China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest • Hacker News Board

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#41

Post by godtoldmetodoit » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #12

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #8

In lieu of evidence that the “wet market” story is true, the accidental lab release is pretty compelling. Interesting to see how people react to it though - as though the idea is outlandish that a laboratory working with pathogens from actual bats could mishandle things. Is there even any evidence people ate bats at the wet market?

I remember a scientific paper on HN a few months ago by Chinese authors saying Covid came from that lab and that it came from bats that had infected workers there, or that was the assumption. That is my memory of the article. I cannot find that paper anymore. Does anyone remember this?

Tucker Carlson did a piece talking about how the bats that this jumped from do not live within ~900km of Wuhan, but that the lab in Wuhan did testing on the bats that they imported. It definitely seems plausible they were doing research on these bats, and that due to some improper controls it jumped over to a human working in the lab and that was our patient 0.

It definitely seems feasible to me that it could have "come out of a lab" while still being entirely natural in origin and without any ill intent on the Chinese part.

I'm not endorsing this as true, I don't know if it's true or not, but I did find it interesting and worthy of additional research.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#42

Post by abecedarius » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

amvalo wrote: post #30

gerdesj wrote: post #16

I don't buy the escaped/released from a lab theories espoused here and on Facebook and the like. Apparently the mutations within the SARS-COV-2 found in humans compared to the bat virus are purely random and hence the thing is not or very unlikely genetically engineered. My source is a recent New Scientist article. So the bloody thing is simply a virus that affects all people, everywhere, without fear or favour. Simp…

Just because it's not engineered doesn't mean it didn't come from a lab. It could be a natural virus that was collected and escaped. The original SARS escaped no less than 3 times from chinese labs following the outbreak.

Furthermore, gain-of-function research doesn't have to be by genetic engineering. The controversial experiment of a few years back which I vaguely remember was more like natural selection.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#43

Post by throwanem » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 10:00 PM UTC

amvalo wrote: post #30

gerdesj wrote: post #16

I don't buy the escaped/released from a lab theories espoused here and on Facebook and the like. Apparently the mutations within the SARS-COV-2 found in humans compared to the bat virus are purely random and hence the thing is not or very unlikely genetically engineered. My source is a recent New Scientist article. So the bloody thing is simply a virus that affects all people, everywhere, without fear or favour. Simp…

Just because it's not engineered doesn't mean it didn't come from a lab. It could be a natural virus that was collected and escaped. The original SARS escaped no less than 3 times from chinese labs following the outbreak.

It could be lots of things. The focus on a possible escape from containment as the source seems odd given that - among other more likely causes - bat guano is also widely used as fertilizer, and bats, like humans, shed coronaviruses in their feces. Except that where we do so only occasionally and only when actively infected, bats' generally higher viral load and the high intraspecific transmissibility of a lot of these viruses means they do it much more frequently.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#44

Post by papermachete » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

avs733 wrote: post #32

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #8

In lieu of evidence that the “wet market” story is true, the accidental lab release is pretty compelling. Interesting to see how people react to it though - as though the idea is outlandish that a laboratory working with pathogens from actual bats could mishandle things. Is there even any evidence people ate bats at the wet market?

So...evidence? Stating it's compelling isn't evidence, just that it is an explanation that appeals to large populations of our species who are hold certain suspicions. There is, however, a long history of animal to human transmission of diseases. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I have yet to see anyone provide evidence, only twitter rumors, and twitter rumors aren't even regular evidence.

It's just as much China's (or anyone else's in the interest of science) to prove the lab had zero correlation to this incident. If only to appease a crowd.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#45

Post by godtoldmetodoit » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

tanilama wrote: post #33

andromeduck wrote: post #2

Huge change of tone from 2 months ago, ok m guessing it's because because they fear that the lab accident theory will gain more traction academically or they fear people will reveal the scale of the damage to the public vs the clearly fabricated stats we have now. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/30/asia-pacific/sc... www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/all-signs-point-to-china/ https://www.dailymail.co.…

I don't think dailymail or nationalreivew are reputable source other than presenting a story. There is an article on Nature one month ago on this topic: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 > Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus

That doesn't mean it didn't come from a lab though. "Coming from a lab" does not = man made. If they were doing research on the bats in this lab, looking to identify potential scary viruses to be ready, it is entirely possible the virus jumped from bat to researcher there and that was our patient 0.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#46

Post by rpiguy » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

gerdesj wrote: post #16

I don't buy the escaped/released from a lab theories espoused here and on Facebook and the like. Apparently the mutations within the SARS-COV-2 found in humans compared to the bat virus are purely random and hence the thing is not or very unlikely genetically engineered. My source is a recent New Scientist article. So the bloody thing is simply a virus that affects all people, everywhere, without fear or favour. Simp…

Dr Shi Zhengli was working on bat Coronavirus research in the US and we closed the program down in the US in 2014 for being too dangerous. She returned to China to continue her research in Wuhan.

It is neither fiction, nor dangerous to speculate that this outbreak started at the Wuhan lab.

It may not have been engineered.

However, the bats are brought to Wuhan lab from hundreds of miles away to be studied. It is also very possible that a bat carrying the natural virus being studied at the lab escapes or infected a person.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#47

Post by StandardFuture » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

tanilama wrote: post #33

andromeduck wrote: post #2

Huge change of tone from 2 months ago, ok m guessing it's because because they fear that the lab accident theory will gain more traction academically or they fear people will reveal the scale of the damage to the public vs the clearly fabricated stats we have now. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/30/asia-pacific/sc... www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/all-signs-point-to-china/ https://www.dailymail.co.…

I don't think dailymail or nationalreivew are reputable source other than presenting a story. There is an article on Nature one month ago on this topic: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 > Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus

This paper is only about engineering a virus using a common backbone virus as a starting point.

That does not mean the virus could not be derived within a lab using recombination methods in other animals and sourcing the starting novel virus from bats. In fact, this type of research was the exact research being done at the Wuhan Virology lab.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#48

Post by leetcrew » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 10:02 PM UTC

meowface wrote: post #20

gerdesj wrote: post #16

I don't buy the escaped/released from a lab theories espoused here and on Facebook and the like. Apparently the mutations within the SARS-COV-2 found in humans compared to the bat virus are purely random and hence the thing is not or very unlikely genetically engineered. My source is a recent New Scientist article. So the bloody thing is simply a virus that affects all people, everywhere, without fear or favour. Simp…

Agreed, there's basically no current evidence to suggest it was engineered, and plenty of evidence to suggest it was zoonotic and evolved naturally. One possibility that can't be totally ruled out is that maybe this was one of many viruses collected from local animals which their virology lab had stored for current or future study, and some kind of mistake led to it escaping, perhaps through an employee unknowingly g…

I don't see any evidence to suggest the virus was engineered or released deliberately. why would you deliberately release a bioweapon in a densely populated part of your own country? doesn't make sense.

the lab in wuhan is not just any virology lab though; it's one of only two biosafety level 4 labs in all of china and samples of similar coronaviruses are held and studied there. it may very well be a coincidence; improbable things happen all the time in a world of ~8 billion people. it would be a pretty big one though.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#49

Post by microcolonel » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

amvalo wrote: post #30

gerdesj wrote: post #16

I don't buy the escaped/released from a lab theories espoused here and on Facebook and the like. Apparently the mutations within the SARS-COV-2 found in humans compared to the bat virus are purely random and hence the thing is not or very unlikely genetically engineered. My source is a recent New Scientist article. So the bloody thing is simply a virus that affects all people, everywhere, without fear or favour. Simp…

Just because it's not engineered doesn't mean it didn't come from a lab. It could be a natural virus that was collected and escaped. The original SARS escaped no less than 3 times from chinese labs following the outbreak.

Also the only lab that handles this stuff in Wuhan is less than a couple hundred meters from the wet market that Chinese authorities claimed was the epicenter.

I'd believe this is a story of grave incompetence, and brazen managerial failure at a biolab. The intern gets bled on, bitten, or just breathed on by the test bat, gets a bit sick but comes into work anyway. After it seems to pass, she heads down to the market on the way home, and spreads the disease to one of the live animals, including humans, in the vicinity.

Boom, outbreak.

Could be as simple as that, with it being a pretty tenacious virus.

The proven conspiracy follows, when authorities up to the top sought to cover up this embarrassment, then to make sure that the damage was global so that they wouldn't be at a relative disadvantage, and could maybe start claiming that it came from somewhere else (as they are now doing).

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#50

Post by rpiguy » Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

meowface wrote: post #20

gerdesj wrote: post #16

I don't buy the escaped/released from a lab theories espoused here and on Facebook and the like. Apparently the mutations within the SARS-COV-2 found in humans compared to the bat virus are purely random and hence the thing is not or very unlikely genetically engineered. My source is a recent New Scientist article. So the bloody thing is simply a virus that affects all people, everywhere, without fear or favour. Simp…

Agreed, there's basically no current evidence to suggest it was engineered, and plenty of evidence to suggest it was zoonotic and evolved naturally. One possibility that can't be totally ruled out is that maybe this was one of many viruses collected from local animals which their virology lab had stored for current or future study, and some kind of mistake led to it escaping, perhaps through an employee unknowingly g…

Dr Shi Zhengli was working on bat Coronavirus research in the US and we closed the program down in the US in 2014 for being too dangerous. She returned to China to continue her research in Wuhan.

Yeah. Just a coincidence.