CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins • Hacker News Board

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#341

Post by Fomite » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 2:02 AM UTC

scarab92 wrote: post #265

Leary wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things that are true: The first large cluster of infections was associated with the Huanan Seafood Market, and retrospective analyses of influenza-like-illness patients and blood donations in Wuhan found no evidence of earlier circulation. Sampling of many individuals prior to December 2019 showed no positives for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, suggesting that the virus did not spread widely before the market outbreak. The W…

Forgive the silly question, but does the lab leak theory entail the virus being engineered in the lab, or simply sampled from nature by researchers then not adequately contained? I’m not clear on what exactly is being alleged by these agencies?

One of the key parts of the lab leak hypothesis is that, depending on who is advancing it, it ranges from "poor biocontainment of a natural virus" to "engineered and released" with everything in between.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#342

Post by Fomite » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 2:03 AM UTC

hnbad wrote: post #203

CMay wrote: post #154

Things that are true: "Officials said the agency was not bending its views to a new boss, and that the new assessment had been in the works for some time." The Department of Energy concluded with low confidence that it was a lab leak. The FBI concluded with moderate confidence that it was a lab leak. The CIA's new report also concludes that they have low confidence that it was a lab leak. It's important to note that…

I'm not sure what the Department of Energy's qualifications are (I know they're in charges of nukes so maybe also bioweapons?) but I don't see what relevance the FBI's opinion has.

The National Labs, where a tremendous amount of infectious disease work is done for national-scale questions. I've worked with them in the past, and considered taking a job with them - of the various agencies, they're the ones who have weighed in with probably the most expertise.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#343

Post by bigmattystyles » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 2:03 AM UTC

dpkirchner wrote: post #307

scarface_74 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And don’t forget that TikTok should be banned and now it should be saved.

And China should be investigated for phone hacks but now that should stop.

And we should should subpoena Cassidy Hutchinson but actual no cause some of us sent unsolicited sexual threats/messages.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#344

Post by persedes » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 2:04 AM UTC

FeteCommuniste wrote: post #324

lolinder wrote: post #306

Can someone help me understand why a lab leak looks worse for China than zoonotic spillover? Why would Senator Cotton need it to be a lab leak to give him more leverage? From what I understand, one theory is that China has for decades tolerated unsanitary wet markets that allowed dangerous diseases to evolve, get stronger, and eventually transmit to human hosts. They'd been warned about this over and over again and h…

Because a lab leak could imply that China had a direct, active role in cultivating or engineering the virus, as opposed to the “mere” disastrous negligence entailed by the wet market theory.

Or less nefarious: that they mishandled an extracted virus /someone got bitten by a bat in the lab and was allowed to leave without quarantine.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#345

Post by ioulaum » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 2:06 AM UTC

FeteCommuniste wrote: post #324

lolinder wrote: post #306

Can someone help me understand why a lab leak looks worse for China than zoonotic spillover? Why would Senator Cotton need it to be a lab leak to give him more leverage? From what I understand, one theory is that China has for decades tolerated unsanitary wet markets that allowed dangerous diseases to evolve, get stronger, and eventually transmit to human hosts. They'd been warned about this over and over again and h…

Because a lab leak could imply that China had a direct, active role in cultivating or engineering the virus, as opposed to the “mere” disastrous negligence entailed by the wet market theory.

If it could be blamed on "China", it could as well be blamed on "the US" for having also funded that lab, and likely having been responsible for what security measures it would have.

And more realistically, if it was a lab leak, it was likely some lab technician being careless, or some thing breaking and whoever was responsible, not fixing it quickly enough.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#346

Post by Fomite » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 2:07 AM UTC

My present take: As an infectious disease epidemiologist whose expertise lies in the dynamics of infections a week or so after an initial spillover event, I am much more cautious with my opinions on the lab leak hypothesis than a lot of people who took a single biology class as a distribution requirement in undergrad.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#347

Post by lolinder » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 2:09 AM UTC

Fomite wrote: post #334

FeteCommuniste wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a lab leak could imply that China had a direct, active role in cultivating or engineering the virus, as opposed to the “mere” disastrous negligence entailed by the wet market theory.

That this is someone's fault and they can be punished is, I think, the reason people want it to be true. Rather than the world is a terrifying place that sometimes kills millions.

Failing to enforce basic health codes is not a random act of God, it's a failure to perform the minimum functions of a state. It's not a single individual's fault, true, but these wet markets are not some obscure corner shop that managed to dodge regulation, their existence would not be tolerated in any developed country.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#348

Post by macinjosh » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 2:09 AM UTC

Sabinus wrote: post #301

rayiner wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s certainly motivation for releasing it, but he’s been in office for five days so the analysis being released was done under the prior administration.

And, as per the article, the Biden admin did order reinvestigations.

Because they didn’t get the answer they wanted. lol.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#349

Post by cyberax » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 2:09 AM UTC

throwawaymaths wrote: post #287

giantg2 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have family that have worked on developing NBC equipment for the military. The first thing they said when covid was spreading was that it was most likely from a lab. That was before anyone in the news was saying that. So an independent first-look assessment by someone with experience, followed by later finding out that there was in fact a lab there, has me heavily leaning towards it being true. But it doesn't reall…

there's a 19 bp sequence CTCCTCGGCGGGCACGTAG that is directly lifted from the moderna hiv vaccine patent (which preceded covid-19 by a decade). now an exact match of that length isn't impossible, but which is more likely? that this managed to be exactly correct on accident? or some grad student was told to just copypasta every furin cleavage site in the database into a GOF library and surprise surprise the most virul…

> there's a 19 bp sequence CTCCTCGGCGGGCACGTAG that is directly lifted from the moderna hiv vaccine patent

Sigh. Here's the first line from the patent: "The present invention provides a cDNA of a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus".

You don't think that two coronaviruses just might have similar structural proteins?

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#350

Post by ioulaum » Sun, Jan 26, 2025, 2:11 AM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #149

drewbug01 wrote: post #17

> The agency made its new assessment with “low confidence,” which means the intelligence behind it is fragmentary and incomplete. I do believe that's all one really needs to know about this shift in their thinking. In other words: it's really far from certain. --- One thing that is, however, quite certain: there are very real political reasons to favor one theory or another. For example, Sen. Tom Cotton is quoted as…

I have family that have worked on developing NBC equipment for the military. The first thing they said when covid was spreading was that it was most likely from a lab. That was before anyone in the news was saying that. So an independent first-look assessment by someone with experience, followed by later finding out that there was in fact a lab there, has me heavily leaning towards it being true. But it doesn't reall…

If SARS-Cov-2 was from a lab, what about the original SARS?

Generally though, China is somewhat better suited to producing pandemics, because they have a larger and more dense population within which a disease can spread.