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Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2?

biorxiv.org

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Re: Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2?

#121

Post by lioeters »

m0llusk wrote: post #18

There are at least a couple of suspicious points in this study: First and foremost the central claim is that 5 potential restriction binding sites versus 2 means that SARS-CoV2 is non natural. That does not necessarily follow. Just as SARS-CoV2 is unusually infectious and damaging to humans it could just happen to have an additional 3 restriction binding sites. So there is nothing inconsistent with natural selection…

This comment appears more like slanted analysis from someone with an agenda than a critical thinking scientist genuinely interested in the truth.

Re: Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2?

#122

Post by peyton »

lioeters wrote: post #121
m0llusk wrote: post #18

There are at least a couple of suspicious points in this study: First and foremost the central claim is that 5 potential restriction binding sites versus 2 means that SARS-CoV2 is non natural. That does not necessarily follow. Just as SARS-CoV2 is unusually infectious and damaging to humans it could just happen to have an additional 3 restriction binding sites. So there is nothing inconsistent with natural selection…

This comment appears more like slanted analysis from someone with an agenda than a critical thinking scientist genuinely interested in the truth.

It’s amazing how long this farce has gone on. People who had every incentive to lie lied. That’s all.

Re: Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2?

#123

Post by tzs »

ISL wrote: post #43
callesgg wrote: post #15

I Honestly thought it was common belief that corona come from that lab in china. But now after reading this, I searched a bit and read up on it and I guess it is still a somewhat honest debate on the topic. Even if it was lab made, it would be sort of stupid to dig in to it, due to the political nature of the matter. What happened happened, most likely the release would have been accidental, so why play blame games.

If it was released from a lab, no matter whether or not it was accidental, Covid would be the mother of all torts. The entire planet can show harm and will be very interested in recovering their losses from the entity that mis-handled a lethal virus.

The poor handling of the pandemic in many countries likely greatly increased the losses in those countries and also made it harder for other countries to get it under control. The tortfeasor would likely only be responsible for the losses that would have likely occurred if the pandemic had been handled competently.

A lot of countries would probably really not want to have the kind of public in-depth examination of their pandemic responses that would be necessary to figure damages.

Re: Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2?

#124

Post by lamontcg »

Fomite wrote: post #104
guelo wrote: post #66

I've seen several papers with the opposite conclusion. Why do we only see the lab leak hypothesis front paged on HN?

To my mind, there are a few reasons: 1) It makes the pandemic deterministic (bad lab security means an outbreak) instead of stochastic (wildlife spillover). That is, to be frank, even as an epidemiologist who is very skeptical of the lab leak hypothesis, a comforting thought. 2) It's a popular topic in the Substack/Medium set, because it moves the pandemic back into their wheelhouse of expertise, international relati…

Zoonotic spillover is likely increasing in China due to climate change, more human-animal contact and animal farming, it probably has a large "determinstic" background.

Of course if you go down that rabbithole then you might wind up concluding that the vegans have been right all along, which certain groups might find an unpalatable result.

Re: Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2?

#125

Post by peyton »

projektfu wrote: post #115
bee_rider wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Genuinely surprises me that there are people out there who think or have been persuaded the virus is of natural origin. The lab right next to the market was literally studying and experimenting with the exact same type of virus. How can a someone think that that's just a coincidence? It seems plausible, at least, that it leaked from the lab, in the sense that labs aren't magically impenetrable and leaks could happe…

Absolutely incredible to think that the national institute of allergy and infectious disease might fund research into infectious disease.

I think you’re committing a motte-and-bailey here. We are talking about research deemed so dangerous Obama banned it, not infectious disease research in general.

Re: Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2?

#126

Post by peyton »

divided wrote: post #83
arisAlexis wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on bayesian priors.how mahy coronaviruses were studied, how frequently a new virus is found next to a biolab of said virus by chance etc. The extraordinary claim could be that it is of natural origin actually.

Fun fact! There are just 9,110 named virus species as of 2021. But there are estimates that mammals and birds may have as many as 1.7 million undiscovered viruses. An older source says there were ~200 some known viruses that could infect humans as of 2013. They estimate there are 800k unknown ones which could infect us. Basically every time they look for viruses, they find new ones.

However, the evidence that Ecohealth Alliance refuses to share their Wuhan lab notebooks “explains away” other beliefs.

If you’re at home and you hear loud booms, then look at the calendar and see it’s July 4, the date “explains away” the thousands of other explanations for why you are hearing loud booms.

Re: Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2?

#127

Post by [deleted] »

someuser54541 wrote: post #22

Genuinely surprises me that there are people out there who think or have been persuaded the virus is of natural origin. The lab right next to the market was literally studying and experimenting with the exact same type of virus. How can a someone think that that's just a coincidence? Add that to the fact that the funding for that research lab was approved by the same guy who become the de facto thought leader on the…

[deleted]

Re: Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2?

#128

Post by lamontcg »

graeme wrote: post #10
jgeada wrote: post #6

So a likely extremely controversial paper being shared publicly to a non-expert audience prior to any peer-review. Is this going to be yet one more of those “will be withdrawn after peer scrutiny but by then it is too late because the false meme has been injected into the public consciousness” things?

They did share it with scientists. Here’s Francois Balloux saying he replicated the results, tried to find holes, couldn’t https://mobile.twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1583165259...

Here's another blue check immunologist on twitter with a substantially different take:

https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen/status/1583252866394771456

Re: Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2?

#129

Post by rossdavidh »

The opening line: "To prevent future pandemics, it is important that we understand whether SARS-CoV-2 spilled over directly from animals to people, or indirectly in a laboratory accident."

Is that true? I mean I understand why people would be curious, but does it really matter, in terms of what we need to do? We know that viruses _can_ spillover from animals to people, and we know that viruses in a laboratory setting _could_ plausibly get released in an accident. In terms of what we need to do to prevent (as far as possible) it happening in the future, I don't know that I believe that the answer to which one happened in the case of covid-19, is all that important.

Again, I see why people would care. But as long as we know that both are realistic possibilities (and we do), it doesn't matter moving forward.

Re: Endonuclease fingerprint indicates a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2?

#130

Post by mikeyouse »

lamontcg wrote: post #128
graeme wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did share it with scientists. Here’s Francois Balloux saying he replicated the results, tried to find holes, couldn’t https://mobile.twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1583165259...

Here's another blue check immunologist on twitter with a substantially different take: https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen/status/1583252866394771456

The authors of this paper are confused about the technology they're using... it's not a good sign about their conclusions..

https://twitter.com/matias_kaplan/status/1583235087067336704

https://twitter.com/NoahOlsman/status/1583275862442807299

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