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

nytimes.com

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

#361

Post by zmgsabst »

Terr_ wrote: post #331
westcort wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have previously shared this little known, but factual, event on Hacker News. It is simply a Wikipedia article--the 1977 Russian Flu ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Russian_flu ). This is not my statement, note this well dang, and read or argue with the editors of Wikipedia if you want (not me), but the following statement stands firm: "Genetic analysis and several unusual characteristics of the 1977 Russian fl…

Tangentially, risks like that are why I'm really frustrated-with/exasperated-by certain mRNA-vaccine scaremongers: Ones who act as if older techniques were already fine and sufficient. Ex: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/polio/hcp/vaccine-derived-p...

It can both be the case that old methods have risks and new methods have greater risks, eg, underestimating mRNA distribution in the body, leading to mRNA replication in heart tissue, and higher than expect dangerous side-effects.

In general, people prefer understood risks to new risks because the system is better adapted to them — both biologically and politically.

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

#362

Post by dehrmann »

Fomite wrote: post #333
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…

I wrote this awhile ago on a previous thread about this: To my mind, there are a few reasons why people are so fixated on the lab leak thing 1) It makes the pandemic deterministic (bad lab security means an outbreak) instead of stochastic (wildlife spillover). That is, to be frank, even as an epidemiologist who is very skeptical of the lab leak hypothesis, a comforting thought. 2) It's a popular topic in the Substack…

There's a greater burden of proof for spillover when there just happens to be a lab doing virus research near the epicenter of the outbreak.

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

#363

Post by ioulaum »

Analemma_ wrote: post #251
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…

> But the real goal of the constant back-and-forth over where it came from is not about finding the truth; that much seems quite obvious to me. Yes, the annoying thing is that "the truth about covid" literally only matters to culture war grievances, it has no relevance whatsoever to the actual world. If it was a lab leak, then China needs to improve their BSL-4 safety... but they need to do that anyway[0]. If it was…

The wet markets were a super spreader event... Doesn't really tell you much about where it started (even if it has animal origin).

People just assumed that the wet markets were the cause of the problem, because they found them digusting (and wanted an excuse to blame it on the Chinese being evil).

In a less dense population, without many people going to the same hospital... You would just not have noticed Covid much.

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

#364

Post by cyberax »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #174
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…

There are a few things to consider that I’ll add, which further bolster the idea that China has systematically covered up up a lab leak that caused the COVID-19 pandemic: 1. Coronaviruses are hard to contain, even if you have good practices. For example, the earlier SARS outbreak (from the early 2000s) had several documented lab leaks, including multiple within China ( https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7096887…

> President Obama had banned it through an executive order.

Can you provide a link to the executive order? It sounds seriously strange.

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

#365

Post by macinjosh »

shakow wrote: post #220
Aloisius wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hypothetical lab worker which only spread it to the market and nowhere else seems implausible. I suppose that could happen if what they were carrying wasn't capable of human transmission yet, but was capable of infecting some species of the live animals at the market, but that's a big if. There's till the problem of the second lineage which would indicate multiple zoonotic crossover events.

> I suppose that could happen if what they were carrying wasn't capable of human transmission yet, but was capable of infecting some species of the live animals at the market Or if infected carrions from the labs were sold at the market – I suppose it only takes a low-ranking employee wanting to make a few bucks.

You are 100% right. Not sure why you are being downvoted.

All of the evidence people argue over can fit together.

Original virus was brought from the south of china, was studied in the lab. Unclear if it was engineered. Somehow in the lab an animal was exposed. Either purposefully for study or accidentally. Animal dies or will die soon so a rouge employee takes it to the market to sell the meat for some pocket money. First cases show up in lab employees they are smart enough to quarantine. Full outbreak starts at market from animal source.

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

#366

Post by nickburns »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #282
nickburns wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's a 23? bp sequence that is directly lifted from the moderna hiv vaccine patent (which preceded covid-19 by a decade). could you cite this? not because i'm questioning the statement's credibility, but because i'm curious (and you could save me a lot of time from even knowing where to begin to look for credible information for myself—full disclosure, lol).

sorry. it was 19bp Here. you can do it yourself. databases are public. CTCCTCGGCGGGCACGTAG

oh, i counted your earlier post lol. thanks for posting all the above.

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

#367

Post by jdietrich »

jtc331 wrote: post #336
jdietrich wrote: post #320

If we actually care about public health, we should act as if both the lab leak and zoonosis theories are correct. We should take laboratory biosecurity, wet markets, the bush meat trade and intensive livestock management equally seriously as threats. We should do this because we have no idea where the next pandemic - and there will be a next pandemic - will come from. It seems fairly clear to me that a lot of people…

The problem is that the two theories can have competing indications as to how to prepare. Specifically: should we do gain of function research, or is that foolish — depends on how you read what happened in 2020.

The question of whether we should do gain-of-function research is a fairly complex cost/benefit analysis. The precise cause of the 2019 pandemic is only a very minor variable in that analysis, because that specific outcome doesn't change the underlying probability of a lab leak. More to the point, do we realistically believe that everyone will stop doing it, even if there's a credible international moratorium? If not, then we need to plan accordingly.

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

#368

Post by TZubiri »

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…

[flagged]

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

#369

Post by KennyBlanken »

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.

The zoonotic theory has no evidence to support it whatsoever. It's the viral equivalent of the 'Magic Bullet.'

- No samples were ever found, nor were any sick animals, in the market where it supposedly started. Period. Nothing.

- No evidence of genetic mutations and variants leading up to crossover, no intermediary host ever found.

- It just happened to start infecting people in the city of a lab which had been doing extremely similar experiments AND had issues with releases before.

- WHO rushed the investigation, involved Chinese scientists in the investigation, and the Chinese government did not cooperate in any way, shape, or form - no samples, no lab data, nothing. It was just "trust us." And everyone dusted off their hands and said "well, no evidence. Done then!"

The world's governments pushed the "zoological crossover" theory because the only alternative would be...what? Accusing the world's largest source of manufactured goods of killing 8 million people? And what would we do, exactly?

Level economic sanctions against a country producing most of the world's stuff? That is by and large quite self sufficient, far more so than most nations?

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