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

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#581

Post by igouy » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 10:53 PM UTC

seydor wrote: post #6

Well I hope that at least the next lab-made pandemic will insert some beneficial mutations to humanity. In a way, the lab-leak hypothesis is comforting, because it means that nature with its own means did not manage to manufacture such a highly-transmissive disease, despite the facts of modern life, record human population and rates of travel. If it is not lab-made, then nature may do this again soon with another vir…

False comfort.

"In May [2021], researchers reported that two coronaviruses in dogs recombined in Malaysia. The result was a hybrid that infected eight children."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/science/bat-coronaviruses...

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#582

Post by igouy » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 11:20 PM UTC

CraigJPerry wrote: post #16

I don’t go looking for covid discussions but they arrive in my feeds so i’m conscious i’m seeing a feed that someone(s) else curated for me and wanted me to view. That said… Is there any popular discussion or action regarding mitigation of both lab and natural origins for future? It seems that both avenues are possible. If we know both are possible, that seems like enough knowledge to move forward with exploring poss…

"The first obvious corrective action would be to" help China shrink the live animal trade.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#583

Post by igouy » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 11:47 PM UTC

Closi wrote: post #74

scotchmi_st wrote: post #45

If you click on the link in the thread, there's an editor's note clarifying that this paper is being used to prop up dodgy claims, for which there's no evidence. The main issue I have with the 'lab leak' theory is that I haven't seen much evidence one way or another. Hitchens' razor applies- what can be stated without evidence can be as easily dismissed without evidence. I personally don't see any issue with the idea…

> Hitchens' razor applies- what can be stated without evidence can be as easily dismissed without evidence. I think the problem is that there is very little evidence exists for the other explanations - and an absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. The lack of non-circumstantial evidence for the "Lab Leak" theory can be partially explained by the fact that China blocked investigations within the lab until 2021…

> … very little evidence exists for the other explanations…

Well, there's evidence of transmission from mammals to people — "Sequencing has subsequently shown that mink-to-human transmission also occurred."

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5901

There's evidence of novel coronaviruses occurring in mammals and then infecting people — "In May [2021], researchers reported that two coronaviruses in dogs recombined in Malaysia. The result was a hybrid that infected eight children."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/science/bat-coronaviruses...

There's evidence of "vendors selling live mammals, including raccoon dogs, hog badgers, and red foxes, immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic" at a Wuhan market.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715

There's "Multiple positive samples … from one stall known to have sold live mammals, and the water drain proximal to this stall, as well as other sewerages and a nearby wildlife stall on the southwest side of the market, tested positive for SARS-CoV-2."

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715

Please be more specific.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#584

Post by igouy » Wed, Sep 07, 2022, 11:51 PM UTC

arisAlexis wrote: post #422

ethbr0 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if the probability is very small we have to dig in deeper to prevent the next catastrophe. There are very small chances of many catastrophes that we happily ignore. Among the less small ones, off the top of my head: a large earthquake on the San Andreas fault and the Yellowstone supervolcano erupting.

Can we prevent a volcano erupting? No. Can we prevent a lab leak? Yes. I wonder why people are soooo resistant to this idea and make up a myriad bad arguments.

Can we prevent the live animal trade bringing people into daily proximity with novel viruses.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#585

Post by igouy » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 12:37 AM UTC

wk_end wrote: post #141

ajross wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Say mr X was The problem is that none of the circumstantial evidence for a lab leak is remotely as convincing as your hypothetical. And most of it tends to be spun. Read the linked thread and note how many times the author throws out terms like "much more likely to be lab-generated" without evidence. We don't know any of that. We have very limited understanding of wild pathogen evolution in general. Likewise the "1…

> Likewise the "1000 miles from bat viruses" thing is spun. We don't know that either! We just know what we measured, not what we didn't. That's not "spun", that's science. You're positing a COVID teapot that we have no evidence for. In a scientific context, it's not spin to omit stating "based on all available empirical evidence" after every assertion.

> That's not "spun", that's science

As-if the only alternative to transported-to-labs was bat migration?

1,000 miles seems less ridiculous when it's animals in cages on trucks going to market — just a tiny part of the live animal trade.

(How many thousands of miles did Burmese Pythons travel to reach the Florida Everglades.)

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#586

Post by haihaibye » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 12:47 AM UTC

igouy wrote: post #566

haihaibye wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Confirming zooinosis outside of the lab (eg outside Wuhan) would disprove lab leak Finding the animal reservoir, would disprove it was modified in the lab. I guess it would also lower the chance of a lab leak (though I could still be natural) China allowing a proper investigation would reduce the odds (though how to prove they haven't tampered with evidence in the years since) I think every day the natural source isn…

? "Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a zoonotic virus—one that spilled over from another species to infect and transmit among humans. … Sequencing has subsequently shown that mink-to-human transmission also occurred." https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5901

Sorry, to clarify - I mean the original animal reservoir and original zoonotic event

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#587

Post by haihaibye » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 12:49 AM UTC

masswerk wrote: post #555

haihaibye wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MN312670.1 Bat sample from Laos submitted by Wuhan institute of virology in 2019

But this is neither similar to SARS-CoV-2 nor to BANAL-236 or BANAL-52 (the close relatives found in Laos).

The OP said the WIV didn't sample in Laos. Just wanted to show it did.

Who knows what they sampled but haven't released - the WIV took down their virus sequence database in November 2019 and it has not been shared since.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#588

Post by igouy » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 1:36 AM UTC

haihaibye wrote: post #586

igouy wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? "Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a zoonotic virus—one that spilled over from another species to infect and transmit among humans. … Sequencing has subsequently shown that mink-to-human transmission also occurred." https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5901

Sorry, to clarify - I mean the original animal reservoir and original zoonotic event

Thanks, I'd started to suspect that was your meaning.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#589

Post by igouy » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 1:53 AM UTC

haihaibye wrote: post #547

igouy wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> … no evidence that the epidemic had no lab involvement… "So you simply cannot prove general claims that are negative claims -- one cannot prove that ghosts do not exist; one cannot prove that leprechauns too do not exist. One simply cannot prove a negative and general claim." https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/ppecorino/phil_of_re... . What would you accept as evidence of "no lab involvement"?

Confirming zooinosis outside of the lab (eg outside Wuhan) would disprove lab leak Finding the animal reservoir, would disprove it was modified in the lab. I guess it would also lower the chance of a lab leak (though I could still be natural) China allowing a proper investigation would reduce the odds (though how to prove they haven't tampered with evidence in the years since) I think every day the natural source isn…

>… outside of the lab would disprove lab leak

Might someone still claim — transferred without infection beyond the lab?

Given the available evidence how would "Confirming zooinosis outside of the lab" be done?

> Finding the animal reservoir…

In bats? In intermediary animals?

Apparently "No reports are known to be available for SARS-CoV-2 test results from these mammals at the Huanan market" and "we do not have access to any live animal samples from relevant species" and "The animals on these farms (nearly 1 million) were rapidly released, sold, or killed in early 2020 … apparently without testing for SARS-CoV-2 … Live animals sold at the market … were apparently not sampled either."

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715

> … how to prove they haven't tampered…

So even "a proper investigation" will be insufficient.

> … every day the natural source isn't found should increase the odds…

Hardly. Let's make a wild ass guess that vastly more resources are being focused on the next Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL game, than on finding "the natural source".

What if "the natural source" was destroyed as part of the tear-down of that particular live animal trade?

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#590

Post by initplus » Thu, Sep 08, 2022, 2:55 AM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #529

initplus wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market is still involved lab leak hypothesis or not. The market may still be the place where the earliest animal-human crossover occurred, even if the lab leak hypothesis is correct. Say a group of animals intended to be euthanized were actually clandestinely sold at the market, it's completely reasonable that the virus could have mutated at the lab in the animal population before being transmitted to humans. In…

This is why conspiracy theories never completely die. They can be made more and more convoluted in order to avoid falsification. You're now just asserting, without any evidence, that the Wuhan Institute of Virology sent animals to the Huanan market. We already know that wild animals from the countryside are shipped into the market to be sold, and that this is exactly how the original SARS outbreak in 2002 happened. S…

I'm not asserting that it's guaranteed to be true. But the evidence that exists is not sufficient to draw a certain conclusion either way. If the market were a superspreader event or indeed the true origin, the facts before us today would look identical.