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Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

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Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#451

Post by ss108 »

khazhoux wrote: post #234

Time once again to post Jon Stewart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSfejgwbDQ8 I still don't understand how in 2020 people were branded as racist sinophobes for saying that the coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, probably originated from the coronavirus research lab in Wuhan . I know suspicion isn't fact, but that should have always been the leading theory to be disproved. Instead, IIRC Twitter and FB were flaggi…

Because we had a racist president who said stuff like "China virus" in a stupid and demeaning way--i.e. what may have been a valid and reasonable argument or position had its credibility ruined by being taken up by Trump and his ilk for their own ends.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#452

Post by gregw2 »

ttul wrote: post #11

The This Week In Virology podcast has been talking about the lab leak concept since the early days of the pandemic, with various experts opining on the likelihood. In [1], the expert discusses how the virus itself does not seem engineered; it’s most likely a naturally created virus. However, this is exactly the sort of virus that they study at the BSL4 lab in Wuhan, quite legitimately - and they produce good science…

It’s weird you mention BSL4 and use present tense about Wuhan when discussing covid origins.

The Coronavirus work at Wuhan was done in BSL2 environment; the BSL4 lab was still being built at that time.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#453

Post by awb »

dmix wrote: post #366
cdolan wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I just read this correctly? “janitor steals a highly modified and virulent bat and sells it for $10 in a wet market” Why reach so hard to link this to a Wuhan wet market vs a generic leak? They didn’t sell bats at the market as far as I have read, and what’s the difference? Lab leak is a lab leak.

Indeed, you don't need such a complicated theory. 3 doctors researching a coronavirus end up in a regional hospital, but before they get ID'd with a virus they interact with others in the local community helping it quietly spread among people with stronger immune systems. It's a 45min drive between the Hunan market WIV building: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/30%C2%B022%E2%80%B235%E2%80%...

It’s definitely plausible, but then wouldn’t you expect multiple outbreak sites?

* In and around WIV

* In and around the scientist’s homes, families and neighborhoods

From the news I’ve seen all of the initial known cases were traced back to the market.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#455

Post by tharne »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #269
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #151

There's a lot of bad headline-writing on this subject today. Here's the NYT's headline: Lab Leak Most Likely Caused Pandemic, Energy Dept. Says And then the sub-head (or dek, if you want to sound like you're in the know): The conclusion, which was made with “low confidence,” came as America’s intelligence agencies remained divided over the origins of the coronavirus. So we have a conclusion: 'lab leak most likely cau…

Good luck getting 95% of the American populace to understand any of that nuance. After seeing lots of Twitter threads about Nate Silver, condemning his lack of "certainty" in his predictions ("It's such a cop out! Since he never says yes or no one way or the other he always has an out when he's wrong!"), I'm even more convinced not just that people don't understand statistics, but they willfully don't want to.

> After seeing lots of Twitter threads about Nate Silver, condemning his lack of "certainty" in his predictions ("It's such a cop out! Since he never says yes or no one way or the other he always has an out when he's wrong!"), I'm even more convinced not just that people don't understand statistics, but they willfully don't want to.

As someone who does understand statistics, it's made me dislike Nate Silver even more than if I didn't. It's been sad to watch his metamorphoses over the years from an interesting numbers guy with nuanced discussions on polling and models, to becoming the exact kind of pundit and talking head he used to make fun of. There's still a little bit of statistics on his site, but the overwhelming majority of content is the same trite punditry you'll find on pretty much any political blog.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#457

Post by mort96 »

barbazoo wrote: post #352
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #151

There's a lot of bad headline-writing on this subject today. Here's the NYT's headline: Lab Leak Most Likely Caused Pandemic, Energy Dept. Says And then the sub-head (or dek, if you want to sound like you're in the know): The conclusion, which was made with “low confidence,” came as America’s intelligence agencies remained divided over the origins of the coronavirus. So we have a conclusion: 'lab leak most likely cau…

Do we know why it is the Department of Energy that works on that? I would have expected a branch of government that's more related to health, granted, I know very little about US gvmt structure.

I don't know the answer to your question, but the DoE does a lot more than just energy. In addition to overseeing energy policy, they oversee the R&D of nuclear weapons and the nuclear weapons program, they oversee the National Laboratories which does a lot of research and development in the areas of technology, health, physics, climate/environment and energy, they started the Human Genome Project, etc.

Here's their overview of some of the stuff their National Laboratories have done: https://www.energy.gov/articles/75-breakthroughs-americas-na...

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#458

Post by lamontcg »

tripletao wrote: post #441
lamontcg wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's many thousands more contact between bats and humans involved in mining (literally how RaTG13 and the Mojiang mine, bat guano collection for farming and just tourism: https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/33905/20211012/china-r... There's a lot of economic activity in China that is close to bat habitats and there's evidence that cross reactivity to sarbecoviruses exists in a significant amount in rural china.…

> The idea that the lab researchers were the initial Typhoid Mary of the pandemic is also simply not believable because it requires one to believe that they lived within a bubble EXCEPT for one trip to the wet market where the outbreak happened. Except that SARS-CoV-2's epidemiological dynamics are well-known to be overdispersed? Almost all lineages die out, and a few explode due to repeated super-spreader events. It…

Explain the coincidence of why it happened to be in a wet market and not a restaurant or other gathering where people congregate. Just happened to be the one place to make it look exactly like zoonosis and extraordinarily similar to SARS-1.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#459

Post by Izkata »

andai wrote: post #202
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #151

There's a lot of bad headline-writing on this subject today. Here's the NYT's headline: Lab Leak Most Likely Caused Pandemic, Energy Dept. Says And then the sub-head (or dek, if you want to sound like you're in the know): The conclusion, which was made with “low confidence,” came as America’s intelligence agencies remained divided over the origins of the coronavirus. So we have a conclusion: 'lab leak most likely cau…

> In 2015, an international team including two scientists from the institute published successful research on whether a bat coronavirus could be made to infect a human cell line (HeLa). The team engineered a hybrid virus, combining a bat coronavirus with a SARS virus that had been adapted to grow in mice and mimic human disease. The hybrid virus was able to infect human cells. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Inst…

> Do we have the genetic sequences from these experiments? Has anyone compared them to the sequences from the pandemic?

I don't know about those specifically, but one of the earliest genetic matches we had is a natural virus called RaTG13 and was studied in the Wuhan lab. I think a closer match has since been found though.

> I'm not entirely up to speed but I recall hearing something about the US government funding them (without its own knowledge..?), so perhaps that info is not only in China's hands.

Yes, indirectly through EcoHealth Alliance, hence the "without its own knowledge" part.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#460

Post by brookst »

mwbajor wrote: post #369
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck getting 95% of the American populace to understand any of that nuance. After seeing lots of Twitter threads about Nate Silver, condemning his lack of "certainty" in his predictions ("It's such a cop out! Since he never says yes or no one way or the other he always has an out when he's wrong!"), I'm even more convinced not just that people don't understand statistics, but they willfully don't want to.

Doesn't matter if they understand the nuance. The lab leak theory takes a back seat for the following reason: Lets say it is found out with definite proof that it was a lab leak. Then what? Grandma's dead, china killed her and there is nothing you can do. We are not going to let this ruin trade relations even more ($$$ LOL) so you're just going to have to forget about it. Every American touched by covid knows this in…

Are you suggesting that a more correct course of action would be some kind of punitive retribution so those of us who survived suffer in the hopes that those most responsible suffer a little more than we do?

The idea that we would hurt our own economic future out of grief/vengeance is bizarre. So yes, everyone does know what you suggest, and we’re all OK with it.

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