu.

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

#579

Post by hbosch »

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…

> Would Fauci have even known?

I think yes. Perhaps not upfront, perhaps not in the following days or weeks. But if your organization had funded a laboratory's gain of function research, and that laboratory is suddenly the topic of global speculation for potentially leaking a virus, a virus which is ostensibly a product directly of your funding and became one of the deadliest global pandemics ever... I think it would be hard to not know at some point.

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

#580

Post by hbosch »

GavinMcG wrote: post #498
ramraj07 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This New York mag article [1] published eons ago already made it clear to any sane biologist that all you mentioned are important things to consider. However the issue is sane biologists or scientists in general are actually in extreme short supply, the vast majority are often under the delusion that they “understand the system” better than they actually do. They also are often knowingly and unknowingly more interest…

Trump didn't exactly follow Fauci's advice, so it's odd that you'd blame Fauci's "method of approaching pandemics" for "this mess." Was there some other, better, established method?

> Was there some other, better, established method?

We may learn from Taiwan*.

Quote: "Extensive public health infrastructure established in Taiwan pre-COVID-19 enabled a fast coordinated response, particularly in the domains of early screening, effective methods for isolation/quarantine, digital technologies for identifying potential cases and mass mask use."

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanwpc/article/PIIS2666-6...

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