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What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

unherd.com

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Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#191

Post by dekhn »

MilnerRoute wrote: post #187
mikeyouse wrote: post #84

For those with a bit more background in the sciences, there's an increasingly massive amount of evidence to support Zoonotic origin. Philipp Markolin has a good rundown: https://protagonistfuture.substack.com/p/natures-neglected-g... Most of the "evidence" for lab leak is just weird insinuation -- it's increasingly hard to pin down what the advocates for that position are even arguing (e.g. whether it's a natural vir…

I feel like Unherd's article is actually misstating things. For example, "no infected animal on sale in the market or elsewhere in China has been found..." In fact, Bloomberg reported: "Disease detectives arriving from Beijing on the first day of 2020 ordered environmental samples to be collected from drains and other surfaces at the market. Some 585 specimens were tested, of which 33 turned out to be positive for SA…

The unherd article just advertising for the author's book. This is a cry for attention.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#192

Post by water554 »

affgrff wrote: post #139
mathieubordere wrote: post #116

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 ho…

It is a little suspicious, but also not too far fetched: Where would you put a lab researching Coronaviruses? Somewhere near where it exists in the wild.

No. It’s not where they exist in the wild. The closest related virus (RATG-13) to n-cov-2 come from northern china (Yunnan), where they were imported to the Wuhan virology lab to study. What a coincidence!

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#193

Post by nickff »

affgrff wrote: post #139
mathieubordere wrote: post #116

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 ho…

It is a little suspicious, but also not too far fetched: Where would you put a lab researching Coronaviruses? Somewhere near where it exists in the wild.

Well, the level of coincidence also depends on the number of coronavirus research facilities, and the number of cities. If there aren't very many coronavirus research facilities, and there are many cities, it becomes an unlikely coincidence.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#194

Post by flobosg »

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…

You can BLAST that furin cleavage sequence and find matches in other non-patented sequences, though. Here’s one from 2011 (bases 286 to 304, reverse complement): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nucleotide/DN616748.1

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#195

Post by idontwantthis »

cbb330 wrote: post #118
andai wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That would be a fun conflation by a Chinese advocate.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#196

Post by corrral »

adamrezich wrote: post #104
Bromeo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume the DARPA leak is this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28644428 ~700pts, ~450 comments, with the source published 23. September 2021.

man I forgot all about this. so much has happened in the past couple years it's been impossible to keep it all straight.

2020 and 2021 were each at least five years long.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#197

Post by chrisco255 »

csours wrote: post #143

There are two sources that most people talk about: 1. The Wuhan Institute of Virology 2. A particular market in Wuhan. However, all we really know is that Wuhan is the first city with a lot of cases. It is entirely possible that the virus, or a virus precursor was active in a small population somewhere else. Also, there are a lot of labs in Wuhan besides the WIV.

I suppose it's possible, but is it likely? Given the virality of Covid if it was present in another city before hand that city would have been the first to get a lot of cases.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#198

Post by treeman79 »

aksss wrote: post #146
johndfsgdgdfg wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for posting this. WHO-China report found that COVID almost certainly came out of China and the market is just the amplifying venue. It's the racist and xenophobic groups that are trying to incite hatred against China by spreading propaganda.

China gives its critics plenty to work with. And, no, critics of China are not automatically or even likely racist and xenophobic.

Guide to politics.

If you don’t support A. This means you are B,C,D…Z.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#199

Post by msla »

aksss wrote: post #146
johndfsgdgdfg wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for posting this. WHO-China report found that COVID almost certainly came out of China and the market is just the amplifying venue. It's the racist and xenophobic groups that are trying to incite hatred against China by spreading propaganda.

China gives its critics plenty to work with. And, no, critics of China are not automatically or even likely racist and xenophobic.

> And, no, critics of China are not automatically or even likely racist and xenophobic.

Especially since some people refuse to distinguish between people talking about the PRC and people talking about people of Chinese ethnicity. It's an obvious enough tactic once you're looking for it, but damn if it can't throw a smoke grenade into the discussion.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#200

Post by chrisco255 »

jahewson wrote: post #147
1024core wrote: post #97

9/11 cost us ~ 3000 lives? And we spent 20 years fighting wars, killing 100s of 1000s of people, bombing the shit out of entire countries, and trillions of dollars in trying to exact revenge. COVID kills 1,000,000 people (and counting...), which is 333X the death toll from 9/11; and we just shrug and do nothing? Just doesn't compute.

One is an intentional act by a group of people. The other is, at worst, an accident where the main actor is a molecule.

How can you ascribe motives if you don't even know the facts? Even if it was an accident, it would be gross negligence and worthy of intense investigation.
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