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

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

#241

Post by oasisbob »

tripletao wrote: post #239
oasisbob wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't take two lineages to be conclusive evidence of multiple zoonotic events. However, the multiple polytomies for each are not easy to explain away. Have you read Pekar's most recent paper in Science? I raise this in earnest, I'm reading it now. A lot of it follows the preprint, but the update more directly addresses many of the points we're discussing. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8337 My probl…

I led with "just two mutations" because as far as I can tell, all of Worobey's or Pekar's reasoning starts from the assumption that there was no significant cryptic (unsampled) human spread. If the two lineages were tens of SNPs apart, then I believe that would be a reasonable assumption--it would be hard to explain how the virus could spread in humans long enough to accumulate that many mutations without causing eno…

> all of Worobey's or Pekar's reasoning starts from the assumption that there was no significant cryptic (unsampled) human spread.

They don't assume that. See the discussion in Pekar. ("The high extinction rate [...] Failed introductions of intermediate haplotypes are also possible.") The whole point of their epidemiological modeling is to disentangle the likelihood of this happening. (See: "Separate introductions of lineages A and B")

The tMRCA doesn't allow enough time for any deep cryptic spread. The authors show this. It's not assumed.

> We show that it is highly unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 circulated widely in humans earlier than November 2019 and that there was limited cryptic spread, with, at most, dozens of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the weeks leading up to the inferred tMRCA, but likely far fewer.

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

#242

Post by cudgy »

mikeyouse wrote: post #177
mullen wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is entirely without evidence. To make it clear, the Chinese government blocks any investigation by outside parties that they don't control or have influence over.

They obviously don't have control over the authors of the paper for thread you're commenting on, and for the umpteenth time, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Confidently asserting that since we don't have evidence of a lab leak, it's somehow more likely is just dumb. Virologists have pored over the genome and are highly confident it's a virus of natural origin -- that already greatly limits the role a l…

> umpteenth time, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence

Repeating nonsensical statements does not make the statement clearer. Paying attention to what you want to pay attention to is fine, but it is not a robust way to process unreliable data.

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

#243

Post by cudgy »

ceejayoz wrote: post #211
cudgy wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is more likely than a lab leak?

Yes? They’re perishable, and intended for consumption.

The only infected animals were bunched together in a single truck headed for a single market. That’s more plausible than an existing known virus derivative in a lab in the same city somehow allowing it to escape? Circumstantial activity like the denial and deletion of data surrounding the research at the lab is irrelevant too?

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

#244

Post by lern_too_spel »

rob_c wrote: post #233
lern_too_spel wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. They were fined for doing things like recommending off-label use for their drugs, and they provided no data to support that off-label use. That isn't falsifying data, but that isn't acting trustworthy either.

Fined for being inscrupulous but are not unscrupulous... Ok I think I understand the faith.

You very clearly don't understand. I said they aren't completely trustworthy and I never implied they are.

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

#245

Post by kbelder »

trasz wrote: post #212
mullen wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ignored scientific evidence Any "scientific evidence" that can be touched by the Chinese government will be corrupted. Any influence they have over "scientific evidence" is not scientific evidence.

No offence, but this is just pure racism.

He specifically mentioned the Chinese government; therefore, his comment was specifically not racist. The Chinese government is not a race. It's just a bad government. All races have them at times.

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

#246

Post by tripletao »

oasisbob wrote: post #241
tripletao wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I led with "just two mutations" because as far as I can tell, all of Worobey's or Pekar's reasoning starts from the assumption that there was no significant cryptic (unsampled) human spread. If the two lineages were tens of SNPs apart, then I believe that would be a reasonable assumption--it would be hard to explain how the virus could spread in humans long enough to accumulate that many mutations without causing eno…

> all of Worobey's or Pekar's reasoning starts from the assumption that there was no significant cryptic (unsampled) human spread. They don't assume that. See the discussion in Pekar. ("The high extinction rate [...] Failed introductions of intermediate haplotypes are also possible.") The whole point of their epidemiological modeling is to disentangle the likelihood of this happening. (See: "Separate introductions of…

The details of that epidemiological model start around page 7 of

https://www.science.org/doi/suppl/10.1126/science.abp8337/su...

I haven't fully studied all the layers yet, but as far as I can tell it's numerical sludge, in the same general direction as econometrics, with so many free parameters or arbitrary choices in the model that you could plausibly get almost any result you wanted. Similar models got their chance to make falsifiable predictions of the case count in the actual pandemic, and they failed repeatedly, often by huge margins, in both directions.

For a specific criticism, the authors report that they're robust against variation in doubling time, but nothing about robustness to the extent of the overdispersion of SARS-CoV-2's spread (i.e., the superspreader characteristic, where most patients infect very few people but a minority infect a lot). They appear to model that only through the connectivity of the infection network, which appears to be fixed. All other things being equal, more stochastic early spread will make it harder to confidently reach any conclusion.

I'm not saying this work isn't interesting at all, or that I could do better; but it's many layers of stacked uncertainty. I believe the confidence that the authors express in this paper is already excessive, and Worobey's statements to the media go considerably beyond that.

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

#247

Post by tripletao »

sudosysgen wrote: post #222
tripletao wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WIV-1 can infect human cells in vitro. No complete human infected with WIV-1 has ever been identified, living or dead. When SARS-1 emerged in humans, cases were concentrated among traders handling civet cats, as were positive antibody tests. That seems to me like a pretty strong case for forward zoonosis, maybe not perfect but certainly stronger than any evidence we have for SARS-CoV-2. I agree there's no evidence fo…

If SARS-1 was more infectious and less virulent you wouldn't see cases concentrated amongst traders, would you? If anything, since many of them already have some kind of immunity from previous infection, you would not expect them to even notice being sick before the virus already infected thousands.

I agree that finding the origin of a virus that's less deadly and faster-spreading (like SARS-CoV-2) is a harder problem. Nevertheless:

1. We quickly found pretty good evidence (infected civet cats and raccoon dogs, and infected human traders of those animals) that SARS-1 arose from natural zoonosis, within about a year of its emergence in humans. The later discovery of WIV-1 didn't add to this evidence.

2. We've found no such evidence for SARS-CoV-2.

That doesn't mean SARS-CoV-2 definitely arose unnaturally--we've expended a lot more effort looking, but it really is a harder problem. It just means we don't know, and we need to keep looking. Do you disagree?

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

#248

Post by oasisbob »

tripletao wrote: post #246
oasisbob wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all of Worobey's or Pekar's reasoning starts from the assumption that there was no significant cryptic (unsampled) human spread. They don't assume that. See the discussion in Pekar. ("The high extinction rate [...] Failed introductions of intermediate haplotypes are also possible.") The whole point of their epidemiological modeling is to disentangle the likelihood of this happening. (See: "Separate introductions of…

The details of that epidemiological model start around page 7 of https://www.science.org/doi/suppl/10.1126/science.abp8337/su... I haven't fully studied all the layers yet, but as far as I can tell it's numerical sludge, in the same general direction as econometrics, with so many free parameters or arbitrary choices in the model that you could plausibly get almost any result you wanted. Similar models got their chanc…

Numerical sludge. Got it.

Enjoy your criticism.

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

#249

Post by speakfreely »

anigbrowl wrote: post #235
speakfreely wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Virolo…

I wouldn't be complaining if the op had made an effort to establish such a linkage as you did for your example. Is it my job to validate an assertion which op didn't bother to support with an argument?

Of course not and op's reply was not, on its own, a very convincing rebuttal to the article. My only point is that the objectivity of the authors (really, any author on this subject at this point) should be assumed to be cloudy until proven otherwise. There's very few people on either side arguing in good faith about the source of COVID at this point.

My personal view is that it's impossible to know: the CCP has done everything possible to look guilty of hiding something, but unless there's some breakthrough where a source animal is found or someone in the CCP security apparatus makes a deathbed confession, I consider this an unresolvable discussion. That being said, I'm still 100% behind the shaming of people like Peter Daszak who have been shown to have acted in bad faith to cover their own asses.

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

#250

Post by marcosdumay »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #192
marcosdumay wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the process was enough to bring sureness. You seem to have a problem with the process being non-traditional, but it was the obvious adaptation to get the same sureness on the shortest possible timeframe. The data wasn't limited in any way. It's funny, because I have the opposite criticism. We just let people die for 6 months because we refused to act on "we are sure it's safe, we are confident it will work" and w…

> "You seem to have a problem with the process being non-traditional," Really? Because that's not what I said. You can't change a process - especially not a medical one for 100s of millions of people - and then say "We're 100% certain of this. This is all new. There are no long term side effects. And if you think or say otherwise, we will cancel you." Anyone who knows even a bit of history - medical or otherwise - an…

> You can't change a process - especially not a medical one for 100s of millions of people - and then say "We're 100% certain of this. This is all new.

The testing process? Of course we can, statistics is quite an established and predictive science.

Again, looks like you have a problem with a non-traditional process. You also seem to have a falling for low-quality science journalism. Both are understandable, but your failure of understanding the vaccine policies around the pandemics were due to your partial understanding, and not fault of the policies.

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