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The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

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Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#151

Post by AzzieElbab »

mikem170 wrote: post #126
canoebuilder wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The bottom line is that the evidence we have at this time points to nature as the most probable origin, Highly tendentious claim... > and it's not unusual for it to take many years to figure these things out. Is that the case? Are you well-versed in this field? It is my understanding that previous epidemics of this sort in Asia in recent decades a host animal was identified in a matter of months. Are you privy to s…

So you think that it's less than 51% probable that this virus jumped from nature (from animals) into people, like every other virus we know about? There's a lot of good sources saying otherwise, not just this article. EDIT: My primary sources in this matter have been this reddit post from a virologist [0] (available as a 30+ page pdf), and the strongest (but not the only) genetic evidence he references points to covi…

"The original article detailed how it took 15 years to find the origin of SARS, and China was secretive with that, too". Wrt SARS, other animals in the wild were identified as mostly asymptomatic carriers long before scientists found that bat cave. Not so with COVID

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#152

Post by blast »

Maursault wrote: post #133
mandmandam wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Some random person ran across a novel virus in the wild, and got sick". More like, "some random person ran across a novel virus in the wild, a thousand miles from the nearest bat population, while they were hibernating; and this all just happened to be within a few miles of a laboratory with sketchy safety history that literally studies coronaviruses , and didn't let independent examiners in for a year, even then…

>and this all just happened to be within a few miles of a laboratory with sketchy safety history that literally studies coronaviruses If the argument is: 1) a lab was built in Wuhan that studied coronaviruses, then a global coronavirus pandemic originated in Wuhan 2) Therefore the lab caused the global pandemic then it is a fallacious argument.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

That's not the argument. Nobody's pretending that propositional logic can decide this. It's a question of how to weight empirical evidence. Some people think it's relevant that a new coronavirus emerged next door to a lab working on new coronaviruses, especially since concerns had been raised about unsafe conditions there.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#153

Post by canoebuilder »

albinofrenchy wrote: post #137
canoebuilder wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a wide literature on this at this point. Please don’t make conclusive statements that also indicate you don’t have the faintest bit of background in what you are talking about. At this point, this is not a complete black box, “novel virus.” There is a scientific understanding of the virus. There are known related viruses in the wild, just not anywhere near Wuhan. There are multi-pathway paper trails linking…

> At this point, this is not a complete black box, “novel virus.” Not sure why you insist on being pedantic on word choice here. It obviously isn't a novel virus at this point; but it was in 2019 -- or whenever WIV would have found it. I'd also bet dollars to donuts you have no experience in virology apart from participating in online forums. Which I don't think is any kind of point against you; but it makes it weird…

Quote marks can be easily misinterpreted, I was just using the phrase you used, my bad.

“Faintest bit of background” Meaning, your two competing hypotheses leave out pretty much everything that is known at this point, not an academic credential or such, just a basic reading on the known facts at this point.

“Natural origin” was the leading hypothesis from the start more than a year ago. At this point, there is no evidence for it, there is substantial evidence against it, and the pile of circumstantial evidence for the Wuhan lab being the source is a mile high.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#154

Post by mikem170 »

forcry wrote: post #150
mikem170 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found this link [0] that seems to debunk, in a lot of detail, the congressional testimony of these two physicists on the specifics of their claims for evidence of gain of function manipulation in the gentic sequence of covid-19. That jives with another source [1] that explained, amongst other things, that there's genetic evidence covid-19 evolved in animals with intact immune systems, not in a lab. [0] https://resp…

Well, if the authors of these posts disagree, they should contact the government and offer their testimony as well, then we can consider their argument to hold similar weight.

Congressional testimony tends to be more political than scientific, don't you think? Facts about DNA are still facts, regardless of who congress invites to speak before them. I never considered Congress to be gatekeepers of science.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#155

Post by forcry »

scotty79 wrote: post #142
forcry wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It wasn't uniquely adapted to humans in the beginning. Seems wrong. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-92388-5#Abs1 >Conspicuously, we found that the binding of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein was higher for human ACE2 than any other species we tested, with the ACE2 binding energy order, from highest to lowest, being human > pangolin > dog > monkey > hamster > ferret > cat > tiger > bat > civet > horse > cow > snak…

"Overall, given the high binding energy of S protein for pangolin ACE2, the possibility of pangolins being an intermediary vector for SARS-CoV-2 cannot be excluded" There's really no wonder that virus that spreads through human population is slightly better adjusted to humans than animal species its ancestor was infecting. It's the case of water in the puddle surprised how well the puddle shape fits the water shape.…

>There's really no wonder that virus that spreads through human population is slightly better adjusted to humans than animal species its ancestor was infecting.

This does not make sense to me, because I think the COVID virus was pretty stable for a long time (being an RNA virus and all that, I don't know). So the idea is that it was optimally adapted during the time of the jump to humans (of course it could have got the perfect mutation right at the time of the jump, but the chances of that happening is astronomically small), and the optimal human transmission was not acquired later when it started circulating in humans.

So the only way to have this happened is if it was optimized in a GoF research in a lab.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#156

Post by [deleted] »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #151
mikem170 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you think that it's less than 51% probable that this virus jumped from nature (from animals) into people, like every other virus we know about? There's a lot of good sources saying otherwise, not just this article. EDIT: My primary sources in this matter have been this reddit post from a virologist [0] (available as a 30+ page pdf), and the strongest (but not the only) genetic evidence he references points to covi…

"The original article detailed how it took 15 years to find the origin of SARS, and China was secretive with that, too". Wrt SARS, other animals in the wild were identified as mostly asymptomatic carriers long before scientists found that bat cave. Not so with COVID

[deleted]

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#157

Post by commandlinefan »

rossdavidh wrote: post #100

The real motive behind most of these kind of articles: "...loose talk about a lab leak elevates tensions between China and the United States, undermining the collaborative research we need to understand this pandemic and prevent the next one." Translation: "please shut up about this, it doesn't matter now and we need to get China calmed down, and this talk is making them defensive and therefore uncooperative." The re…

They seem to be trying to insist that the virus didn't even originate in Wuhan at all, leak or no leak.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#158

Post by thomaslord »

dTal wrote: post #74
simonh wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not necessarily the best response even in that case. We know for a fact that animal to human transmission happens, and that it will happen again. I don't know the ins and outs but it's possible that gain of function research could be crucial in preventing or fighting future natural outbreaks. That's a judgement that we should consider carefully. If you're fighting a shooting war and you have an explosion in a…

Except the gain-of-function research specifically targeting covid-like viruses did not help us prepare or respond to the current pandemic one bit . On that basis alone we should suspend this research. It's not worth the risk.

I'm not familiar with the specifics of gain-of-function research, but on its face this comment sounds a lot like "we haven't developed a vaccine for COVID yet, so we should ban trying to develop a vaccine" would've sounded a few months before the vaccines came out.

In scientific research particularly, not having seen results yet doesn't mean we should abandon the research. If gain-of-function research is supposed to help us gain a better understanding of viruses and we're likely to see more pandemic-worthy viruses like SARS and SARS-CoV-2 arise naturally, I think any ban should be considered very carefully.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#159

Post by mikem170 »

canoebuilder wrote: post #148
mikem170 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you think that it's less than 51% probable that this virus jumped from nature (from animals) into people, like every other virus we know about? There's a lot of good sources saying otherwise, not just this article. EDIT: My primary sources in this matter have been this reddit post from a virologist [0] (available as a 30+ page pdf), and the strongest (but not the only) genetic evidence he references points to covi…

Yes, similar viruses are known far outside Wuhan. In this case, with the first known infections occurring in Wuhan and no known bat coronavirus source anywhere near Wuhan, other than the Wuhan Institute of Virology..., lends credibility to the lab theory, does it not? Infections from nature aren’t rare, unfortunately neither are infections from labs. In fact, if you compare the relative few places on earth where this…

I understand that there are a shocking amount of lab leaks in the world. Hundreds in the U.S. in the last decade, for example. Scary stuff.

> In this case, with the first known infections occurring in Wuhan

Do you have a source for that? I was seeing sources stating the opposite, based on genetic sequencing of collected samples, like this [0]:

> His research determined that A was the founding variant because it was the version most similar to the type of SARS-Cov-2 (the scientific name for the virus) discovered in bats. Many experts suspect that the virus migrated to humans from bats, probably via some other animal. But he also discovered that the A strain wasn't the predominant type in Wuhan.

> Of 23 samples that came from Wuhan, only three were type A, the rest were type B, a version two mutations from A. But in other parts of China, Forster says, initially A was the predominant strain. For instance, of nine genome samples in Guangdong, some 600 miles south of Wuhan, five were A types.

And this [1]:

> Upon further investigation, the first case detected from December 1st was found to have no connection to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. Also, that patient was never linked to any future cases of COVID19. A third of the first 41 cases had no connection to the market, including 3 of the first 4 cases reported. Given this data, we have a new hypothesis: The first human cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection must have happened before December 2019 and likely did not originate at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.

I'm not sure of your sources. I went back and re-read your original reply. You stated that "previous epidemics of this sort in Asia in recent decades a host animal was identified in a matter of months". Did you know that it took 15 years to identify the source of SARS, from 2002 until 2017? [2]

I don't know if any of that might change your thinking on this. I've paid the most attention to genetic evidence like the above. Ultimately I think that's what will lead to a definitive answer.

[0] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-05-...

[1] https://leelabvirus.host/covid19/origins-part3

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-07766-9

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#160

Post by mikem170 »

mandmandam wrote: post #122
albinofrenchy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article addresses this very point. I have 0 trust in the CCP to do or say anything not in it's own interest, but on the whole the "They found a novel virus in the wild, sampled it, and then it escaped their lab" seems a lot less likely than "Some random person ran across a novel virus in the wild, and got sick".

> "Some random person ran across a novel virus in the wild, and got sick". More like, "some random person ran across a novel virus in the wild, a thousand miles from the nearest bat population, while they were hibernating; and this all just happened to be within a few miles of a laboratory with sketchy safety history that literally studies coronaviruses , and didn't let independent examiners in for a year, even then…

There's evidence pointing to an origin 600 miles south of Wuhan [0], based on sampled early cases and genetic sequencing.

[0] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-05-...

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