[HN Gopher] The world needs a proper investigation into how Covi...
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The world needs a proper investigation into how Covid-19 started
Author : antognini
Score : 80 points
Date : 2021-08-22 06:55 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| zpeti wrote:
| Things like this usually come down to incentives. And right now I
| don't see how almost any major power's leaders have any incentive
| to push an investigation forwards.
|
| We are too dependent on China to piss them off, and so far
| experience shows we are much more likely to follow their demands
| than follow our own (Hollywood, NBA, Hong Kong, blizzard, albeit
| only one of those is geopolitical).
| dkdk8283 wrote:
| All the more reason to piss them off and ween off our addiction
| to disposable junk and sweatshop priced labor.
|
| Given the impact to the world we all should be asking difficult
| questions.
| tomp wrote:
| This is a reasonable argument and will be exactly as
| effective as presenting a reasonable argument to an addict
| is.
| adflux wrote:
| Love this comment
| partsKnown wrote:
| In this case it really is not effective though. There is no
| drop in replacement for China.
|
| A slow transition would be impossible so it's really all or
| nothing in the short term.
| switch007 wrote:
| You mean capitalists' addiction to profit. Double my wage,
| I'll buy made in the UK/EU much more often.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| We can double your wage, but you first need to buy made in
| EU and stop buying cheap crap you don't actually need.
| imiric wrote:
| The issue is not so much with frivolous consumerism as it
| is with cheap crap flooding the market, taking over
| certain product categories altogether. If you're in the
| market for any kind of electronics, toys, small tools,
| etc., chances are your only option is to buy a variation
| of the same cheap mass produced crap with a different
| temporary or nonexistent brand and thousands of fake
| 5-star reviews. Even searching for name brands you run
| the risk of getting a counterfeit. The system is rigged
| to the point where quality, and thus more expensive,
| brands simply can't compete.
|
| The change needs to start on the manufacturer and
| retailer side. Stop prioritizing cost savings from cheap
| Chinese factories and start building locally and in
| factories that prioritize quality and respect human labor
| and the environment. As a consumer I'd happily pay for
| that overhead if that option was available and was given
| a fair chance to compete.
| switch007 wrote:
| Ok we're obviously making stupid black and white
| arguments. But it's patently true in many companies there
| is plenty of profit to be reduced and redistributed as
| wages (also exec comp)
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| You know you can't have both that and stonks, right?
| lottin wrote:
| If wages doubled in the UK/EU everything made in the UK/EU
| would instantly also become more expensive.
| switch007 wrote:
| If wages were halved would everything instantly halve in
| price?
| lottin wrote:
| No, I don't think, because wages aren't the only
| production cost.
| aww_dang wrote:
| Unless those wage increases were the result of
| productivity increases.
| beloch wrote:
| It's important to realize that the world's dependence on China
| is actually _interdependence_.
|
| People fear what might happen if China suddenly blocked all
| exports to their country, and rightly so. China is a country
| where the government wields _that_ kind of totalitarian power.
| However, this hasn 't happened even _once_ yet. The Chinese
| government knows that, once they play that particular card on
| one nation, every other nation in the world is going to freak
| out, stop talking about diversifying away from Chinese
| manufacturing, and actually _do_ it.
|
| The world absolutely should press the Chinese government to
| behave in an open and responsible manner on COVID and on many
| other fronts. China will respond with their usual hostage-
| taking and "wolf warrior" diplomacy, but it's a sham backed by
| thin air. China needs the world as its customers even more than
| the world needs cheap Chinese manufacturing. If the world's
| governments are willing to show a little solidarity then much
| can be accomplished.
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| i wouldnt _too_ sure about that. Most of the things that
| china imports have super low ramp up time, so a planned
| exodus is significantly easier for them.
|
| It's unlikely to happen in the short term but it's entirely
| possible in a decade or two if nothing significant changes in
| the meantime.
| davidjytang wrote:
| Very true. Nations depends on China's cheap manufacturing as
| China depends on other nations' order.
| tubs wrote:
| The US went a step further and not only blocked exports from
| their own country but pressured other entities to do the
| same.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > It's important to realize that the world's dependence on
| China is actually interdependence.
|
| Nonsense, the CCP sees other nations as tributary nations.
|
| > However, this hasn't happened even once yet
|
| Man, get a clue:
|
| - The CCP has embargoed most Australian food imports to China
| for a year for demanding a corona investigation
|
| - The CCP has coerced several South American nations that
| needed corona vaccines into toeing the CCP line
|
| - The CCP has threatened the US by cutting off rare earths.
|
| - The CCP has denied capital exports since 2016
|
| The CCP is nothing but threats.
| bilvar wrote:
| Are we just going to brush off the US's involvement in funding
| WIV? And how even Fauci tried to cover that up? China is not
| the sole one to blame.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Well, if we are going to play the game where covert research
| implicates overt funding that specifically hinges on the
| funds not being used on such covert research (gain-of-
| function studies), we will definitely be barking up the wrong
| tree.
| bilvar wrote:
| If there was no foul play why the fuss to cover it up then?
| notacoward wrote:
| That's a circular argument. You're using the assumption
| of foul play to characterize the response as a cover-up,
| and the putative existence of a cover-up as evidence of
| foul play. Be better.
| bilvar wrote:
| I think it's undeniable now that the US did fund reaserch
| in the WIV, why do I need further evidence for that when
| Fauci himself has admitted so?
|
| The cover-up was Daszak and co. pre-emptively denouncing
| lab leak theories as an attack on science and branding
| them as crazy conspiracies.
|
| The only remaining thing to determine is whether the
| funding went into gain-of-function research, which Fauci
| vehemently denies but given his track record of lying
| it's only natural to be hesitant in believing him. I'm
| far from an expert but according to the BBC[1] there do
| exist experts who believe Fauci not admitting it is just
| relying on semantics.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/57932699
| aww_dang wrote:
| As long as we are discussing potential incentives, it seems
| reasonable to have a modicum of curiosity concerning the
| incentives for a biosecurity state.
|
| Simply blaming one state actor over another appears as a set
| of false alternatives. A convenient distraction which
| inspires tribalism and identity.
|
| CBDC, "verified digital identities" and a host of other
| dystopian solutions grow into rationalized necessities from
| the germ of the COVID crisis. We need not look very far to
| see many of the same actors involved have advocated for these
| dystopian innovations for years, if not decades. If some of
| those actors hosted a simulated coronavirus pandemic exercise
| in October of 2019, is it appropriate to dismiss it as a mere
| coincidence?
|
| At a certain point you have to concede the probability of a
| duck being the source of the waddling and quacking.
| syshum wrote:
| >>We are too dependent on China to piss them off,
|
| That seems to be a problem... No?
|
| Maybe we should be pushing our political and business leaders
| to fix that. If a nation.. openly hostile to our interests is
| able to cause a worldwide pandemic that no one can investigate
| because it might upset that nations feefee's. That imo is much
| bigger problem than the pandemic itself
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > a nation.. openly hostile to our interests
|
| What interests of ours is China openly hostile to?
| makomk wrote:
| Part of the problem is that the entire mainstream media
| narrative of the pandemic was warped by using it to get Trump
| out of office, which lead to downplaying how important
| China's actions were. In particular, I remember a lot of the
| press harping on about how the Obama administration wrote a
| pandemic plan and how much better everything would've gone if
| Trump followed it... except the plan wasn't exactly as
| described by the media. The most important thing, according
| to the document, was something none of the media coverage
| mentioned - it wasn't mask wearing, or lockdowns, or
| vaccinations or anything they talked about, it was actually
| getting accurate information from the country where the
| pandemic started. It hammered away on the fact that every
| other part of the pandemic response fundamentally relied on
| that information, there was no way to do without it, and if
| the pandemic started in a developing country without the
| staff to gather it the US should deploy their own mission
| there to get it. There was no advice on what to do if the
| country was a near-peer of the US which refused to release
| that info for internal political reasons. An accurate
| description of that document would've put a lot more of the
| blame on China, and that just wouldn't do politically.
| partsKnown wrote:
| Cheap goods for everyone in the world at the expense of
| Chinese slave labor, sounds like a deal too good to pass up.
| ghyiihdruh wrote:
| No, it doesn't.
|
| It will only fuel anti-science sentiment all over the world and
| put scientists under scrutiny and attacks.
|
| We need more science, not more science attacks.
|
| It will also vindicate Trump like anti-scientists just when we
| need more science to tackle climate change, inequality, gender
| gap, and yes, search for viruses with pandemic risk due to human
| encroachment on wild life so we can be ready for them.
|
| Any sort of lab leak confirmation will basically destroy the
| science of virology just when we need it most.
|
| Just look at what Fukushima did to nuclear energy acceptance. Now
| more people die of coal burning radioactivity than ever died
| because of nuclear energy one. Do we really want to do the same
| with virology and molecular engineering, which are life saving
| sciences?
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| Wow. This is perhaps the most foolish reply I've seen on HN in
| months. Yes, let's just bury our heads in the sand so we can
| learn nothing from our mistakes. Unbelievable.
| ramblerman wrote:
| Seeking objective truth is precisely scientific.
|
| Science doesn't care if the result could be construed to be pro
| or anti Trump. You are speaking about science as if it is
| religion.
| ghyiihdruh wrote:
| Scientists need to consider the political impact of their
| findings. If it will only be used to bring harm in the world
| it's irresponsible to share it.
| [deleted]
| ramblerman wrote:
| Placing what you morally or politically desire to be true
| over the objective truth is religious dogma.
|
| You argument is exactly the same one the Church used to
| prevent Copernicus's idea that the earth rotated around the
| sun.
| luckylion wrote:
| Should judges do the same?
| chucke wrote:
| So, covering up science fuck ups is legimitate because it
| protects science, and we need science to promote other agendas
| to promote other dodgy agendas which are scientifically still
| unproven or unprovable (I don't know how science can even
| explain gender gap...)?
| blitzar wrote:
| Possibly the scariest thing I see at the moment; 'we can't
| say/do that as it will give fuel to the _anti-vaxers_ '.
|
| Antivaxers will just make shit up - properly exploring the
| science is not strengthening their argument, refusing to do
| so is strengthening their argument.
| xupybd wrote:
| I'm pro vax. I think this vaccine is worth the risk but
| this is the highest risk vaccine we've had in a long time
| and that part of the equation is getting swept under the
| rug.
| quetzlbazaar wrote:
| What probability do you give to the virus having escaped from a
| lab? If you were confident that this was not the case and that
| a proper investigation would show this, would you feel
| differently about whether there should be a proper
| investigation or not?
| sullyj3 wrote:
| I hate to be be the one to tell you this, (just kidding, I get
| a little sadistic thrill out of it) but if you think the best
| way to defend science is to shy away from searching for truth,
| you may possibly have missed the entire point of the
| enterprise.
| daavidhauser wrote:
| why does the world need a proper investigation into that?
| Sometimes it seems to me that it's just because we want someone
| to blame. Not because it would actually help anyone.
| asplake wrote:
| Slightly torn on this. Surely it would be good to understand it
| better so that it might be recognised earlier next time.
| However the world's mostly shambolic response is probably the
| better focus for inquiry. Can't help feeling that the former
| issue is being used as a smokescreen for the latter.
| blitzar wrote:
| > Can't help feeling that the former issue is being used as a
| smokescreen for the latter.
|
| It certainly looks that way. Given pandemics are a naturally
| occuring event, the origin of the event itself doesnt excuse
| the breakdowns in government, policy and to a certain extent
| personal human behaviour. It is not promisiong as there were
| precedents and plans in place, but we learnt nothing from
| inquiries into past pandemics.
|
| Every person probably needs to have their own personal
| inquiry, no matter which side; 'its jsut the flu' to 'this is
| the end of humanity' and everywhere in between.
| ramblerman wrote:
| If we are looking for patient zero I agree, it's not relevant
| to place blame.
|
| If this thing leaked from a lab, of course we would want to
| know! There can be lessons learned to prevent this in the
| future, and if the chinese government knew and covered it up,
| the world should definitely hold them accountable.
| zpeti wrote:
| If there aren't ever any consequences to making huge mistakes
| that kill millions of people, what are the incentives in the
| future to not do it again?
|
| The CCP knowingly hid information about infections. This whole
| thing could have been contained in China with the right
| information at the right time. If it was a lab accident that
| could be avoided in the future too with better protocols.
|
| I'm baffled that after millions have died some people just
| think we should let this go. Would you let it go if the us
| government accidentally killed millions of people in a nuke
| test or a chemical spill or any other accident of the same
| magnitude?
| notacoward wrote:
| The problem is that even with an investigation there will be
| no consequences. For one thing, too much evidence has already
| been lost. Whether that is deliberate or due to mere passage
| of time doesn't matter; either way, we'll barely be more
| certain after an investigation than before. For another, even
| if we were absolutely certain, geopolitical concerns would
| preclude any real repercussions. Again, whether that's
| realpolitik or corruption/collusion doesn't matter; either
| way, anyone who does get punished will surely be a scapegoat
| while the real culprits walk free.
|
| The only thing an investigation at this point will do is
| waste time and money and divert experts from more useful
| tasks (like finding the next potentially catastrophic
| pathogen). I believe that demands for one should be
| considered purely performative. The only thing they achieve
| is to declare allegiance to one group and drum up
| discrimination against another.
| copperx wrote:
| Let go of what? It's pretty much impossible to prove COVID
| was an accidental lab leak, unless there's a huge smoking
| gun. Even if there was a proof, what would be the point of
| revenge? Did any country take revenge for Chernobyl?
| epicureanideal wrote:
| It seems like COVID has caused much more global damage than
| Chernobyl. The USSR also suffered a high percentage of the
| total damage, whereas China has suffered somewhat
| proportionally but not say 80-90% of the total damage.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| You are right; in light of available circumstantial
| evidence such as the instatement of an army bioweapons
| commander in WIV and the deletion of their sample database,
| it would seem much more likely that it was an _intentional_
| lab leak.
| yorwba wrote:
| > The CCP knowingly hid information about infections. This
| whole thing could have been contained in China with the right
| information at the right time.
|
| Plenty of CCP members have already been punished for their
| failure to contain the virus.
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/11/china-fires-
| tw...
|
| Maybe they weren't really the ones responsible. But if
| someone is powerful enough to avoid the CCP-internal
| punishment and have others take the blame, they're not going
| to let themselves be inconvenienced by foreign investigators.
| bilvar wrote:
| Because if it's human negligence or malfeasance that created
| the virus it should be studied on so that we can take better
| measures in the future. I'd argue that in the latter
| possibility the people responsible should also be tried for
| crimes against humanity, both for justice and as a disincentive
| for future bad actors.
| albertopv wrote:
| Because if there was a lab issue, a violation of international
| rules, e.g. chinese labs west funding could be cut off.
| White_Wolf wrote:
| Because a specific category of people want to blame either
| China or Russia for anything without any proof.
|
| In this particular case there were reports that the virus was
| present in Spain and Italy before China. They seem to ignore
| that and keep screeching that CHina is to blame.
|
| Edit: added source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-
| coronavirus-spain-...
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| Source?
| another_story wrote:
| Reports by whom? I've seen nothing of those reports.
| alau1218 wrote:
| This is just blatant fake news. We all know the virus first
| appeared in Wuhan China and then spread to the world. Please
| state you source before saying such an obvious lie.
| White_Wolf wrote:
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-
| spain-...
| tluyben2 wrote:
| Did they redo the tests as requested by the Dutch (and
| other teams) as all the news only points to the original
| findings and then nothing. So maybe it was a false
| positive? Or contaminated sample?
|
| The problem with this, if it were true, is that it will
| be very difficult to explain why there were not a lot of
| cases of misdiagnosed respiratory diseases in 2019 as we
| do know now that it is very contagious and what the
| symptoms are; they were not reported and definitely not
| on any scale.
|
| We know it was in Wuhan well before January 2020 so that
| other sample from that month in Spain or other places
| would not be strange. A year earlier of course would be.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > Because a specific category of people want to blame either
| China or Russia for anything without any proof.
|
| That's not what's happening. There is no direct proof
| available outside China, but there's at least 20 items of
| indirect proof that COVID-19 came from one of the WIV lab
| locations (there's 2 locations.)
|
| I followed the euro sewage findings at the time.
|
| Two possible explanations are:
|
| 1) lab error
|
| 2) participants went to the Military Games in Wuhan in Oct,
| 2019 and got sick. They probably brought it back to their
| home countries. The participants said, "Wuhan looked like a
| ghost town." so Wuhan was already in some kind of lockdown.
|
| For those who want to research this further:
|
| - find out the dates of the "hospitals are full" satellite
| photos (around Sept, 2019)
|
| - find out the dates of the Military Games (around Oct, 2019)
|
| - the first reported fatality was Dec. 1, 2019.
|
| AMA.
| bertil wrote:
| I'm not a biologist but as I understand, viruses very rarely go
| from being common in one species to another. It has to do with
| mutation and how you want many hosts with high viral load to
| stumble on an effective change.
|
| There are cases where someone close to animals might get it, a
| farmer typically, but it rarely becomes transmissible between
| humans -- not unless it mutated first and for that it would
| need to be endemic among farmers. When we observe cases among
| relatives of the farmers who are not exposed, that's when we
| panic. Swine flu and bird flu would fall in that case: there
| had been many cases among farmers, for decades, and they
| learned to dismiss them (making cases harder to track). When
| relatives got sick, epidemiology authorities were suddenly a
| lot more worried, to the puzzlement of farmers who had been
| sick prior.
|
| More so, viruses are endemic in bats (who have notoriously poor
| immunity) but most of them can't be transmitted to an animal
| with high immunity, like humans; not without going through
| mutation and selection through another animal with a more
| selective immunity, hence the idea of an intermediary host. The
| pangolin was suggested for a while, if you remember. There was
| a lot of talk about which animal, but what those stories didn't
| really clarify is the "the" in "the pangolin": whether
| virologists were expected:
|
| 1. widespread infection among pangolins living together; the
| meaning the species -- but then we would have noticed entire
| groups being sick; or
|
| 2. if one single animal was infected by a bat, and someone was
| unlucky enough to be host to a human-compatible mutation (very
| unlikely) and then that human was host to another mutation that
| made it human-to-human-transmissible (also unlikely).
|
| A lot of the early debate on Covid was surprised at how it
| seemed to have skipped that middle step, or how we couldn't
| find it. If you are more familiar with physics, that's a bit
| like saying you saw the tunnel effect at the human scale. Sure,
| we know it's possible in theory, but... so unlikely, we would
| probably need to change the science to account for it anyway.
| Physicists would naturally side with whomever is trying to
| debunk the observation. That's how science works: the burden of
| the proof is on who is making an unlikely claim given current
| model. The natural history explanation of Covid is possible,
| but extremely unlikely given "species barrier".
|
| Once again: I'm not a biologist, but a lot of the scenario that
| would make that possible would change our approach to
| epidemiology:
|
| 1. if the virus was undetected among humans close to bats for a
| while, and mutated to become transmissible, we'd need to think
| of monitoring asymptomatic humans;
|
| 2. if the virus was present and undetected in an intermediary
| species, that's more likely but still very worrisome and would
| require significant changes to veterinary practices;
|
| 3. if there was a genetic manipulation towards gain of
| function, the political consequences would be a shit-show but
| it would preserve our understanding of how frequently and
| consistently viruses mutate.
|
| In that particular case, the instinct of scientists was split,
| between people who see the gains-of-function research valuable
| and those who defend the model -- which is why there isn't a
| clear view of what "scientists" think. However, don't let that
| disagreement confuse you: clarifying what happened _will_ have
| scientific impact, be it ban a controversial approach, or
| change our understanding of inter-species viral transmission.
| AbortedLaunch wrote:
| But cross species transmission is known for quite a lot of
| pathogens. Ebola is a recent example. Asserting it is so
| unlikely as to be dismissed out of hand doesn't match
| knowledge in the field.
| bertil wrote:
| It happens, especially between closely related species, in
| both genetic and physical proximity, like monkeys and
| humans, but it's rarer between further apart groups. More
| importantly, it follows patterns (first a few opportunistic
| infections, then more common ones, then transmission
| between new hosts) that were not observed with Sars-Cov-2.
| Hemorrhagic fevers were occasionally described among
| bushmeat hunters before Ebola became endemic. There were
| effort to discourage the practice precisely because of a
| fear of future contamination beyond that small group.
|
| I'm not dismissing that it happen --I can't imagine you've
| read anything like that in my comment-- but the natural
| origin theory changes our understanding of how fast it can
| happen.
| jgb1984 wrote:
| I mean, isn't it yet obvious where it came from? 1 + 1 = ? We're
| just too interwoven with that human rights violating, genocidal
| communist dictatorship to speak up about it.
| White_Wolf wrote:
| I think the earliest sample found of C19 was in Barcelona in
| march 2019(If I remember this well).
|
| 1+1=? I would say that you either want to blame someone in
| particular or Spain is a genocidal communist dictatorship.
| syshum wrote:
| Of course you you have a source for that right. All official
| sources I can find say the virus is traced to October or
| November 2019 origination on china with first cases in Spain
| from January 2020
| blitzar wrote:
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-
| spain-...
|
| Coronavirus traces found in March 2019 sewage sample,
| Spanish study shows
| syshum wrote:
| The actual researchers do not make this claim. That is
| just another example of senesaional propaganda wrapped in
| a vener of journalism
|
| Their is a high probability it is a false positive as the
| gnome is very similar to mother infection
| blitzar wrote:
| Then they ran tests on samples taken between January 2018
| and December 2019 and found the presence of the virus
| genome in one of them, collected on March 12, 2019.
|
| "The levels of SARS-CoV-2 were low but were positive,"
| research leader Albert Bosch was quoted as saying by the
| university.
|
| _quote must have been taken out of context for
| propaganda purposes_
| syshum wrote:
| From comments, and look at the actual study [1]
|
| I have 4 Points
|
| 1. No additional verification has been found since,
| leading to the probability that it was a false positive
|
| 2. The researches final paper and subsequent research
| only talks about finding indicators after Jan 2020
|
| 3. The original March 2019 only had 2 of 5 indicators,
| and seemed to be a data anomaly we should not be writing
| sensationalist news stories on data anomalies
|
| 4. No other samples from 2019 seem to have the same
| abnormal results... Given what we know about COVID it is
| unlikely that is appeared in March 2019, then disappeared
| only to reappear again in Jan 2020...
|
| Covid-19 Started in Wuhan, I know you desperately want to
| believe it did not start in China, likely do not your
| political basis but there is literately zero evidence to
| claim it did not start in China
|
| [1]https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.13.201
| 29627v...
| blitzar wrote:
| > The actual researchers do not make this claim.
|
| Directly from the study you have referenced that is the
| topic of discussion here [1].
|
| "All samples came out to be negative for the presence of
| SARS-CoV-2 genomes with the exception of March 12, 2019,
| in which both IP2 and IP4 target assays were positive.
| This striking finding indicates circulation of the virus
| in Barcelona long before the report of any COVID-19 case
| worldwide."
|
| As for your assumption of my personal beliefs. You could
| not be more wrong, nevertheless, I am responding to your
| statements which are directly refuted by the information
| you yourself have provided.
|
| First, the study didnt exist, then the text didnt say
| what it did say, then it did say what it said, but they
| didnt mean it. One by one your comments have been, well
| baffling to say the least. What exactly is your agenda?
| What are your political biases? Its like having a real
| life conversation with Tucker Carlson.
|
| It is 100% (99.99999%) established that it originated in
| China, but to deny basic facts, basic logic, basic
| everything in pursuit of, well I dont know what you are
| trying to prove? You can hate China as much as me and not
| just make shit up, there is adequete evidence without
| going all fox news on random people on the internet.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Funny they only find it now and not earlier. Do the
| researchers or the university happen to have a
| significant connection to China?
| blitzar wrote:
| If by _now_ you mean June 2020, then yes it is funny.
|
| Could very well be false positives, probably is, could be
| that researchers were carrying out instructions from
| their 5g chips. Posted in response to people stating
| categorically that the parent comment made up a fact that
| does not exist and it was impossible to source, nothing
| more.
| niea_11 wrote:
| I think @White_Wolf is talking about a study [0] done in
| 2020 by the university of Barcelona. But at the time the
| study was still in peer review phase.
|
| _The discovery of virus genome presence so early in Spain,
| if confirmed, would imply the disease may have appeared
| much earlier than the scientific community thought._
|
| _There was the potential for a false positive due to the
| virus' similarities with other respiratory infections._
|
| _The research has been submitted for a peer review._
|
| [0]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-
| spain-...
| suzzer99 wrote:
| Determining how Covid started would be extremely important imo if
| there was a chance its release was intentional. But every
| virologist take I've read suggests that the virus does not look
| man-made. Nor would it seem that covid's effects and behavior
| could have possibly been known to any usable degree without the
| worldwide experiment that we've all been part of the last year
| and a half. And finally it's really hard to come up with an
| incentive for intentional release - assuming the suspect is China
| and not some Bond villain madman.
|
| So we're left with determining if this was a possible accidental
| release. Which I agree is important. It's just orders of
| magnitude less important than determining the source of an
| intentional release, imo. If China accidentally released this,
| they screwed themselves, very hard. If it was an accidental
| release, and they know it, one would assume they have a strong
| incentive to clean up protocols in the future. If the U.S. had
| accidentally released something like this, they'd certainly try
| to cover it up, but also try to make sure it never happens again.
| dannyw wrote:
| If China accidentally released this then the world deserves to
| know what happened so all labs in the world can learn from it.
| Fricken wrote:
| We know lots about lab leaks, there have been 1000s of
| compromising incidents over the years. Each one is a lottery
| ticket. The winning lottery ticket doesn't really teach us
| anything that we can't learn from the losing tickets.
| pvaldes wrote:
| > If China accidentally released this then the world deserves
| to know what happened
|
| "China" didn't accidentally released anything, and is easy to
| see why. The group of scientists that were working in Wuhan
| (some Chinese, other not) don't represent the government or
| the entire country. How they could?
|
| Would be so absurd as to claim that "US" or "Italy" released
| accidentally covid-19 because a few scientists from US or
| Italy worked in the same project. The reason to use the words
| in this way and to use the mass media to fix this wrong idea
| in the people is 100% political and should be a red flag
| about the real purpose of this (gain leverage with post-
| truth, instead to find the truth).
|
| The problem is that post-truth could mes enough to bury the
| truth forever, and all actors are interested into saving face
| and sneaking their own version.
| harshreality wrote:
| If it was an intentional release, obviously that's a completely
| different class of problem. That would be an act of war against
| the rest of the world, using a weapon of mass destruction, in
| addition to the collateral suffering of China's own population.
| Only very fringe groups are suggesting this was intentionally
| leaked to begin with. However, there's still the problem of
| Wuhan air travel lockdown. What possible reason was there not
| to lock down international travel from Wuhan when they locked
| down domestic travel, other than to ensure China wouldn't be
| alone in suffering the fallout? That alone is dangerously close
| to an act of war, even if the initial release was accidental.
| _Or even if it was completely natural in origin... it really
| doesn 't matter where it came from, that decision alone is a
| serious problem_.
|
| An accidental release is still the host country's
| responsibility, though. If that's what happened, it's important
| to understand how it happened to reduce the chance of it ever
| happening again. Such a conclusion would also lead to
| international demands for compensation which could put a damper
| on China's political and economic aspirations.
|
| You have blinders on if "every virologist take [you've] read
| suggests that the virus does not look man-made." You probably
| formed this opinion prior to spring 2021. Before that,
| "trusted" authorities were all declaring that a lab leak was
| virtually impossible. Things have changed dramatically, with
| disclosure of some of Fauci's emails and a bunch of virologists
| now backtracking, saying they're either unsure or think the lab
| leak hypothesis is more likely.
|
| Email from a virus researcher at Scripps to Fauci, early on
| (2020/01/31), suggested in a preliminary assessment that small
| portions (probably the portion of the spike protein everyone's
| concerned with) look potentially engineered:
|
| https://nypost.com/2021/06/02/fauci-was-warned-that-covid-ma...
|
| wsj and nyt (2021/06): Not specifically by virologists, but two
| of the more mainstream articles suggest it was a lab leak, and
| cite evolving opinions of virologists:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/25/opinion/coronavirus-lab.h...
|
| https://archive.is/d9Gaz
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Lab leak does not imply "man made" at all. Chinese virology
| labs are quite far from safe and stuff leaks out all the
| time. There's a whole lot of circumstantial evidence that
| this virus came from a bat to begin with and was not
| _created_ in the lab.
| harshreality wrote:
| I don't know what you mean by "man made" or "created". The
| origin of the vast majority of the genome of SARS-CoV-2 was
| a bat virus. If that makes it automatically natural in your
| view, you're correct by definition, but only because your
| definition of natural includes most modifications that
| could have been done in a lab.
|
| Directed evolution in a lab (e.g. serial passage in
| humanized mice, or even captive bats) would be one thing.
| Would you consider that "man made" or "created", or is it
| natural?
|
| Small genome sequence edits for experimental purposes would
| be another type of modification. Would you consider that
| "man made" or "created", or still natural?
|
| Full genetic synthesis base pair by base pair is more
| difficult (longer sequences become much more difficult),
| but as I understand it is technologically possible...
| barely. If someone takes the genome from a natural virus
| genome sequence and synthesizes it that way in a lab,
| possibly with minor edits, would that be "man-made" or
| "created", or still natural?
| davidjytang wrote:
| Some comments are trying so hard to convince people NOT to have
| proper investigation.
| peakaboo wrote:
| To find out where it came from, you have to look at conspiracy
| theories to be honest. There is nothing in the mainstream media
| even remotely true about its origins.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Why? What would that change, apart from distracting everyone into
| another giant anti-china campaign? Would we solve covid if we
| knew how it came to be synthesized?
| ramblerman wrote:
| Can you imagine saying, we don't care what happened at
| chernobyl because it's anti russian.
|
| Where does this weird narrative come from? The idea that
| properly investigating an event that completely shook the world
| to its core is somehow "insensitive".
|
| I mean, let's just not investigate anything where we might not
| like the answer... Is that really a legitimate strategy in your
| mind.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| there was already an investigation, and it's pretty clear
| that any further investigation would involve threats to
| china. It's not about 'sensitivity'. We can just assume that
| the virus was leaked from the lab, unless the chinese prove
| otherwise. What does that change?
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| I remember when HN was full of intelligent, well thought out
| discourse. More and more lately, we've been seeing people like
| the poster I'm replying to. I hope the mods get it under
| control.
|
| What would it change? How about knowledge that could help
| prevent a future pandemic and the deaths of millions of people?
| Why do I even have to make this statement?
| syshum wrote:
| I bet if their was a chance that a US lab leaked the virus you
| would not be wanting to just let is go
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| For one, we could take action to help prevent another Covid
| from happening.
|
| It's really not that hard to see how it could be useful to know
| about the origins of Covid. Really tired of people making it
| about racism (or whatever) against China. And I say that as a
| Chinese person.
| luckylion wrote:
| How would we make sure another Covid couldn't happen if we
| knew that this one stems from a lab and was intentionally
| released? Do we ban the creation and release of highly
| contagious bio-weapons? We already have, haven't we?
|
| Do we start a nuclear war to make sure China is no more and
| therefore _they_ can 't do it again (but anyone else could)?
|
| I'm not suggesting there's no use in finding out how it came
| to be, but unless it was some guy eating a bat and we can all
| agree on not doing that anymore and create a bat police to
| enforce that, I don't see how knowing who did it would
| prevent anyone else from doing it.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| > How would we make sure another Covid couldn't happen
|
| I don't know, I'm not an expert. But clearly, having more
| information is strictly better than not having it.
|
| So let me flip the question around and ask why should we
| _not_ investigate?
| luckylion wrote:
| Potentially for the same reason you'll usually have far-
| reaching amnesties after civil wars etc, if you want
| freedom going forward.
|
| Doing an investigation to find "the real truth", which
| from what I gather in most threads here would be
| essentially "where did it come from and why was it the
| Wuhan lab that intentionally released it?", wouldn't
| really get us anywhere.
|
| None of the large powers would cooperate if they felt
| threatened and there's nothing to win unless we believe
| that we automatically get a perfect cure if only we find
| the GPS coordinates where patient zero got infected.
| Would it? I don't think so.
|
| I also believe that there's nothing we can do to stop
| another similar event by knowing where it came from.
| What's more relevant is how it spread so quickly around
| the globe, and as far as I understand, we have a pretty
| good understanding of that and it's mainly international
| air-plane travel. I don't think we'll see a lasting
| change in that regard, but maybe we will, and we will
| have fever-checks before boarding planes or non-regional
| trains.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| > Doing an investigation to find "the real truth", which
| from what I gather in most threads here would be
| essentially "where did it come from and why was it the
| Wuhan lab that intentionally released it?", wouldn't
| really get us anywhere.
|
| We shouldn't be conflating the result from a professional
| investigation with the prevalent popular opinion.
|
| > I also believe that there's nothing we can do to stop
| another similar event by knowing where it came from.
|
| Your viewpoint kind of hinges on this point and you
| haven't really supported it yet besides making the
| assertion. Why would we gain _absolutely nothing_ from
| having more information about its origin, with respect to
| either dealing with current or future COVIDs? That
| conclusion seems very nonobvious to me.
| radu_floricica wrote:
| I would actually like to know exactly why I had to stay locked
| in my house for a couple of months while nice military men were
| out on the streets with big guns.
|
| You might make a case that it would actually help, or not. I
| don't know. I don't particularly care, not next to the huge
| magnitude of wanting the tiniest bit of truth and justice.
| syshum wrote:
| >>would actually like to know exactly why I had to stay
| locked in my house for a couple of months while nice military
| men were out on the streets with big guns.
|
| Well even if it was a lab leak. A response to a pandemic with
| totalitarian lock down using the military is something you
| need to address with your government
|
| That is NOT a proper response to a illness for any nation
| claiming to value individual rights and individual liberty
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| What would be a proper response? ;)
| syshum wrote:
| Just about anything short of that?
|
| First and foremost I am opposed to any use of the
| military on the citizens of their own nation. That in
| itself IMO should be considered off limits. A nations
| military has the primary purpose to eliminate or destroy
| the nations enemies, if the military is being used on the
| citizens that means the citizens have become the enemy...
| guilhas wrote:
| China or USA? Clearly the Wuhan lab received USA grants to work
| on coronavirus
| officialjunk wrote:
| we need to solve the pandemic problem first
| Clewza313 wrote:
| https://archive.is/2aP1f
| [deleted]
| darawk wrote:
| Honestly though, do we? Why?
|
| It almost certainly wasn't man made and intentional. That's the
| only case we really need to know the origin story for, and I
| don't think anyone serious thinks that is plausible.
|
| Otherwise, the worst case is that it was a lab accident of some
| kind. It'd be fun to point and blame China for it and all, but is
| it something we really _need_?
| redis_mlc wrote:
| Everything you said is not only false, it's deliberately
| evasive.
|
| There's around a 90% chance it was intentionally modified and
| escaped one of the WIV labs (mice with humanized lungs were
| used for testing.) Even the moronic head of WHO, who's a
| doctor, admitted a couple of months ago that "obviously labs
| leak."
|
| See my post above for more early details.
|
| There's nothing wrong with blaming China, especially since
| they've been uncooperative with any investigation, and fed WHO
| false information until today (the previous WHO visitors to
| Wuhan were given a report by the CCP to use.) In fact, it's
| certain they're working on the next corona variant since that's
| the job of the WIV labs.
|
| Is the problem on HN that only a few people know the timeline
| and facts, or are you folks wilfully blind? I'm genuinely
| curious how after 18 months posts like the above are still
| written.
| ramblerman wrote:
| The problem with the boeing 737 MAX was also not intentional.
|
| Unless you would argue we shouldn't investigate that either,
| why do you make a distinction here?
| blitzar wrote:
| Boeing has been fined $2.5bn by the US justice department
| after being charged with fraud and conspiracy in connection
| with two fatal crashes of its 737 Max airliner.
|
| Sounds like the DOJ found intention in there.
| sushikokk wrote:
| Yes.like air crash investigations, to avoid it happening again.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| We don't know if it was man made or not, or intentional or not.
|
| There's a lot of conflicting evidence. What we do know is the
| ccp is blocking any sort of investigation into the origin and
| possible cause. They began trying to sweep it under the rug
| just like SARS.
|
| The downside of all this is that the people of China suffer,
| when it's not china that's to blame. It's the ccp.
| chalcolithic wrote:
| The world needs a proper investigation into how the pandemic was
| handled way more than this. Viruses will come again as they
| always have done and mounting a less disastrous response would be
| really nice.
| underwater wrote:
| If you want to chase a conspiracy that actually matters, go find
| out who is pushing the narrative that COVID is fake and vaccines
| are dangerous. _That_ conspiracy is literally killing thousands
| of people.
| xupybd wrote:
| So the a conspiracy that causes people to respond poorly to the
| threat is worse than the conspiracy that released the threat
| into the world in the first place?
| ramblerman wrote:
| Why not both? Two things can matter at the same time.
|
| If covid did leak from a lab, accidentally, but there was a
| cover up, that's also worth exploring no?
|
| It feels like you are choosing because of political
| motivations.
| loopz wrote:
| Both would be best.
|
| Swindlers and liars need to be exposed, and held outside of
| politics. It's not ok to stand in front of hundreds of
| millions of people and lie right in their faces. We've seen
| how such mental assaults ended before.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Why does the origin story matter, outside of political
| motivations? If we knew 100% how it came into being, what
| specific information does that give us that helps the world
| eradicate it, or deal with future pandemics?
|
| The whole "lab leak investigation" is a political side show
| attempt to distract people away from the real question, which
| is how did almost every country on earth utterly fail to
| control the spread and avert catastrophe? Both questions are
| fine to answer, but one of them might provide actionable
| information for future pandemics, and the other one is purely
| political blame-game.
| helloworld11 wrote:
| Are you kidding? Of course the origin story of COVID
| matters, enormously. Knowing where a virus originated and
| whether it leaked from a lab accident or came to us through
| a natural cross-over is enormously important for clinical
| reasons and in the case of this vast global pandemic, for
| simple historical reasons of firmly establishing what
| happened and how right down to the first sequence of
| events. In no way is wanting to find that out a political
| sideshow if you have any notion of careful research and
| establishment of facts. People will be writing about the
| COVID pandemic for decades to come. It's absurd that you or
| anyone would dismiss something so basic as wanting to
| concretely know its origin. That sort of reasoning is a
| much more obvious example of politically motivated sideshow
| drama.
| padiyar83 wrote:
| I don't think that's a conspiracy. Motivations there, however
| misplaced they may be, are quite clear.
| asplake wrote:
| Groups of people deliberately creating and spreading
| disinformation is by any sensible definition a conspiracy
| luckylion wrote:
| No, it would be a conspiracy only they conspired to do so.
|
| I don't think that's the case with most of them. There are
| a lot of movements coming from different backgrounds,
| believing in different things that are meeting at "it's not
| real, don't get vaccinated". The Bill-Gates-Wants-To-Kill-
| Us-people aren't conspiring with the Big-Pharma-Wants-A-
| Perpetual-Vaccine-Business-People, they just happen to come
| to the same conclusion ("don't do it").
|
| From what little exposure I had to them, I think they're
| honest in their ideas. I believe they're wrong on most
| counts, but I don't think they're sitting at home scheming
| how to fool the masses. I'm sure there are some who seek to
| influence public opinion by spreading false narratives, but
| the large majority seems to just have lost pretty much all
| trust in Western governments and looks for alternative
| theories that explain the state of the world.
| dTal wrote:
| I think you've made a category error. We're not talking
| about the lost schmucks who've bought into this claptrap
| - we're talking about whose bright idea it was in the
| first place, and who's making an effort to spread it.
| Someone is _providing_ those "alternative theories". You
| dig around a little and you find dubiously funded
| websites and media outlets pushing this stuff, as well as
| the more unsavory elements of media we call "mainstream".
| It's not nearly as organic as it seems, and we shouldn't
| let the bad actors hide behind social media as the
| scapegoat. "Astroturfing" is not new.
|
| So, who benefits when Americans lose faith in their
| government?
| aww_dang wrote:
| >So, who benefits when Americans lose faith in their
| government?
|
| The public at large if it results in more critical
| thinking, greater liberty or accountability.
| notacoward wrote:
| Expecting such an outcome is starkly irrational. Its
| exact opposite is _far_ more likely, as evidenced by the
| fact that we 're already well down exactly that road to
| exactly that destination.
| dTal wrote:
| Why on earth would it? The government is the engine of
| social cooperation. Losing faith in it puts you on the
| road away from civilization, not towards.
| jaybrendansmith wrote:
| Wait, I know that one. To anyone paying attention there
| is Putin money behind much of this, just as there is
| evidence of his involvement in Trump and Brexit. Sources:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56423536 https:/
| /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...
| And yes, OAN, Sinclair, and Fox News have been 'asking
| questions' and airing voices who have definitely slowed
| the vaccine uptake, careful to keep their own plausible
| deniability. Source:
| https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2021/07/14/fox-news-
| newsmax... These organizations, in my opinion, should be
| held to legal and financial accountability for their
| actions. At least, they would, in a just world.
| luckylion wrote:
| > Someone is providing those "alternative theories".
|
| I'm not sure they are. I mean, sure, for some things,
| there's likely someone somewhere making it up, but others
| just come to live by themselves.
|
| A lot of them remind me of the preppers. They also have
| plenty of scenarios and end up in similar places on
| practical questions. And companies around that also were
| created or took up some of the content to market to them.
| This might be the same here: websites trying to attract
| these people for other reasons instead of those websites
| being the source of the ideas.
|
| Since a lot of it is happening online, I guess it should
| theoretically be/have been visible, do you know of any
| reports that trace it back to those who created the
| different conspiracy theories?
| sofixa wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/17/covid-
| misinfor...
| notacoward wrote:
| Do you also believe that correlation implies causation?
| Because it's practically the same thing. A conspiracy
| requires that people conspire, i.e. coordinate. Correlated
| action is entirely possible without conspiracy, as is
| evident during any traffic jam or holiday shopping rush.
| blitzar wrote:
| Bill Gates along with Soros the Rothschilds and associated
| Jews have created a fake global pandemic. The intention is to
| crash the global economy so they can force everyone into a
| Socialist, Globalist mono state, flooding our country with
| immigrants. As part of the fear they have also gotten to
| finally enact their plan to reduce the world population by
| sterilizing them with a vaccine that also contains 5g mind-
| control chips, the receivers of which are the real thing that
| are making people sick not Covid. Oh and they are going to
| rape all the children too.
|
| You dont think it counts as a conspiracy?
| aww_dang wrote:
| I think that's an odious and disgusting way to
| mischaracterize all concerns as nonsense.
| blitzar wrote:
| If your concern is that COVID is fake and it is a jewish
| conspiracy to inject dangerous vaccines with 5G mind
| control chips and you want me to take it seriously; then
| politely go fuck yourself.
|
| If you have other concerns, happy to hear them, I never
| suggested anything to the contrary, you read what you
| wanted to read in my comment, and perhaps touched a raw
| nerve as it overlaps with your beliefs.
| aww_dang wrote:
| I've observed this frequently on this site and elsewhere.
| Dissent is pejoratively associated with flat-earth,
| antisemitism and other nonsense. As a mainstream
| narrative, it is an effective way to shut down the
| discussion. Perhaps some might even call that a
| disinformation conspiracy.
| blitzar wrote:
| I am not sure which is the cause and effect, brain
| control 5G chips were the work of Bill Gates (who as far
| as I know is not of the Jewish faith) and are outlandish
| enough. As if to 'prove' these claims are possible and
| indeed real, gravitas is added to the claim by saying it
| was in conjunction with the Rothschilds and the Soros
| Foundation. It did not require me to associate an entire
| religion with the 'theory', it's in the theory itself, as
| a cornerstone of supposed proof.
|
| The conversation gets shut down at the retarded assertion
| that a fake virus was invented in order to inject the
| population of the world with a brain control device
| operating, very specifically, on the 5G spectrum.
|
| The phenomenon you are really observing is that stupid
| people are pejoratively associated with stupid people,
| especially when they cobble together stupid broad
| statements like 'all the astronauts and satellites are
| paid off by the deep state to perpetuate the lie that the
| earth is round' or 'just ask any Jew and they will
| confirm they were all told not to go to New York on
| 9/11'.
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