Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid • Hacker News Board

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#391

Post by russdill » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 2:13 AM UTC

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…

Why is the gain of function thing always thrown in? This makes the case much harder to prove and seems entirely unnecessary. The family of viruses is already very contagious and potentially dangerous with covid19 hardly being the worst combination of the two properties.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#392

Post by HardlyCurious » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 2:17 AM UTC

irjustin wrote: post #377

qwerasdf5 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please list the other "totally reasonable and likely ways"? I'm interested.

"Reasonable" could be simply truly accidental like someone carried a vial, drops it and then someone gets sick from that? The point the parent comment is trying to make is all we have is speculation and you can speculate either way. Just make whatever you want up in your head that doesn't include malice.

Are you of the belief that the lab leak theory implies intention?

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#393

Post by antonvs » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 2:19 AM UTC

startupsfail wrote: post #370

godelski wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one credible is saying china intentionally released the virus or built it with the intention of building a weapon. To add to this, most countries have turned away from infectious biological weapons because they are near impossible to control. The the release of them might harm your enemies, but at a serious cost to yourself. It is like trying to cut off your enemy's leg by cutting off your own arm. It ends up ki…

Can the lab be sued out of existence for damages? It is quite clear that they did amplification research as they’ve planned. And had inserted the furin site into the coronavirus . And they’ve mismanaged the research and they’ve let the virus to spread. This had caused a lot of damage, in particular the deaths, economical damage, long-covid damages, mental illnesses and diminished IQ (covid brain fog). There’ve been s…

> And had inserted the furin site into the coronavirus

A claim was made about that, but it’s far from settled. One could argue it has been debunked. See “SARS-CoV-2 furin cleavage site was not engineered”: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2211107119

> And they’ve mismanaged the research and they’ve let the virus to spread.

That’s speculation. Irresponsible speculation, in fact, which has been pushed by people who should have known better. But they pushed it for jingoistic reasons.

> Arguably this lab should be sued out of existence for damages.

That’s an emotional reaction which you’re not examining rationally. If you remove the confirmation bias you’re applying to the evidence, there’s simply no substantial basis for the conclusions you’re reaching.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#394

Post by danenania » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 2:23 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #296

lamontcg wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not direct evidence, but under a weaker burden of proof (e.g. balance of probabilities) it is fairly convincing. - We have a bunch of evidence of WIV engineering SARS-1-like viruses because they talked about it before the pandemic. - We have zero evidence of them ever doing experiments on live SARS-2-like virus - We have zero evidence of the existence of a SARS-2-like progenitor virus - Before the pandemic th…

> If it was transported to the seafood market by someone who worked at the lab that is highly coincidental that the place they infected first just happened to be the most likely place for zoonotic spillover If we're going with highly coincidental pairings, it seems like we can't ignore "the disease originated in the only city in China to have an institute that specializes in virology, viral pathology and virus techno…

Also, zoonotic transfer happening naturally in any particular time and place is extremely unlikely, even in places where the conditions are optimal.

I always thought this was a good test for whether someone can apply Bayesian reasoning. It turns out not many can, including a lot of highly educated people.

Without hard evidence to contradict it, lab leak should have always been the default hypothesis. That it hasn’t is a case of political propaganda winning out over basic statistics.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#395

Post by Auracle » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 2:25 AM UTC

russdill wrote: post #391

HardlyCurious wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why is the gain of function thing always thrown in? This makes the case much harder to prove and seems entirely unnecessary. The family of viruses is already very contagious and potentially dangerous with covid19 hardly being the worst combination of the two properties.

Because the virus was never found in the wild, so it seems likely.

Also because gain of function research is risky as hell with seemingly little benefit. The same lab had requested funds to do it on viruses that were much deadlier.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#396

Post by sudosysgen » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 2:28 AM UTC

inciampati wrote: post #310

Biorealism wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nearest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 are found in Yunnan and Laos. The only known link to Wuhan is the Wuhan Institute of Virology sampled both areas. They refuse to share their records with WHO or the NIH. That's a crucial caveat when saying there is no evidence they held a precursor. We don't know as they have refused to share their database. The Times article is interesting as it suggests the work in DEFUSE to add…

> why humans topped the list for binding affinity from the outset This is an unbelievable coincidence that makes the zoonotic spillover hypothesis laughable. To a biologist, the likelihood of this happening by chance is clear: virtually 0. But explaining the size of the space of optimal solutions to a given binding problem versus the space of good solutions to the general public, well, that's really hard too. So an o…

That's untrue. Viruses which spillover may spread across humans at a low level of efficiency for months, mutating for higher affinity towards humans, and only becoming pandemic once a high level of affinity has been achieved.

All viruses which have higher affinity for humans spilled over, didn't they?

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#397

Post by sudosysgen » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 2:31 AM UTC

danenania wrote: post #394

sokoloff wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it was transported to the seafood market by someone who worked at the lab that is highly coincidental that the place they infected first just happened to be the most likely place for zoonotic spillover If we're going with highly coincidental pairings, it seems like we can't ignore "the disease originated in the only city in China to have an institute that specializes in virology, viral pathology and virus techno…

Also, zoonotic transfer happening naturally in any particular time and place is extremely unlikely, even in places where the conditions are optimal. I always thought this was a good test for whether someone can apply Bayesian reasoning. It turns out not many can, including a lot of highly educated people. Without hard evidence to contradict it, lab leak should have always been the default hypothesis. That it hasn’t i…

Bayesian reasoning is that your prior is a 99.999% chance that the virus is natural, as all other viruses are.

The probability that a virus would crop up in Wuhan out of all cities in China is 1/70.

Feel free apply Bayes' formula.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#398

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 2:36 AM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #397

danenania wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, zoonotic transfer happening naturally in any particular time and place is extremely unlikely, even in places where the conditions are optimal. I always thought this was a good test for whether someone can apply Bayesian reasoning. It turns out not many can, including a lot of highly educated people. Without hard evidence to contradict it, lab leak should have always been the default hypothesis. That it hasn’t i…

Bayesian reasoning is that your prior is a 99.999% chance that the virus is natural, as all other viruses are. The probability that a virus would crop up in Wuhan out of all cities in China is 1/70. Feel free apply Bayes' formula.

[deleted]

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#399

Post by goatlover » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 2:44 AM UTC

russdill wrote: post #391

HardlyCurious wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why is the gain of function thing always thrown in? This makes the case much harder to prove and seems entirely unnecessary. The family of viruses is already very contagious and potentially dangerous with covid19 hardly being the worst combination of the two properties.

Because if it so happens that gain of function research accidentally caused a global pandemic, we need to know so we can properly evaluate the risk of continuing such research. Which could also be part of the motivation for governments to cover that up. I'm not saying that's necessarily true, but I haven't seen that it's false either, and the way China and other officials and related expecrts have acted, trying to dismiss the lab leak theory as just wild conspiracy theories or politically motivated, makes me suspicious.

There were serious attempts to completely shut the conversation down and prevent investigations into there being a lab leak.

Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid

#400

Post by joering2 » Mon, Jun 12, 2023, 2:46 AM UTC

whyenot wrote: post #339

nextos wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is also worth adding that there is good evidence of some lab leaks that caused pandemics in the past. See for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_Kingdom_foot-and-m... In my opinion, gain of function is too dangerous with current security measures, and we should consider a moratorium. Lab biocontainment is exceptionally hard.

In the mid 1960s, my mom worked in an infectious disease lab. One day, her and her colleagues were tasked with cleaning out a freezer full of samples. Shortly thereafter her and everyone else in the lab got a flu-like illness that did not clear up for many days. It really makes me wonder how many lab leaks may have happened during this time period when we started collecting and storing samples but we didn't yet have…

Back in 2009 I used to date a girl in Connecticut. She was attending Yale. She was a very nice person but very sloppy. She would always break something or spill something, it was her nature. One day she told me she's running late with school stuff so "meet me at the lab". I came in, got thru security and went to her lab. There she was feeding some 200 mosquitoes sick with malaria, buzzing in a rather small jar, all packed there nicely. This was her assignment for 3 weeks that she had to do twice a day. I could never get over the fact how little security was in place and how, if jar would break, there was absolutely no way to catch them all, in the middle of summer, with all windows wide open. I will never forget this story...