The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins • Hacker News Board

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#161

Post by cbradford » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 1:44 AM UTC

disgrunt wrote: post #132

arrosenberg wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a conflict of interest because Dr. Fauci wasn't gaining anything. The agency he is head of is specifically interested in infectious disease and has a large budget for grants. $120K per year pays for a couple plate of genetic samples and tech time to run them. Maybe in China you can run a few more for that cost, I don't know. As head of that agency, it's also his job to share his professional opinion with the…

> It's not a conflict of interest because Dr. Fauci wasn't gaining anything. The agency he is head of is specifically interested in infectious disease and has a large budget for grants. $120K per year pays for a couple plate of genetic samples and tech time to run them. Maybe in China you can run a few more for that cost, I don't know. So it is not a conflict of interest because of the sum of money? Someone doesn't n…

Agree. Do not underplay the value of status and power for people like Faucci. He needed to downplay to keep his grip on both

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#162

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 1:44 AM UTC

generalizations wrote: post #141

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That report is completely deferential to the administration. It reports on their decision, cites administration officials exclusively, contains no counterpoints whatsoever. Retrospectively, most analyses that I've read have said that travel bans had essentially no effect, something most epidemiologists at the time were saying too. Was that covered? No. The administration said that a ban on travel from China was a goo…

That was an example of trump taking the virus seriously. You misunderstood my use of the reference. Also, that's NPR. It's pretty well known that trump was subsequently labeled racist for attempting that ban. Where are you getting this idea that the media was deferential? It sounds...very far fetched, to put it nicely.

You chose the link, not me. There's nothing there that is not deferential.

Hoping to have the country roaring back by easter 2020 didn't and doesn't strike me as evidence of someone taking COVID19 seriously.

Was it incorrect that part of Trump's motivation for the travel ban was racism (his own, or institutional)? I don't think we can really answer that question definitively at the moment, and we may never be able to. But again, this is another example of "the boy who cried wolf" syndrome. Maybe this time, his nationalistic, xenophobic language was rooted in a sincere, scientifically rooted belief about how best to protect the country. But when you've used the same kind of language throughout your administration to belittle, insult and denigrate, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that people interpret the same sort of behavior as more of the same.

The US media is almost always deferential. They lob softball questions at politicans, allow them to lie to the cameras without challenge, give outsize credibility to administration statements, and so much more. I grew up in the UK in the 60s, 70s and 80s. No US politician would survive the media climate in the UK back then.

Probably you're thinking of media actually calling Trump out on his lies, and yes, when they eventually got around to that, that was a little different. But then, he was a different sort of president, so hardly surprising.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#163

Post by DudeInBasement » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 1:45 AM UTC

beachy wrote: post #113

DudeInBasement wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. A lab near the wet market, who studies bats and viruses. And people ignore the obvious because orange bad man said it.

When someone demonstrably lies constantly, it's not unreasonable to assume that the truth is most likely the opposite of what they say.

So instead of looking at the facts, and then taking others opinion, you completely disregard the facts because the opinion comes from a liar?

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#164

Post by Gatsky » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 1:45 AM UTC

Assuming the chance of a lab leak is non-zero, it is worth considering how this will ever end.

- If there was any hard evidence actually proving they had SARS-CoV-2 in the lab before the pandemic, it will be long gone. Only an independent full access forensic level investigation would ever find any sign that evidence was destroyed, and that is never going to happen.

- It seems extremely unlikely to me that anyone from within China will A) blow the whistle or B) that we would hear about it.

- If a whistleblower were to escape the country, China would be able to claim they are lying, and it is a plot by the West to oppress the Chinese people etc. The chance that the whistleblower would be carrying irrefutable evidence of a lab leak is again almost zero.

We can keep shaking the tree, but I don't think anything truly satisfying is going to fall out. Consider that even if the USA for example had actual evidence of a lab leak, they would be better off using this as leverage over China secretly than releasing it publicly.

What actually can and should happen, is that some major change comes to virology research to absolutely minimise the chance of another lab origin pandemic. Wherever SARS-CoV-2 came from, we have had lab leaks before and we will have them again, that much is certain.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#165

Post by actuator » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 1:47 AM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #156

actuator wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Calling it "the china virus", as the former president was wont to do, was labelled racist/bigoted/nationalistic While the racist violence that happened was deplorable, it is entirely amusing to me that we are fine with calling it UK/Brazil/South African/Indian variant but not call it the China virus/flu. The same publications like Guardian which did not use the term China virus/flu because it was considered racist…

> we are fine with calling it UK/Brazil/South African/Indian variant Not anymore. They're getting Greek letter designations now.

Tell it to our politically correct liberal friends at Guardian, they are still using the country name. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/03/india-covid-va...

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#166

Post by wearywanderer » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 1:47 AM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #156

actuator wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Calling it "the china virus", as the former president was wont to do, was labelled racist/bigoted/nationalistic While the racist violence that happened was deplorable, it is entirely amusing to me that we are fine with calling it UK/Brazil/South African/Indian variant but not call it the China virus/flu. The same publications like Guardian which did not use the term China virus/flu because it was considered racist…

> we are fine with calling it UK/Brazil/South African/Indian variant Not anymore. They're getting Greek letter designations now.

It was fine for months, until it became rather popular to point out this glaring contradiction.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#167

Post by jkhdigital » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 1:47 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #93

generalizations wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly made the same comment myself. It feels vindicating to watch all this unfold. How many times now has 4chan been right about the virus, and the media wrong? - 4chan saw the pandemic coming in January 2020, and predicted it would be big - 4chan knew it wasn't 'just another flu' in March 2020, when the media was downplaying it - 4chan figured out the virus is transmitted via areosol, not just particulate - 4chan w…

The media showed enormous deference to the Trump administration that insisted it was not going to be big, that is was just another flu, that it wasn't transmitted via aerosol, and that it would be gone soon. 4chan isn't know for enormous deference to anyone, so the fact that "they" (collectivizing 4chan always irriates me, but whatever) got things right given the head-in-sand public attitude (*) of the administration…

My sources of information on the pandemic did not include Trump. Who cares what he said? The world does not revolve around the public statements of a single man. Dude, just move on.

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#168

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 1:48 AM UTC

briefcomment wrote: post #152

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #70

You know the story of the boy who cried wolf? Trump was the boy. Everybody knows how that story ended, but as a reminder: "This tale concerns a shepherd boy who repeatedly tricks nearby villagers into thinking a wolf is attacking his flock. When a wolf actually does appear, the villagers do not believe the boy's cries for help, and the flock is destroyed. The moral of the story is that liars will not be rewarded; eve…

Craziest excuse I've ever heard: "I couldn't be bothered to act rationally and morally because someone else was being too annoying".

What do you think the moral of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is? Is it a lesson for the villagers, or a lesson for a (potential) liar?

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#169

Post by deugo » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 1:48 AM UTC

lamontcg wrote: post #154

harryf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets worse - gain of function research was banned under Obama until the ban was lifted in 2017 under Trump - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... I can’t find sources for this right now but apparently Dr Anthony Fauci played a key role in getting the ban lifted. He’s also the head of the NIAID ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Fauci ) which (apparently) is the ultimate source for…

They indirectly gave WIV funding to support research into Pig SARS -- Swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV). There is exactly fuckoff zero evidence that funding wound up supporting gain of function research for anything. And giving China money to study diseases in pigs happening in China that are closely related to a human disease that we were worried about it (or maybe a close relative) spilling over…

> There is exactly fuckoff zero evidence that funding wound up supporting gain of function research for anything.

From the Fauci e-mails: People Fauci directly worked with seemed surprised and shocked to learn otherwise, and could not even instantly say if their funding had made it abroad.

There are papers resulting from GoF research of concern at the WIV. There are grant proposals, which specify the exact modifications they will do to Bat SARS to increase infectivity on mice with humanized lungs. How can you speak so certain, if you are unaware of this?

> And giving China money to study diseases in pigs happening in China that are closely related to a human disease that we were worried about it (or maybe a close relative) spilling over into humans only makes sense.

It makes sense, but you'll see through studying the records that it was the cover for military funding. What was the Defense Threat Reduction Agency funding doing at the WIV where military researchers shared floors with civilian researchers working on the same animals? Making sense to research spillover?

Re: The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

#170

Post by Throwawayaerlei » Fri, Jun 04, 2021, 1:48 AM UTC

tootie wrote: post #118

yumraj wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did any of them originate a few miles from a pathogen research lab that handled such pathogen that caused those outbreaks?

Other pertinent data point, how many epidemics have been positively traced to a lab leak since virology has been widely studied? The Wuhan lab was founded in the 1950s. You can say the likelihood that a virus would one day escape from one of these labs is pretty high. The likelihood that a given virus would be from a lab is very low. All of which brings us back to where we were at the start. It's plausible and possib…

There's no other credible explanation for the return of influenza H1N1 in 1976-7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Russian_flu

For an epidemic to occur, you need not just a lab leak, but a population sufficiently naive to the pathogen. H1N1 was displaced by H2N2 in the late 1950's pandemic, which in turn was displaced by H3N2 in the late 1960s pandemic. Thus it hit the cohort of people aged 25-6 or less who'd never been exposed to H1N1.