Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out

Hi, yes I do.

Because those mutation events in a small number of people still require a longer time to become "stable" in the overall population of viruses.

Generally speaking, the more virus "generations" you have, the more likely you are to generate a successful variant. But then it takes time for that variant to achieve dynamic equilibrium in the greater population of viruses. For it to take over.

And the initial SARS-CoV-2 had so little diversity for so long, that we can say it likely had been stable before passing into humans, or there would have been more initial diversity in it compared to its closest viral relatives.

It is a picture overall consistent with a random crossover event. Not ruling out a lab leak (because that's quite difficult if not impossible to do). The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

But we have just as much evidence to say the virus came from aliens who planted it in humans as we do to say it came from a human lab that has no trace of the virus anywhere in it.

To think that China couldn't or wouldn't carefully control this situation and what information is available to external parties is being credulous to the point of this sounding like propaganda. They did everything they could to downplay the severity of the issue for months while they had people in hazmat suits trying to decon Wuhan.

What nobody seems willing to say out loud to a reporter is that even talking at high levels about SARS-CoV-2 having possibly escaped from the lab would very probably sabotage Chinese cooperation in finding out more about its origins, whether it did or did not in fact did escape the lab.

Now it appears that whatever damage could be done was, and China did block access to key information. I haven't seen anything to indicate it did come from the lab, or didn't. China's actions are consistent with either scenario. It would be very embarrassing to Chinese leadership if the lab-escape idea became popular, regardless of whether it was true, but especially if it were found to be true. China will be acting mainly to try to stop the idea gaining popularity, and be much less concerned with whether the international community actually learns its true origin.

But if the Chinese leadership had confidence that it escaped the lab, my interpretation is they would probably do a lot more stone-walling than they are doing. But that doesn't mean it didn't.

My brother flies freight in and out of Wuhan, never leaving the airport, and says border-patrol behavior at that airport is very strange, unlike at any other Chinese city. Before they are allowed to take off, the whole plane is carefully searched by soldiers in complete-isolation bunny suits, and passports collected on arrival are then carefully matched, one by one, to each crew member before departure. His interpretation is that China wants to be certain that nobody in Wuhan leaves China whom they would rather have stay.

What that would mean, if correct, I cannot guess.

Hi, I actually ended up responding below to point 3 in particular but I also respond to it in my original post. Very few, if any of these arguments are novel.

The reason you will find extremely few people with actual credentials in the science we're discussing in these discussions is that working scientists don't have the time or will to get into these debates with people who wouldn't have the faintest idea how to actually conduct the research they're criticizing.

That post I linked took like dozens and dozens of man hours to write, workshop, source, and edit.

And I wrote it so I could link it in situations like this, and not repeat myself dozens or hundreds of times.

Personally, I'm studying for the biggest exam of my professional life at the moment, and I'm procrastinating here because I find these discussions so horrifying.

This entire thread could be a valuable case study in the Dunning Krueger effect.

Not saying it's not worth talking about, but rather that the amount of time and effort it takes to refute bullshit is several magnitudes more than the amount of effort it takes to create it.

In my case, that's 10+ years studying viruses so people on the internet with no credentials can tell me I'm wrong.

real-politik and nation state realities are too often discounted on this topic. was there a lab leak? yes, that's highly likely. What was the genesis of this event? also highly likely it was related to pushing the bio-weapon envelope.

China is obviously pushing hard to catch-up, and doing so in every offensive dimension is highly likely given past behavior, to think otherwise is dangerously naive. What makes this crazy is the hubris(or discounting) of the numerous close calls for disaster during the cold war on this topic.

The lack of real transparency on this with WHO exploration tells you all you need to know about whether this was a simple protocol eff-up or a blown military program..