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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

#771

Post by cudgy »

Fomite wrote: post #426
oa335 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please share the reasons why you are skeptical?

A few reasons, though as I note in another comment, I'm not an expert in spillover events, my area of interest kicks in about a week later. So there's a few: 1) People I trust are skeptical, including people who are opposed to gain of function research. I've found Angela Rasmussen to be one of the better voices in terms of discussing the evidence for a natural origin, but she's far from the only one. 2) We have had t…

“as an infectious disease epidemiologist”

Yet you propose no thoughts of your own. You only base it on your belief in people around you and your disbelief of people you assume are political. This sounds not scientific at all. Are you really an epidemiologist?

I was honestly hoping for more given that you’re supposedly an epidemiologist.

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

#772

Post by Fomite »

mike_hearn wrote: post #643
Fomite wrote: post #346

My present take: As an infectious disease epidemiologist whose expertise lies in the dynamics of infections a week or so after an initial spillover event, I am much more cautious with my opinions on the lab leak hypothesis than a lot of people who took a single biology class as a distribution requirement in undergrad.

Given that epidemiology features no biology whatsoever, being these days purely a matter of playing with statistics, why would you feel qualified to discuss anything related to labs, leaks, or GoF research?

Both because I hold a microbiology degree as well, and also because that's not actually how epidemiology works either.

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

#773

Post by throwaway290 »

mitjam wrote: post #716
krona wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main database of samples and viral sequences of the Wuhan Institute of Virology went offline on Sep 12th 2019.

Satellite images of Wuhan may suggest coronavirus was spreading as early as August 2019: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52975934.amp https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/08/health/satellite-pics-cor...

Would it mean it was active earlier but a critical mass was needed to cause a pandemic? Or it evolved in humans while circulating Wuhan?

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

#774

Post by Fomite »

morepedantic wrote: post #578
Fomite wrote: post #346

My present take: As an infectious disease epidemiologist whose expertise lies in the dynamics of infections a week or so after an initial spillover event, I am much more cautious with my opinions on the lab leak hypothesis than a lot of people who took a single biology class as a distribution requirement in undergrad.

Are you equally cautious with your opinions on zoonosis? The problem is that huge swathes of the medical community politicized the pandemic for a specific political purpose, especially in the USA. For example, the Moderna vaccine trials were delayed 2 weeks to change the protocol to appease a political activist in the medical community accusing Trump of trying to ram an unsafe vaccine through. Naturally the trial res…

"I have a question for you: do you trust the provenance, integrity, and completeness of data from the earlier stages of the outbreak in Wuhan?"

Nope.

And yes, I am equally cautious with my opinions about it being a zoonotic spillover event. I consider it the more likely of the two explanations, but far from definitive.

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

#775

Post by Fomite »

cudgy wrote: post #771
Fomite wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few reasons, though as I note in another comment, I'm not an expert in spillover events, my area of interest kicks in about a week later. So there's a few: 1) People I trust are skeptical, including people who are opposed to gain of function research. I've found Angela Rasmussen to be one of the better voices in terms of discussing the evidence for a natural origin, but she's far from the only one. 2) We have had t…

“as an infectious disease epidemiologist” Yet you propose no thoughts of your own. You only base it on your belief in people around you and your disbelief of people you assume are political. This sounds not scientific at all. Are you really an epidemiologist? I was honestly hoping for more given that you’re supposedly an epidemiologist.

I base it on my evaluation of the arguments of those people as an epidemiologist. And their expertise - as I've said, my expertise focuses on a different aspect of outbreaks, with its own theories and methods, and I know enough to recognize that addressing this requires a good deal of specialized knowledge.

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

#776

Post by Fomite »

kukkeliskuu wrote: post #504
Fomite wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, things like "It started in Wuhan near the WIV" implies that we actually have found the first case, etc., when this is notoriously difficult to do, especially with a disease that can have mild or asymptomatic presentation.

Doesn't the same difficulty of finding the first case also apply to the wet market theory?

Yep.

My prior is that it is a zoonotic spillover event. Not necessarily that one, though there is some good evidence for it.

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

#777

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

timschmidt wrote: post #739
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Farmers, however, are not performing gain of function research on the diseases in their herd.

The phrase "gain of function" has become a general-purpose bogeyman, but 99% of the people using it have no idea what it means.

Farmers are interacting with viruses that are far more dangerous than the gain-of-function viruses. Gain-of-function experiments are generally just characterizing properties of viruses that already exist out in the wild. An effective way of doing that is to insert a component of the wild virus into a virus you can already grow and have characterized in the lab. The lab virus gains a function, but that function already exists in the wild.

> I have advocated for the most basic level of isolation of potentially dangerous experiments

Shi Zhengli and her colleagues are taking far more than the "most basic level" of precaution. Yet you're participating in the witch hunt against her and the virology community.

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

#778

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

shakow wrote: post #712
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If both variants are spreading in the farmed animal population, it's not unlikely at all. It's what you'd expect.

If it were coming from a farm population, I would have expected the said farm to have been found pretty easily by the Chinese investigation – and they would have had no incentive to hide it, as it would have pinned covid on basically a bad luck case once and for all.

They identified the at-risk farms right away and ordered them to immediately cull their stocks.

The Chinese government has been very sensitive about the idea that the virus came from a farm.

> it would have pinned covid on basically a bad luck case once and for all.

The US would still have tried to make maximum propaganda use of that. If you recall the early "wet market" discussion, it was highly accusatory, and often blatantly racist.

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

#779

Post by Fomite »

maeil wrote: post #612
Fomite wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few reasons, though as I note in another comment, I'm not an expert in spillover events, my area of interest kicks in about a week later. So there's a few: 1) People I trust are skeptical, including people who are opposed to gain of function research. I've found Angela Rasmussen to be one of the better voices in terms of discussing the evidence for a natural origin, but she's far from the only one. 2) We have had t…

> or because they've become addicted to being "the lone voice in the wilderness", despite it not being a risky position to take. This frankly makes me distrust you; in 2020-2022 this was absolutely a risky position to take for most public figures, let alone those on academia, let alone those connected to epidemiology. This remains the only time and topic I've seen blanket banned from discussing across all major US so…

I got death threats for suggesting that mandatory vaccination for school kids wasn't well justified not from the people who wanted vaccination, but from the people who decided I wasn't sufficiently opposed to it.

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

#780

Post by Fomite »

tripletao wrote: post #617
Fomite wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, things like "It started in Wuhan near the WIV" implies that we actually have found the first case, etc., when this is notoriously difficult to do, especially with a disease that can have mild or asymptomatic presentation.

I agree with that statement. Even with prior warning, and knowing the virus could be introduced only at an airport or seaport, Western public health authorities managed to trace approximately zero cases to their introduction. So it's hard to believe the same tools would succeed at the much more difficult task of tracing the very first cases in China. That makes it odd that you're promoting an author who has claimed s…

I think her arguments are solid, I'm just not certain they're definitive. But I do find her presentation of those arguments to be both detailed and accessible.
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