The risky bat-virus engineering that links America to Wuhan • Hacker News Board

Re: The risky bat-virus engineering that links America to Wuhan

#261

Post by arisAlexis » Sun, Jul 04, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #256

arisAlexis wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they give full access to all documents and facilities to WHO? NO. Why do you continue an argument that has 0 basis?

The WHO team went to the WIV and got detailed information about the research conducted by the various research groups there, and were able to question the groups.

Tedros said after they returned that he doesn't trust fully the results and they need to keep digging for this possibility. Are you in any way involved? This persistent blindness of facts and distortion of truth is too much for a non interested party.

Google a reference for my first sentence.

Re: The risky bat-virus engineering that links America to Wuhan

#262

Post by tim333 » Sun, Jul 04, 2021, 11:01 PM UTC

jpeloquin wrote: post #254

ChemSpider wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BSL4 or not is not really important anymore, as Dr. Shi did her experiments in a BSL2 lab. From the article: "Unnoticed by most, however, was a key difference that significantly shifted the risk calculation. The Chinese work was carried out at biosafety level 2 (BSL-2), a much lower tier than Baric’s BSL-3+." BSL2 is not much more than "wear a lab coat". https://consteril.com/biosafety-levels-difference/ So the nices…

BSL-2 is a lot more than "wear a lab coat". If it was just that, there'd be no BSL-1. BSL-2 usually also means doing work in a biosafety cabinet and sterilizing disposals, although the controls employed vary depending on the hazards specific to the actual work being done. If you're interested, Yale lays it out in 200 pages of detail: https://ehs.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/biosafety-man...

Or for the lazy there's the start of Contagion https://youtu.be/-1di7g4Hm1s?t=31

Re: The risky bat-virus engineering that links America to Wuhan

#263

Post by salawat » Sun, Jul 04, 2021, 11:17 PM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #257

kjaftaedi wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend taking the time to read the article, they cover this pretty well. It seems that even of this were manufactured, it is not likely intentional. >The Chinese research did not have the specific goal of making the viruses more deadly, and rather than SARS itself, it used SARS’s close cousins, whose real-world risk to humans was unknown—in fact, determining the risk was the point of the research. Just as when y…

The problem for this speculation is that given the types of experiments the WIV is known to have done, it is impossible to produce anything that looks remotely like SARS-CoV-2. The reverse genetics system used by WIV researchers is well known, and SARS-CoV-2 is simply not a product of it.

https://project-evidence.github.io/

https://archive.is/tpxg1 Nicholas Wade's excellent medium post, one hundred percent worth the read, Possibly duped in the Bulletin of atomic scientists shtick floating around right now.)

>https://archive.is/ONgMa Yuri Deigin's excellent write-up

I'm hedging the percents because my quick reference of previous post's substances is on my other phone, which died horribly, and having to play the "Dude, I had it elsewhere card, I swear" card is my punishment for shitty backup hygiene.

These are two of the better write-ups I've seen and deep dove into, and project evidence is a staple that's only gotten more and more confirmed with the number of eyes that have gone into it despite their initial total flub up of picking a name for it.

There is more than enough know-how condensed between Baric and Zengli Shi to swap RBD's and insert Furin cleavage sites without leaving traces of having done so. I had one paper that went into a hypothetical process for doing so, but I was an idiot and can't remember the author, and it wasn't the most straightforward search engine query because it was one of those middle of the night, just got done reading another paper, saw a query string that looked promising, did it, and pay dirt. Great when looking for a dopamine hit and ego boost for "haha I found it!"; Not so much for when life happens and you suddenly have to rewalk that mental path.

>_This is why I'm not an academic... Or more precisely, this is what happens when you let habits you built during college atrophy because you have a day job now.

Re: The risky bat-virus engineering that links America to Wuhan

#264

Post by DiogenesKynikos » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

salawat wrote: post #263

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem for this speculation is that given the types of experiments the WIV is known to have done, it is impossible to produce anything that looks remotely like SARS-CoV-2. The reverse genetics system used by WIV researchers is well known, and SARS-CoV-2 is simply not a product of it.

https://project-evidence.github.io/ https://archive.is/tpxg1 Nicholas Wade's excellent medium post, one hundred percent worth the read, Possibly duped in the Bulletin of atomic scientists shtick floating around right now.) > https://archive.is/ONgMa Yuri Deigin's excellent write-up I'm hedging the percents because my quick reference of previous post's substances is on my other phone, which died horribly, and having t…

> There is more than enough know-how condensed between Baric and Zengli Shi to swap RBD's and insert Furin cleavage sites without leaving traces of having done so.

Baric, Shi and others use particular reverse-genetics systems, which are well known to the outside world. Developing a new system is a significant effort. They don't just swap RBDs or spike proteins into random viruses that nobody has ever heard of before.

SARS-CoV-2 is an entirely new virus, different throughout its entire genome from any previously known virus. An engineered virus would use a known backbone, such as SARS-CoV or WIV-1.

Keep in mind that neither Wade nor Deigin actually has any expertise in virology, and it shows. Rather than listening to laypeople shooting from the hip, listen to what actual virologists have to say. Here's Kristian Andersen and Robert Garry on TWiV: https://youtu.be/Hez3xNv2ido

Re: The risky bat-virus engineering that links America to Wuhan

#265

Post by tim333 » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 12:26 PM UTC

akvadrako wrote: post #179

rdedev wrote: post #114

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/25/opinion/coronavirus-lab.h... This is a pretty well reasoned take kn the lab leak hypothesis. We might not know for certain if covid came from the lab in Wuhan but there are enough lapses that took place in that lab that a future pandemic can start from that place

This is the most important point in this discussion. If we find out for certain this virus came from a lab leak or not, it wouldn't much change the probability it could have. I'd estimate most people can agree the probability of a lab leak of a dangerous virus in any given decade is between 1-20%. Is this acceptable or can we greatly reduce it with policy?

I think the prior record of leaks of any dangerous virus has been more like 80%. But that's mostly existing viruses and not setting off pandemics.

Re: The risky bat-virus engineering that links America to Wuhan

#266

Post by Wolfenstein98k » Sat, Jul 10, 2021, 11:49 PM UTC

slim wrote: post #152

Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad hominem

In this case the discussion is about the author. The point is to assess if the misdirection is deliberate or not

Whether or not the post misdirects, or is false, is unrelated to what the author wrote in 2003.

It's not even established that they were "misdirecting" then, either.

Re: The risky bat-virus engineering that links America to Wuhan

#267

Post by try2figure8 » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 12:40 AM UTC

amazingman wrote: post #99

andreilys wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s almost like those two pieces are completely unrelated to one another. If you’re looking for someone with a clean record commenting on the viability of the lab leak theory for months, take a look at Bret Weinstein.

I took a look at Bret Weinstein, and it wasn’t good. Not good at all. He seemed to be making every effort he could to blame the mRNA vaccines for problems that —if true— could have any number of mundane explanations. But hey, maybe he’s right about the lab leak theory.

The academic guest was Robert Malone and he invented the MRNA vaccine.

He is more than just an “expert”

He made the claim that the spike protein is cytotoxic. He notified the FDA

And FDA has claimed it is not without any evidence