Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid • Hacker News Board

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#161

Post by ricksunny » Sun, Jun 11, 2023, 12:37 PM UTC

bredren wrote: post #44

> Witnesses are said to have told the US investigation that Zhou fell from the roof of the Wuhan institute, although this has not been verified. This guy who published a suspiciously early patent on a covid 19 vaccine fell off a roof three months later? That’s kind of buried in the article a bit but was this claim been made anywhere else? Also, the section on activity at the lab at the time of the outbreak does not m…

>This guy who published a suspiciously early patent on a covid 19 vaccine fell off a roof three months later?

>That’s kind of buried in the article a bit but was this claim been made anywhere else?

As someone who's followed the debate closely, (with the submission history to demostrate that), I can tell you that the parent article is the first time the assertion that Zhou fell from the roof has ever been made in tbe public-facing side of the debate.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#162

Post by kcplate » Sun, Jun 11, 2023, 12:44 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #154

pcrh wrote: post #55

After a quick read of the article, it presents no new data, and is replete with innuendo pointing at the Wuhan lab, rather than any direct evidence. Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an indication of any i…

> indication of any ill-intent I don’t think ill-intent is the accusation, I think the argument is that the lab has poor safety protocols and made errors. I haven’t studied the “lab leak theory” extensively, but everything I read seems to be about lab failures resulting in a leak, not anything purposeful or ill-intentioned.

This is the straw man that people who want to argue against the possibility lab leak use to try and ad hominem the person arguing for the possibility.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#163

Post by peteradio » Sun, Jun 11, 2023, 12:47 PM UTC

pcrh wrote: post #142

living_room_pc wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. That is completely untrue. Agricultural labs for instance research plant viruses which are _incompatible_ with humans completely. Still these plant virus would have to be researched under stringent isolation because of the damage they may po…

Agricultural viruses are dangerous to human food security. At least the ones under study usually are.

> Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an indication of any ill-intent.

What exactly are you trying to say here anyway? If they were researching some other virus type it wouldn't be getting a look. But they were researching coronavirus.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#164

Post by Ins43b » Sun, Jun 11, 2023, 12:56 PM UTC

maeil wrote: post #153

soeptical wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Daszak/ecohealth alliance and by extension NIH and us govt are also culpable for a Wuhan lab originating virus

You're right that Daszak and the Ecohealth Alliance are culpable, but it must be noted that various USG orgs were not supportive of his actions > The report he finally did submit stated that scientists planned to create an infectious clone of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a novel coronavirus found in dromedaries that had emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and killed 35% of the humans it infected. The report a…

[flagged]

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#165

Post by kcplate » Sun, Jun 11, 2023, 1:13 PM UTC

camillomiller wrote: post #106

LanceH wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies to those accused of being conspiracy theorists, xenophobic, and spreading misinformation will be going out shortly.

They will not, because those accusations came from people who intended to use them to discredit Chinese people in general, or that closely associate the leak with the Chinese way of doing things and so on. These accusation led to racist attacks against Asian people all over the us.

Ok, so the original motivations for some making that claim were suspect. Should that automatically excuse or prevent discussion that better safety protocols should be used or a better “ways of doing things” should be undertaken when handling viruses and pathogens that are capable of killing 7M people? I think it’s a valid topic and important one that should be verboten lest the next time we accidentally kill 14M with carelessness as the cause.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#166

Post by ricksunny » Sun, Jun 11, 2023, 1:18 PM UTC

amoss wrote: post #145

pcrh wrote: post #55

After a quick read of the article, it presents no new data, and is replete with innuendo pointing at the Wuhan lab, rather than any direct evidence. Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an indication of any i…

The map showing the clustering around the lab is not labelled in the article. It looks like the map from the senate report which used internet search history. I recall that their point in the original report was that there was a cluster of internet searches for flu-like symptoms clustered around the institute, rather than the market. There is no new direct evidence in the article, simply the weight of existing indire…

Chief among key new assertions the parent article makes,

https://twitter.com/BlockedVirology/status/16676623250907463...

• WIV added FCS's to coronavirus(es?) exactly as described in DEFUSE, according to a US lab collaborator.

• Zhou Yusen "fell" off the roof of the WIV in May 2020

• WIV was working on a 'closer [than published] unpublished variant'

• Of all caves/mines, only scholarly attempts to access the Mojiang mine made touched off access denial and confiscation of samples from other mines from the authorities. While alluded to in the past, (https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-coronavirus-pandem... ) this is the first time to my awareness that the Mojiang mine has been uniquely & unequivocally associated with the authorities' clamp-down efforts, that too with attribution to Alice C Hughes, PhD

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#167

Post by MichaelZuo » Sun, Jun 11, 2023, 1:19 PM UTC

yyyk wrote: post #108

wwtdtgotiatl wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet the lab itself did nothing to help during the pandemic. Which people in this thread are somehow believing as truth instead of the bald-faced propaganda it is. Do you actually think a virus research lab in the epicentre of an outbreak would not be put to use? From Wikipedia: > As the virus spread worldwide, the institute continued its investigation. In February 2020, a team led by Shi Zhengli at the institute we…

Gene sequencing is table stakes with modern tech, and many countries did that during the pandemic. We don't need a BSL-4 level lab in the middle of a large city to do a gene sequence. It happened that they published early what many other labs would have done (and did do). On the other hand, the vaccines and effective cures had nothing to do with their work. The benefit/risk ratio seems very poor here.

> It looks like a lot of dangerous research went on, and even if nothing bad happened because of that research, nothing was gained. A lot of risk for nothing.

Your previous comment is clearly incorrect as shown by the parent, something is a lot more than nothing.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#168

Post by BryantD » Sun, Jun 11, 2023, 1:26 PM UTC

pcrh wrote: post #55

After a quick read of the article, it presents no new data, and is replete with innuendo pointing at the Wuhan lab, rather than any direct evidence. Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an indication of any i…

What a terrible article.

“Thirty-five-year-old scientists don’t get very sick with influenza.”

The rate of hospitalization among 18-49 year olds with flu in the US was 54.1 per 100K in 2019-20. It’s rare, sure, but that kind of absolute statement from an anonymous researcher doesn’t instill confidence.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#169

Post by some_random » Sun, Jun 11, 2023, 1:28 PM UTC

Xen9 wrote: post #116

I personally believe in Rootlclaim's Bayesian analysis ( https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COV... ) which states that "the virus was developed during gain-of-function research and was released by accident (89% probability)" This is consistent with David Martin's speech in Europe: https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1661698114917646336 I haven't checked the "publicly available references" but m…

I remember when this was first released, everyone clowned on it (including me) for a few reasons the biggest one being the classic problem with these sorts of Bayesian analyses. That being, the individual weights per piece of evidence are pretty arbitrary.

Meanwhile, it seems quite likely to have produced the correct results so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#170

Post by BryantD » Sun, Jun 11, 2023, 1:34 PM UTC

zosima wrote: post #135

pcrh wrote: post #55

After a quick read of the article, it presents no new data, and is replete with innuendo pointing at the Wuhan lab, rather than any direct evidence. Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an indication of any i…

The Huanan Seafood market paper has been heavily critized. Especially the fact that covid was not found in a single animal sample does make the evidence rather weak. In addition it seems that the lack of sampling from outside the market and the fact that the market is a busy place in the center of the city where the virus would likely be once it's spreading from person to person , does not really lend support to the…

Just to be clear, there weren’t animal samples available for testing. It’s not that they tested a bunch of animals and didn’t find covid. I know that’s what you meant but not everyone is familiar with the paper and it’s important to be meticulous here.

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