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

telegraph.co.uk

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

#711

Post by korantu »

awb wrote: post #708
korantu wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2016, some of the scientists including Shi and the EcoHealth director, Peter Daszak, used the NIH funding to conduct experiments in Wuhan on live coronaviruses in a biosafety level 2 lab, according to published details of the work from [0] They did do coronavirus experiments in level 2 facility. [0] https://archive.is/KwZKn ? [edit] replaced link as FT makes it difficult to refer to them.

The research in question happened in 2016 and was called “W1V1”. Regarding the 2016 work: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/06/29/1027290/gain-of-... > Since bat viruses like WIV1 haven’t been confirmed to cause disease in human beings, her biosafety committee recommended BSL-2 for engineering them and testing them and BSL-3 for any animal experiments. > In response to questions about the decision to do the resea…

The point is, they did work with coronaviruses in level 2 lab, and similar works might or might not have concluded by end 2019. (If not by these particular researchers)

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

#712

Post by mikeyouse »

tristor wrote: post #647
alevskaya wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a genetic engineer for two decades: - Clear signs of molecular manipulation in the sars-cov-2 sequence. There are none. Almost all of the alleged manipulations would have left unmistakeable, damning evidence in a recognizable vector. The only remotely interesting thing at all in the sequence is the furin site, but plenty of coronaviruses have those, and it just likely indicates selection/propagation in a second…

> Any epidemiological connections to WIV? There aren't any I am neither a geneticist nor an epidemiologist, however my understanding is that as further tracing of early cases has occurred that the earliest cases identified were employees of the WIV and predate the case cluster that started in the wet market. This was one of the strongest pieces of information that swayed me towards believing a lab leak was likely, an…

That’s not true — again showing the problems with headlines like these.. (drive by viewers integrate the headline into their understanding even though the actual article is very light on information).

Nearly every early case — before there could have been “pressure” to hide the origins was connected to the market:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm4454

This alone doesn’t disprove a lab leak of course, but it tilts the odds dramatically compared to the alternate scenario where WIV employees were among the first infected.

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

#713

Post by afpx »

marcosdumay wrote: post #710
afpx wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't just a random scapegoat. It just happens that the company (Ecohealth Alliance) proposed the gain-of-function research on the virus to DARPA, which was subsequently rejected as being too risky. NIH later funded similar research to the same company for its work in Wuhan during 2020. I'm far from a conspiracy theorist. But, what are the chances of this being coincidental? The "from the wild" theory doesn't ha…

> But, what are the chances of this being coincidental? Enormous. The odds are heavily on the side of this being a coincidence. What are the odds of, if this was a leak, the leak coming from that single research line? It's basically 1 divided by the number of experiments running on the lab. And that's assuming it was a leak, if you estimate the odds of it being a leak, you will at a minimum halve that number.

Why would there be a ban on this type of research, in the US, since 2014?

https://osp.od.nih.gov/biotechnology/gain-of-function-resear...

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

#714

Post by nradov »

afpx wrote: post #695
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The natural origin is the default explanation and nobody needs to have an IQ of 130 and a degree in biology to figure that out. It suffices to know that diseases are a natural thing. Most people who have gone to school will know that already. It really hurts me that you believe "smart and educated people" believe that nonsense. Everytime anyone with any relevant education has commented on HN it's to say that "lab lea…

Do you really think that most people will buy that given that we haven't had a similar pandemic in 100 years? Also, if you're going to appeal to authority, please link to the HN comments that explain how "lab leak" explanations are rubbish. I'm more than happy to read them. In my opinion, we don't have nearly enough information to make such a decision, one way or the other.

The last major coronavirus pandemic probably started about 133 years ago.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/

Since then both SARS-CoV and MERS jumped from animals to humans. They caused smaller outbreaks rather than worldwide pandemics. There was no suspicion of a lab leak origin for those viruses.

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

#715

Post by mikeyouse »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #595
brigandish wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidence does not need to be able to convince on its own, you seem to be picking an arbitrarily high bar that would dismiss all evidence until such time as it would confirm a leak. That's not even the bar used in law to begin a prosecution, when they know that reasonable doubt will need to be overcome. Regardless, this is evidence of a conspiracy of silence, not evidence that there was a lab leak. The two should not…

There is no evidence of anything remotely like "a conspiracy of silence". The Telegraph article quotes parts of emails between people discussing the possibility of a lab leak and the possible outcomes of a public discussion of the possibility of a lab leak. At no point is anyone saying "we must keep this under wrap" or something along those lines. You have to squint very hard to find an insinuation that the discussio…

It’s amusing too because many highly trained people were perplexed about the FCS — until last year when we discovered that those mutations actually do happen spontaneously in nature, in Coronaviruses and are stable:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187350612...

People forget that we're looking at the "plane that landed" from the famous WWII picture. A bunch of low probability things had to happen for SarsCOV2 to emerge naturally -- but given a long enough timeline and trillions of viral replications, sometimes it will.

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

#716

Post by undecisive »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #692
undecisive wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People whose whole job it is to study bat-based coronaviruses managed to cause a variant which escaped." "A virus whose whole job it is to mutate and infect mutated and infected people." I think most reasonably sensible people would consider these to be fairly equal in terms of unlikeliness or simplicity. So yes, Occam's razor does not apply, but not because of your particular bias against one of the options. > that…

>> I have absolutely no preference for one theory over the other. Or neither. I have no special evidence, and speculation at this point seems pretty pointless. That's a false objectivity. We have very strong prior knowledge that diseases arise naturally, without the need for human intervention. To assume there was human intervention requires accordingly strong evidence, at least as strong as the stength of the prior…

This is all utter horse manure.

> We have very strong prior knowledge that diseases arise naturally

Correct. We also have very strong prior knowledge that existing diseases can be manipulated and produced by means of unnatural selection.

We also have strong prior knowledge that this particular lab have done a fair amount of that. With coronaviruses. With bats. 5 minutes with wikipedia would tell you that.

It's a bit like saying "We have very strong prior knowledge that coins can land heads-up, so this coin could never be showing tails".

> not observations that caused the hypothesis to be proposed in the first place

Please cite your sources. Otherwise, you're just showing bias against the people proposing the theory in the first place.

And let's be fair, conspiracy theorists are more often wrong than right, so I understand your distrust of them.

But also let's be fair:

- if it was true that Covid-19 originated in that lab, I don't think anyone is saying "oh no, China would never cover something like this up"

- the geographical coincidence is a compelling coincidence.

> Solid reasoning needs observations to precede a hypothesis, not the other way around.

This is dodgy ground, and shows a serious misunderstanding of the applicability - and even the process - of the scientific method. Observations like "viruses rarely jump between species like this" and "virology labs can produce viruses" are valid outcomes of pre-hypothesis research. Tests such as "If the WHO try to investigate, the Chinese government will attempt to restrict investigators" might be problematic (write it up in your analysis!), but are nonetheless valid. There are very few easily measured predictions in this.

If you want to go scientific method on this, by all means share your hypotheses and tests. "Lots of clever people have said this" or "I trust this source more than that source" is not a valid test when the waters are so muddied.

So no, this is not false objectivity at all. This is your opinion masquerading as fact. In all the data gathering I've done, I've seen nothing to compel me to take one opinion over another. If you want to actually try, using real arguments, please feel free.

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

#717

Post by afpx »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #692
undecisive wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People whose whole job it is to study bat-based coronaviruses managed to cause a variant which escaped." "A virus whose whole job it is to mutate and infect mutated and infected people." I think most reasonably sensible people would consider these to be fairly equal in terms of unlikeliness or simplicity. So yes, Occam's razor does not apply, but not because of your particular bias against one of the options. > that…

>> I have absolutely no preference for one theory over the other. Or neither. I have no special evidence, and speculation at this point seems pretty pointless. That's a false objectivity. We have very strong prior knowledge that diseases arise naturally, without the need for human intervention. To assume there was human intervention requires accordingly strong evidence, at least as strong as the stength of the prior…

A scientist parks her car under a tree, everyday. Occasionally, branches fall off and scratch her car. Today, she goes outside and sees that her window is smashed. She looks around to find the branch that smashed her window but can't find it. She notices some kids playing baseball nearby. They look guilty. However, scientist rules that the window was broken by a branch because strong prior knowledge.

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

#718

Post by awb »

sterlind wrote: post #239
sudosysgen wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cables from officials regarding WIV safety have been verified. Just because it's on the opinion page doesn't mean it's false. It has way more credibility than some random virologist's claim about WIV safety on Reddit. Period. The cables were written by an entrepreneur and a manager, and the opinion section isn't willing to publish them. That's not lawyer speak, that's the lengths you have to go to in order to i…

> You should read my reply - from that article, the infected scientist was at the time not wearing his PPE. The infection was due to his incompetence, and wouldn't have happened if he was actually following BSL4 regulations. It seems his colleagues saw this and thought it was fine. that's.. worse though, right? that's an incident in a BSL-4 where an incautious scientist disregarded regulations, without his colleagues…

> why would WIV or any other BSL-4 be any better?

Why would they be just as bad?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7088173/

> In this study, an international survey based on volunteering was conducted in biosafety level 3 and 4 laboratories to determine the number of laboratory-acquired infections and the possible underlying causes of these contaminations.

> The analysis of the survey reveals that laboratory-acquired infections have been infrequent and even rare in recent years, and human errors represent a very high percentage of the cases.

> Today, most risks from biological hazards can be reduced through the use of appropriate procedures and techniques, containment devices and facilities, and the training of personnel.

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

#719

Post by nradov »

alevskaya wrote: post #608
brigandish wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would that evidence look like? The House Committee on Oversight and Reform have a press release with more detail[1], which the Telegraph mentions - it's how I found it - and you can download a pdf which contains the partially redacted emails. It doesn't seem to me that the Telegraph has misled anyone regarding this news at all. Perhaps you could read it and be more precise as to where you think they're providing…

I was a genetic engineer for two decades: - Clear signs of molecular manipulation in the sars-cov-2 sequence. There are none. Almost all of the alleged manipulations would have left unmistakeable, damning evidence in a recognizable vector. The only remotely interesting thing at all in the sequence is the furin site, but plenty of coronaviruses have those, and it just likely indicates selection/propagation in a second…

I don't necessarily agree with the lab leak hypothesis but your arguments have some flaws.

Hypothetically a lab worker could have been infected by careless handling of a lab animal rather than a swab. As I'm sure you're aware, viruses can be passaged through transgenic animals as part of gain-of-function research.

There is no reliable evidence that the bat or pangolin species suspected to be the source of zoonotic transmission were sold at the Wuhan Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. They are not usual foods in the local cuisine.

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

#720

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

varjag wrote: post #699
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first cases were found in a wet market. The lab is miles away from it: The first known human infections from SARS‑CoV‑2 were discovered in Wuhan, China.[37] Because many of the early infectees were workers at the Huanan Seafood Market,[50][51] it was originally suggested that the virus might have originated from bats or pangolins sold at the market.[30][33] It was later determined that no bats or pangolins were s…

Yes, "miles away" is within minutes drive: many lab workers quite likely have a commute longer than that. > For all we know the virus started in Alaska. I think we know where the virus have started at this point with reasonable confidence, and it wasn't Alaska. Can't help but notice tho that U.S. origin of virus was a popular CCP media propaganda point last year.

>> Can't help but notice tho that U.S. origin of virus was a popular CCP media propaganda point last year.

What am I supposed to make of that, now?

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