Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WHO inquiry chief 'had concerns' about lab close to first Covid cases

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 220 posts

Re: WHO inquiry chief 'had concerns' about lab close to first Covid cases

#181

Post by tootie »

siva7 wrote: post #71
tootie wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best writeup I've seen is actually this twitter thread from the WNYC science reporter, Nsikan Akpan (himself a phd in biology). The gist being that while lab leak is still possible, it's very unlikely and it's also likely we'll never find a smoking gun for any hypothesis. https://twitter.com/MoNscience/status/1396240581651742724

Again, this writeup is more about the bioengineering hypothesis while embarak states another theory. in it‘s current state the term lab leak has almost become meaningless

No it covers the entire spectrum of theories. You have to follow the thread it's like 50 tweets long. He talks about bioengineering, gain of function, serial passage and direct animal to lab to public.

Re: WHO inquiry chief 'had concerns' about lab close to first Covid cases

#182

Post by vkou »

cm2187 wrote: post #106
shakezula wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese didn't do anything that we wouldn't have done. In fact, they took better steps than we did, as far as the pandemic is concerned. Of course the dude had concerns, anyone with half a brain would explore all of the possible origins and theories. But the lab leak theory is just that - one theory that could explain the situation at hand. The problem is that too many people have put far too much stock in the la…

I'd like to think we don't put doctors in jail when they raise the alarm on a new virus.

We just fire them, when they complain about hospital administrators sending them into COVID wards without PPE.

Re: WHO inquiry chief 'had concerns' about lab close to first Covid cases

#183

Post by l33tbro »

JPKab wrote: post #121
mike00632 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem with these conspiracy theories, though, right? They are unfalsifiable by design. A scientific hypothesis would be testable. For example, "Did the COVID-19 virus come from a lab?" would be falsifiable if the COVID-19 virus didn't share the base genetic sequence of typical viruses tested in a lab. Lo and behold, the COVID-19 virus doesn't have the genetic signature of viruses in labs. Therefore the c…

There is currently zero evidence to support a zoonotic origin. It took 9 months to find the source of MERS (camels). It took 14 months to find the origin of SARS1 (bats). What evidence do you have that this was transmitted from an animal carrier? What mammal in China (it's not like there are that many mammal species living in the Wuhan metropolitan area) has been identified that easily catches COVID? The answer is ze…

To add to this, the wet market theory is baloney. No bats were sold or traded there.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2

Re: WHO inquiry chief 'had concerns' about lab close to first Covid cases

#184

Post by tootie »

JPKab wrote: post #121
mike00632 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem with these conspiracy theories, though, right? They are unfalsifiable by design. A scientific hypothesis would be testable. For example, "Did the COVID-19 virus come from a lab?" would be falsifiable if the COVID-19 virus didn't share the base genetic sequence of typical viruses tested in a lab. Lo and behold, the COVID-19 virus doesn't have the genetic signature of viruses in labs. Therefore the c…

There is currently zero evidence to support a zoonotic origin. It took 9 months to find the source of MERS (camels). It took 14 months to find the origin of SARS1 (bats). What evidence do you have that this was transmitted from an animal carrier? What mammal in China (it's not like there are that many mammal species living in the Wuhan metropolitan area) has been identified that easily catches COVID? The answer is ze…

Your "most likely" theory seems extremely fringe with absolutely zero evidence. I can see how it's possible but it seems vastly more complicated than just a lab leak.

Re: WHO inquiry chief 'had concerns' about lab close to first Covid cases

#185

Post by JPKab »

tootie wrote: post #184
JPKab wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is currently zero evidence to support a zoonotic origin. It took 9 months to find the source of MERS (camels). It took 14 months to find the origin of SARS1 (bats). What evidence do you have that this was transmitted from an animal carrier? What mammal in China (it's not like there are that many mammal species living in the Wuhan metropolitan area) has been identified that easily catches COVID? The answer is ze…

Your "most likely" theory seems extremely fringe with absolutely zero evidence. I can see how it's possible but it seems vastly more complicated than just a lab leak.

Zero evidence? Might want to look at the details of the NIH grant funding the research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. You aren't very informed on the subject, which is why you dismiss it as fringe.

https://reporter.nih.gov/search/xQW6UJmWfUuOV01ntGvLwQ/proje...

It's right at the bottom of the summary.

"3. Test predictions of CoV inter-species transmission. Predictive models of host range (i.e. emergence potential) will be tested experimentally using reverse genetics, pseudovirus and receptor binding assays, and virus infection experiments across a range of cell cultures from different species and humanized mice."

But sure, it's fringe and unlikely that the virus leaked out of a lab where it was specifically stated by the scientists applying for the grant that the funding would be used for testing interspecies transmission of bat coronaviruses with humanized mice. The lab doing this being in Wuhan, where the pandemic originated is also totally fringe and unlikely, is totally unrelated, right?

Re: WHO inquiry chief 'had concerns' about lab close to first Covid cases

#186

Post by dgfitz »

Fun thought experiment: If we could assume with absolute certainty that we would find out the inception of COVID-19 by Jan1 2023, and Vegas was allowing people to wager money on “somehow came from a lab in Wuhan”, I wonder what the odds would be compared to “came from a wet market”, or other competing theories. Money has a funny way of making people weigh and consider the outcome of an event.

Re: WHO inquiry chief 'had concerns' about lab close to first Covid cases

#187

Post by javagram »

dkersten wrote: post #170
shapefrog wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem with the non-lab-leak story is that USA went to great lengths to cover up and downplay the virus in the early months, largely contributing to its global spread

I'm unsure what your point is. Care to explain? Is that meant to be a counterargument? (just because the USA downplayed it doesn't make CCP's doing so better, especially since they had advance knowledge and could have potentially completely prevented the global pandemic, while when it was in the USA, it was already global, even if lesser) Are you agreeing with me but adding that the USA isn't faultless? (Its true, bu…

Not parent, but considering the USA covered up and denied the virus spread for several months, the argument could be that China/CCP doing the same doesn’t indicate the virus was engineered by China.

After all, there is no indication the virus was engineered by the US government, yet the danger was repeatedly lied about by the highest levels of government in January and February 2020, e.g. “when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away” (Feb 10), “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero” (Feb 26) ”It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear” (Feb 27), etc.

It’s claimed the local CCP apparatus lying and covering up the virus in December 2019 was for similar political reasons - there was an important event coming up in the city and they didn’t want it to be canceled.

Re: WHO inquiry chief 'had concerns' about lab close to first Covid cases

#188

Post by javagram »

iammisc wrote: post #105
uses wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remember when the previous administration suggested looking into the Lab Leak theory and was laughed at? The previous administration was completely nuts and would do and say all kinds of random things. The problems with communication and trust were too many to know where to start. Besides that, the context was totally different. A president trying to "wage a trade war" on China, stir up nationalist sentiment, distr…

The previous administration was broadly right on many important topics regarding the pandemic, that the media was wrong on. 1. Vaccines would be available by the election (they were off by two days, likely because of optics of releasing a vaccine right before). 2. The lab leak theory being worthy of investigation 3. School lockdowns are damaging (now broad agreement) 4. New York did not need 40k ventilators and Andre…

> 1. Vaccines would be available by the election (they were off by two days, likely because of optics of releasing a vaccine right before)

Fact check - the first COVID vaccine given in the US outside of a clinical trial was December 14, over a month after the election, not two days.

> If you recall, after trump's state of the union, in which he mentioned covid, Nancy Pelosi went into the streets of china town and insisted people ignore his fear mongering.

Are you aware that residents of Chinatowns are US citizens/residents, and not “travel”? I’d suggest you search news sources again and review Trump’s comments - he never warned Americans in the state of the union to stay away from downtown areas. He didn’t call for Americans to stay home and avoid coronavirus until March 2020. In February 2020 Trump’s message was that US residents had nothing to fear from the coronavirus, and that Democrats were trying to panic people - Pelosi et al were actually backing the administration line when they went to downtown areas and said people should continue their normal lives. Here’s one reminder article for you to review https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/485245-trump-hits-demo... ‘Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney earlier Friday claimed the press was seeking to use the virus to harm Trump, while Donald Trump Jr. claimed on Fox News that Democrats are hoping coronavirus "kills millions of people" so it ends the president's "streak of winning."’ This was 4 days after Pelosi visited Chinatown in SF.

Re: WHO inquiry chief 'had concerns' about lab close to first Covid cases

#189

Post by dkersten »

javagram wrote: post #187
dkersten wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unsure what your point is. Care to explain? Is that meant to be a counterargument? (just because the USA downplayed it doesn't make CCP's doing so better, especially since they had advance knowledge and could have potentially completely prevented the global pandemic, while when it was in the USA, it was already global, even if lesser) Are you agreeing with me but adding that the USA isn't faultless? (Its true, bu…

Not parent, but considering the USA covered up and denied the virus spread for several months, the argument could be that China/CCP doing the same doesn’t indicate the virus was engineered by China. After all, there is no indication the virus was engineered by the US government, yet the danger was repeatedly lied about by the highest levels of government in January and February 2020, e.g. “when it gets a little warme…

The claim isn't that it was engineered, just that it escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Besides, reports from China predated any from the USA, so for it to even be in the USA, CCP needed to have failed in containing it.

I'm not denying that the USA's covering it up made it worse, it absolutely did. The US government aren't innocent in the global spread of the virus. But this entire discussion was about whether it originated from a lab break or natural spread through the wet market, so in that context, it doesn't really seem relevant, while CCP's behaviour is relevant in the sense that it paints a picture of them being untrustworthy and having acted shady when their culpability was questioned, so their denials of the WIV break, as well as their other actions (especially denying the WHO the ability to investigate for OVER A YEAR) puts doubt on their story.

Doubt, though, isn't definitive proof. I never said that I think it was definitely a lab break, just that I think the chances are higher than many people like to admit and that the CCP have not proven trustworthy. We will probably never know for sure, either way.

Post reply on HN