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What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

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Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#111

Post by shadowgovt »

ShannonLimiter wrote: post #91
stetrain wrote: post #12

I think understanding the origin is important, but I also understand why it wasn't a media fixation during the pandemic itself. 1) Understanding the origin doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic 2) Unlike the nuclear analogy in the article, pandemic virus outbreaks happen naturally, and fairly frequently. Combined with the huge increase in global travel, when one does happen it can be around the…

> 1) Understanding the origin doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic I have the opposite opinion. If there was a lab leak and a coverup, this meant that the Chinese government likely knew earlier and had more information about the nature of the virus and how it spread. That could have saved millions of lives. We spent the first several months of the pandemic under the belief that it wasn't airbor…

> That could have saved millions of lives

But that still doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic. That's coulda-woulda-shoulda reasoning.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#113

Post by ttpphd »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #2

The lab-leak hypothesis is meta-scientific. When it was first tossed around, the lab leak hypothesis generated two predictions: 1. We would find evidence that someone was doing experiments on furin cleavage sites in coronaviruses. 2. We would find that the furin cleavage site matched a known sequence. We did not find 2, which should have been easy to find. Eventually, we found 1, since a rejected DARPA grant proposal…

Sorry but the post above is unscientific sophistry. Science is about weighing competing theories by examining the relative strength of evidence. The evidence is strongly in favor of zoonotic origin. What's posted here is an exercise in confirmation bias, not rigorous scientific thinking.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#114

Post by rhino369 »

jiggawatts wrote: post #55

I initially dismissed the lab leak hypothesis because surely nobody would be stupid enough to make new SARS virus strains on purpose. They’re worthless as biological weapons, and the risks are insane. Then it turns out that that is precisely the type of research the Wuhan lab does regularly. And then when our prime minister merely suggested an investigation, China put punitive tariffs on billions of dollars of our ex…

Even if it wasn't the lab leak this time, it seems like an awfully dangerous practice for limited scientific value.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#115

Post by ikiris »

ShannonLimiter wrote: post #91
stetrain wrote: post #12

I think understanding the origin is important, but I also understand why it wasn't a media fixation during the pandemic itself. 1) Understanding the origin doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic 2) Unlike the nuclear analogy in the article, pandemic virus outbreaks happen naturally, and fairly frequently. Combined with the huge increase in global travel, when one does happen it can be around the…

> 1) Understanding the origin doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic I have the opposite opinion. If there was a lab leak and a coverup, this meant that the Chinese government likely knew earlier and had more information about the nature of the virus and how it spread. That could have saved millions of lives. We spent the first several months of the pandemic under the belief that it wasn't airbor…

I'm going to be blunt here. No one with medical training thought this wasn't airborne.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#116

Post by mathieubordere »

A lab specialized in investigating Coronaviruses in the city where the first outbreak was, is at least suspicious imo. The fact that the Chinese authorities weren't exactly helpful (to my knowledge) in debunking the lab-leak hypothesis is extra suspicious. But then again, if they really would have wanted to cover it up, they might have looked for another city to point to as the source of the outbreak, I don't know how feasible that would have been though.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#117

Post by shadowgovt »

fortuna86 wrote: post #108
xadhominemx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your scientific criticism of the paper?

Also, it's not either/or. COVID could have come from nature, captured and studied in a lab, then escaped.

Indeed. It could also have come from nature and while it was being studied in the lab, a similar strain made a jump to humans.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#118

Post by cbb330 »

andai wrote: post #61
theptip wrote: post #45

I think the important point is not whether this outbreak was in fact a lab leak, but that it is entirely plausible due to gain-of-function research. Even if this one wasn’t a lab leak, the next one very well could be. The risk/reward profile of that sort of research is insanely unfavorable.

Fun fact, Covid did leak from a Chinese lab, but it was in December 2021: >A lab worker was bitten and infected by a mouse infected with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant at a high-biosecurity facility in Taipei. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity...

Taipei, the capitol of Taiwan, is not a Chinese entity. This is a lab leak from a Taiwanese lab.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#119

Post by zo1 »

EA_itsinthegame wrote: post #69
azekai wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the conversation we need to have, on an international level.

When Australia proposed an international investigation into the origins, in direct response, China started cyber attacks, resentencing Australian prisoners to death, and used economic warfare. This seems like a conversation we can not have, if China has any say in it. And for a natural origin spillover event, it sure wants to have its say...

If your claims are true, then the fact that I (and others) didn't know this is seriously disturbing. I think a lot of people would have doubled down and pushed for alot more pressure and investigation into all of China's dealings across the board, if they had known.

At the very least it's an indictment on our media which should be pointing out these curious coincidences. Instead I think they have other motives.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#120

Post by SkittyDog »

jiggawatts wrote: post #55

I initially dismissed the lab leak hypothesis because surely nobody would be stupid enough to make new SARS virus strains on purpose. They’re worthless as biological weapons, and the risks are insane. Then it turns out that that is precisely the type of research the Wuhan lab does regularly. And then when our prime minister merely suggested an investigation, China put punitive tariffs on billions of dollars of our ex…

> ...because surely nobody would be stupid enough to make new SARS virus strains on purpose. They’re worthless as biological weapons, and the risks are insane.

If we wait until the next pandemic hits, we will be months or years behind the curve, trying to understand it and develop treatments. Millions more people will die because we'll have been caught on our back foot.

Lucky for the human race, viruses are statistically more likely to mutate, over time, in particular ways. So it's possible to make pretty good guesses about where future would mutations might occur. So if we deliberately create those mutants in a laboratory, we can study which strains look particularly virulent and/or dangerous.

Yes, there ARE risks to this strategy, in terms of lab leaks. But the vast majority of virologists and epidemiologists have known for decades that deadly worldwide pandemics of novel Coronaviruses are an inevitably in the 21st century... It's just a matter of time. We will definitely see several more pandemics, at least as damaging as COVID-19, befor the century is out.

So even without a lab leak, we would only save ourselves a couple more years before nature did the job, itself... And it will keep happening, over and over with new Coronaviruses, for the foreseeable future. The human race can do very little to slow it, let alone stop it.

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