Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

telegraph.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 833 posts

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#151

Post by sudosysgen »

riyadparvez wrote: post #116
sudosysgen wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem at all line they're claiming that lab escapes never happen. Just that this particular lab is known for being extremely safe, and that it's therefore unlikely it would have had a leak. For a leak of such a virus to happen from a BSL4 facility that routinely handles much more contagious viruses, you would need incompetence or funding issues, yes.

> Just that this particular lab is known for being extremely safe, and that it's therefore unlikely it would have had a leak. This is nothing but disinformation. > Two years before the novel coronavirus pandemic upended the world, U.S. Embassy officials visited a Chinese research facility in the city of Wuhan several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was…

That's interesting, because when you ignore the spin on both texts, you find out there is no contradictory information at all. Yet you could that it's nothing but disinformation. You should also note that the article is in the Opinion section, and doesn't actually publish the cables.

The cables the is factually claiming is that US officials learnt that the research going on at the lab indicated that there is a high risk of a coronavirus causing a pandemic, that there is a risk of zoonosis, and that there are risks associated with this research. There are no specific claims of bad practices or mismanagement, and it is entirely likely that the author is using those words to refer to the decision to do this kind of research as well as GoF research when he talks about unsafe practices and mismanagement, as they are the only material issues with safety and management he mentioned.

Beyond that, I don't see any evidence the lab was operating unsafely. If the virus really was in those populations, you'd need two unlikely things to happen, since we all agree the virus wasn't engineered.

First, the Chinese government needs to have made the conscious decision not to release proof that the virus was natural. Indeed, if it was being studied alive, the WIV would absolutely have identified it and a precursor. They could have offered one or both of these, or returned to where they found it, and pinpoint an origin, absolving themselves of all these arguments.

Then, the virus, which would belogically present in bat populations in those populated areas, would have had to escape a BSL4 lab, but not have escaped into society beforethen? What's the likelihood that it could have, while weakly infectious and poorly adapted to humans, managed to go through the protections of a BSL4 lab, but not managed to make it out of those animals?

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#152

Post by divbzero »

dboreham wrote: post #122
suifbwish wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facts are facts. The fact is in 2019 there were 39,397 wet markets in China. How many virology labs were there in China handling Corona-viruses? TWO. One of which was TWO BLOCKS from where the wet market from where the original Covid-19 virus which started the pandemic has been traced to. One might be forgiven for being curious as to the likelihood of the virus emerging from this particular wet market as opposed to a…

That's not how probability works. You'd need to wait for thousands of years and several pandemics to know if they are more or less likely to emerge next to a virology lab. And then you'd need to control for the fact that virology labs are better at detecting dangerous viruses than average humans. Like how the first confirmed cases in the US were in Davis --- because there's a specialist unit at UC Davis that was alre…

That is actually how probability works when you are assessing the probability of uncertain propositions [1]. The prevalence of wet markets vs. virology labs should not be the only input but it is definitely relevant to our assessment of probabilities.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#153

Post by xony »

bobwaycott wrote: post #127
torstenvl wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem very convinced of your position. But there's a whole world of options in between "unactionable" and "invade China."

Such as? Assuming the best, the parent asked a bunch of questions (in an admittedly dismissive and argumentative way) to try and invite some kind of response that explains what China gets out of it, and what the world does next if we could somehow prove China created the original virus. So … let’s assume China created it. Now what? What’s the next step and response if it was an accident ? What’s the next step and res…

No post body was provided.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#154

Post by awb »

bobwaycott wrote: post #127
torstenvl wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem very convinced of your position. But there's a whole world of options in between "unactionable" and "invade China."

Such as? Assuming the best, the parent asked a bunch of questions (in an admittedly dismissive and argumentative way) to try and invite some kind of response that explains what China gets out of it, and what the world does next if we could somehow prove China created the original virus. So … let’s assume China created it. Now what? What’s the next step and response if it was an accident ? What’s the next step and res…

There are all kinds of forms of cooperation between countries: economic, political, financial, scientific, legal, regulatory, transportation, trade, military, etc.

One option instead of full scale invasion is to cut back or attach strings to some of those forms of cooperation.

This happens all the time.

In this specific scenario, it might look like: Spend $100M upgrading Wuhan lab security and we won’t indefinitely ban travel from Wuhan Province to the US.

Or, more aggressively: Shut down the Wuhan lab or we will release tons of hacked data about corruption in the government.

Not saying that these are smart options, but you get the idea of the spectrum of options between total absolution and total aggression.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#156

Post by bobwaycott »

torstenvl wrote: post #139
bobwaycott wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as? Assuming the best, the parent asked a bunch of questions (in an admittedly dismissive and argumentative way) to try and invite some kind of response that explains what China gets out of it, and what the world does next if we could somehow prove China created the original virus. So … let’s assume China created it. Now what? What’s the next step and response if it was an accident ? What’s the next step and res…

If you honestly dispute that there are options in foreign affairs between "do absolutely nothing" and "full scale military invasion," then our worldviews are so far apart that I don't think fighting about it on the Internet will be a good use of time for either of us.

You seem to be grossly misinterpreting my comment. I’ve said nothing at all to suggest there are no options in foreign affairs between "do absolutely nothing" and "full scale military invasion”. Where are you even getting that message?

I asked what you thought those options are since you seem to have some opinions. Or at least a few of them. Specifically.

I don’t see how I said anything that indicates I’m trying to fight on the internet about our worldviews.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#157

Post by partiallypro »

What really raises the most suspicion of the lab leak theory in my mind was how the Chinese government acted towards the rest of the scientific community...well before it was a theory at all. Not allowing foreign scientists in, destroying evidence, arresting journalists, etc. That just screams cover-up, even if there was none (in terms of a lab leak.)

Then Western scientists that rely on grants with Chinese ties, etc trying to cover the asses publicly, while privately saying it's possible...really doesn't inspire a lot of public confidence imo. There is a pretty big monetary incentive from the very people that we'd want to figure this out to say it didn't happen, even if it did.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#158

Post by Jack000 »

This article is kind of self defeating - based on the article the scientists expressed uncertainty over the origins of covid, but the title is "Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab" which seems to prove their point exactly?

I don't know if this is common knowledge but there's an equal and opposite theory in China that covid came from the us. I just did a search for "covid us" on Baidu and this is the third result https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/114737709

along with suggested search queries "Is the new crown virus caused by the United States?" "Is the new crown pneumonia a virus released by the United States?"

(crown = omicron, I'm pretty sure)

I think there is a real possibility that covid is a lab leak, but it's impossible to find the truth when everyone is eager to point the finger at (other ethnic group)

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#159

Post by sudosysgen »

riyadparvez wrote: post #142
sudosysgen wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SARS's zoonotic link was only established in 2017. You can't expect it to be find. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And it's going to be harder for this virus than SARS. Right now, over a year later, reality is conforming exactly to what you would expect to happen starting from that hypothesis a year ago. So I don't even understand why you're mentioning it, it's not a logical argument.

According to this > Sep 9, 2003 (CIDRAP News) – Chinese scientists found that animals sold at street markets in Guangdong, China, carried a coronavirus nearly identical to the SARS coronavirus, according to a report published recently in Science. > The animal viruses were found in Himalayan palm civets and raccoon dogs, which were sold for food in the markets, according to the report. The findings indicate a route of…

Wait what? So we agree that they didn't find the oroginal reservoir, just a similar virus, right? Meaning, that it's not a zootoc link, as you previously asked for. You understand that it isn't possible anymore, because the current SARS-CoV-2 would almost certainly displace them now that it's endemic, correct?

So why do you expect the same thing to happen now that it's very unlikely, knowing that there is no way to know that these viruses actually are the ancestors and may very well have been cousins of SARS, that would have disappeared if SARS was more contagious.

To find an actual virus that is actually an ancestor of SARS, we had to wait until 2017. What you cited wouldn't meet the criteria you yourself set forth, and for this virus it would be impossible to find on the same timeframe. So I really don't get neither how this validates your point that we would expect to find the zoonitc link in a year, nor even how it would fit into an argument that it's unexpected we didn't find this.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#160

Post by bryanrasmussen »

perihelions wrote: post #6

> "Professor Andrew Rambaut, from the University of Edinburgh, also said that furin cleavage site “strikes me as unusual”." > "He added: “I think the only people with sufficient information or access to samples to address it would be the teams working in Wuhan.”" This pair of quotes has a completely different meaning from the original quote it sliced up: > "I am also agnostic on this – I do not have any experience of…

dishonesty in the Telegraph in this case might be caused by scientific illiteracy, that is to say they might honestly have thought that their selective quotations were a reflecting the message of the longer quote.

Or maybe I'm being too lenient in attributing to incompetence and not malice here.

Post reply on HN