The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#451

Post by tim333 » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 8:44 PM UTC

JohnStrangeII wrote: post #372

Feolkin wrote: post #249

Look, when most virologists/epidemiogists look at this "evidence" and consider it too flimsy and flawed, then I wonder why people here are so eager to jump on it as "I'm not a biologist, covid19 is so unusual, it's obviously man-made". HN is embarrassing right now.

The same happened with HIV, these kind of conspiracy theories are inevitable. People always want to blame someone, even when there is overwhelming evidence that a natural catastrophe occurred. Remember the Italian seismologists who got sued because they didn't predict an earthquake? Fact is that if the virus escaped a lab, the incident could have occurred in any other lab, too. It likely evolved naturally, though, an…

The HIV conspiracy theories were kind of silly though and they were able to trace the source to chimpanzees. Things seem different with covid.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#452

Post by tim333 » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 8:48 PM UTC

bwi4 wrote: post #114

So what would evidence, rather than speculation, look like in this case? A SARS-CoV 2 genome sequence dated before December 2019? Somehow identifying patient zero and corresponding records of their exposure at the lab? I’m skeptical that any hard evidence will be found. It seems to me the origin is likely to remain speculative indefinitely.

If it was the lab someone involved in the research may talk. If it's natural we may find the animal source. The Chinese have not been terribly cooperative with investigating things though so it may remain speculative.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#453

Post by snowwrestler » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

rvnx wrote: post #407

snowwrestler wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infectious bioweapons are a horrible idea in a highly connected world for the reason we can all plainly see: they don’t respect national borders. It is an old-fashioned notion of a weapon that only made sense when there was little exchange between the citizens of states in opposition, like the U.S. and USSR. China, for whom international trade is a crucial part of their strategy, would not work on an infectious disea…

Not a proof at all. It just shows that it can't be a planned release.

If a lab in China had been working with this virus at all, they would have had at minimum working cultures of it, and potentially multiple strains and experience modifying them. Cultures alone would have put them ahead of western pharma companies in developing a vaccine—even in the case of an unplanned release.

The fact that they’re not ahead is compelling proof that this virus was as new to Chinese medicine as it was to everyone else.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#454

Post by Natsu » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

catears wrote: post #447

Natsu wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that this... methodology... works for both true & false claims. Pure credentialism held up Lysenkoism, among other things, for quite some time, after all. I mean, I read this:0 > If there was a clear bias in the authors' background, this would call into question the credibility of the paper. And I can't help thinking how there would always be a "clear bias" of people who weren't strongly in support of…

I think I understand your argument, but I think you misunderstood me. I agree that just looking at credentials isn't the way to go. It does create these echo chambers where only those wearing "my colors" can be correct (when perhaps people need to see and hear those without "their colors"). But my argument was never to resort to pure credentialism. Looking at someones background is an important tool in our toolbox fo…

That's better, I just find that when things get political, it's best to focus on facts. People can have completely opposite views about a particular party's credentials. Here, for example, someone might reject authors that are Chinese because "of course" they'd defend the CCP vs. other people who think just the opposite.

I feel that pure facts helps take away the "heat" of an argument. Things that shouldn't be even remotely political--like wearing masks--have turned into political footballs and adding more "heat" to the issue only hardens people to bad positions that hurt everyone.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#455

Post by thu2111 » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #355

mjirv wrote: post #79

Epidemiologist Ellie Murray said it better than I could, so I’ll just quote her: “Yes, the chance of a virus like SARS-CoV-2 suddenly arising is fairly low. That’s why we have so few pandemics!! But conditional on being in a pandemic the chance that the virus that arises to cause it is like SARS-CoV-2 is super high!! There’s no conspiracy, just statistics”[0] That said, the fact that the outbreak started so close to…

> That’s why we have so few pandemics!! Depends on how you define pandemic. Just in my lifetime I've seen the rise of HIV, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, H1N1, SARS-CoV-2, and perhaps others that I've forgotten, that meet the dictionary definition of pandemic. That is more than one pandemic per decade, on average, which seems like a lot. But you can also avoid calling them pandemics. HIV, for example, is officially a "worldwide…

There used to be a difference in the WHO definitions but they changed the definition of pandemic at the time of swine flu, the new definition didn't require the virus to be deadly anymore.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#456

Post by thu2111 » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

atc wrote: post #299

maest wrote: post #11

This is a really big claim, so some background checking: The paper was published in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics[0] (this accepted version is materially different from the original link posted here). Only thing I could find about Birger Sorensen's was his Linkedin page [1a] and the Immunor page where he's listed as the Chairman [1b]. Angus Dagleish looks legit, although it's notable that he did stand for Parlia…

So what if Angus stood for UKIP? He's entitled to his views. How is that relevant to virus research or his scientific credentials?!

It's not of course, it's chaff from the sort of leftists who don't believe anyone who believes in local government should be allowed to have any influence.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#457

Post by nkurz » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 10:17 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #453

rvnx wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a proof at all. It just shows that it can't be a planned release.

If a lab in China had been working with this virus at all, they would have had at minimum working cultures of it, and potentially multiple strains and experience modifying them. Cultures alone would have put them ahead of western pharma companies in developing a vaccine—even in the case of an unplanned release. The fact that they’re not ahead is compelling proof that this virus was as new to Chinese medicine as it wa…

> The fact that they’re not ahead is compelling proof that this virus was as new to Chinese medicine as it was to everyone else.

I appreciate your argument, but are you sure that they are not ahead? I don't have personal knowledge, but (for example) there was a Reuters article last week with a headline that included that claim "China leads COVID-19 vaccine race": https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-china-.... If somehow it was proved that they are indeed ahead, would you consider this compelling proof in the opposite direction? I think I'd consider both directions to be weak evidence, but neither to be anything near proof.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#458

Post by Aeolun » Sat, Jul 18, 2020, 11:15 PM UTC

wokwokwok wrote: post #399

Aeolun wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How you interpret their data is up to you (e.g. whether it gives you a high level of confidence). But they’ve clearly given you proof that the virus is artificial. Personally I think the circumstantial evidence in this case is fairly strong. But I’m hardly impartial.

> they’ve clearly given you proof that the virus is artificial No, they haven't. The evidence is circumstantial. You can choose to believe what you want to believe; but the fact is that they have not proved anything. That's the problem with the paper. Actually read the darn thing. I'm 100% sympathetic to what they're saying here and I do hear their arguments, but this paper doesn't prove it. > Personally I think... Y…

> You know the quote. "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."

The things written down in this paper are true whether or not you agree that they lead to the conclusion that the virus was engineered (obviously, exclude their conclusions).

Maybe using proof was the wrong word.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#459

Post by dwd » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 12:10 AM UTC

MiroF wrote: post #425

bart_spoon wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn’t relevant, and hasn’t been since almost the beginning of the pandemic. We’ve known since March that the earliest retroactively identified case of the disease in China was from October and had no connection with the Wuhan wet market. The wet market may be the the earliest identified widespread outbreak, but it is clear that the crossover event happened earlier and the virus had been circulating at low levels p…

> but it is clear that the crossover event happened earlier and the virus had been circulating at low levels prior to that. Source? Definitely some experts think it is not impossible that it was brought to the wet market very early in the outbreak, that's not implausible at all. But the idea that it was circulating globally or widely at all before that is not backed by the evidence.

There are some Brazilian researchers in the process of mapping the whole genome of some samples collected and frozen back in November 2019 that they believe to be SARS-CoV-2.

It will be interesting to see how that compares to a Wuhan sample and see if it had most of the novel features of COVID-19, but is maybe missing one thing like how it binds to ACE2 which is probably implicated in all the cardiovascular issues it causes.

Re: The evidence which suggests that Covid-19 is not a naturally evolved virus [pdf]

#460

Post by murgindrag » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 12:51 AM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #398

murgindrag wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if I were to make a bioweapon, I would think about long-term impact. (1) Millions disabled is far worse than millions dead. (2) Attacks can come in multiple pieces. The first virus might do damage to make people especially vulnerable to the second virus. If I can protect my population against the first one /or/ the second, my people are safe. My opinion is it's just a matter of time before we see bioweapons, and…

Infectious bioweapons are a horrible idea in a highly connected world for the reason we can all plainly see: they don’t respect national borders. It is an old-fashioned notion of a weapon that only made sense when there was little exchange between the citizens of states in opposition, like the U.S. and USSR. China, for whom international trade is a crucial part of their strategy, would not work on an infectious disea…

Well, let's break down this hypothetical a bit more:

(1) "Work on" is different from "release." If I were China, I would not release a bioweapon, but I might work on one. The US and USSR worked on nuclear weapons but did not release them. There are 200 nations. Some of them almost certainly have secret bioweapons programs.

(2) As China showed, they could handle a COVID19-level bioweapon attack while the US can't. US has several times as many /dead/ as China had /infected./ In a war, if I were China, I might release one too if I had one.

(3) If I were planning a sneak attack, as I said, a multipart bioweapon might make sense. If something like COVID19 damages the lungs, and makes people vulnerable to PICORNA21, and only 80,000 of my citizens caught COVID19, while millions of Americans did, it seems pretty safe. Especially if I know I can do another lockdown, and the US can't. Release PICORNA21, lock down, wait for millions of paralyzed Americans, and take my rightful spot back in the world.

(4) China is not the only player. Bioweapons are rapidly moving into the range of clever undergrad students, not to speak of terrorist organizations, rogue nations, etc.

I'm not trying to badmouth China here. I don't even think China is the major threat; just that the US should be ready for something like COVID19 intended as a weapon.

Also, as points of fact: (a) China is vaccinating its military already. (b) China has no reason to vaccinate its population yet; their lockdown has worked. If China did vaccinate their population already, as you point out, that would be clear proof this was engineered by China.