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Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

thetimes.co.uk

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Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#351

Post by iosono88 »

ajross wrote: post #175
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…

My position hasn't changed for years: if covid was really a lab creation we'd know, because someone would have told us. An email dump, a memo, a document, an interview. Something would have leaked out. The incentives are just too high and the access is too pervasive[1] to believe otherwise. Is it possible? Sure! Is it likewise possible that some of the circumstantial claims about WIV are true? Sure! But if someone ma…

[dead]

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#352

Post by tim333 »

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…

It had data that is new to me. Especially:

>They said the Wuhan scientists had inserted furin cleavage sites into viruses in 2019 in exactly the way proposed in Daszak’s failed funding application to Darpa.

That procedure is pretty much exactly what you'd have to do to make covid in a lab. Assuming that's true, it's pretty much a smoking gun.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#353

Post by stormfather »

snowwrestler wrote: post #303
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would all be more compelling if the WIV were not explicitly experimenting with creating viruses like SARS-COV-2 ! If HIV had emerged proximal to a lab experimenting with creating viruses like HIV then that lab origin theory would be much more credible!

Saying “viruses like SARS-COV-2” only makes sense for broad applications of the word “like.” As other comments have pointed out, while that lab was working with coronaviruses, none of the strains were genetically close to SARS-COV-2. Coronavirus is a broad category of viruses.

According to who? The lab?

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#354

Post by tim333 »

christkv wrote: post #301

Nobody will ever want the truth because if it did come from the lab it implicates the Chinese government as well as the US government given that the US funded research in Wuhan through the EcoHealth Alliance to get around the ban on Gain of Function research in the US.

The general public want the truth. It seems to be gradually leaking out.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#355

Post by tim333 »

LeonB wrote: post #11

Early on the article makes a conjecture that others also make which I think is part of why the topic is so hot: “Whether the virus emerged as a result of a leak from a laboratory or from nature has become one the most controversial problems in science.” The words “in science” are my problem here: people thinking this is a “scientific” question. It’s a history question, a political question, and could be made into a f…

Science very much does ask that kind of question - what is the origin of some thing. With SARS1 it also answered it easily - testing showed if came from palm civets at the market. This time though scientific investigation has been blocked by the politics.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#357

Post by Fomite »

m00x wrote: post #344
makmanalp wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually, the closest natural viruses to covid were sent to Wuhan for study Please don't "actually" something with an uncited statement without backing it up with any sort of detail. A news article? Anything, honestly. > that is what the Wuhan institute of coronaviruses was built to do right? Really? It's "Wuhan institute of virology". Not "coronaviruses". Right? I have no specific horse in this race but I feel lik…

From wikipedia: > The institute has been an active premier research center for the study of coronaviruses.[6] > In 2015, an international team including two scientists from the institute published successful research on whether a bat coronavirus could be made to infect a human cell line (HeLa). The team engineered a hybrid virus, combining a bat coronavirus with a SARS virus that had been adapted to grow in mice and…

I've got a PhD in infectious disease epidemiology who got his start in researching respiratory pathogens and whose work on coronaviruses has been cited 387 times.

I'd both put my estimate at much lower than 95%, and I'd be substantially less confident in it, since my expertise kicks in about two weeks after an initial spillover event occurs.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#358

Post by Matl »

HardlyCurious wrote: post #304
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…

Actually, the closest natural viruses to covid were sent to Wuhan for study. I mean, that is what the Wuhan institute of coronaviruses was built to do right? The indirect evidence of a lab leak theory is overwhelming frankly. And it doesn't require any malice. No one credible is saying china intentionally released the virus or built it with the intention of building a weapon. Gain of function research is real, scient…

> The indirect evidence of a lab leak theory is overwhelming frankly.

There was some indirect and even some more direct evidence of Iraq doing nuclear weapons research in some capacity at some point too, this is incredibly dangerous line to go own without being 250% sure. Indirect evidence simply doesn't cut it.

> No one credible is saying china intentionally released the virus or built it with the intention of building a weapon.

It may not be someone 'credible', but within the current context of the U.S. preparing for what increasingly looks like a direct confrontation with China, it sure suits a lot of neocons in Washington, who seem to always be failing upwards in the ranks despite having lost all credibility over a dozen times in the last decade alone.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#359

Post by tim333 »

arisAlexis wrote: post #39

I remember still when it was considered a conspiracy theory and we got downvoted here and banned on reddit for even implying the possibility. Unfortunately something similar is happening with AI x-risk right now.

I don't think that's true with AI. Loads of people worry about it and I've never heard that called a conspiracy theory.

It's true with covid though and I always thought the allegation a bit unfair. I mean suggesting the origin of X is from the nearest source of X has never seemed much of a conspiracy to me.

I had long messages on the Wikipedia discussion before they allowed the idea to be mentioned without a this is conspiracy disinformation disclaimer, after many months of fighting.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#360

Post by dboreham »

denton-scratch wrote: post #275
th0ma5 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The NYT is a reputable organ, known for checking it's sources. Unlike Wikipedia, newspapers don't generally cite their sources; but if a reliable source states something like that as fact, they've probably checked. You're right: they haven't said they can prove it. [Of course, it could be propaganda, government or otherwise; or it could be a damned lie concocted by the reporter or editor. They've said they have sourc…

Governments have a known history of both lying and deluding themselves into believing lies.
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