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Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#581

Post by cocoggu »

raxxorrax wrote: post #480
cocoggu wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the title of the article is highly misleading. Using "Scientists" instead of "Some scientists" implies that the great majority of the scientists believed in this hypothesis, and there is no evidence for that.

And you would make the same criticism against articles that denied it could have had a lab origin? At some point people don't believe you anymore.

I don't have a strong opinion about what happened, it may or may not be a lab leak. It's still ongoing and I feel it will be a very long and sterile debate with few scientific facts to prove anything.

Granted, if the title of the article was "Scientists believed that Covid had natural origins...", this article wouldn't attract my attention as much, because I already believe that to be the popular opinion. But if, in this hypothetical title, "Scientists" only represented a minority of scientists, it would still be a very misleading title.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#582

Post by the-alt-one »

chimprich wrote: post #435
cortic wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happened in the UK as well, Boris (and to be fair the WHO) told us masks were counter productive. That they might get you to stand closer to people and touch your face more, increasing your chances of getting Covid.. All presumably to save a mask shortage; But we know, and they should have known, that the public doesn't buy the same kind of masks that our NHS buys and there never was going to be any shortage. This en…

> All presumably to save a mask shortage I don't think so. There seemed to be genuine uncertainty early on in the pandemic about whether masks would be helpful. We didn't know if the virus was airborne and there was a question about whether the masks would actually be helpful. For example, the masks could have had very low benefit but encouraged people to touch their face more. Whitty in March 2020: "In terms of wear…

It took a very long time for the Swedish FHM to say that masks work, so I don't know why everyone assumes that the rest lied to prevent a mask shortage.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#583

Post by elorant »

jacquesm wrote: post #341

If this comment thread is the way the self proclaimed smartest forum on the web deals with articles like this then we're doomed. This article contributes zero actual evidence, is littered with out of context quotes (including of all places the title), doesn't appear to understand the science or the probabilities involved and finally is clearly written with an agenda. It shouldn't have been posted to HN in the first p…

Nine out of ten times an article is just the excuse to start a conversation about any given subject. Speaking for myself, at least half of the times I don't even bother reading the article and jump directly to the comment section because I care what hners have to say.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#584

Post by loceng »

jacquesm wrote: post #341

If this comment thread is the way the self proclaimed smartest forum on the web deals with articles like this then we're doomed. This article contributes zero actual evidence, is littered with out of context quotes (including of all places the title), doesn't appear to understand the science or the probabilities involved and finally is clearly written with an agenda. It shouldn't have been posted to HN in the first p…

No post body was provided.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#585

Post by throw8932894 »

scotty79 wrote: post #548
throw8932894 wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It stayed in single person for months, and somehow it got more infectious in this person, without infecting anyone. It is perfectly adapted to stain airborne and pass lungs, but it gained that inside person! And it only gained mutations related to higher infection rate and severity, nothing else, no other random changes. Omicron DNA was "forked" in July 2020. It was not detected until now, when it spread like wild fi…

Let's skip omicron for now. While the original strain was evolving in patient zero it was acquirng various random mutations. The ones that were not beneficial for infecting human cells and thriving in humans didn't survive. Threre were few possibilities. I don't think it could evolve some mutation that would trigger immune system of that person into overdrive causing it to kill all variants of the virus. Very unlikel…

> Let's skip omicron for now.

Are you talking about omicron now or original Wuhan virus?

Omicron stays mainly in upper respiratory parts. It does not go deep into lungs and body as other variants. That makes it less lethal, not because it is somehow milder. Normal cold is also quite lethal, once it spreads through body, but it never gets a chance.

I am happy to accept theory it stayed in single host for several months, and gained a few mutations. But that does not explain its DNA code. You do not get this type of mutations without spread in massive population. And there are no random bit flips, that should accumulate over several months.

> But that will prove exactly nothing to anybody who believes in lab leak origin.

This is not a religion, there is no "believe". Lab leak (or artificial synthesis) is just a theory that explains origin of virus very well. Dismissing it without investigation would be unscientific.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#586

Post by MomoXenosaga »

ricardobayes wrote: post #395
toyg wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Italian and the events in February and March 2020 made it very clear to me how the anglo press largely just ignores foreign sources. The "debate" about lockdown in the UK mirrored the Italian one almost day by day, with a delay of 3 weeks between here and Italy. Italian sources and discoveries were either ignored or discounted. It was like watching a child "discover" on their own how to start a fire. If they do t…

Even though I usually like to stay away from political topics on here, but it pains me that a country I (used to) love so much, UK, is spiraling deeper and deeper into a void. So much so I have to believe its leadership no longer acts in favour of the country. For reasons unknown to me, however it is long known Brexit was a wanted scenario for Russian geopolitics, as laid out in their textbook: https://en.wikipedia.o…

Stop blaming the Russians, they can only exploit the rot if it's already there. It reminds me of Germans blaming everything on the Nazis after WW2 conveniently forgetting they voted for them and cheered them on.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#587

Post by throwawaysea »

mycall wrote: post #145
bsder wrote: post #83

And we have research now that hypothesizes that Omicron incubated in mice and then jumped back to humans. If that hypothesis is true, then we have a fine example of something running in the background in a reservoir and then Hey, Presto! suddenly appearing to be mutated specifically for humans. If that's true, then all manner of "weird" things suddenly become both plausible and probable without any human intervention…

There is another hypothesis that an immunocompromised patient who took some type of drug that induces DNA mutations in the coronavirus, similar to what Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics offers. If COVID-19 stayed in the patient's body for a long time, it would have time to cause many mutations before transmission.

> If COVID-19 stayed in the patient's body for a long time

Related article (https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/recent-ebola-outbrea...): “Recent Ebola outbreak emerged from someone infected 5 years earlier”

In that case the lack of mutations is how they estimated the lengthy dormant period.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#588

Post by throwaway4good »

JudasGoat wrote: post #563
throwaway4good wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out Peter Daszak twitter profile for an example for the abuse you will get if you speak out against the lab leak hypothesis: https://twitter.com/PeterDaszak Quite understandable if you would not want to participate in that.

Somewhat telling that you need a "throwaway" to point that out...

JudasGoat was already taken ...

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#589

Post by xeyownt »

kklisura wrote: post #545
dash2 wrote: post #300

It’s hard to believe how bad this is. Not the lab leak theory itself, but the fact that scientists found it plausible that a scientific mistake released an epidemic which killed 20m people – and decided they should cover this up because “talking about it might harm science“. This is truly scandalous, and I don’t see how those people can remain in their post.

I find that behaviour more dangerous than any other anti-science or anti-vax movements. That behaviour degrades the public trust in institutions, in science and in scientists. It will breed even more anti-science and anti-vax people for years to come.

Conspiracy theory at its best. Self-amplifying narrative. Congratulation.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#590

Post by loceng »

cocoggu wrote: post #581
raxxorrax wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you would make the same criticism against articles that denied it could have had a lab origin? At some point people don't believe you anymore.

I don't have a strong opinion about what happened, it may or may not be a lab leak. It's still ongoing and I feel it will be a very long and sterile debate with few scientific facts to prove anything. Granted, if the title of the article was "Scientists believed that Covid had natural origins...", this article wouldn't attract my attention as much, because I already believe that to be the popular opinion. But if, in…

Did you notice though that the lab leak in mainstream media was stated as being conclusively not a lab leak - not even potentially? That's what I saw, only relatively recently did the tune change.
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