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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

#741

Post by tripletao »

sudosysgen wrote: post #159
riyadparvez wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 k…

I think you've misunderstood the difference between the proximal and reservoir hosts, because your comment is almost entirely wrong. As noted in the article linked above, scientists researching the original SARS found the exact (within the few mutations expected on any short transmission chain) virus that infected humans in palm civets and raccoon dogs, within about a year. These are the proximal hosts, i.e. the hosts believed to have infected humans. Once a proximal non-human animal host is found, we can be very confident that the virus is zoonotic.

Much later, Dr. Shi discovered that the greatest diversity of similar viruses was in bats. The bat viruses are less closely related to human SARS than the palm civet or raccoon dog viruses; but there's a lot of them, and they look ancestral. We therefore believe that the virus mostly evolved in bats, then was transmitted to the palm civets and raccoon dogs, evolved a little bit more there, and finally was transmitted to humans. This was very important in understand the evolutionary history of the virus, but provided no new information on how humans were first infected.

Knowing one of the classes of host doesn't imply knowing the other:

1. For the original SARS, we found the proximal host within about a year. Much later, Dr. Shi found the reservoir host.

2. For SARS-CoV-2, we knew the reservoir host immediately, because it's closely related to the original SARS. After two years of searching, we still haven't found the proximal host.

If one exists, the proximal animal host of SARS-CoV-2 is probably in China. Since China has seen low human spread (probably more than their official statistics, but clearly far less than the rest of the world), I don't see why you'd expect a human variant to displace the original zoonotic variant. There's also no particular evolutionary pressure for that--a variant evolved in humans might happen to be more transmissible in the proximal host animal, but that's not what's getting selected for when the virus is transmitted between humans.

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

#742

Post by brigandish »

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…

> At no point is anyone saying "we must keep this under wrap" or something along those lines.

Francis Collins, (at the time) director of the National Institutes of Health wrote:

> Wondering if there is something NIH can do to help put down this very destructive conspiracy

put down is strange language, but Collins has used similar in an email that also ended up in Dr Fauci's inbox:

> The proposal from the three fringe epidemiologists who met with the Secretary seems to be getting a lot of attention

> There needs to be a quick and devastating published take down of its premises

take down, eh? And in the Washington Post[1]:

> This is a fringe component of epidemiology. This is not mainstream science. It's dangerous.

The fringe epidemiologists not doing mainstream science but dangerous things are:

Martin Kulldorff, PhD, a biostatistician, epidemiologist and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School[2][3]

Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He directs Stanford's Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging[4][5]

Sunetra Gupta, infectious disease epidemiologist and a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford[6][7]

The language doesn't match the claims, his or yours.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/covid-herd-immunity/20...

[2] https://www.dfhcc.harvard.edu/insider/member-detail/member/m...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Kulldorff

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bhattacharya

[5] https://profiles.stanford.edu/jay-bhattacharya

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunetra_Gupta

[7] https://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-sunetra-gupta

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

#743

Post by alexvoda »

wombatpm wrote: post #118
djkivi wrote: post #21

Quoted post unavailable.

The lab leak theory was conflated with 'engineered in a lab' and everyone said no signs of gene editing. A natural virus sample leaking from a center studying coronavirus was never really addressed. Nor was the concept of Gain of Function studies really addressed. Officially there were no GOF studies underway - but there had been requests for funding of GOF like studies - which were denied. What concerns me is that r…

The narrative that was debunked was the "engineered in a lab" variant. This is what was debunked because this is what was pushed by conspiracy theorists at that time.

This narrative had various claims: that Sars-cov2 contained bits of HIV (by crackpot nobelist Luc Montagnier), that it was released intentionally, that it was actually released several months earlier during the 2019 military games in order to facilitate spread and that it is a tool to cull the population of the globe.

This was debunked and is still debunked.

One problem with conspiracy theorists is that they have an extremely low accuracy requirement in order to consider themselves vindicated. Being on the mark right is unnecessary, even being in the ballpark right is unnecessary. For conspiracy theorists, being in the same galactic sector right is sufficient to consider it a win.

The theory that it is a lab leak, possibly but not necessarily involving gain of function research, and probably by accidentally hitching a ride on one of the researchers has appeared later. It has not been debunked, though it has not been prooven either. It is a plausible possibility.

It is not popular in pro-science circles, because should it be true, the popular reaction is that research should be baned because it is too dangerous which is a stupid stance equivalent to collectively burying your head in the sand.

It is important to distinguish the two though.

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

#744

Post by dehrmann »

cudgy wrote: post #246
dehrmann wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does feel like there hasn't been a proper airing of exactly what gain of function research has been going on (whether or not it led to this particular virus) and how governments have supported it. I suspect it's because, despite being a "hindsight is 2020" moment, a lot of people would be angry, and at a lot of public policy scientists involved in the response.

Plenty of people had the hindsight in 2020 that the lab leak theory was not only plausible but likely; it’s disingenuous to call this “hindsight is 20/20”.

I meant that gain for function research looks like a really bad idea right now, even if that wasn't the origin of covid, and some of the public policy experts making recommendations right now were people who had no problems with game of function research 3 years ago.

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

#745

Post by coupdejarnac »

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #387
eloisius wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly, we’re not talking about America right now. Even so, the US has its faults, but is vastly more transparent than the CCP. I would be shocked if the US arrested scientists and journalists to conceal the origins of a viral outbreak.

God damn debating with you people is useless sometimes. My second paragraph is meant to show a possible other explanation why the Chinese didn't want foreigners snooping around their bio labs: in my belief the same evasiveness the Chinese has/had would apply to the USA if China wanted to visit and have unlimited access (for a thorough investigation) of American bio labs. And I'm not talking about whether American jou…

No post body was provided.

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

#746

Post by tripletao »

selcuka wrote: post #87
mensetmanusman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn’t someone just inject the original virus into a nearby animal population and say ‘look what we found!’ ?

I'm not a biologist but I believe it should be repeatable, i.e. the animal should be able to pass it on in lab.

Non-human animal-to-animal transmission has been observed, like on Danish mink farms. But you can sequence the virus from many human and non-human infections and build a phylogenetic tree from the sequences, knowing that each variant should have all the mutations of its ancestor plus maybe some new ones. In such a tree, the proximal zoonotic host should have infections with no human-infection ancestor. This was observed for the original SARS (palm civets) and MERS (camels), each within about a year. For SARS-CoV-2, we're still waiting.

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

#747

Post by AmericanBlarney »

daveaiello wrote: post #609
randomsearch wrote: post #313

I have mixed feelings about this, and I certainly think it’s not as clear cut as HN is converging on, although I share the same instincts. On the one hand, yes, science should be completely open and unhindered by geopolitics. But recall that Trump was in the White House at the time. We are a community of generally highly educated nerds with a strong understanding of science and engineering. We understand that all lab…

> But Trump, his party, and many many people in the West would care only for the political capital they could make from it, with potentially catastrophic results that would make COVID look relatively minor. There are plenty of people who voted for Trump and other Republican candidates who have scientific and engineering backgrounds. If I had to try to characterize those people, in terms of what makes them different f…

This might take the cake for the dumbest comment I've ever read on HN. With absolutely zero data/evidence, you're trying to categorize the views of millions of people, along with their professional qualifications. This is probably why the mainstream denigrates your views.

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

#748

Post by coupdejarnac »

interestica wrote: post #643
cocoggu wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the title of the article is highly misleading. Using "Scientists" instead of "Some scientists" implies that the great majority of the scientists believed in this hypothesis, and there is no evidence for that.

That's one of the tough parts about headline interpretations because you're right. I think editors use it as a sort of con knowing it can leave them with a way out. Here's an NPR headline using the same term that could be seen as just as misleading: "Scientists Debunk Lab Accident Theory Of Pandemic Emergence" April 22, 2020 4:08 PM ET https://www.npr.org/2020/04/22/841925672/scientists-debunk-l...

I think if you qualify every bit of a statement, it comes off as verbose, which mollifies the impact. If you have half a brain, you should know that it means "some scientists" not "all scientists". I suppose it's normal to read absolutes into things you know nothing about or are unwilling to invest thought into. Then the ambiguity leads to lots of pointless quibbles.

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

#749

Post by throw8932894 »

scotty79 wrote: post #635
throw8932894 wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's skip omicron for now. Are you talking about omicron now or original Wuhan virus? Omicron stays mainly in upper respiratory parts. It does not go deep into lungs and body as other variants. That makes it less lethal, not because it is somehow milder. Normal cold is also quite lethal, once it spreads through body, but it never gets a chance. I am happy to accept theory it stayed in single host for several month…

> This is not a religion, there is no "believe". Religions are not the only things people believe in. Some people believe in lab leak exactly the same way some believe in flat earth. With fierce conviction despite complete lack of evidence with just surface level clues. > Lab leak (or artificial synthesis) is just a theory that explains origin of virus very well. It's a hypothesis. Most likely unfalsifiable because I…

It is really hard to tell if you are trolling. Anyway, it is all flat earth nut whack conspiracy, have a good day.

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

#750

Post by lamontcg »

tim333 wrote: post #686
lamontcg wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The progenitor of the SARS-1 outbreak in 2003 wasn't found until a decade later in 2013. There's a lot of research which is getting closer: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-871965/v1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21240-1 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2020.5847... https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.26.428212v1 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S18…

The immediate source - palm civets at a local market was found almost as soon as they looked, about four months after the outbreak. Tracing back where they got it from took longer.

After the discovery of WIV1 in bats it was found that it efficiently infected human airway epithelial cells, and since the palm civets were never linked to any outbreaks it is possible that the virus had directly hopped to humans from bats and that the palm civets were unnecessary as an intermediate species. It was also later found that it infects racoon dogs, ferret badgers and domestic cats. There was never any conclusive proof that raccoon dogs were responsible/required and that now looks unnecessary, which is a good example of how over a decade later what we think we know can change.
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