Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

unherd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

611–620 of 792 posts

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#611

Post by kaitaincps »

rdl wrote: post #144
ShannonLimiter wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) Understanding the origin doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic I have the opposite opinion. If there was a lab leak and a coverup, this meant that the Chinese government likely knew earlier and had more information about the nature of the virus and how it spread. That could have saved millions of lives. We spent the first several months of the pandemic under the belief that it wasn't airbor…

Airborne was always known; debate was droplet vs aerosol (particle size and thus dwell time/radius). Not really a binary distinction anyway; a matter of degree.

In the first few months the focus was heavily on spread via fomites. The value of masks was dismissed.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#612

Post by kaitaincps »

bragh wrote: post #132
ikiris wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to be blunt here. No one with medical training thought this wasn't airborne.

Funny then how for the first few months of the pandemic the emphasis and public guidance was on desinfecting hands and surfaces and endless debates about how if masks actually help.

Correct.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#613

Post by kaitaincps »

johndfsgdgdfg wrote: post #547
stetrain wrote: post #12

I think understanding the origin is important, but I also understand why it wasn't a media fixation during the pandemic itself. 1) Understanding the origin doesn't change the consequences or response to the pandemic 2) Unlike the nuclear analogy in the article, pandemic virus outbreaks happen naturally, and fairly frequently. Combined with the huge increase in global travel, when one does happen it can be around the…

Thank you for posting this. We know that COVID couldn't have come from China. It came to China through frozen meat packages. WHO-China report already stated that fact. Dr. Fauci also believes that. The only reason we can't find evidence because other countries wouldn't collaborate, for obvious reasons. Racists are trying to blame China because of lack of competence of their leaders.

Excellent satire. Please post more.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#614

Post by tintedfireglass »

skrebbel wrote: post #581
qbasic_forever wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever toy gain of function research someone is doing in a lab vastly pales in comparison to the enormous gain of function 'experiment' we are right now performing worldwide with the continued high transmission rate of COVID-19. Look at what variants like Omicron BA.5 and BA.4 have evolved into, they are quite possibly the most infectious and dangerous air spread pathogens known to man. These didn't come from a lab…

> quashing this virus for good. This is impossible. You'd kill the host together with the virus.

We can eradicate viruses. Polio and small pox as an example

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#615

Post by kgwgk »

Izkata wrote: post #480
kgwgk wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that link relevant? We're not in 2020.

It's the source for GP's source. Ask them.

GP didn’t send a link to that particular outdated section within that site.

  July 9, 2020
  This article has not been updated recently
You did. Why?

How are your link and quote related to the « 200k+ cases per day in June 2022 » claim?

If you don’t know yourself, asking GP won’t help.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#616

Post by trashtester »

riyadparvez wrote: post #546
trashtester wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a hypothesis that fits the data perfectly (but that could have a somewhat low prior): - A poor studen has discovered that there is a demand in the wet market for bats. - The student works at a lab that either has an in-house breeding area for presumably healthy bats, or that buy such bats from an external vendor. - The student sees the opportunity for some extra income by selling some of those bats to the loc…

I've heard it from someone who was in China after the pandemic emerged. Apparently some Chinese people believe exactly that. Some of the lab animals were sold to the wet market. And that's how the virus jumped from animal to host. Although evidence is scant. Then again it's China.

Now, IF this is true, it would also explain why it seems that the government is trying to cover up what happened at the institute. If this hypothesis were to be true, it might cause China/the CCP to lose face more than many other alternatives, as such corruption could be seen as a weakness of the current system.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#617

Post by simonebrunozzi »

ayjchan wrote: post #531

This is Alina Chan, one of the co-authors of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19. I’m going to answer some of the questions that have come up in the comments. 1. Are Chan and Ridley selling a book? Yes, the updated paperback comes out in the US next week: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/viral-matt-ridleyalin... The updated epilogue now discusses three significant new developments since the publication…

From the article, it seems that there's a general conspiracy to sabotage your book.

I really don't understand why.

Have you tried contacting Bill Gates and ask him to support you, and give your book more visibility?

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#618

Post by mrjin »

MilnerRoute wrote: post #187
mikeyouse wrote: post #84

For those with a bit more background in the sciences, there's an increasingly massive amount of evidence to support Zoonotic origin. Philipp Markolin has a good rundown: https://protagonistfuture.substack.com/p/natures-neglected-g... Most of the "evidence" for lab leak is just weird insinuation -- it's increasingly hard to pin down what the advocates for that position are even arguing (e.g. whether it's a natural vir…

I feel like Unherd's article is actually misstating things. For example, "no infected animal on sale in the market or elsewhere in China has been found..." In fact, Bloomberg reported: "Disease detectives arriving from Beijing on the first day of 2020 ordered environmental samples to be collected from drains and other surfaces at the market. Some 585 specimens were tested, of which 33 turned out to be positive for SA…

Hmmm, Bloomberg... Can anyone comment on what that tiny chip could be in the following article?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h...

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#619

Post by cloutchaser »

harishcs wrote: post #563
noobermin wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for posting. Regarding your answer to 8, how important is gain of function research in the virology eco-system, is there sufficient reason amongst the powers that be within the discipline (that is, well-known researchers, leaders of departments or labs, funders and program managers, etc) to be wary of a funding cut for this research that they might be biased in dismissing the idea of a lab leak? My analogy…

The elephant in the room, as far as support for GOFROC (gain of function research of concern) goes, is Fauci. Several leading biologists (Marc Lipsitch, David Relman and others) have argued for years that the risk/reward ratio for GOFROC is too high to justify it. But it had to go all the way to Obama for Fauci to change course. Obama imposed a 3-year moratorium from 2014-17, which was lifted soon after he left offic…

To me the fact that top officials in both the US and China have a likely interest in not investigating lab origins goes a long way to show why this hasn’t been done. And why no other country can get the ball rolling on it, these are the two most powerful countries in the world.

IMO it’s likely no one knows where this virus came from right now. but it could well be a lab, but anyone who could potentially investigate this theory absolutely does not want to in case it turns out it was.

Re: What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

#620

Post by _Wintermute »

kernal wrote: post #254

>We co-authored a book, Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19, on this topic in 2021 and it proved to be an odd experience. Eschewing speculation and sticking to what we could prove, we delved deep into the evidence and wove together the threads that linked bat viruses from southern China or Southeast Asia with an outbreak in Wuhan in late 2019. We concluded that it was impossible to be sure yet, but two theor…

If you want to be taken seriously on scientific matters, then co-authoring a book with Matt Ridley, a well known climate-change sceptic, is a strange choice.
Post reply on HN