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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

#621

Post by maeil »

mandmandam wrote: post #212
WillyWonkaJr wrote: post #167

I suspect that most people are so against the lab manufactured hypothesis because they've been infected by Covid, probably multiple times, and have decided to stop taking precautions. To accept that you've been infected with a bioweapon is a pretty upsetting prospect.

> I suspect that most people are so against the lab manufactured hypothesis because they've been infected by Covid Sorry, but that borders on historic revisionism. People are so against the lab manufactured hypothesis because millions of posts regarding it on social media were suppressed and blocked across Facebook, Twitter, and others; and because high-level US officials pressured scientists to claim that it was mor…

Your memory is accurate. Yet elsewhere we have an infectious disease researcher claiming

> At the same time, I've come to distrust many of the voices who push the lab leak hypothesis, either because they're obviously doing so for geopolitical reasons, or because they've become addicted to being "the lone voice in the wilderness", despite it not being a risky position to take.

It's an incredible phenomenon, the collective memory blackout that seems to have taken place regarding the vibe in 2020-2021. Never before, or even after (so far), have we seen a more strictly coordinated ban on discussion of a specific topic across all major US social networks. It even reached as far as Wikipedia.

Here's what Yishan Wong (ex-Reddit) has said about it

> Example: the "lab leak" theory (a controversial theory that is now probably true; I personally believe so) was "censored" at a certain time in the history of the pandemic because the "debate" included ...massive amounts of horrible behavior, spam-level posting, and abuse that spilled over into the real world - e.g. harrassment of public officials and doctors, racially-motivated crimes, etc.

There are many problems with this reasoning, but the biggest one is that if true, it should have rightfully caused mob behaviour.

Gaza War (2023-present): <100k deaths Ukraine War: <1 million deaths Korean War: 2-3 million deaths Vietnam: 1.3-3.4 million deaths Covid: 6+ million deaths

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

#622

Post by tripletao »

strangecasts wrote: post #593
tripletao wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

Depending how we count, there have been a dozen or so pandemics comparably novel or deadly to the 1977 flu in the last fifty years. Of those, at least one was research-origin.

So are you really saying p ~ 1/12 is an "extraordinary claim"? Is a 6'1" American man "extraordinarily tall"? There's unfortunately no standard map between English phrases and numerical probabilities, but I think most people would understand a much lower probability. If you really want to define it that way, then "extraordinary evidence" is likewise diluted to the point that the circumstantial case (emergence in Wuhan, DEFUSE) brings research origin easily into contention.

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

#623

Post by maeil »

whoitwas wrote: post #294

Hasn't this always been the most likely cause? I thought practically all evidence pointed to that. I haven't even heard a competing theory.

It has, since day one. The fact that the WIH was one of only 6 institutions in the world that had been conducting GoF research on bat-related pathogens before the pandemic gives such strong statistical evidence towards it that any theory holding the WIH is unrelated, would require very strong evidence. At no point has there been such strong evidence.

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

#624

Post by timschmidt »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #556
jtc331 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the two theories can have competing indications as to how to prepare. Specifically: should we do gain of function research, or is that foolish — depends on how you read what happened in 2020.

Nobody in this thread seems to know what gain of function means. It's a very broad term covering a large percentage of all virology research. If you ban it, you might as well say that we don't want to do any research into understanding viruses from now on. When you compare the massive risks of spillover from animal populations, which have millions of interactions with humans every minute of every day, with the risks…

You're right that we should still do the research. But we should be doing it on an island, or a ship at sea, with supplies delivered by drone, and as little population exchange as possible.

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

#625

Post by harshreality »

yobbo wrote: post #595
derektank wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cor…

Although it's not specified in common dictionary definitions...

"...zoonosis (a disease communicable from animals to man under natural conditions)." —Laurie Garrett, _The Coming Plague_ (Ch 14, section IV)

Which is naturally how the word is used virtually all the time.

Transmission from lab animals kept for study in a biolab, you could argue either way. Transmission from humanized lab animals purposely subjected to serial passage is not really zoonosis in any reasonable sense.

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

#626

Post by petre »

morepedantic wrote: post #497
CMay wrote: post #154

Things that are true: "Officials said the agency was not bending its views to a new boss, and that the new assessment had been in the works for some time." The Department of Energy concluded with low confidence that it was a lab leak. The FBI concluded with moderate confidence that it was a lab leak. The CIA's new report also concludes that they have low confidence that it was a lab leak. It's important to note that…

>China covering it up is not necessarily evidence that it was a lab leak. Yes it is, but the evidence is non-specific. China will attempt to cover up 100% of lab leaks. China may attempt to cover up zoonosis. The cover up is consistent with either theory, but it is the only reaction consistent with a lab leak.

Cover-ups are a cultural thing in East Asia because reputation is paramount. They'll attempt to cover up anything that makes them look bad as means to protect their reputation. So the second part of your statement is not necessarily true.

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

#627

Post by mike_hearn »

mulderc wrote: post #136
derektank wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Are the FBI or DOE assessments public? What I last read in the peer-reviewed public literature seemed to point strongly to animal origin and not from a lab.

The peer reviewed literature is written and reviewed by the people who were funding/doing that kind of GoF research, so it isn't a reliable way to decide what's true.

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

#628

Post by otherme123 »

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…

Your guessing of my sources are wrong, thus your message is a strawman fallacy from beginning to end.

There are studies pre SARS-CoV-2 about coronavirus in natural environments (like bat caves), and they found motifs that we found also in SARS-CoV-2. Zoonotic infections are very common and specially for coronavirus, so it should be our first guess unless overwhelming evidence shows that the virus was originated in a lab (leaked or engineered).

Maybe it was a lab leak, but there is not stronger evidence for that, than for the zoonotic event.

Here is your bad science:

- H0: The origin is the lab.

- H1: The origin is a naturally ocurring zoonosis.

As evidence for H1 cannot convince you, you accept H0 without any proof. Great science! Problem is your H0 is wrong. H0 should be the most easy explanation, which is a zoonosis that has happened before thousands of times, and for which we have also evidence (you call it circumstancial, as this was a trial) like similar sequences found in bats nearby. You must get better evidence to prove the unusual lab leak hypothesis. Your H0 and H1 are reversed.

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

#629

Post by tripletao »

Anotheroneagain wrote: post #596
timr wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Doctors in Wuhan first identified the pandemic due to the unusually high volume of sick and dying patients, not by any sophisticated means. There's no public evidence that the WIV was involved in the initial discovery of the novel virus. Zhang Yong-Zhen was the first to publish a genome, in Shanghai.

If the disease had already been global, then retrospective testing of wastewater samples, nasal swabs obtained for other purposes like the Seattle Flu Study, banked blood, and other stored samples would have revealed that. There were some scattered claims that it did, but none that held up very well under scrutiny.

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

#630

Post by mike_hearn »

ioulaum wrote: post #350
giantg2 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have family that have worked on developing NBC equipment for the military. The first thing they said when covid was spreading was that it was most likely from a lab. That was before anyone in the news was saying that. So an independent first-look assessment by someone with experience, followed by later finding out that there was in fact a lab there, has me heavily leaning towards it being true. But it doesn't reall…

If SARS-Cov-2 was from a lab, what about the original SARS? Generally though, China is somewhat better suited to producing pandemics, because they have a larger and more dense population within which a disease can spread.

SARS-1 was found in wild animals, had a long period in which it adapted to human hosts instead of being immediately well adapted, didn't have any weird artificial looking RNA sequences, and didn't emerge right next to a lab experimenting on coronaviruses.

Interestingly it was also clearly airborne and able to spread long distances in aerosols moved by air currents. Investigators traced those air flows in some cases to explain movements of the virus. Yet despite being literally called SARS-2 the WHO and other self-declared sources of expertise all denied that this was possible, and attacked people who pointed out that it was. The desire for lockdowns and masks to be perceived as credible outweighed prior experience with similar viruses, turning those who tried to learn from history into pariahs.

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