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Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

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Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#291

Post by mwbajor »

swatcoder wrote: post #217
2-718-281-828 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> why does the US actively support this cover up? Sometimes, answers are more clear when questions are more clear. “Why is the US waiting to secure a convincing case that produces useful diplomatic leverage instead of indulging public speculation by making an early call that wastes the opportunity?” There’s a lot to lose by making a case that other nations can dismiss, and a lot to gain by having a case that they can…

In my opinion, its more likely wallstreet that doesn't want to loose their cheap Chinese sweatshop labor.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#292

Post by belorn »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #151

There's a lot of bad headline-writing on this subject today. Here's the NYT's headline: Lab Leak Most Likely Caused Pandemic, Energy Dept. Says And then the sub-head (or dek, if you want to sound like you're in the know): The conclusion, which was made with “low confidence,” came as America’s intelligence agencies remained divided over the origins of the coronavirus. So we have a conclusion: 'lab leak most likely cau…

If all the other origin theories has "very low" as confidence score, then a lab leak is still the most likely origin with a "low" confidence score.

It would be nice to see the confidence score as a numerical number in order to understand how much lead this theory has to the second most likely origin theory.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#293

Post by coolestguy »

Zetice wrote: post #166
Giorgi wrote: post #108

[flagged]

I would hate to live in a world where, when people randomly guess something correctly, they feel vindicated and emboldened to say other random guesses that are as completely unfounded as the one they happened to get correct.

>when people randomly guess something correctly

Or an educated guess where labs in the area were studying this exact type of virus

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#294

Post by skellington »

boxed wrote: post #242
goolulusaurs wrote: post #192

IMO, it seems obvious from the behavior of China's government that they know it is a lab leak. If it wasn't a lab leak, then presumably there is an animal reservoir of the virus somewhere in China, but as far as I know they haven't claimed to have found it. But if there is an animal reservoir of the virus in China, then how could the Chinese government ever expect a lockdown to work? A lockdown on travel would only r…

Of course there's a reservoir. That's why there was a lab in the first place. There are many more viruses in those caves. Many many. And tourists literally pay money to go into such caves, and look up to the ceiling to look at the bats. Bats that may at any time shit into their eye with one of these new viruses. And then on top of that people catch them and sell them live to slaughter them at home to eat. Again, this…

No there isn't. More than 50K animals tested an no animal reservoir for C19.

Are there really reddit-ors who still think C19 was natural when ALL of the current evidence including genetic markers points to lab leak?

Yes, we can't say with absolute certainty, but the case for lab leak is MUCH stronger than for natural. Plus, why has China still not released the nature and details of the experiments that were conducted in that lab? You know why.

Anyone who doesn't see that lab leak is the most likely source is just being contrarian for their own ego or political reasons.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#295

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

dang wrote: post #139
someuser54541 wrote: post #51

I'm fairly confident posts like these are artificially weighted to fall off the front page..that seems to happen when a COVID related post gets popular on HN. This post has more points and comments than the majority of stuff on the front page but it's currently on page 3. I've casually noticed something similar over the past ~18 months with posts related to COVID.

It was flagged by users. We sometimes reverse that and I've done so in this case.

Why? What's the thinking in that decision? This kind of post draws out the lowest quality comments and attracts accounts that comment only on this kind of post.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#296

Post by r00fus »

dalemyers wrote: post #245
BurningFrog wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd still say the Iraq War was most costly and fatal mistake in the 21st Century. Hard to compare, admittedly.

Based on what exactly? According to Wikipedia, the Iraq War produced a total death count of 25,071 and a total wounded count of 117,961. Also according to Wikipedia COVID-19 has produced a death count of 6,868,964 and an infection count of 674,809,997. I'm all for complaining about US tactics, but it's 100% incorrect to try and claim that the Iraq War was "worse" than COVID-19.

Iraq only produced a death count of 25k? Do Iraqis not count?

Also almost all of the violence post war should be somewhat attributable to the invasion; we broke the basket to secure oil rights (and some argue to also keep the petrodollar as the world reserve currency)

The cost was way more than the cherry-picked stats you present

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#297

Post by ineedasername »

lvl102 wrote: post #261
ThePhantom wrote: post #205

The lab leak hypothesis makes the most sense. The lab in Wuhan which researches coronaviruses conducts experiences on animals, including bats. Like other labs, there are dedicated personnel for hydrating and feeding the experimental animals. Notably, there are "wet markets" in Wuhan where live animals are sold, including bats, which harbor coronaviruses. Someone who is working in the facility in charge of maintenance…

Deleted

I doubt it. It was almost immediately clear that the world’s reliance on China for some things was a problem. I think this was a pretty clear outcome, because before COVID there were people already harping on that single point of failure.

This is going to hurt China’s long term influence. Countries are diversifying their strategic supply chains, on shoring capacity for thinks like chip fabs. This weakens China’s geopolitical clout because they won’t be able to control the bottleneck.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#299

Post by sheepscreek »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #151

There's a lot of bad headline-writing on this subject today. Here's the NYT's headline: Lab Leak Most Likely Caused Pandemic, Energy Dept. Says And then the sub-head (or dek, if you want to sound like you're in the know): The conclusion, which was made with “low confidence,” came as America’s intelligence agencies remained divided over the origins of the coronavirus. So we have a conclusion: 'lab leak most likely cau…

For what it’s worth - FBI arrived at the same conclusion in 2021 with “moderate confidence.”

Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807...

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#300

Post by mikem170 »

ttul wrote: post #21
tiahura wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they produce good science from this work. Other than securing more funding for more research, and trivia for virologists, what good science has come from this lab?

I’d have to re-listen to numerous TWiV podcasts, but here is a WaPo article discussing the quality of research at WIV: https://archive.ph/2020.01.31-185716/https://www.washingtonp... The Wuhan institute was celebrated as an improvement over the facilities at which dangerous viruses had previously been studied in China. The 2004 SARS outbreak originated in a lab: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC416634/

> The 2004 SARS outbreak originated in a lab

This is news to me. The article you referenced opens by saying [0]:

> The World Health Organization has confirmed that breaches of safety procedures on at least two occasions at one of Beijing's top virology laboratories were the probable cause of the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) there last month, which infected nine people, one of whom died.

This seems to be saying they traced the illness in nine people there at the lab back to two leaks at the lab, not that the entire disease outbreak originated in a lab.

There a lot of other studies, referenced in this wikipedia article [1], which explain that the first SARS virus originated in bats:

> Phylogenetic analysis of these viruses indicated a high probability that SARS coronavirus originated in bats and spread to humans either directly or through animals held in Chinese markets.

> In 2004, scientists from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention of the University of Hong Kong and the Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention established a genetic link between the SARS coronavirus appearing in civets and humans, confirming claims that the virus might have transmitted from the animal species to humans.

In the last 15 years people have fallen ill of the plague, cowpox, meningococcus, h5n1, anthrax, and zika due to lab leaks in the Unites States [2]. These are just the leaks where people got sick and/or died, all lab workers I believe. There were others affecting animals, and others where nobody got sick. None of that means these labs originated these diseases. The origin of a disease is separate from a localized outbreak.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC416634/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-1#Origin_and_evolutio...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity...

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