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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

#591

Post by krona »

throwaway290 wrote: post #519
Fomite wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, things like "It started in Wuhan near the WIV" implies that we actually have found the first case, etc., when this is notoriously difficult to do, especially with a disease that can have mild or asymptomatic presentation.

If you followed events at the time and the suppressed rumours from doctors in China end of 2019, the new illness began exactly around that area actually ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang etc). There were no similar reports in another place on this planet. (Since 99% of other places do not have full control of media and many have better healthcare so if it happened it would be less likely to go unnoticed)

The main database of samples and viral sequences of the Wuhan Institute of Virology went offline on Sep 12th 2019.

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

#592

Post by throwaway290 »

krona wrote: post #591
throwaway290 wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you followed events at the time and the suppressed rumours from doctors in China end of 2019, the new illness began exactly around that area actually ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang etc). There were no similar reports in another place on this planet. (Since 99% of other places do not have full control of media and many have better healthcare so if it happened it would be less likely to go unnoticed)

The main database of samples and viral sequences of the Wuhan Institute of Virology went offline on Sep 12th 2019.

That's a smoking gun. And next month it was likely already circulating in Wuhan (https://www.reuters.com/world/china/first-covid-19-case-coul...), coincidence.

> A joint study published by China and the World Health Organization at the end of March acknowledged there could have been sporadic human infections before the Wuhan outbreak.

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

#593

Post by strangecasts »

tripletao wrote: post #458
strangecasts wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's so strange to demand so much more proof of lab origin than one does of non-lab origin. It's not, zoonotic transmission has happened many times, lab leak is the extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence

The 1977 flu is uncontroversially accepted to have arisen from a research accident, probably either an inadequately attenuated vaccine or a challenge trial in human subjects. The death toll is typically reported as 700,000, though I don't think that's a very good number and I can't find the methodology. Many fewer people died in the 1977-78 season; but the virus has continued to spread, so the cumulative toll is much…

The argument is not "research accidents categorically do not happen" it was "are they the more common event and therefore the more probable explanation, absent anything else"

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

#594

Post by mordae »

ribcage wrote: post #582

Mankind for some reason is blind. Doing CTRL F for the magic word in this Hacker News thread yields no results. There was a political conflict amongst Chinese people which had it's peak at the moment the virus appeared. If not for the virus, that conflict would have ruined China's image for decades and centuries to come.

That's just too risky. There is likely still internal opposition to Xi and if true, this would allow for his deposition.

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

#595

Post by yobbo »

derektank wrote: post #113
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…

Both the FBI and DOE, which have their own foreign intelligence gathering capabilities, had previously assessed that COVID was caused by a lab leak with moderate confidence. So while I agree with you that the truth will likely remain shrouded in some mystery, most of us that believed it originated from zoonosis at first (and I would include myself in that camp) should update our priors both based on the CIA assessmen…

Lab leak and zoonotic origin are not mutually exclusive.

The lab leak hypothesis means "accelerated evolution" through either caged animals or "in vitro cells" infecting the lab personnel. Gene splicing and such are not necessary to make the argument.

The observed fact pointing to this is the number of generations required to produce the divergence between the first SCoV2 variant and the closest wild ancestor. It corresponds to something like 20 years (?) of evolution.

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

#596

Post by Anotheroneagain »

timr wrote: post #579
otherme123 wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are being downvoted, but you are right. Evidence suggest that patient zero was someone in the Wuhan market, around november 2019, and the SARS-CoV-2 genetic "signatures" where all found in wild animals for sale in that market. Even if it leaked from the lab, the first affected people (mainly sellers) were from the market, which is weird. Occam's razor points to what you said. I guess everyone loves a good conspir…

> Evidence suggest that patient zero was someone in the Wuhan market, around november 2019, and the SARS-CoV-2 genetic "signatures" where all found in wild animals for sale in that market. You're just repeating the conclusions of papers that made ridiculous leaps of logic based on circumstantial evidence. For example [1], which is the likely source of the argument you're (mis-)remembering, bases this conclusion on: 1…

The disease might have already been global at that point, it doesn't exactly have conspicuous symptoms. Wuhan was a place where somebody thought of looking for anything unusual.

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

#597

Post by strangecasts »

labster wrote: post #256
strangecasts wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's so strange to demand so much more proof of lab origin than one does of non-lab origin. It's not, zoonotic transmission has happened many times, lab leak is the extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence

You just set an arbitrary bar that that is higher for the lab leak based on an “everybody knows” argument. That’s not science, it’s faith.

Prior probability estimates are not part of science?

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

#598

Post by thrwyeyeacc »

https://the-eye.eu/public/Random/wuhan%20coronavirus/

Just for the people who have forgotten what actually happened.

The Wuhan incident was very well documented, it's just that nobody besides the eye kept a record of it and blindly trusted someone else to do it.

Take a look at the reports for yourself, don't trust political bias.

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

#599

Post by mmustapic »

morepedantic wrote: post #575
mmustapic wrote: post #16

So there’s a new president and the main intelligence agency changes its position radically in alignment with the new government. Why should we be confident in any other claim they made in the past?

I would like to jump on the band wagon and point out that this is an absolutely minuscule shift in position.

> The C.I.A. has said for years that it did not have enough information to conclude whether the Covid pandemic emerged naturally from a wet market in Wuhan, China, or from an accidental leak at a research lab there.

From "we don't know if it was a lab leak or spread from the market" to "we think it maybe is". Sure, they started this investigation with Biden, but just released it a couple of days ago AND they have even low confidence on it. So, why release it if the confidence is low? Why now? The answer is: new government, new conclusions.

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

#600

Post by Slava_Propanei »

myvoiceismypass wrote: post #310
giantg2 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's more difficult to prove a wild origin than a lab origin, because labs have papertrails and witnesses. I never said I was right. I said it makes a lot of sense and I believe it's probably true. This is the sort of thing that neither of us can prove to the other at this point. You seem awfully aggressive to prove something though.

Chinese lab paper trails are as trustworthy as Trump’s toilet paper roll trails if we are being honest.

[dead]
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