Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

971–980 of 1001 posts

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

#971

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US common law, that is the thing that you need to say in case you face any court case whatsoever in the future. Any objective details that you give about the situation may be used as evidence against you in a court case by the prosecutors. Therefore you always need to start from 'nothing ever happened' and then negotiate down the responsibility as much as you can. Immediately in that period the retirement home…

> Immediately in that period the retirement homes in the area and later the state, started experiencing 'mystery pnemonia cases' in which a lot of elderly have died. So... No source?

Yeah. No source. Well spotted.

Good job. You totally protected your belief system and avoided cognitive dissonance.

https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/officials-at-least-13...

https://www.necn.com/news/national-international/health-offi...

https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/vaping-illnesses-mary...

...

The next time you discuss with someone, do a freaking google search to contribute to the discussion.

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

#972
post #621
post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After seeing lots of Twitter threads about Nate Silver, condemning his lack of "certainty" in his predictions ("It's such a cop out! Since he never says yes or no one way or the other he always has an out when he's wrong!"), I'm even more convinced not just that people don't understand statistics, but they willfully don't want to. As someone who does understand statistics, it's made me dislike Nate Silver even more…

I enjoyed "The Signal and the Noise" I think its focus on the problems of fitting models to noise is something that should be more widely understood and he did that really quite well. It's a while ago but I think it was the massive failures of earthquake predictions was how he did it and it was convincing and readable. I've never read his blog and care stuff all about his political polling predictions.

"The Signal and the Noise" is a great book and it definitely impacted some of the most important choices I made around my career. I think that's part of the reason I'm so annoyed that Nate Silver has gone so far down the punditry rabbit hole.

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

#973
post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After seeing lots of Twitter threads about Nate Silver, condemning his lack of "certainty" in his predictions ("It's such a cop out! Since he never says yes or no one way or the other he always has an out when he's wrong!"), I'm even more convinced not just that people don't understand statistics, but they willfully don't want to. As someone who does understand statistics, it's made me dislike Nate Silver even more…

I still respect his models, but I think the rest is the kind of stuff you’re expected to do as part of a media organization.

> I still respect his models, but I think the rest is the kind of stuff you’re expected to do as part of a media organization.

Exactly. His models are still outstanding. Ironically, I think the signal from his models gets lost in all the noise around the filler content on his site.

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

#974

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because what good does it do to actually dealing with the outbreak? I assume the government just made a decision that it was politically less desirable to do for a number of reasons. Mainly, probably the continuing attempts at thawing of relations with China.

If China is engaged in a behavior that lead to a global pandemic, we have to know everything about what they were doing so that we can stop this from ever happening again. Who gives a crap about thawed relations after the extraordinary amount of damage this pandemic has done to the world

I actually completely agree. We SHOULD know the true origin and causes; I just have zero faith anyone in the US will put pressure on China or accuse them publicly. That was more the gist of what I was getting at.

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

#975

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Immediately in that period the retirement homes in the area and later the state, started experiencing 'mystery pnemonia cases' in which a lot of elderly have died. So... No source?

Yeah. No source. Well spotted. Good job. You totally protected your belief system and avoided cognitive dissonance. https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/officials-at-least-13... https://www.necn.com/news/national-international/health-offi... https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/vaping-illnesses-mary... ... The next time you discuss with someone, do a freaking google search to contribute to the discussion.

Shouldn't an outbreak happen before the lab is shutdown instead of months later, during the flu season?

A lot of elderly that died is 3?

You're right, this "US lab leak" (kuch) is way worse than the one from Wuhan that infected the world with millions of casualties.

LOL!

What are you even suggesting even? It's starting to get ridiculous.

Oh yeah, your source was probably this: http://de.china-embassy.gov.cn/det/zt/BekaempfungCOVID19/202... . Which matched your exact 'mystery pnemonia cases' keyword and is ( not ) surprisingly similar to your "references".

I'd expect better of state funded propaganda outlet for 1 billion people.

PS. https://www.polygraph.info/a/china-disinfo-covid-19/6742435....

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58273322

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

#976

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain the coincidence of why it happened to be in a wet market and not a restaurant or other gathering where people congregate. Just happened to be the one place to make it look exactly like zoonosis and extraordinarily similar to SARS-1.

If you think SARS-CoV-2 arose naturally in the same city as the world's biggest laboratory collection of sarbecoviruses (which I do agree is possible), then you must agree that weird coincidences do happen sometimes? A wet market is crowded and poorly-ventilated, so it's a great place for a respiratory virus to spread, regardless of how it got introduced. There's also the question of ascertainment bias, whether cases…

The pandemic happening in the same city as WIV isn't really that much of a coincidence. The virus needed a large densely packed city to really take off. Wuhan is the biggest city in central China. The catchment area around Wuhan for where a virus would follow the animal trade to the city is probably large. Wuhan is also a good candidate for a centrally located lab. That only seems like a 5-10% low probability chance, which happens (it is also the second time it happened in China and the first time looked like this one, only it hit Guangzhou where there was no lab).

The infected lab worker causing exactly one massive superspreading event in the wet market without infecting anyone else, making it look exactly like zoonotic spillover, without leaving any other contacts around Wuhan is much less believable to me. That sounds like a thousand to one odds or much worse.

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

#977

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. No source. Well spotted. Good job. You totally protected your belief system and avoided cognitive dissonance. https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/officials-at-least-13... https://www.necn.com/news/national-international/health-offi... https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/vaping-illnesses-mary... ... The next time you discuss with someone, do a freaking google search to contribute to the discussion.

Shouldn't an outbreak happen before the lab is shutdown instead of months later, during the flu season? A lot of elderly that died is 3? You're right, this "US lab leak" (kuch) is way worse than the one from Wuhan that infected the world with millions of casualties. LOL! What are you even suggesting even? It's starting to get ridiculous. Oh yeah, your source was probably this: http://de.china-embassy.gov.cn/det/zt/Be…

> Shouldn't an outbreak happen before the lab is shutdown instead of months later, during the flu season?

The shutdown was done on court order for the reason that the lab's security systems were failing. It is unknown for how long. Its possible that the leak happened before the government started acting.

> A lot of elderly that died is 3?

Thats the start of the f'kin pandemic. Not its entirety. Youre being disingenious here.

Its the disease getting out that's important.

> You're right, this "US lab leak" (kuch) is way worse than the one from Wuhan that infected the world with millions of casualties.

And now the jig is up. So you are very probably an American conservative, who just repeats the smears others for the screw-up of your deregulated, budget-cutting, 'innovating' government. Like that army lab 'innovating' with its security measures after your former president Trump cut all budgets by 75%.

> What are you even suggesting even? It's starting to get ridiculous. Oh yeah, your source was probably this

Dont be an a-hole. There are other sources there if you had taken two seconds to investigate. Covid was found to be in the sewers of Italy by september 2019, and in the severs of Barcelona by october 2019. They are congruent with the Fort Detrick leak.

And in regard to China: I'd take China's word over the word of the lying fcks of your establishment any day. The lying fcks who lied to the entire world about nonexistent WMDs for eight years cannot be the arbiter of truth, less, any authority about who is lying.

....

Basically its another case of your psychopathic establishment smearing others for its own f*ck up and you people are TOTALLY on board with it. They just popped this smear out 2 days ago. And you are literally screaming on top of your lungs like a religious zealot as if the pope of your church told you to do.

You have not learned ANYTHING from the Iraq affair. You people are beyond redemption. When the nuclear war that your establishment is pushing with these lies and smears come and you die in fiery plasma, you will have made it happen yourself. Nobody else.

There is no rational debate with religious, nationalist zealots. EVERY single discussion with an Angloamerican nationalist ends this way - by the person peddling the lies of its lying, backstabbing establishment.

This discussion is over. Good day.

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

#978
post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People want a blunt weapon to promote their politics with." You are right and thats the most fascinating / absurd part of this whole thing. Somehow wet market vs lab leak has political sides and people are emotionally invested in one over the other. Its crazy, lets just have the truth and move on, either way it came out of China and savaged the world. People don't want the lab leak theory to be true for the sole rea…

Do you need the truth though? In some ways the mere question on the origin of the virus is a political one. No one in the public has ever cared to have definitive proof where any virus came from before. The ability to point to a specific time and place is probably outside of our ability. A lab had it on Nov 1st, 2021. A lab worker brought it home, is that 100% proof that was the first infection? Or did the lab get it…

I don't think it is just 'evil' China here. I think this is the US, China, and other world researchers who with NIMBY were doing research on coronaviruses and modifying them. Let's not use racism to mask the military-industrial-government complex as the true culprit. I do believe though that an accidental, not bioweapons release, of the virus occurred because people make mistakes. The coverup is why I think this needs to be vetted. It needs to be prevented, and not satisfy some stupid political ideologues. I commented elsewhere in this thread, but I lived in China over 7 years. I have been to Wuhan and the wet market there, and I have been disappointed at seeing tech sites in the US and China that don't live up to what people think when they hear a BSL-4 lab designation. Fauci and crew admit to doing experiments at the WIV, but argue the semantics "gain-of-function". The firin cleavage site on COVID-19 is very unique compared to other Corona viruses. It seems very plausible a lab leak spread to the wet market. We need to audit and call for more transparency so this never happens again, or it is minimized and can be attacked promptly and not when it's too late next time.

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

#979
post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we should stop supporting the study of dangerous viruses in facilities that don't maintain adequate levels of transparency. Regardless of what actually happened in this case (FWIW I still believe a natural origin was most likely), the Chinese authorities covered up everything to do with the lab and destroyed potential evidence before a proper investigation could take place. In court cases we have a norm that ev…

> In court cases we have a norm that evidence you destroy is treated as evidence against you, for good reason. Destruction of evidence is considered only evidence of consciousness of guilt and cannot be used to prove guilt alone. The court also has to consider that an innocent person may commit destruction of evidence to avoid wrongful prosecution from situations that look damning.

Another point is that in the SARS-CoV-1 outbreak in 2002-2004 the Chinese government acted similarly:

> Early in the epidemic, the Chinese government discouraged its press from reporting on SARS, delayed reporting to WHO, and initially did not provide information to Chinese outside Guangdong province, where the disease is believed to have originated.[19] Also, a WHO team that travelled to Beijing was not allowed to visit Guangdong province for several weeks.[20] This resulted in international criticism, which seems to have led to a change in government policy in early April.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002–2004_SARS_outbreak

There was no BSL4 lab in Guangzhou and they didn't sterilize the market there right away, so in that case they were able to eventually track the virus to its origins--yet the reaction of the Chinese government was basically the same.

Americans have a fairly severe problem with assuming that other nations and people's will react with transparency to the US if they have nothing to hide. This is the same problem we saw with Hussein and the way that he tried to block the weapons inspectors and it turned out by his own admission that it was due to him not wanting to appear weak in the view of Iran and Hussein was preoccupied with Iran: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jul/02/saddam-hussein...

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

#980

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't an outbreak happen before the lab is shutdown instead of months later, during the flu season? A lot of elderly that died is 3? You're right, this "US lab leak" (kuch) is way worse than the one from Wuhan that infected the world with millions of casualties. LOL! What are you even suggesting even? It's starting to get ridiculous. Oh yeah, your source was probably this: http://de.china-embassy.gov.cn/det/zt/Be…

> Shouldn't an outbreak happen before the lab is shutdown instead of months later, during the flu season? The shutdown was done on court order for the reason that the lab's security systems were failing. It is unknown for how long. Its possible that the leak happened before the government started acting. > A lot of elderly that died is 3? Thats the start of the f'kin pandemic. Not its entirety. Youre being disingenio…

I'm not even American, lol. I guess you dropped another ball on that one.

Quoting myselve again about having a conversation with you:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

- trump, Iraq, religious, ...

Post reply on HN