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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

#701

Post by chiefalchemist »

s5300 wrote: post #679
chiefalchemist wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I love when ppl are so sucked into a particular narrative that they ignore the question being asked: Where were the stockpiles of appropriate equipment? Or did the playbook say such things would fall out of the sky, like manna from heaven? Fact: The 45th didn't discard them. In fact, the gov bought masks from Facebook and (I think) Google who did have a stockpile (but evidently not for pandemic purposes). You're…

…sigh Feel free to use the search engine of your choice to search “US PPE Stockpile” & read any of the multiple credible articles that come up as the first results of the search. As it was known nearly immediately after COVID started, the stockpiles were mostly depleted - and what wasn’t depleted was mostly expired. This is why you saw pictures and videos of nurses demonstrating their supplied smocks disintegrating i…

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/08/donald-tru...

I won't dispute Trump exaggerated. That's a given.

On the other hand, all I can find are articles on the stockpile being depleted and that even if full there were numerous warning about full not being enough.

So again, a simple question: Why? And why isn't anyone willing to ask why?

We knew this was coming. We even got a warning. And still not even close. But no accountability??

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

#702

Post by awb »

T-A wrote: post #295
awb wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a Level 2 facility, not studying bats or coronavirus. https://www.wsj.com/articles/head-of-who-team-investigating-... > “They also reported no storage nor laboratory activities on CoVs [coronaviruses] or other bat viruses preceding the outbreak.” > The lab is classified BSL-2, a safety level at which air ventilation controls aren’t particularly strict, as they are in more secure labs. At that level, lab workers…

> It’s a Level 2 facility, not studying bats or coronavirus. It is indeed a level 2 facility, and it was being used to perform the bat coronavirus research outsourced to the WIV [1]: The NIH decided the risk was worth it. In a potentially fateful decision, it funded work similar to Baric’s at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which soon used its own reverse-genetics technology to make numerous coronavirus chimeras. Un…

This article talks about WIV (est. 2018), which is across the city from the market, not 2 blocks away and about 2016 research that was also not located near the wet market in 2016. The Level 2 lab only moved near the wet market in 2019, at which point the Level 4 lab was the one conducting the research.

Also from the article:

> The genetic code of SARS-CoV-2 does not resemble that of any virus the WIV was known to be culturing in its lab, such as WIV1, and Baric says he still believes a natural spillover is the most likely cause.

The timelines and genetic profiles don’t match up for a level 2 lab leak 2 blocks from the wet market.

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

#703

Post by johncena33 »

awb wrote: post #35

Some additional perspectives: Snopes is highly skeptical: https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/07/16/lab-leak-evidence/ An r/science essay from a PhD in virology is highly skeptical: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did... While Root Claim estimates an 83% chance of a lab leak: https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COV...

First of all, if a transmission can happen at a wet market, it can also happen inside a lab. One doesn't need a virology degree to understand something this simple. As a matter of fact that's exactly what happened in a Taiwan lab [1].

[1]: https://fortune.com/2021/12/10/taiwan-investigates-covid-lab...

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

#704

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

afpx wrote: post #695
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The natural origin is the default explanation and nobody needs to have an IQ of 130 and a degree in biology to figure that out. It suffices to know that diseases are a natural thing. Most people who have gone to school will know that already. It really hurts me that you believe "smart and educated people" believe that nonsense. Everytime anyone with any relevant education has commented on HN it's to say that "lab lea…

Do you really think that most people will buy that given that we haven't had a similar pandemic in 100 years? Also, if you're going to appeal to authority, please link to the HN comments that explain how "lab leak" explanations are rubbish. I'm more than happy to read them. In my opinion, we don't have nearly enough information to make such a decision, one way or the other.

>> Do you really think that most people will buy that given that we haven't had a similar pandemic in 100 years?

Sure we have. Off the top of my head: AIDS, Ebola, CJD, SARS and MERS and H1N1. In fact people thought that AIDS was a US bioweapon that got loose. Or something. Pandemics make people believe all sorts of weird things.

>> Also, if you're going to appeal to authority, please link to the HN comments that explain how "lab leak" explanations are rubbish. I'm more than happy to read them.

See OP, for instance.

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

#705

Post by nradov »

mads wrote: post #147
albinofrenchy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are inclined to think the CCP knows / is covering up a lab leak; you are also inclined to think that they'd release fake disclosure data to cover it up.

Well, who says they haven't tried to do that. The 2013 Mojiang mining incident was claimed to be a fungal infection, while it was later proven it was a viral infection.

The Mojiang mine viral outbreak actually occurred in 2012.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...

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

#706

Post by dekhn »

My only two thoughts on this:

Think of the consequences of finding slam-dunk evidence that a government was aware of, led to, and covered up the creation of a world-impacting virus. Either intentionally, or unintentionally.

Think of the consequences of suggesting so without slam-dunk data.

I figure that's the calculus that went through leaders minds. I just didn't like it when early on, people suggested reasonable if improbable (given the lack of high quality data) hypotheses, and major journals published opinions/letters saying "if you think this, you are a conspiracy theorist". talk about framing a debate!

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

#707

Post by marcosdumay »

slg wrote: post #322
eloisius wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably true, but constant suspicious behavior shouldn't normalize behaving suspiciously.

It is really weird how HN talks about this in comparison to similar topics. For example, this is the exact same logic that leads people to believe that encrypting data or using Tor is evidence of someone trying to hide criminal behavior. Almost everyone here would object to that type of thinking, but when it comes to China it suddenly becomes "Why would they object to transparency unless they had something to hide?".

Governments do not have an inherent right to privacy.

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

#708

Post by awb »

korantu wrote: post #263
awb wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a Level 2 facility, not studying bats or coronavirus. https://www.wsj.com/articles/head-of-who-team-investigating-... > “They also reported no storage nor laboratory activities on CoVs [coronaviruses] or other bat viruses preceding the outbreak.” > The lab is classified BSL-2, a safety level at which air ventilation controls aren’t particularly strict, as they are in more secure labs. At that level, lab workers…

In 2016, some of the scientists including Shi and the EcoHealth director, Peter Daszak, used the NIH funding to conduct experiments in Wuhan on live coronaviruses in a biosafety level 2 lab, according to published details of the work from [0] They did do coronavirus experiments in level 2 facility. [0] https://archive.is/KwZKn ? [edit] replaced link as FT makes it difficult to refer to them.

The research in question happened in 2016 and was called “W1V1”.

Regarding the 2016 work:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/06/29/1027290/gain-of-...

> Since bat viruses like WIV1 haven’t been confirmed to cause disease in human beings, her biosafety committee recommended BSL-2 for engineering them and testing them and BSL-3 for any animal experiments.

> In response to questions about the decision to do the research in BSL-2 conditions, Peter Daszak forwarded a statement from EcoHealth Alliance stating that the organization “must follow the local laws of the countries in which we work” and that the NIH had determined the research was “not gain-of-function.”

> The genetic code of SARS-CoV-2 does not resemble that of any virus the WIV was known to be culturing in its lab, such as WIV1, and Baric says he still believes a natural spillover is the most likely cause.

This theory is more than a few steps away from being a smoking gun.

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

#709

Post by afpx »

afpx wrote: post #695
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The natural origin is the default explanation and nobody needs to have an IQ of 130 and a degree in biology to figure that out. It suffices to know that diseases are a natural thing. Most people who have gone to school will know that already. It really hurts me that you believe "smart and educated people" believe that nonsense. Everytime anyone with any relevant education has commented on HN it's to say that "lab lea…

Do you really think that most people will buy that given that we haven't had a similar pandemic in 100 years? Also, if you're going to appeal to authority, please link to the HN comments that explain how "lab leak" explanations are rubbish. I'm more than happy to read them. In my opinion, we don't have nearly enough information to make such a decision, one way or the other.

The OP barely provided any information. Mainly they claimed authority on the issue and ruled it closed.

It's also interesting how you continue to imply that I'm uneducated, dumb, etc. That's a great way to shut down a dialogue.

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

#710

Post by marcosdumay »

afpx wrote: post #645
alevskaya wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a genetic engineer for two decades: - Clear signs of molecular manipulation in the sars-cov-2 sequence. There are none. Almost all of the alleged manipulations would have left unmistakeable, damning evidence in a recognizable vector. The only remotely interesting thing at all in the sequence is the furin site, but plenty of coronaviruses have those, and it just likely indicates selection/propagation in a second…

This isn't just a random scapegoat. It just happens that the company (Ecohealth Alliance) proposed the gain-of-function research on the virus to DARPA, which was subsequently rejected as being too risky. NIH later funded similar research to the same company for its work in Wuhan during 2020. I'm far from a conspiracy theorist. But, what are the chances of this being coincidental? The "from the wild" theory doesn't ha…

> But, what are the chances of this being coincidental?

Enormous. The odds are heavily on the side of this being a coincidence.

What are the odds of, if this was a leak, the leak coming from that single research line? It's basically 1 divided by the number of experiments running on the lab. And that's assuming it was a leak, if you estimate the odds of it being a leak, you will at a minimum halve that number.

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