Dr. Fauci Backed Controversial Wuhan Lab for Risky Coronavirus Research • Hacker News Board

Re: Dr. Fauci Backed Controversial Wuhan Lab for Risky Coronavirus Research

#31

Post by kixiQu » Mon, May 04, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

RobertoG wrote: post #24

jml7c5 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My basic issue with the lab escape theory: if SARS-CoV2 is a natural strain (and there is at this point no evidence that it isn't), then why assume some researcher was patient zero, when millions of other people catch bat coronaviruses each year? The following interview (from [1]) puts it succinctly: >“If you do the math on this, it’s very straightforward. ... We have hundreds of millions of bats in Southeast Asia an…

Thanks for this. It really change the priors, reading those numbers. I will read all the article. Weighting against the lab theory also, it seems that there is not record of the "animal passage" technique was being used in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That seems like something necessary. There are so many thing that I don't understand in all this, that I'm probably not qualified to have a strong opinion yet (or m…

If https://healthcareinamerica.us/what-makes-bats-the-perfect-h... is accurate:

* variable body temperature (they heat when they fly) * many species roost very closely in large numbers * weird immune system traits (they have very fast metabolisms, so they present an odd environment for pathogens)

Re: Dr. Fauci Backed Controversial Wuhan Lab for Risky Coronavirus Research

#32

Post by cameldrv » Mon, May 04, 2020, 7:20 PM UTC

jml7c5 wrote: post #23

RobertoG wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the link to Dr.Fauci is only "click bait" but, after reading another linked article, I have changed my mind and now I think that the Wuhan lab theory deserves some consideration. This is the more interesting article in my opinion: https://www.newsweek.com/controversial-wuhan-lab-experiments...

My basic issue with the lab escape theory: if SARS-CoV2 is a natural strain (and there is at this point no evidence that it isn't), then why assume some researcher was patient zero, when millions of other people catch bat coronaviruses each year? The following interview (from [1]) puts it succinctly: >“If you do the math on this, it’s very straightforward. ... We have hundreds of millions of bats in Southeast Asia an…

First, understand who Daszak is: yes, he's definitely an expert, but he is also not a disinterested observer. He is the PI on grants from the NIH that funded Bat Coronavirus research in Shi Zhengli's lab at the WIV. He's also stated that he's friends with Shi Zhengli.

The sequence of the virus strongly resembles RaTG13-CoV, a bat coronavirus discovered by WIV. The sequence is almost identical, except for the spike protein. The spike protein strongly resembles a Pangolin CoV also discovered by the WIV. Shi Zhengli and another researcher from WIV are authors on a paper from 2015 where they transplanted the spike protein from one Coronavirus onto the remaining parts of SARS-CoV. They've also done "serial passage" experiments, where they infect either cell cultures or live animals, so that a virus becomes more adapted to that host. One of the animals that they used for these experiments were ferrets, for which SARS-CoV-2's spike shows extremely high affinity.

Now, it's possible that two viruses recombined naturally, but then why did the virus first show up in Wuhan? Wuhan is a thousand miles from the bat caves where they found these viruses in Yunnan. As far as we know, they did not exist in Wuhan, except in the WIV's freezer.

Re: Dr. Fauci Backed Controversial Wuhan Lab for Risky Coronavirus Research

#33

Post by 15charlimitdumb » Tue, May 05, 2020, 12:36 AM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #8

This kind of research seems to be a rather normal and reasonable thing to do. That being said, I have two issues with this article: - it makes the Wuhan lab story sound credible, while it is just another conspiracy theory - it paints Dr. Fauci in a bad light by linking him to that lab and the theory The factually true info is the kind of research and the fact that it was cofunded by the Fauci org. Everything else is…

Not a conspiracy, WHO says it has happened before. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC416634/

Re: Dr. Fauci Backed Controversial Wuhan Lab for Risky Coronavirus Research

#34

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Tue, May 05, 2020, 8:42 AM UTC

jml7c5 wrote: post #29

wbg34 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those 1 to 7 million people live near the lab? The reason the lab escape theory has gained so much traction is that the lab is a few blocks from the reported ground zero for this outbreak. Of course that doesn't mean that the infection of patient zero happened inside the lab. If I remember correctly, then the researcher, that some have theorized to be patient zero, had recently returned from a field study…

>[...] the lab is a few blocks from the reported ground zero for this outbreak. The Wuhan Institute for Virology (BSL-4 lab) is actually 13 km away. People mixed it up with the unrelated Wuhan Center for Disease Control (BSL-2 lab).

Does that change anything, if workers from the lab frequent that market, because it's a popular central location to go to shop, eat, meet, whatever, while sloppy safety practices led to at least one of them being infected, and sneeze or cough while wandering around?

Re: Dr. Fauci Backed Controversial Wuhan Lab for Risky Coronavirus Research

#35

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Tue, May 05, 2020, 8:48 AM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #28

RobertoG wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that. My reasoning has been: new viruses jump from other animals all the time, it has happened in the past, we don't have any reason to think that is not the case this time. It's not surprising at all that it appear in the most populated country in the world. But after learning about that lab, I have to think: that a new corona-virus appears in the wild a few kilometers out of one of the few labs special…

Numbers favour other sources than labs, as a comment pointed out above. Just apllying logic, it is more likely that the virus jumped from bats to humans in the "wild". Political convenience aside, the question whther the SARS-Cov-2 escaped from a lab or not doesn't seem to be that important in finding a solution / cure / vaccine. All it does is playing the blame game and distract from the real problems.

Could be. Could also be "they" know exactly what happened, and are to blame for having others rediscovering the wheel (solution) again, because politics, saving face, whatever...

Re: Dr. Fauci Backed Controversial Wuhan Lab for Risky Coronavirus Research

#36

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Tue, May 05, 2020, 9:05 AM UTC

blackrock wrote: post #18

So which is it guys? 1) It was man-made, and biologically engineered in a lab. It escaped containment. 2) It came into being because the Chinese eat bats. So China should shut down the wet markets. Because it cannot be both. The Trump Regime is lying and talking out of their asses, to cover up their own incompetence. And they are saying that it is both. And the American public are so gullible, that they’re believing…

Have you read http://chinamediaproject.org/2020/01/27/dramatic-actions/ ? Given the long incubation time, and large number of asymptomatic carriers, and global flights for all sorts of reasons i see no contradiction in the timeline.

What got diagnosed early on was just the tip of the iceberg, from some cases developing serious symptoms.

Furthermore: 1st case/patient zero=Stall operator from the seafood market... Does anybody know WHICH sort of stall he operated? Maybe he delivered test animals (in)to the lab, and got infected that way?

Re: Dr. Fauci Backed Controversial Wuhan Lab for Risky Coronavirus Research

#37

Post by jml7c5 » Wed, May 06, 2020, 10:32 AM UTC

cameldrv wrote: post #32

jml7c5 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My basic issue with the lab escape theory: if SARS-CoV2 is a natural strain (and there is at this point no evidence that it isn't), then why assume some researcher was patient zero, when millions of other people catch bat coronaviruses each year? The following interview (from [1]) puts it succinctly: >“If you do the math on this, it’s very straightforward. ... We have hundreds of millions of bats in Southeast Asia an…

First, understand who Daszak is: yes, he's definitely an expert, but he is also not a disinterested observer. He is the PI on grants from the NIH that funded Bat Coronavirus research in Shi Zhengli's lab at the WIV. He's also stated that he's friends with Shi Zhengli. The sequence of the virus strongly resembles RaTG13-CoV, a bat coronavirus discovered by WIV. The sequence is almost identical, except for the spike pr…

I'd like to hear more about the info in your second paragraph. Is there any reading material (articles, papers, etc) you suggest? It sounds quite interesting, and I had not heard about the spike affinity wrt ferrets.