Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis • Hacker News Board

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#371

Post by DiogenesKynikos » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 4:16 PM UTC

undecisive wrote: post #124

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It started at a wet market on the other side of the city. That's been very solidly established now. The early cases were very heavily concentrated around the wet market, but not around the lab, which is more than 10 km away.[0] > a lab that studies the virus The lab did not study SARS-CoV-2. It studied viruses that are about 20% different from SARS-CoV-2. We know what viruses they were working with, because they publ…

I'd recommend being a little more strict with your language if you want to convince anyone here. "It started"..."solidly established" - that's enough inaccuracy for most HN people to ignore the whole of your post. Compare that with the context and abstract of the paper you've cited: "the earliest human cases", "circumstantial evidence", "earliest known COVID-19 cases", "spatially associated with vendors", "insufficie…

I chose my language precisely. The paper is much more definitive than you're claiming, beginning with the title: "The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic."

Many people have only vaguely followed this issue. Those who have been following it closely know that a lot of basic facts have actually been settled over the last year. The location of the initial outbreak in Wuhan (namely, in a market that sold wild animals similar to the animals that caused the original SARS outbreak in 2002) is one of those settled facts now.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#372

Post by nomel » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 4:17 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #349

sinecure wrote: post #274

I think covid's lasting impact will be one of vastly growing mistrust in the political and scientific organizations that society looks to for guidance. From the CDC's ever changing guidelines, the liability-free, fast tracked vaccine that doesn't actually mitigate transmission, the labeling of media pushed medical hypothesis as "science" and any debate as heresy, the effortless militarization of common citizens to so…

Quoted post unavailable.

And, it has reached the top, with the most disturbing phrase I’ve seen come out of the White House [1]:

“When you are not with where the majority of Americans are, then, you know, that is extreme. That is an extreme way of thinking.”

1. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dButKWnTmG8&feature=emb_title

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#373

Post by DiogenesKynikos » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 4:17 PM UTC

junofan wrote: post #134

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It started at a wet market on the other side of the city. That's been very solidly established now. The early cases were very heavily concentrated around the wet market, but not around the lab, which is more than 10 km away.[0] > a lab that studies the virus The lab did not study SARS-CoV-2. It studied viruses that are about 20% different from SARS-CoV-2. We know what viruses they were working with, because they publ…

The lab is not 10 km away. It is next door to the market. From the WHO report [0]: > The Wuhan CDC laboratory moved on 2nd December 2019 to a new location near the Huanan market. [0]: page 119, https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/final-j...

You're confusing the Wuhan CDC and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#374

Post by thedorkknight » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

yonaguska wrote: post #358

thedorkknight wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that they're not evidence for a lab leak. They're evidence for Peter Daszak being a shady person who was scared of the thought of a lab leak being linked to him regardless of whether or not it's true, and handled it in the worst way possible.

If that's true, it needs to be addressed. If it's true, then Peter Daszak, surely would have evidence that would exonerate him, along with corroborating witnesses. Instead, he hides and deflects. Unfortunately, it's become a right vs left issue, so he has an entire political establishment deflecting for him on his behalf. It's human nature, if you are already predisposed to a suspicion, then the subject of that suspi…

>If it's true, then Peter Daszak, surely would have evidence that would exonerate him, along with corroborating witnesses

Disagree, since you can't really prove a negative. I'm not sure what evidence could "exonerate" him in a way that would remove everyone's suspicion.

Besides, I listened to the podcast "This Week in Virology" A lot during covid, and they talked about Daszak multiple times, especially since some of the hosts have professional connections with him. Prof. Racaniello, the main host, has even interviewed him, pre-pandemic. Unfortunately, all of their discussion around the lab leak hypothesis would just get disregarded by people since it didn't fit the conspiracy narrative, and they just got written off as "anti-Trump" as a result. Literally, one of their march 2020 episodes where they'd usually answer listener questions, as they'd been doing for nearly a decade, was just them being baffled by suddenly getting hate mail accusing them of being "political" and "anti-Trump". That's also when I realized personally that we were screwed but I digress.

>It's human nature, if you are already predisposed to a suspicion, then the subject of that suspicion does something shady, this only confirms your suspicion.

Totally agreed, and I get it. This is why learning about cognitive biases and structured critical thinking was so eye-opening to me and why I think we should be teaching these things in school as early as possible.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#375

Post by BWStearns » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 4:22 PM UTC

ubertaco wrote: post #251

mejutoco wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "masks don't work unless you're a trained medical professional" Putting aside the phrasing, which I take to be something like "unless you follow procedures and have new masks often etc". In the beginning this was the narrative because there was a shortage of masks, or because of plain ignorance. Masks are not perfect, but they were effective, which is why they are still mandatory in some contexts. If one can ignore…

> In the beginning this was the narrative because there was a shortage of masks, or because of plain ignorance. Maybe I missed something, but I don't remember ever hearing "masks don't work unless you're a medical professional" (outside of later revisionist accounts by the right-wing "COVID isn't real and this is all a vast conspiracy" crowd); I mostly remember hearing "initial findings show that masks seem to be eff…

The more conspiracy minded started parsing "please don't go out and panic-buy them like you've been doing with toilet paper" as "you don't need masks" almost immediately. It was dumb when it happened, it's still dumb today. I'm sure at least one talking head said something to that effect but that was not actually the consensus message.

"Don't buy these masks unless you're a medical professional" ≠ "Masks don't work unless you're a medical professional."

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#376

Post by honkdaddy » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 4:23 PM UTC

ok_computer wrote: post #288

Hi, content aside, tweet chains posts are terrible to read on any device. And twitter bugs me to log in to track me through the browser. To all the people who think this is the best way to deliver information to their audience please stop. 1/1

What medium would you recommend Mr. Ebright use to deliver his message to his 50,000 followers, plus the other several hundred thousand who would have seen it given its popularity?

He didn't write this for HN users to read, it's pretty unrealistic for us to expect people format their publishing to fit the preferences of nerdy HN readers.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#377

Post by pstuart » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 4:23 PM UTC

stefanpie wrote: post #207

pstuart wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy now -- this is how we get zombies.

Antihypoxiant by Andy Weir: http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/antihypoxiant.html

My fave of his of all time is The Egg: http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#378

Post by fzeroracer » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

pnf wrote: post #367

fzeroracer wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with your argument and anyone else's argument that alleges grand conspiracy among scientists is that you always take a US centric view and pretend the US is the only place in the world with scientists. Scientists like many other individuals are divided by country. There are many countries out there that would love to do nothing but prove that this was a lab leak so that they could take a swing at China. A…

I specifically said that no conspiracy is required, that the mechanism is baked into the system. As for the rest of the world, all the information is NOT accessible and public. Far from it. China is notoriously secretive and the US bio-security industry certainly isn't more forthcoming. Second, who says there isn't a control mechanism for non-US research science? Where does funding come from outside the US and how is…

Everything you're doing and alleging is conspiracy. That there is some greater will censoring anything that would reveal it was a lab leak.

There's no point in arguing with you because anything can be contorted to fit this narrative you've crafted to fit everything neatly into this conspiracy. In reality hiding something like this on a global scale is quite literally impossible. That's simply a fact of how information travels and works.

It's especially funny because the lab leak hypothesis literally originated from the government agencies and such you seem keen to deride. It was pushed by the most powerful position in America. I don't understand how people pushing this conspiracy can square the fact that it came from the groups they claim to conspire against it

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#379

Post by alphabettsy » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

chopin wrote: post #363

alphabettsy wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re leaving out the part where, for political or other reasons, there are and were groups motivated to sell distrust in American institutions as well as their political rivals. You cannot seriously have a debate about this mistrust without acknowledging the role of misinformation and motivated actors looking to sew mistrust. Remember when 5G causing Covid was trending? Or memes about how hot water in a net…

Many institutions are handling Covid in the worst possible way. The clinic of the University of Heidelberg (a scientific institution tasked with educating physicians) for instance insists on the 3G rule for admittance (either vaccinated, recovered or tested for COVID). Either COVID is dangerous, then only testing helps, or it is not dangerous, than testing only a subgroup is irrational. The entire health policy in Ge…

> Either COVID is dangerous, then only testing helps, or it is not dangerous, than testing only a subgroup is irrational.

You’d like it to be such a binary choice, but like most everything else in the world it’s not.

Regardless of the faults or mistakes I think it’s incumbent on our leaders to try to improve the situation not make it worse for political gain.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#380

Post by effie » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

BryantD wrote: post #351

effie wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Admitting scientists were wrong in their claims on science does not hurt societal standing of science or funding. The cost is very low, everybody expects scientists to be wrong on science from time to time. Admitting scientists may have caused the pandemic is on a whole another level. Societal status and funding may be pulled. The cost is so huge it makes relevant scientists unlikely to admit any of the sort.

I don’t have a great way to prove this, because we’re arguing about a hypothetical, but I think you’re wrong. Let me try one similar but non-medical counter-example. People are still willing to get on planes, even though Boeing 737 MAX engineering flaws caused 346 deaths.

Some, not all, people are willing to get on Boeing 737 MAX. Certainly not people who know about the fiasco and avoid increased risk.

Your counter-example does not work at all, instead it is an example of my point. Boeing managers were driven solely by profitability of the company, mismanaged safety concerns, did not tell the customer about problems and MCAS fearing lost or less profitable contracts, and that's why we got crashed planes and hundreds dead.