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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

#731

Post by tim333 »

gtgvdfc wrote: post #726
tim333 wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have puzzled about that too. One issue with it being a lab leak is the Chinese very clearly said it's not a lab leak and tried to cover up, hiding databases, banning access to the lab or the area etc, so they would have been shown to be lying and covering up. Also about half the work at the WIV is military stuff and you're not really supposed to be doing military virus research these days.

I understand why China would spin it. I understand why the NIH (who appears to have funded this) would want to spin this. What was in it for CNN and MSNBC to spin this as racist when, IMHO, blaming COVID19 on culinary habits is far more racist? What was in it for Rachel Maddow to lecture America about the lab leak when she could have more effectively lectured us about financing the whole thing?

I'm not American but there seemed to be some strange Republican vs Democrat thing going on where the Repubs said lab and Dems said natural. Why so I'm kind of puzzled myself. In England where I live covid questions were not especially partisan.

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

#732

Post by lamontcg »

tripletao wrote: post #535
lamontcg wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As we've discussed, the greatest abundance of related viruses occurred around Yunnan and Southeast Asia. Dr. Shi herself didn't expect spillover in Wuhan: And SARS-CoV-1 occurred in Guangzhou. The closest known relative virus (WIV16) is 96% homologous to SARS-CoV-1 and was found in Yunnan as well, which is over 1,000 km away from Guangzhou. Either the range of the bats carrying these coronaviruses is much larger th…

I think the usual theory for SARS-1 is spillover from bats to other non-human animals outside Guangzhou. The virus was then brought to Guangzhou by wildlife traffickers, like in the live infected civet cats found in markets there. A similar conduit is possible for SARS-CoV-2, but we still haven't found that proximal host. I don't think spillover of SARS-1 from bats in Guangzhou is commonly proposed. If you've seen it…

You're not clarify anything I said or telling me anything I don't already know.

The SARS-CoV-1 virus moved over 1000km from Yunnan to Guangzhou.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus moved over 1000km from Yunnan to Wuhan.

This is the same fucking problem. One way or another we know it has a solution that doesn't involve WIV due to the SARS-CoV-1 spillover.

If we can explain SARS-CoV-1 without WIV then we can explain SARS-CoV-2 without WIV.

> I don't think spillover of SARS-1 from bats in Guangzhou is commonly proposed.

I never suggested that was definitely what happened, and I kind of doubt it, I think the wildlife trade is more likely. At the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if the range of the viruses in bats is larger than we know right now.

> Nobody expected spillover in Wuhan pre-pandemic though

Which doesn't mean it didn't happen.

> and the WIV absolutely wasn't situated based on any such expectation.

The central location made Yunnan a lot more accessible than if WIV was in Beijing, and puts it around about the same distance from Yunnan as Guangzhou is.

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

#733

Post by lamontcg »

galangalalgol wrote: post #682
lamontcg wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The initial outbreak cases were clustered around the wet market, not around WIV, and the cases weren't linked to WIV. There was a documented lab leak with SARS-CoV-1 and it killed the affected researcher's mother. That'd the kind of thing you expect to see in a lab leak. Instead you see a cluster of cases that look exactly like it spilled over from the wet market. And there's zero evidence to support the lab leak. Al…

The article I read indicated a number of researchers did become ill and die in the right timeframe, with the wet market they routinely visited following that.

The article that was written in the NYT by the same author that wrote the "yellow cake uranium in Niger" article that was the basis for the Iraq War.

I don't give that a lot of credit.

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

#734

Post by tripletao »

llamaimperative wrote: post #701
danenania wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough that it has that meaning more generally in biology. My point is 100% of the policy discussions about it are referring to that particular subset—no one means producing insulin when they talk about the risks of GoF.

Yes but this is what causes confusion when scientists push back against proposed bans which seems like a legitimately insane and evil position to take. We can sharpen the language and say "ban GoF research that increases transmissibility of infectious disease", for example.

I think the best term of art is ePPP (enhanced potential pandemic pathogens), which clearly limits that scope. Academics use that reasonably often, though politicians and the general public unfortunately don't yet.

There's also GOFROC (gain of function research of concern). That's better than just GOF, but rather vague.

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

#735

Post by lamontcg »

tripletao wrote: post #605
lamontcg wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The initial outbreak cases were clustered around the wet market, not around WIV, and the cases weren't linked to WIV. There was a documented lab leak with SARS-CoV-1 and it killed the affected researcher's mother. That'd the kind of thing you expect to see in a lab leak. Instead you see a cluster of cases that look exactly like it spilled over from the wet market. And there's zero evidence to support the lab leak. Al…

> There was a documented lab leak with SARS-CoV-1 and it killed the affected researcher's mother. That'd the kind of thing you expect to see in a lab leak. SARS-1 had a CFR of 11% over all ages, 55% for >65. That's about 10x as deadly as SARS-CoV-2. The situations are thus not comparable--with SARS-CoV-2, we'd expect much more cryptic spread before someone gets sick enough to seek medical attention, and illness much…

Sequences aren't live virus and don't require live virus.

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

#736

Post by llamaimperative »

tripletao wrote: post #734
llamaimperative wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but this is what causes confusion when scientists push back against proposed bans which seems like a legitimately insane and evil position to take. We can sharpen the language and say "ban GoF research that increases transmissibility of infectious disease", for example.

I think the best term of art is ePPP (enhanced potential pandemic pathogens), which clearly limits that scope. Academics use that reasonably often, though politicians and the general public unfortunately don't yet. There's also GOFROC (gain of function research of concern). That's better than just GOF, but rather vague.

This is useful! Thank you for chiming in :)

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

#737

Post by rayiner »

camgunz wrote: post #718
rayiner wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except those guys are all democrats now. My evidence is the Hunter Biden laptop CIA letter.

Man, you're a smart guy. Just once I want you to like, do the reading and argue in good faith. I'm sure a lot of people on HN respect you, including me! Let's say that any donation to any Democratic campaign makes you a Democrat (ignoring for a moment that being against Trump isn't the same as being for Democrats). By that logic maybe half of the signatories on that letter are Democrats--and also a few are Republican…

I’m arguing in good faith. The Iraq War was the biggest mistake in recent American history. Which is why the realignment of pro-Iraq War republicans to democrats—and democrats’ acceptance of them—is so shocking. Liz Cheney should be politically radioactive. Instead Biden gave her a medal. Harris campaigned with her.

I think you may have the causation reversed. I voted for Biden in 2020. But the intelligence community has no credibility and are just trying to get us into war with Russia. That letter never should’ve been taken seriously by real democrats.

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

#738

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #737
camgunz wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, you're a smart guy. Just once I want you to like, do the reading and argue in good faith. I'm sure a lot of people on HN respect you, including me! Let's say that any donation to any Democratic campaign makes you a Democrat (ignoring for a moment that being against Trump isn't the same as being for Democrats). By that logic maybe half of the signatories on that letter are Democrats--and also a few are Republican…

I’m arguing in good faith. The Iraq War was the biggest mistake in recent American history. Which is why the realignment of pro-Iraq War republicans to democrats—and democrats’ acceptance of them—is so shocking. Liz Cheney should be politically radioactive. Instead Biden gave her a medal. Harris campaigned with her. I think you may have the causation reversed. I voted for Biden in 2020. But the intelligence community…

You've been a proud Republican since you were a student, and openly so here. That's fine, of course, but it's odd to see you talking about "real" Democrats. Democrats broadly opposed the Republican party; whether or not the Republicans responsible for the Iraq War fled the party post-Trump, they do not characterize the Democratic party today.

I really don't give a shit about how credible the US IC is; no part of my identity is invested in how well they do their job. But the attempt to generalize this out to the parties themselves rankles, and is trollish.

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

#739

Post by timschmidt »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #702
timschmidt wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how you can read about the half dozen or more documented cases of lab leaks in this thread - regardless of what you believe about covid - and call heightened restrictions for experimental work with human-infectious viruses security theatre. It's not sci-fi horror movies folks are worried about, it's people making mistakes the way all people do. The way you seem to be doing. We take the effort to air gap…

The examples of "lab leaks" being given in this thread are things like a large-scale human vaccine trial not using a properly inactivated virus. This is not a "lab leak" in anything like the sense of that is being alleged here. > We take the effort to air gap infected or security critical IT systems, but can't be bothered to air gap humanity from existential threats. My whole point is that we're not air-gapped in the…

> My whole point is that we're not air-gapped in the first place. Millions of humans are interacting with infected animals every day, under conditions that are much less safe and controlled.

Factory farming is indeed a dangerous breeding ground for infectious disease which needs to be addressed. Farmers, however, are not performing gain of function research on the diseases in their herd. The largest danger of factory farms seems to be the widespread application of front line antibiotics, which is another issue entirely. Attempts to conflate the two are disingenuous at best. Unscientific whataboutism at worst.

> people like Shi Zhengli at the Wuhan Institute of Virology worked so hard on understanding coronaviruses for decades, and warned about the risks of a pandemic. Instead, without any knowledge of the subject, you're participating in a witch hunt against her and her colleagues.

I've worked in science for more than a decade. I have lab experience. I have never named or witch hunted anyone as you seem to have. I have advocated for the most basic level of isolation of potentially dangerous experiments, and this is your response.

Thank you for demonstrating the arrogance which underlies the problem.

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

#740

Post by kasey_junk »

tptacek wrote: post #738
rayiner wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m arguing in good faith. The Iraq War was the biggest mistake in recent American history. Which is why the realignment of pro-Iraq War republicans to democrats—and democrats’ acceptance of them—is so shocking. Liz Cheney should be politically radioactive. Instead Biden gave her a medal. Harris campaigned with her. I think you may have the causation reversed. I voted for Biden in 2020. But the intelligence community…

You've been a proud Republican since you were a student, and openly so here. That's fine, of course, but it's odd to see you talking about "real" Democrats. Democrats broadly opposed the Republican party; whether or not the Republicans responsible for the Iraq War fled the party post-Trump, they do not characterize the Democratic party today. I really don't give a shit about how credible the US IC is; no part of my i…

The Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, this year, used Cheney on the campaign trail. When Trump called her ‘war hawk’, rather than trying to defend that very legitimate condemnation, they attacked it as anti-woman.

I think where I disagree with rayiner is that I believe she _was_ toxic. Her endorsement is certainly one of my grievances with the party, as a Democratic voter, and we saw the big tent collapse because of, in part, the current hawkishness of that part of the leadership.

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