Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans • Hacker News Board

Re: Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

#61

Post by ksaj » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 2:38 AM UTC

Zenst wrote: post #28

refenestrator wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sars and bird flu both did it in that part of the world quite recently. It's not like the phenomenon is unheard of. Maybe it's unlikely but when you also have a billion people in third world conditions.. it's not that unlikely after all.

I like to think of such unlikely things in the context of winning the lottery, that I find gives a perspective based upon however large the odds are - somebody does win in the end. I didn't see any numbers in the article to give some weight to any probability word usage.

If you must think of it as a lottery, there are millions of bats, and millions of people in this draw. The probability isn't so remote.

Re: Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

#62

Post by ChemSpider » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 8:51 AM UTC

m0llusk wrote: post #11

yonaguska wrote: post #4

Ecohealth Alliance with another "peer-reviewed" published paper attempting to quell the lab-leak hypothesis. Peter Daszak being one of the authors of this paper basically removes any shred of credibility for what is effectively an opinion piece.

This doesn't attempt to quell anything, it just points out that being certain of origins is probably going to require rigorous investigation. This is the same as with SARS and MERS which both took around 15 years to fully understand and also did not have full cooperation from the governments involved. Like most science all of the statements here can be verified with respect to the sources cited. Saying that the origi…

> failing to supply solid evidence

How, if all data from Wuhan is off limits?

My complaint is that this letter should be addressed to Mr. Xi. But instead they make it sound like this is a global issue.

It is only China that is blocking all research into the origin. No other country has placed any blocks or limits on the research.

Re: Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

#63

Post by ChemSpider » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

throwaway4good wrote: post #52

yonaguska wrote: post #4

Ecohealth Alliance with another "peer-reviewed" published paper attempting to quell the lab-leak hypothesis. Peter Daszak being one of the authors of this paper basically removes any shred of credibility for what is effectively an opinion piece.

Christian Drosten is a big name in Germany’s covid efforts. His name on this statement with Peter Daszak is quite a message.

No doubt Drosten is a great scientist, but he seems to be very naive when it comes to Chinese politics and nationalism:

In his podcast he said: "...we basically do not consider Chinese scientists to be influenced...".

This might be have been true before September 2019, when this virus research was just an average research topic out of many, but it is certainly not true since the pandemic started.

Re: Science is needed to find how sars-cov2 reached humans

#64

Post by m0llusk » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 11:03 AM UTC

ChemSpider wrote: post #62

m0llusk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't attempt to quell anything, it just points out that being certain of origins is probably going to require rigorous investigation. This is the same as with SARS and MERS which both took around 15 years to fully understand and also did not have full cooperation from the governments involved. Like most science all of the statements here can be verified with respect to the sources cited. Saying that the origi…

> failing to supply solid evidence How, if all data from Wuhan is off limits? My complaint is that this letter should be addressed to Mr. Xi. But instead they make it sound like this is a global issue. It is only China that is blocking all research into the origin. No other country has placed any blocks or limits on the research.

Most research into viral origins is driven by sampling and sequencing of genetic material. Even without cooperation from China there is still a record of virus samples preserved for research and also found in the environment. It is not clear that China has the ability to block the reveal of SARS-CoV2 origins. It is also not clear that a revealed origin would actually change anything about efforts to deal with COVID-19.

Furthermore, your focus on China is revealing. Other nations botched their response to COVID-19 and that is their responsibility. There is no good reason for COVID-19 to have become so deadly. The blame for the impact of COVID-19 belongs with all the developed nations that had every reason to know there would be more coronavirus outbreaks after SARS and MERS and decided instead to focus on politics or on ineffective strategies such as hosing down streets with bleach instead of responding coherently to the pandemic.