The Lab Leak Hypothesis • Hacker News Board

Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis

#221

Post by nradov » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 6:14 PM UTC

throwaway189262 wrote: post #217

mabbo wrote: post #27

> There is no direct evidence for these zoonotic possibilities, just as there is no direct evidence for an experimental mishap But there is so much more opportunity for the zoonotic possibilities. In fact, this is the seventh time we've seen Betacoronavirus cross from bats, through another animal, and then into humans. SARS came via palm civets. MERS came via camels. Four more types cause a mild cold only and so they…

SARS has leaked from Chinese labs multiple times. And the only lab in the world specializing in coronaviruses was ~1000 ft away from the first cases. The leaked US diplomatic cables urge the US to help China with this very lab because biosecurity there was so concerning to visiting scientists. It's also the only BSL4 lab in China. In addition the head of that lab has published numerous papers about generic engineerin…

Are you referring to the 1976 or 1977 influenza? There is evidence of a lab leak or other human origin for the 1977 strain but the original source was never definitively identified.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4542197/

https://mbio.asm.org/content/6/4/e01013-15.full

Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis

#222

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

thinkingemote wrote: post #215

cheph wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We (humans) had wet markets filled with animals, including the very bats that carry the base virus. No wet markets here where I am ... so maybe speak for yourself.

Look up the definition of what a wet market is. for example, most markets in the UK can be classed as wet, as well as many large supermarkets with a meat or fish counter

[deleted]

Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis

#223

Post by eganist » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

throwaway189262 wrote: post #217

mabbo wrote: post #27

> There is no direct evidence for these zoonotic possibilities, just as there is no direct evidence for an experimental mishap But there is so much more opportunity for the zoonotic possibilities. In fact, this is the seventh time we've seen Betacoronavirus cross from bats, through another animal, and then into humans. SARS came via palm civets. MERS came via camels. Four more types cause a mild cold only and so they…

SARS has leaked from Chinese labs multiple times. And the only lab in the world specializing in coronaviruses was ~1000 ft away from the first cases. The leaked US diplomatic cables urge the US to help China with this very lab because biosecurity there was so concerning to visiting scientists. It's also the only BSL4 lab in China. In addition the head of that lab has published numerous papers about generic engineerin…

> SARS has leaked from Chinese labs multiple times. And the only lab in the world specializing in coronaviruses was ~1000 ft away from the first cases. The leaked US diplomatic cables urge the US to help China with this very lab because biosecurity there was so concerning to visiting scientists. It's also the only BSL4 lab in China. In addition the head of that lab has published numerous papers about generic engineering of coronaviruses. That lab also discovered the closest ancestor of COVID.

Can you kindly cite literally every sentence of this? I googled, but my Google-fu is weak.

Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis

#224

Post by kbelder » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

gavrif wrote: post #89

manicdee wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The third most common death from firearms in the USA is accidental discharge. This is where people have firearms, are trained in using them, but some circumstance led to the firearm being discharged without intent and injuring or killing someone. There’s every reason to believe that a country attempting to develop bio weapons may accidentally release that bio weapon against its own people for the same reason: mistake…

> The third most common death from firearms in the USA is accidental discharge. What is the fourth most common death from firearms in the USA?

I'm not sure what the second would be. The first is presumably "deliberate discharge," and then...?

Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis

#225

Post by tim333 » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

api wrote: post #193

RobertoG wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>"The virologists working in Wuhan did travel all the way to Southern China to collect bat coronavirus samples and they did perform gain-of-function experiments. Viruses - even highly pathogenic ones - have escaped labs on numerous occasions. There is a plausible scenario here." Another plausible scenario, in my opinion, is that the virus was brought to Wuhan by the virologists (in the virologist or their helpers) b…

A friend of mine who once lived in China quipped that maybe some low-level tech from the lab was selling animals from the lab at the wet market. Not likely, but he says given what he saw in China it would not surprise him much.

The famous lab animal selling was "A top academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering earned 10.17 million yuan ($1.46 million) by illegally selling off lab animals" rather than a low level tech. Pigs though. Still it suggests standards may be a bit variable.

Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis

#226

Post by sradman » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 7:05 PM UTC

noetic_techy wrote: post #218

sradman wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deigin conflates RNA samples with viral isolates that can be used to infect lab animals. Weinstein seems to be stuck on bat respiratory disease that spreads in roosting caves. He does not consider gastrointestinal infections spread by bat guano at night in their feeding range which is shared by nocturnal/arboreal pangolins and palm civets. Bat to human direct infection is also just as plausible near the horseshoe bat…

And the well adapted to humans furin site is just plain luck? Its not like this has not happen before, SARS like virus's have crossed species within modern history that we have detected, and they all flame out eventually. I'm no virologist, but I believe its typically because of selection pressure and the mutations needed to start to adapt to humans don't come easily once a jump occurs, it usually takes a few jumps t…

Furin cleavage sites naturally occur in coronaviruses [1]

> The spike protein is a focused target of COVID-19, a pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. A 12-nt insertion at S1/S2 in the spike coding sequence yields a furin cleavage site, which raised controversy views on origin of the virus. Here we analyzed the phylogenetic relationships of coronavirus spike proteins and mapped furin recognition motif on the tree. Furin cleavage sites occurred independently for multiple times in the evolution of the coronavirus family, supporting the natural occurring hypothesis of SARS-CoV-2.

Not "just plain luck" but a relatively rare recombination event that can occur in nature with co-infection. I have no problem with the lab hypothesis but I expect to see clear signs of a recent lineage recombination in the full SARS-CoV-2 genome. The lab theory requires not only a lab leak but the active suppression of the sequence(s) of the viral isolate(s) used in the hypothetical gain-of-function experiment.

Wuhan is no more unlikely than the mainland near Hong Kong where SARS-1 emerged. Any major city center in China that is accessible from Kunming, Yunnan [2] is a likely outbreak hotspot.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187350612...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunming#Transport

Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis

#227

Post by throwaway189262 » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

eganist wrote: post #223

throwaway189262 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SARS has leaked from Chinese labs multiple times. And the only lab in the world specializing in coronaviruses was ~1000 ft away from the first cases. The leaked US diplomatic cables urge the US to help China with this very lab because biosecurity there was so concerning to visiting scientists. It's also the only BSL4 lab in China. In addition the head of that lab has published numerous papers about generic engineerin…

> SARS has leaked from Chinese labs multiple times. And the only lab in the world specializing in coronaviruses was ~1000 ft away from the first cases. The leaked US diplomatic cables urge the US to help China with this very lab because biosecurity there was so concerning to visiting scientists. It's also the only BSL4 lab in China. In addition the head of that lab has published numerous papers about generic engineer…

The virologist "bat lady" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Zhengli

SARS leaks https://www.the-scientist.com/news-analysis/sars-escaped-bei...

Leaked cables https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/state-depar...

US coronavirus research collaboration https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02473-4

Wuhan Institute of Virology employees are cited in a huge number of Coronavirus research papers. Some research may be done elsewhere but AFAIK it's the only lab in the world doing lots of work with SARS and relatives. The "batwoman" researcher who works at WIV is somewhat famous for gathering thousands of bat viruses from caves across China.

In addition RATg13, the closest related virus to COVID, wasn't published by the lab until after the pandemic outbreak. Even though the sample was supposedly collected years ago. If they're sitting on random unpublished coronavirus genomes doesn't it seem likely that COVID was one of these?

Theres too many coincidences for me. I would bet money that it's a lab leak

Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis

#228

Post by tim333 » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #175

mabbo wrote: post #27

> There is no direct evidence for these zoonotic possibilities, just as there is no direct evidence for an experimental mishap But there is so much more opportunity for the zoonotic possibilities. In fact, this is the seventh time we've seen Betacoronavirus cross from bats, through another animal, and then into humans. SARS came via palm civets. MERS came via camels. Four more types cause a mild cold only and so they…

There is circumstantial evidence to indicate that the OC43 beta coronavirus crossed from animals in 1889 and killed about a million people worldwide. It can still be fatal to elderly or immunocompromised patients. The only reason it doesn't kill many people today is that most of us are infected as children and build up a level of immunity, so subsequent reinfections tend to have mild symptoms. Just like SARS-CoV-2. h…

Maybe that's how SARS-CoV-2 will end up - people will get it as kids and become immunized.

Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis

#229

Post by messick » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 7:17 PM UTC

When Ted Cruz et al started screaming about Communism over the last couple years, I thought it was hilarious that they thought the Red Scare tactics of the 1950's would be effective on people born decades later.

But, based on how many times "CCP" shows up in comments on HN, I have to admit I was wrong.

Re: The Lab Leak Hypothesis

#230

Post by yorwba » Tue, Jan 05, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #211

yorwba wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The CCP is also discriminating against Uyghur marriages. I assume you're referring to this part of your link: > In March 2017, Salamet Memetimin, an ethnic Uyghur and the Communist Party Secretary for Chaka township's Bekchan village in Qira County, Hotan Prefecture, was relieved of her duties for taking her nikah marriage vows at her home. In interviews with Radio Free Asia in 2020, residents and officials of Shuf…

First there is plenty of evidence on the marriage thing with the most well documented being marriage subsidies and propaganda, the Wikipedia link was for context and the quote. Anyway, a 60% drop in births isn’t part of a wider national trend, this is extremely targeted.

The 60% drop is not part of a wider national trend only because national birth rates started dropping when the government first implemented birth control policies in the 1960s: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.CBRT.IN?view=cha... Xinjiang is slightly lagging behind, but it's very much the same policies in play.

In the New York Times article I linked above, it is mentioned that "From 1980 to 2014, according to official statistics, 324 million Chinese women were fitted with IUDs. And 107 million underwent tubal ligations or, as is commonly said, got their “tubes tied.”" Most of those cannot have been Uyghur women, since those figures vastly exceed the total Uyghur population.

So other parts of China simply suffered their sterilization campaigns much earlier. Birth rates in Xinjiang only dropped slightly from 17.57 per thousand in 2000 to 15.88 in 2017, but then to 10.69 in 2018 and further to 8.14 in 2019: https://data.stats.gov.cn/easyquery.htm?cn=E0103&zb=A0302&re... , which is a fast drop; but in Beijing, the maximum birth rate over the past 20 years was 9.32 in 2016, and their 2019 birth rate was still below Xinjiang's at 8.12: https://data.stats.gov.cn/easyquery.htm?cn=E0103&zb=A0302&re...