Where is Wuhan Institute of Virology on the map?
Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic
201–210 of 281 posts
Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic
#202We don't have testable theories here, we have Mad Libs. A virus of (human)/(animal) origin was (un)intentionally (released)/(spread)/(detected) in Wuhan, starting at a (lab)/(market). Narrative 1: Animal origin with extensive spread in a food market Narrative 2: Animal origin with accidental release from lab study Narrative 3: Intentional creation/modification of a virus for purposes of scientific study and subsequen…
> What would actually change if you had certainty around one of these theories? Widespread political support for ending all public funding of gain-of-function research or outright banning it.
I think there is certainly a discussion to be had around gain-of-function. I think that discussion should include how gain-of-function is actually used in research laboratories, and what mitigations are already in place.
Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note that the zoonotic path of Ebola into humans isn't well-understood. There was pretty good evidence of the path for SARS-1 though, and very good evidence for MERS. For SARS-CoV-2, there's still nothing, despite the recent emergence and considerably greater effort searching. The "two lineages" argument has been grossly distorted by Worobey and the media. They're just two single-nucleotide polymorphisms apart, so th…
> They're just two single-nucleotide polymorphisms apart The problem with that argument, is that it doesn't explain the polytomies and is misleading, as you accuse Worobey of being. "Just a few SNPs" is disingenuous and glosses over the usefulness of this evidence that almost everyone agrees on - eg, that it's highly unlikely that lineage B evolved from lineage A. (Even Jesse Bloom agrees on this.) It may take a bit…
You're correct that it's highly unlikely that B evolved from A, but why do you think that's significant? We know the spread of SARS-CoV-2 is highly stochastic, with most lineages dying out and a few exploding, and we know the IFR in humans is small enough that considerable cryptic spread is possible before enough people die to raise the alarm.
So why do you take the two lineages as conclusive evidence of two zoonotic events (as Worobey has repeatedly claimed in the media, even though his papers are more cautious)? Given the above, I don't see how we can exclude that the two lineages evolved in early human cryptic spread, before we started sampling enough to draw a perfect phylogenetic tree.
Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic
#204I wonder how many people who are seemingly willing to believe the self-serving CCP party-line on this, would be just as believing of the owners of a nuclear power plant in their town, once the drinking water became radioactive, claiming "it didn't come from the plant, someone else down the street must have done it" - that is just about as believable as this.
Pure emotional argument without substance. You made no effort at all to criticize the methodology (which looks pretty standard to me, consistent with methods used to pinpoint the origin of other disease outbreaks besides COVID), or the raw data. Not one of the listed authors is Chinese, nor do any of them have any Chinese institutional affiliations. What is your actual argument for why I should disregard this, beyond…
> Not one of the listed authors is Chinese, nor do any of them have any Chinese institutional affiliations.
Those are pretty naive criteria based on what we already know about the situation. One of the biggest opponents of investigating the lab leak hypothesis was Peter Daszak, a British zoologist who is certainly not Chinese nor does his EcoHealth Alliance have any surface level ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. EcoHealth Alliance provided grants for the coronavirus research (and the activity that has been labeled by some as gain-of-research) and authored the misleading Lancet letter [0] that was used to ostracize anyone who publicly disagree with the animal-spillover hypothesis as well as enabled social media platforms and fact-checking sites to censor any content or discussion of the lab leak hypothesis.
TL;DR: people can have agendas that may not be obvious to you at first glance.
[0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Dr. Birx's recently released book she claims to have known it came from a lab origin from the start, based on evolutionary reasoning. As she describes: A virus takes years to learn/evolve the ability to infect humans, and does so poorly at the start. But covid was extremely effective at infecting humans "right out of the box." In a lab environment the virus is repeatedly exposed to human cells and gets better at i…
> In a lab environment the virus is repeatedly exposed to human cells and gets better at infecting human cells with each iteration. That is just replicating what nature does when it hops from individual to individual. Nature has billions of animals to do serial passage through. And we still don't know that the species jump happened in the market, and I'm somewhat skeptical of the claims of this author. I tend to thin…
It would actually be extremely unlikely for a virus that is "medium good at spreading to humans" to stay in an isolated location, especially one that spreads asymptomatically.
Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's transparently obvious that the Market was first place where it began to spread in humans - so "neither" isn't an option. The Market was unequivocally involved.
The reason for the doubt is that it wasn't transparent nor obvious. The Chinese government retroactively censored the institute's publications, Fall 2019 job postings, staff listings, and internal discussion of new symptoms amongst certain researchers [1]. There is a possibility that there were a few earlier cases than the market ones which were covered up to conceal negligence at the institute. [1] https://www.youtu…
It’s perfectly possible that the Chinese government isn’t entirely sure about the origin either, and is censoring just in case.
Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic
#207The same visual analysis, when showing the location of the lab, could lead to other conclusions. Here’s a link to that, if we’re open to differing perspectives. https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/lie-exposed-bbc-says-covid...
Other posts from the same author, to help evaluate their overall credibility: * "Sars-Cov-2 was Lab Made Under Project DEFUSE" * "Was Sars-Cov-2 DESIGNED to Spawn so Many Variants?" * "Vaccine Shedding Finally Proven!" * ""COVID Vaccine Technology" will Make Varroa Mites Infertile" * "Boosters Now PROMOTE Covid Deaths in Europe" * "Developmental Disorders in Babies born to Vaccinated Mothers?"
> On HN, we go by article quality, not site quality
Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In a lab environment the virus is repeatedly exposed to human cells and gets better at infecting human cells with each iteration. That is just replicating what nature does when it hops from individual to individual. Nature has billions of animals to do serial passage through. And we still don't know that the species jump happened in the market, and I'm somewhat skeptical of the claims of this author. I tend to thin…
It would actually be extremely unlikely for a virus that is "medium good at spreading to humans" to stay in an isolated location, especially one that spreads asymptomatically.
If it spreads asymptomatically though isn't that "good" at spreading rather than "medium"?
SARS-1 disn't have a presymptomatic infectious phase and the peak of symptoms was roughly the peak of infectiousness, and it was mostly severely virulent, and it didn't produce a global pandemic and was controllable.
To have an uncontrollable pandemic you really need that silent spreading, so the pandemic virus that emerges necessarily has that property from the "start".
Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
> he thinks none of these lawsuits contained data falsification claims https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/pfizer > he thinks these whistleblowers and the BMJ are liars https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635 Now we know not to trust lern_too_spel :)
Point me to a specific fine for data falsification. Unlike you, I have made no false claims here.
https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/violation-tracker...
follow up source: https://www.doj.state.or.us/media-home/news-media-releases/o...
Quote: "Today’s settlement follows a two-year investigation by the Oregon Department of Justice into evidence that suggested Pfizer was using unreliable and unsubstantiated claims to promote Zyvox®, a relatively new and expensive antibiotic used for treating certain types of pneumonia and bacterial skin infections. Despite lacking evidence required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make such claims, Pfizer allegedly relied upon flawed clinical studies to substantiate assertions that Zyvox® was a superior to vancomycin, a comparatively inexpensive generic drug that holds the largest market share and has been available for more than 40 years. Pfizer’s sales representatives detailed and distributed thousands of copies of these faulty studies throughout Oregon to promote the sale of Zyvox®."
Very long and pleasant way of saying "they lied".
Not enough?
How about Chantix: 1. https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/lawsuit-news... 2. https://www.youhavealawyer.com/chantix/
Totaling almost 300 million in settlement payouts, they opted to do this AS A SETTLEMENT rather than let things drag out in court. Hmm... I wonder why. Couldn't be because they lied, hide, or downplayed information about Chantix's impact on people's mental health. This lands in their top 10 in terms of pay outs :)
And again, I will direct you to: https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635
While they haven't been fined for it yet (because their new contracts make it almost impossible :^) ), we have pretty substantial evidence Pfizer lied about a myriad of data points collected at at least one facility in regards to their covid19 injection trials.
But hey, at the end of the day I don't care what you believe beyond this post. You can defend the ultra corrupt big pharma company that bakes hundreds of millions in fines into its yearly operating budget.
Makes no difference to me, I'm healthy :)
Re: Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan was early epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
This lab was a joint venture of the French and Chinese. The French pulled out and sounded the alarm about how careless the Chinese were. So yeah it’s very plausible that such flagrant violations took place.
It's not about violations. The animals are killed because the nature of the data taken from them requires them not to be alive.
Can they sell killed animals (in the live market)?