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

Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic

science.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 281 posts

Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic

#11

Post by MichaelCollins »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #7
dtx1 wrote: post #6

I don't believe this to be true. I consider the likelyhood that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the cause of this to be much higher than that the seafood market in wuhan was the cause and there's no reason to trust any media or NGO to be truthful in that regard.

The two are not mutually exclusive. For example, some "theories" say that a WIV employee took animals that had been used in experiments, and sold them at the market. I'm not suggesting this is actually what happened, just that there's plenty of room for involvement from both of these entities (or, perhaps, neither).

MMmmm, medical monkey meat.

Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic

#12

Post by mgamache »

Khelavaster wrote: post #2

This was known for two years. Markets are breeding grounds for zoonotic diseases. They often even jump from human to animal and back. The real question is--how did the virus get to the live market? The study accurately says, "While there is insufficient evidence to define upstream events, and exact circumstances remain obscure, our analyses indicate that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 occurred via the live wildlife trad…

Sorry this is an unscientific conclusion. The lab leak is more plausible based on the animals required and known and proposed research at that facility. It's simply another polemic. Without information / data from the lab you cannot claim one is more probable.

Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic

#13

Post by dangom »

Conspiracy theories aside, Worebey's Science paper is not unanimously well received by the scientific community, and the data analysis was shown to be partly flawed.

Here's a discussion on inference pointing to references and sources that argue against the results of the paper: https://inference-review.com/article/thunder-out-of-china

It also raises eyebrows the fact that no animal has ever been found to be positive for COVID, in contrast to all of the previous SARS pandemics.

EDIT: thanks everyone for correcting my assertion. No source animal was found.

Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic

#14

Post by adolph »

They still don't have anything. Streetlight effect at its finest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect

However, we do not have access to the precise latitude and longitude coordinates of all these cases. Should such data exist, they may be accompanied by additional metadata, some of which we have reconstructed, but some of which, including the date of onset of each case, would be valuable for ongoing studies. We also lack direct evidence of an intermediate animal infected with a SARS-CoV-2 progenitor virus either at the Huanan market or at a location connected to its supply chain, like a farm.

Previously:

What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31866601

[flagged] More evidence that Covid-19 started in a market, not a laboratory: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30566956

Book Review: “Viral” by Alina Chan and Matt Ridley: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29764537

US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26125145

Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic

#15

Post by reedjosh »

albatross13 wrote: post #8
dtx1 wrote: post #6

I don't believe this to be true. I consider the likelyhood that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the cause of this to be much higher than that the seafood market in wuhan was the cause and there's no reason to trust any media or NGO to be truthful in that regard.

Quoted post unavailable.

No post body was provided.

Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic

#16

Post by lern_too_spel »

albatross13 wrote: post #8
dtx1 wrote: post #6

I don't believe this to be true. I consider the likelyhood that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the cause of this to be much higher than that the seafood market in wuhan was the cause and there's no reason to trust any media or NGO to be truthful in that regard.

Quoted post unavailable.

None of the fines were for data falsification. Now we know not to trust albatross13.

Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic

#17

Post by gerdesj »

dangom wrote: post #13

Conspiracy theories aside, Worebey's Science paper is not unanimously well received by the scientific community, and the data analysis was shown to be partly flawed. Here's a discussion on inference pointing to references and sources that argue against the results of the paper: https://inference-review.com/article/thunder-out-of-china It also raises eyebrows the fact that no animal has ever been found to be positive…

"Animals infected with SARS-CoV-2 have been documented around the world. Most of these animals became infected after contact with people with COVID-19, including owners, caretakers, or others who were in close contact. We don’t yet know all of the animals that can get infected. Animals reported infected worldwide include ..."

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/...

EDIT:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_that_can_get_S... - long list of refs

Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic

#18

Post by rob_c »

Khelavaster wrote: post #2

This was known for two years. Markets are breeding grounds for zoonotic diseases. They often even jump from human to animal and back. The real question is--how did the virus get to the live market? The study accurately says, "While there is insufficient evidence to define upstream events, and exact circumstances remain obscure, our analyses indicate that the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 occurred via the live wildlife trad…

> The real question is--how did the virus get to the live market?

The chances are we'll never know, it may have spread through here (despite no real action to stop this form of trading from any of the wonderlfully eclectic groups still engaged in it).

> While there is insufficient evidence to define upstream events,

Also, we're not brave enough to say read the evidence it came from here. We're only brave enough to say it's the 'epicenter' of an early outbreak to keep from annoying those who don't co-operate anyway.

Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic

#19

Post by dtx1 »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #7
dtx1 wrote: post #6

I don't believe this to be true. I consider the likelyhood that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the cause of this to be much higher than that the seafood market in wuhan was the cause and there's no reason to trust any media or NGO to be truthful in that regard.

The two are not mutually exclusive. For example, some "theories" say that a WIV employee took animals that had been used in experiments, and sold them at the market. I'm not suggesting this is actually what happened, just that there's plenty of room for involvement from both of these entities (or, perhaps, neither).

I would categorize such a situation as a lab leak, too. Either way, we will never be able to confirm the truth.

Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic

#20

Post by mikeyouse »

dangom wrote: post #13

Conspiracy theories aside, Worebey's Science paper is not unanimously well received by the scientific community, and the data analysis was shown to be partly flawed. Here's a discussion on inference pointing to references and sources that argue against the results of the paper: https://inference-review.com/article/thunder-out-of-china It also raises eyebrows the fact that no animal has ever been found to be positive…

Plenty of animals have been found to positive for Covid - and the animal cages in the market had numerous environmental positive samples. I think you mean that no source animals have been found -- but if the timeline in this paper is right, the zoonotic jump happened in late November and they didn't shut down the market and start testing until almost a month later -- so a strong case of "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence"
Post reply on HN