[HN Gopher] Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid
___________________________________________________________________
Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid
Author : ricksunny
Score : 634 points
Date : 2023-06-10 23:13 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thetimes.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thetimes.co.uk)
| old_reddit_user wrote:
| [flagged]
| l5870uoo9y wrote:
| The central issue is that the extremely dangerous gain-of-
| function experiments were being undertaking and potentially still
| are. I would advocate for a worldwide ban of gain-of-function
| research and strict regulation of potential dangerous medical
| research in a similar manner as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
| agreement. Even as imperfect as it would be.
|
| Issues regarding funding, laboratory security, military
| involvement, country of origin, responsibility of scientists,
| institutions and leadership involved are all secondary.
|
| Edit: Fixed typing error and wording.
| pimpampum wrote:
| I agree, but without a way to detect it or control it, it would
| be hard to enforce.
| l5870uoo9y wrote:
| It would be imperfect but better than nothing.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| fuckyah wrote:
| [dead]
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Did you read TA? It summarizes existing known info, but it also
| includes new, original research.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| yawnxyz wrote:
| I love how people who don't read the article ask "did you
| read the article". Agree there's nothing new here, and most
| things presented as new are mostly conjecture or hear say
| pcrh wrote:
| I read the article, it fails to correctly summarize, and also
| misrepresents existing known info.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| It honestly terrifies me that people in this very thread are
| still pushing conspiracy theorys. Not just the technically
| possible ones ("the CCP did it all on purpose") but the just
| plain factually wrong ("vaccines are more deadly than covid").
| Such comments remain popular.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36276268&p=2#36290411
| mannyv wrote:
| If there is any truth to this it'll come out once the regime
| changes...and the new regime will use this info to discredit the
| old regime.
| pcrh wrote:
| After a quick read of the article, it presents no new data, and
| is replete with innuendo pointing at the Wuhan lab, rather than
| any direct evidence.
|
| Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs
| researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all
| there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact
| that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an
| indication of any ill-intent. Additionally, the closest relative
| to SARSCov2 that has been identified (RaTG13) was found in a cave
| in Mojiang county in Yunnan, over 1,000 km away, with no evidence
| that it was ever studied in the Wuhan lab. Further, genetic
| clocks show that RaTG13 and SARSCoV2 diverged almost 50 years
| ago.
|
| The map presented upfront from is also misleading, the early
| cases clustered around the market not the lab [0]. Furthermore,
| several different isolates were found in the market, indicating
| that SARSCoV2 had been circulating _before_ the epidemic took
| off.
|
| [0] The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early
| epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715
| kneel wrote:
| >the closest relative to SARSCov2 that has been identified
| (RaTG13) was found in a cave in Mojiang county in Yunnan, over
| 1,000 km away, with no evidence that it was ever studied in the
| Wuhan lab.
|
| This is false
| xjlin0 wrote:
| > genetic clocks show that RaTG13 and SARSCoV2 diverged almost
| 50 years ago.
|
| Converting the distance in phylogenetic analysis to
| evolutionary distance is based on _natural_ gene drafting rate,
| which does not consider passaging with human selections.
| zh3 wrote:
| Reference the statement that several employees were ill in the
| months leading up to the outbreak, these were tested and
| (reportedly) did not have Covid antibodies - this also seems to
| be missing from the article.
| Biorealism wrote:
| The thing with Wuhan Institute of Virology is they were
| particularly studying the spillover risk of SARS-related
| coronaviruses. The nearest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 are found in
| Yunnan and Laos. One clear link with Wuhan is the fact Wuhan
| Institute of Virology sampled both locations.
|
| You can't read much into the early case data that David Relman
| described as "hopelessly impoverished". There were likely much
| earlier cases based on excess mortality data (a key reason WHO
| haven't accepted market origin). Also, there is a clear
| sampling bias in the cases in the article cited above.
| https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.00313-23
| [deleted]
| bomewish wrote:
| > innuendo... rather than any direct evidence.
|
| May be a good idea to get acquainted with inference to best
| explanation, and to understand that 'direct evidence' should
| not automatically be awarded epistemological primacy over
| 'circumstantial evidence' (or what you're calling 'innuendo').
| randomperson01 wrote:
| There is no reason to suspect Ill intent. Accidents happen. It
| is well known the WIV were doing gain of function research on
| SARS-related CoVs. It is also known that the WIV were partners
| in a proposal to insert human specific cleavage sites into
| SARS+related CoVs
| https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra...
|
| The probability that a novel SARS-related CoV would emerge
| naturally in the city in China that was used as a
| seropositivity control -and the location of the worlds largest
| SARS-related related research lab, and which had very low
| wildlife consumption compared to Southern coastal cities is <
| 1/1000
|
| There is no evidence for any infected animals at the Huanan
| market
| https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.25.538336v2
|
| There was a known ascertainment bias towards reporting
| associated with the market
| https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.00313-23
|
| The modelling by Pekar et al inferring multiple spillovers at
| the market was flawed
| https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.10.511625v1
|
| Prior to the pandemic, the State department literally warned
| the US govt. a SARS-related accident was a real risk at the WIV
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-dep...
| Izkata wrote:
| > Additionally, the closest relative to SARSCov2 that has been
| identified (RaTG13)
|
| A closer relative was found like a year or so later, can't
| remember the name though.
| ratg13 wrote:
| _> Additionally, the closest relative to SARSCov2 that has been
| identified (RaTG13)_
|
| As of 2022, this is no longer true.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RaTG13
| eganp wrote:
| IIRC, this is still true if you exclude the spike protein and
| use a higher similarity threshold.
|
| Why would one do that? Well, two reasons. First, the spike
| more variable as it is subject to greater evolutionary
| pressure as the major component of the viral surface. Second,
| in coronavirus reverse genetics typically the virus is
| segmented into multiple pieces, most of which compose the
| non-spike backbone and a subset which compose the spike
| protein. This is intentional to enable the swapping of spike
| proteins. So, if SARS-CoV-2 is spike-swap or spike variant
| assembly, a RaTG13-like virus could be the "backbone" of
| SARS-CoV-2.
|
| Moreover, a hypothetical SARS-CoV-2 backbone could exist in
| the viral sequences list the WIV took down in Sept. 2019.
| They sequenced RaTG13 a few years prior. The lab's raison
| d'etre is collecting and sequencing coronaviruses poised for
| spillover. And, with modern DNA synthesis technology, it's
| not difficult to print out arbitrary backbone contigs for a
| viral assembly.
| zosima wrote:
| And crucially, researchers from the Wuhan lab were studying
| bat virus samples from Laos, before covid.
|
| https://www.business-standard.com/amp/article/current-
| affair...
| pcrh wrote:
| Those viruses are _slightly_ more related to SARSCoV2 than
| RaTG13, however note 1) that they were found even further
| away from Wuhan than was RaTG13 and 2) that they still
| remain too different from SARSCoV2 to be its direct
| ancestor.
|
| One of the things we know for sure is that that about 50
| years of evolutionary changes separate RaTG13 and BANAL-52
| from SARSCoV2, so they are not its direct ancestors.
| dotandgtfo wrote:
| >50 years of evolutionary changes separate RaTG13 and
| BANAL-52 from SARSCoV2
|
| Do you have a source for this?
|
| Also, I'm no biologist, but is comparing the base rate of
| evolutionary changes still relevant if SARSCoV2 wasn't of
| natural origins? E.g. through creating chimeras or
| 'serial passaging' as described in this article? Wouldn't
| that create an environment where 50 years could pass in a
| way shorter timeframe?
| pcrh wrote:
| This is the study I alluded to:
|
| >Evolutionary origins of the SARS-CoV-2 sarbecovirus
| lineage responsible for the COVID- 19 pandemic
|
| >Divergence dates between SARS-CoV-2 and the bat
| sarbecovirus reservoir were estimated as 1948 (95%
| highest posterior density (HPD): 1879-1999), 1969 (95%
| HPD: 1930-2000) and 1982 (95% HPD: 1948-2009), indicating
| that the lineage giving rise to SARS-CoV-2 has been
| circulating unnoticed in bats for decades.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4
|
| You should also know that SARSCoV2 1) is not a chimeric
| virus, and 2) that the present study includes viruses
| linked to RaTGP13 but more distant from SARSCoV2, i.e. it
| includes evidence from viruses unassociated with the
| pandemic.
| tripletao wrote:
| > You should also know that SARSCoV2 1) is not a chimeric
| virus,
|
| There is no basis for this claim. Genomic evidence shows
| that SARS-CoV-2 is not a chimera of any two previously-
| known viruses. No possible genomic evidence could exclude
| a chimera of two previously-unknown viruses, and the WIV
| was the world's leading collector of such novel
| sarbecoviruses from nature. They proposed to make
| chimeras of them in DEFUSE. That proposal wasn't funded,
| but this article now reports explicit claims they did
| such work:
|
| > They said the Wuhan scientists had inserted furin
| cleavage sites into viruses in 2019 in exactly the way
| proposed in Daszak's failed funding application to Darpa.
|
| You're basically rehashing Andersen's "Proximal Origins"
| here, and even he has moved on to more sophisticated
| (though still unconvincing) arguments like Pekar. As
| David Relman wrote almost three years ago:
|
| > This argument [that SARS-CoV-2 must be natural since it
| doesn't use a known backbone] fails to acknowledge the
| possibility that two or more as yet undisclosed ancestors
| (i.e., more proximal ancestors than RaTG13 and RmYN02)
| had already been discovered and were being studied in a
| laboratory--for example, one with the SARS-CoV-2 backbone
| and spike protein receptor-binding domain, and the other
| with the SARS-CoV-2 polybasic furin cleavage site. It
| would have been a logical next step to wonder about the
| properties of a recombinant virus and then create it in
| the laboratory.
|
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2021133117
| pcrh wrote:
| We know SARSCoV2 is not a chimeric virus because similar
| viruses have been identified from other locations, and
| the pattern-matching (sequence alignment) shows that
| SARSCoV2 does not have any insertions or deletions that
| have a different evolutionary origin compared to its
| close relatives.
| tripletao wrote:
| That doesn't make any sense. I'm assuming by "chimera"
| that you mean, for example, the spike from natural virus
| A on the backbone of natural virus B. The WIV could have
| taken the spike from a virus similar to BANAL-20-52, the
| backbone from a different, unpublished virus that they'd
| sampled from nature, and a human-designed FCS. This is
| basically what they proposed in DEFUSE (in collaboration
| with Baric at UNC), and what this Times article is now
| saying they did internally after DEFUSE got rejected.
|
| Of course such a virus could also have evolved naturally
| by a similar path; lots of sarbecoviruses are just a
| single mutation away from that FCS, and perhaps there's
| some yet-unknown natural animal host where that gets
| selected for. The point is that no genomic evidence can
| distinguish between these two cases, though.
|
| For emphasis, it seems like you're assuming that we know
| all the natural viruses that the WIV was working with.
| Sampling of novel coronaviruses from nature was a core
| part of the WIV's research, so that's not a reasonable
| assumption. RaTG13 was sampled in 2013, but not fully
| published until 2020. At least one novel coronavirus was
| identified in contamination of rice samples sequenced on
| the same equipment that the WIV used:
|
| https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.02.12.528210
| v2
|
| That's a merbecovirus, so it couldn't possibly have any
| relationship to SARS-CoV-2; but if they had one
| unpublished novel virus, then it's hard to reject the
| possibility that they had more.
| Vecr wrote:
| What about Ralph Baric's method for splicing viruses?
| It's apparently really hard or impossible to detect, and
| that's plausibly something that could be used to make a
| chimeric coronavirus.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| The distance from Wuhan of the discovery site of RaTG13
| is irrelevant, if (as the article implies) a senior team
| at the Wuhan lab were working on RaTG13.
|
| The article is not suggesting that Covid19 evolved from
| RaTG13; it is suggesting that Covid19 is a chimaera made
| with RaTG13.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| denton-scratch wrote:
| The NYT is a reputable organ, known for checking it's
| sources. Unlike Wikipedia, newspapers don't generally
| cite their sources; but if a reliable source states
| something like that as fact, they've probably checked.
| You're right: they haven't said they can prove it.
|
| [Of course, it could be propaganda, government or
| otherwise; or it could be a damned lie concocted by the
| reporter or editor. They've said they have sources, they
| haven't named them, so it's not unreasonable to suppose
| they have sources that don't want to be named.]
| th0ma5 wrote:
| What does the NYT have to do with this?
| dboreham wrote:
| Governments have a known history of both lying and
| deluding themselves into believing lies.
| zosima wrote:
| There may have been brought even closer relatives of
| covid-19 to Wuhan by lab personnel.
|
| We don't know as for unknown reasons the database of
| specimens collected by the Wuhan lab was taken down in
| September 2019.
|
| The distance in years between two viral strains you
| mention makes no sense at all, as the mutation rate is
| extremely dependent on environment.
| epups wrote:
| I don't understand this line of argument. The facts are
| that 1) the virus outbreak was in Wuhan, 2) that there ws
| a local lab working on virus samples that come from all
| over the world and 3) as far as we know, the particular
| strain that affected Wuhan is not local. Altogether, this
| should add confidence to the lab leak theory, not detract
| from it.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| A particular city center?
| epups wrote:
| Ok but in that scenario, a natural emergence would have
| come from a strain from Wuhan, while the lab leak theory
| explains why a virus from relatively far away had an
| outbreak in Wuhan.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Not really! Why do you need that to be true?
| Biorealism wrote:
| The nearest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 are found in Yunnan
| and Laos. Both areas WIV sampled prior to the pandemic
| and they haven't shared their records with WHO or the
| NIH.
| Biorealism wrote:
| Yes, the article suggests they had a closer precursor.
| The nearest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 are found in Yunnan
| and Laos. They are both areas WIV sampled in studying the
| spillover risk of SARS-related coronaviruses. They
| haven't shared their records with WHO or the NIH.
| canadianfella wrote:
| [dead]
| BryantD wrote:
| What a terrible article.
|
| "Thirty-five-year-old scientists don't get very sick with
| influenza."
|
| The rate of hospitalization among 18-49 year olds with flu in
| the US was 54.1 per 100K in 2019-20. It's rare, sure, but that
| kind of absolute statement from an anonymous researcher doesn't
| instill confidence.
| jakear wrote:
| [flagged]
| BryantD wrote:
| That point is inaccurate. I quoted the stats; they are what
| they are.
| jakear wrote:
| Stats say nothing of relative severity, why do you think
| they're relevant in any way?
|
| Edit: is your argument seriously "uhm actually, event X
| happens 0.054% of the time, so when you said {more rare
| version of X} doesn't happen you're wrong"
| BryantD wrote:
| Um, those are the numbers for hospitalization. So yes,
| there's information about severity there.
|
| And yep, that's my argument! The frequency of deadly
| viruses escaping from a bio lab is even _lower_ , so if
| we're going to eliminate possibilities based on
| percentages there are a few others that should get thrown
| out.
|
| It's a minor point but, as I said, it's sloppy reasoning.
| If the anonymous researcher had said "low probability" I
| wouldn't care. Instead, this reads like someone who's
| willing to hand wave specifics for the sake of rhetoric.
| jakear wrote:
| Hospitalization doesn't mean severity. It has more to do
| with your confidence in your immune system and health
| insurance than anything else, though the hospital's extra
| capacity and desire to make a buck off you is up there
| too.
|
| But if you're here to be put off by the smallest use of
| rhetoric, sure pop off on that.
| BryantD wrote:
| If I reversed it and said "this can't be a lab leak
| because lab leaks never happen," would that be okay?
| They're certainly rarer than serious cases of flu among
| adults in the age range.
|
| It's a contentious, difficult debate. I do actually think
| it's bad to dismiss arguments you disagree with with
| casual rhetoric.
| jakear wrote:
| If that rhetorical device led me to research and discover
| reputable data suggesting the frequency of such
| occurrences was indeed so minuscule as to be disregarded
| entirely, I'd welcome it upsetting my preconceived
| notions.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > The point is the young and healthy don't get very sick.
| You get it, have the sniffles for a day or two, and move on
| with your life. Same for covid. We could have just embraced
| that blessing and let children continue to go to school and
| not experience massive declines in intelligence. But here
| we are. "Think of the really old people" was truly
| hilarious. Indeed, all we could do was "think" when my
| grandpa died alone because visiting the nursing home was
| banned.
|
| One thing to consider is not so much an individual's health
| and risk of getting serious ill, but rather that as the
| numbers grow geometrically, health care systems like
| hospitals can (and in fact, did) become severely
| overwhelmed.
|
| Even with measures in place, here in Los Angeles we were at
| a point where for example if you had a heart attack at
| home, an ambulance / hospital couldn't deal with you.m
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/05/us/los-angeles-county-
| califor...
| jakear wrote:
| What really happened, as stated in the very source you
| gave, was that if you had a heart attack at home an
| ambulance _would_ come to "deal with you" (because of
| course they would), but if they attempted to resuscitate
| you for 20 minutes and you still didn't recover they
| wouldn't then take you to the hospital.
|
| You should know the survival rate of a heart attack is
| far far lower than most expect, _especially_ after 20
| minutes of failed active attempts to resuscitate. The
| only real reason to take someone into a hospital after
| that is if they're hypothermic or just so you can say "we
| did everything we could".
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-cpr-
| expectations-i...
| andsoitis wrote:
| > What really happened.... an ambulance would come to
| "deal with you"
|
| At one point, LA had to resort to Fire Trucks because
| ambulances were unavailable.
|
| If you don't think health care services were severely
| stretched, in some cases beyond breaking point (incl.
| staff unavailability because they themselves were sick),
| I really don't know what to say. This happened in New
| York as well.
|
| Of course there are also other places where that wasn't
| the case, so there you could be less conservative with
| restrictions, but you may not know the risk in advance.
| jakear wrote:
| Fire trucks and ambulances both feature staff trained as
| EMT's. The provisioning of the vehicles might be slightly
| different, but the medical training is the same. And I'm
| sure the provisioning could be adjusted based on the
| circumstances.
|
| Staff being unavailable because they're sick is quite
| literally "normal day to day operations" that _every_
| company must be able to account for, not "beyond the
| breaking point".
|
| But if you "don't know what to say" beyond vague
| emotional appeals unsupported by the very sources you
| claim to cite, I'm glad we agree on that at least.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| There are many [1] many [2] many [3] many [4] many [5]
| many [6] many [7] examples of people who died as a result
| of our hospital systems being overloaded and being forced
| to ration care. This is what was meant by the geometric
| growth of hospital patients and how many hospital systems
| were close to outright breaking. You are ultimately
| factually wrong and extremely unaware of how much stress
| this put on our hospital systems and how many people died
| because of what you were suggesting. Now imagine how much
| worse it would've been if we did nothing.
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-
| updates/2021/0...
|
| [2] https://www.politico.com/news/agenda/2021/10/26/lack-
| hospita...
|
| [3] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-us-hospital-icu-
| bed-short...
|
| [4] https://www.whsv.com/2021/08/27/man-dies-waiting-icu-
| bed-fam...
|
| [5] https://www.businessinsider.com/man-covid-dead-
| doctors-icu-b...
|
| [6] https://www.ketv.com/article/auburn-man-dies-in-des-
| moines-h...
|
| [7] https://www.newsweek.com/kansas-man-dies-after-
| waiting-icu-b...
| jakear wrote:
| 7 whole examples? Wow.
|
| And how many millions of children have ongoing severely
| stunted development in both academics and social skills?
| More than 7 million. By some estimates 77 million, in
| fact.
|
| The real question is how many more will die as a result
| of our horribly irresponsible treatment of our most
| valuable national resource: the children.
| lifelong wrote:
| > What a terrible article.
|
| > "Thirty-five-year-old scientists don't get very sick with
| influenza."
|
| > It's rare, sure
|
| Then what makes an article terrible when you agree with the
| statement?
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| Natsu wrote:
| It really shouldn't be phrased as an absolute. But read
| charitably, when you have low N combined with rates that
| low, to expect that you wouldn't see noticeable illness in
| a small group of young, healthy people.
| pbreit wrote:
| "not in itself an indication of any ill-intent"
|
| Was that even insinuated?
|
| "no evidence that it was ever studied in the Wuhan lab"
|
| Wut?
|
| "Between 1 July and 1 October 2012, we received 13 serum
| samples collected from 4 patients"
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9744119/
| karaterobot wrote:
| > Additionally, the closest relative to SARSCov2 that has been
| identified (RaTG13) was found in a cave in Mojiang county in
| Yunnan, over 1,000 km away, with no evidence that it was ever
| studied in the Wuhan lab.
|
| The article says that the viruses from Mojiang were transported
| to the Wuhan lab and studied there.
| willyt wrote:
| The Times is not a great source. It's just tabloid style
| journalism targeted at a higher 'reading age'. Can't remember
| the exact figures but something like 16 compared to 'The Sun'
| which targets 10. A better source would be The Telegraph, if
| you like your opinion pieces right leaning. The Economist, The
| Financial Time and The Guardian are also good sources if we're
| talking about British newspapers here.
| barneygale wrote:
| The Telegraph published a supplement written by the Chinese
| government until April 2020:
| https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/daily-
| telegrap...
| realjhol wrote:
| The Guardian - are you serious?
| inciampati wrote:
| No, not all labs working on viruses do research on dangerous
| viruses. Bacteriophages for instance, are a deep research
| topic, and (aside from potential effects on our microbiome) are
| completely benign to humans. That's just one of many
| counterexamples.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| inciampati wrote:
| They prefaced the statement with "most importantly" so it
| seems they thought it was their key point.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| What secure labs don't work on dangerous viruses? I guess
| I now wonder about your correction heh.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| [flagged]
| asynchronous wrote:
| [flagged]
| foldr wrote:
| These coincidences can happen. For example, Russian
| disinformation exploited the coincidental location of the
| Salisbury poisonings (near Porton Down).
| andsoitis wrote:
| > what ended up leaking from the lab was a coronavirus
|
| Did a coronavirus leak from the lab?
| himinlomax wrote:
| The problem with Wuhan lab is that the Chinese dictatorship
| blocks any independent inquiry into it. If they had nothing to
| hide, they wouldn't be hiding everything. If that was a
| criminal case, this kind of behavior would be taken as a
| evidence of guilt.
| sgift wrote:
| > If they had nothing to hide, they wouldn't be hiding
| everything. If that was a criminal case, this kind of
| behavior would be taken as a evidence of guilt.
|
| No, it would not. First, dictatorships hide things all the
| time, whether there is something or nothing. It's just how
| they operate. (Many democratic governments do to btw. How
| often do we need freedom of information requests just to find
| out that it was totally benign, the government just stone-
| walled because they could).
|
| Second, not saying anything is _not_ evidence of guilt in any
| criminal case in the civilized world. Everyone has the right
| to silence.
| Ithnolog wrote:
| Governments aren't people. They don't have rights. Same for
| corporations.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Governments have neither rights nor duties, so saying
| they don't owe you anything is essentially the same
| thing. Governments do what they can get away with doing.
| himinlomax wrote:
| "Your honor, you can't blame my client for messing the
| victim's body, he's a known necrophiliac, and since the
| evidence is tainted you can't prove he was the murderer."
|
| Top notch defense right there.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| gataca wrote:
| Countries and governments are not individuals. The fact
| that a virus emerged in China and proceeded to kill
| millions of people globally and the Chinese government has
| completely obstructed any independent investigation is
| outrageous and criminal. You don't get to throw your arms
| up and say "No Entry" when millions of lives have been
| lost.
| Biorealism wrote:
| They have witheld records from the NIH which funded some of
| their SARS-related coronaviruses spillover research. They
| eventually terminated their subaward last year as a result.
| WHO has also been asking for lab data. Given the nearest
| relatives to SARS-CoV-2 are found in Yunnan and Laos where
| the WIV sampled it seems fairly clear what happened here.
|
| https://thebulletin.org/2022/08/nih-to-terminate-
| ecohealth-a...
| zosima wrote:
| The Huanan Seafood market paper has been heavily critized.
|
| Especially the fact that covid was not found in a single animal
| sample does make the evidence rather weak.
|
| In addition it seems that the lack of sampling from outside the
| market and the fact that the market is a busy place in the
| center of the city where the virus would likely be once it's
| spreading from person to person , does not really lend support
| to the conclusions in the paper at all.
| pcrh wrote:
| >The Origins of Covid-19 -- Why It Matters (and Why It
| Doesn't)
|
| >More than half of the earliest Covid-19 cases were connected
| to the Huanan market, and epidemiologic mapping revealed that
| the concentration of cases was centered there. In January
| 2020, Chinese officials cleared the market without testing
| live animals, but positive environmental samples, including
| those from an animal cage and a hair-and-feather-removal
| machine, indicated the presence of both SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-
| susceptible animals.5 Recently released findings included
| raccoon dog DNA, pointing to a possible SARS-CoV-2
| progenitor.
|
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMp2305081
| reuben_scratton wrote:
| [flagged]
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Saying something is obvious doesn't make it true.
| [deleted]
| toast0 wrote:
| > Humans brought the virus to the market. It's
| screamingly obvious and always has been.
|
| Well of course, the racoon dogs et al all come in via
| human transport.
|
| Testing infrastructure was poor, and maybe it still is.
| Chinese government interest was not in finding facts, but
| in taking action to 'solve the problem'. It's hard to
| find facts when the people with power just want the
| problem to go away. IMHO, that doesn't weigh in favor of
| either explaination. The wuhan local government and the
| chinese national government would have likely taken the
| same actions regardless of the source, because they're
| both not very interested in facts.
|
| US health authorities pushing on the market theory are
| just doing their typical behavior of taking what little
| information is available and pushing it with no nuance. I
| enjoyed seeing the cdc stickers telling me not to use a
| mask out in public areas when the cdc was requiring them;
| the congitive dissonance was so palpable.
| Atotalnoob wrote:
| They said not to use them because there was a shortage of
| PPE.
|
| They prioritized healthcare workers to wear masks
| lamontcg wrote:
| They found racoon dog DNA, along with other susceptible
| animals, comingled with SARS-CoV-2 in samples from the
| market:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/21/science/covid-raccoon-
| dog...
|
| And the behavior of China behind that whole story looks very
| much like China tried to cover up the existence of
| susceptible animals at the market.
| Biorealism wrote:
| That was written before Jesse Bloom reanalyzed the data and
| found a negative correlation with raccoon dogs.
|
| https://news.yahoo.com/raccoon-dogs-did-not-start-
| covid-19-n...
| lamontcg wrote:
| Raccoon Dog DNA was still found at the market. That was
| previously denied.
|
| I'm not making the argument that the DNA samples indicate
| that the Raccoon Dogs that the samples were from had
| SARS-CoV-2. I'm just arguing that previously it had been
| stated that there were no Raccoon Dogs in the market at
| all and that has been proven wrong.
| BryantD wrote:
| Just to be clear, there weren't animal samples available for
| testing. It's not that they tested a bunch of animals and
| didn't find covid. I know that's what you meant but not
| everyone is familiar with the paper and it's important to be
| meticulous here.
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715
| giarc wrote:
| I don't actually think that is what they meant. If there
| are no animals to even sample, you don't describe that as
| "that covid was not found in a single animal sample". No
| one would phrase it that way.
| BryantD wrote:
| Easier on my general well-being to just assume positive
| intent. (As is obvious from my comment history I don't
| always succeed there, but I do try.)
| HWR_14 wrote:
| That you have been able to maintain assuming positive
| intent with regard to COVID comments for this long is
| kind of amazing.
| smohare wrote:
| [dead]
| revelio wrote:
| The article is only facts and direct evidence. Where is the
| innuendo? It covers specific experiments they were doing, in
| order and in detail, complete with specific biological
| information and funding sources. It also provides extensive
| evidence of constant coverups by the lab, like this one:
|
| _There was also no mention of the mouse deaths in the grant
| renewal application Daszak filed to the NIH later that year. In
| this account, he said the mice had experienced "mild Sars-like
| clinical signs" when they were infected with the mutant virus.
| It had actually killed six of the eight infected humanised
| mice. Daszak eventually provided details of the experiment's
| deadly results to the US authorities in a report after the
| Covid-19 pandemic. He now says his 2018 statement about the
| "mild" illness was based on preliminary results -- even though
| the experiment in which the mice died had taken place several
| months before he issued the statement_
|
| So these people are all known liars. The US Government banned
| GoF research, they got around it by claiming their work was
| urgent and safe, they ignored reporting requirements, when they
| finally did report what they said was a lie, and now they're
| still lying to try and cover previous lies.
|
| So when these people say they want to insert furin cleavage
| sites into coronaviruses, a coronavirus appears right next door
| that has a FCS - the first one ever seen - and they say, oh
| well we changed our minds and never did it, well, with
| overwhelming probability they're lying again.
| chihuahua wrote:
| And of course Daszak is known for loudly proclaiming that no
| one is allowed to even think about whether Covid-19 could
| have been leaked from a lab. His credibility is reduced, to
| put it mildly.
| tim333 wrote:
| It had data that is new to me. Especially:
|
| >They said the Wuhan scientists had inserted furin cleavage
| sites into viruses in 2019 in exactly the way proposed in
| Daszak's failed funding application to Darpa.
|
| That procedure is pretty much exactly what you'd have to do to
| make covid in a lab. Assuming that's true, it's pretty much a
| smoking gun.
| masswerk wrote:
| For a smoking gun, I'd expect evidence. This is just
| reporting on a diffuse claim of hearsay, allegedly by what
| might be labeled a party with geopolitical interest in the
| public narrative. It may be disinformation just as well.
| (Especially, as similar claims were already repeatedly made
| based on what turned out to be false links, like the Wuhan
| Institute being just around the wet market.)
| tim333 wrote:
| Well yes, is the claim true or not? The article has:
|
| >The investigators spoke to two researchers working at a US
| laboratory who were collaborating with the Wuhan institute
| at the time of the outbreak. They said the Wuhan
| scientists...
|
| So presumably The Times has the names of the researchers
| and someone like the FBI could investigate and see what
| correspondence if any they have with Wuhan about it.
| masswerk wrote:
| This was not in the version I was seeing. (This was only
| the first 4 paragraphs.)
| amoss wrote:
| The map showing the clustering around the lab is not labelled
| in the article. It looks like the map from the senate report
| which used internet search history. I recall that their point
| in the original report was that there was a cluster of internet
| searches for flu-like symptoms clustered around the institute,
| rather than the market.
|
| There is no new direct evidence in the article, simply the
| weight of existing indirect evidence synthesized together.
| There does not seem to be another hypothosis for how the virus
| emerged that has as much indirect evidence pointing towards it?
|
| The main gist of the article is:
|
| * The institute applied for funding for a specific piece of
| research (inserting a furin cleavage site).
|
| * The institute claims it did not perform the research.
|
| * Covid is what we would expect if somebody did perform that
| research.
|
| * The research would have been performed at the time and place
| where covid emerged.
|
| It is not direct evidence, but under a weaker burden of proof
| (e.g. balance of probabilities) it is fairly convincing.
| ricksunny wrote:
| Chief among key _new_ assertions the parent article makes,
|
| https://twitter.com/BlockedVirology/status/16676623250907463.
| ..
|
| * WIV added FCS's to coronavirus(es?) exactly as described in
| DEFUSE, according to a US lab collaborator.
|
| * Zhou Yusen "fell" off the roof of the WIV in May 2020
|
| * WIV was working on a 'closer [than published] unpublished
| variant'
|
| * Of all caves/mines, only scholarly attempts to access the
| Mojiang mine made touched off access denial and confiscation
| of samples from other mines from the authorities. While
| alluded to in the past, (https://apnews.com/article/united-
| nations-coronavirus-pandem... ) this is the first time to my
| awareness that the Mojiang mine has been uniquely &
| unequivocally associated with the authorities' clamp-down
| efforts, that too with attribution to Alice C Hughes, PhD
| samspenc wrote:
| > Zhou Yusen "fell" off the roof of the WIV in May 2020
|
| I mean, this is a pretty significant and concerning new
| finding right? Someone associated with the lab researching
| COVID early on just mysteriously disappearing in China?
| sokoloff wrote:
| This was news in the summer of 2021 and still seems a
| concerning (albeit not new) finding as he had reportedly
| filed a patent for a COVID-19 vaccine in Feb of 2020
| prior to dying in May of 2020.
| binx_ wrote:
| specifically the person working on a possible vaccine at
| the same time as these GoF experiments, very interesting
| indeed.
| ricksunny wrote:
| * an item covered that isn't strictly _new_ but is probably
| unfamiliar to many even so, is: Of the researchers who the
| Jan 2021 State Dep Fact Sheet described as having fell sick
| with 'Covid-like symptoms' in Nov 2019 * they were taken
| to hospital, desoite being in their 30's and 40's (age) *
| one of their relatives died * they were working on advanced
| coronavirus research in the laboratory
|
| The WaPo journalist Josh Rogin who is known for maintainibg
| quality confidential sources in DC, had long ago tweeted
| the above. While some aspects may have been covered in
| intervening press, this is the first time to my knowledge
| all of tbese items are asserted explicitly with a quote
| attributed to one of the anonymous investigators.
|
| --- my take fwiw: While intriguing, vis-a-vis a seasonal
| illness null hypothesis, it's never been discussed whether
| they were unique cases at that time with such symptoms
| (more likely covid), or if many others both in and out of
| the WIV had similar symtoms at the time (more likely
| seasonal illness)
| ricksunny wrote:
| Just updating my above comment that the observations
| about the sick researchers did actually make it into
| print in 2021 thx to Ian Birrell in DailyMail:
|
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9410163/US-
| State-De...
| thevagrant wrote:
| Research applications, in particular to obtain funding.
|
| It is common for researchers to apply to grants/funding for
| work they are already doing. They tweak the research
| application to meet whatever the funding criteria is using
| knowledge they have from existing experiments.
| pera wrote:
| The map in the senate report comes from this paper:
|
| https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/9/6/402
|
| if I understand correctly it concludes that the cluster
| correlates with population density and a concentration of
| elderly population in that area.
|
| Unfortunately that wasn't mentioned in the senate report (nor
| in the news article)
| lamontcg wrote:
| > It is not direct evidence, but under a weaker burden of
| proof (e.g. balance of probabilities) it is fairly
| convincing.
|
| - We have a bunch of evidence of WIV engineering SARS-1-like
| viruses because they talked about it before the pandemic.
|
| - We have zero evidence of them ever doing experiments on
| live SARS-2-like virus
|
| - We have zero evidence of the existence of a SARS-2-like
| progenitor virus
|
| - Before the pandemic they had no reason to be more secretive
| of any SARS-2-like work than their SARS-1-like work
|
| - The spread of SARS-CoV-2 looks exactly like it originated
| in the Seafood market.
|
| - If it was transported to the seafood market by someone who
| worked at the lab that is highly coincidental that the place
| they infected first just happened to be the most likely place
| for zoonotic spillover
|
| - The hypothetical infected labworker didn't spread it all
| over their residence or create any other superspreading
| incidents clustered elsewhere around Wuhan
|
| On the balance of probabilities I'm going with zoonotic
| spillover. The coincidence that the lab happened to be in the
| city is much less of a coincidence than the lab causing a
| leak of a virus that there's zero evidence the lab ever had,
| causing a pandemic that looks exactly like it came from
| zoonotic spillover.
| Biorealism wrote:
| The nearest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 are found in Yunnan and
| Laos. The only known link to Wuhan is the Wuhan Institute
| of Virology sampled both areas.
|
| They refuse to share their records with WHO or the NIH.
| That's a crucial caveat when saying there is no evidence
| they held a precursor. We don't know as they have refused
| to share their database.
|
| The Times article is interesting as it suggests the work in
| DEFUSE to add furin cleavage sites went ahead and they
| passaged the virus in humanized mice. This would explain
| the furin site not seen in other sarbecoviruses and why
| humans topped the list for binding affinity from the
| outset.
|
| Note the cases near the market are based on what David
| Relman described as "hopelessly impoverished" early case
| data. There was also sampling bias in retrospectively
| counting cases as market link was often required. WHO
| hasn't accepted market origin in part as there were likely
| much earlier cases than those in December linked to the
| market where no animals tested positive.
| inciampati wrote:
| > why humans topped the list for binding affinity from
| the outset
|
| This is an unbelievable coincidence that makes the
| zoonotic spillover hypothesis laughable. To a biologist,
| the likelihood of this happening by chance is clear:
| virtually 0. But explaining the size of the space of
| optimal solutions to a given binding problem versus the
| space of good solutions to the general public, well,
| that's really hard too. So an obvious and completely non-
| circumstantial piece of evidence is the last one in the
| public's mind. And we are still acting like there is a
| question of where the virus came from, and we will be for
| decades, or at least until the average level of biology
| education is raised by a few sharp degrees.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| That's untrue. Viruses which spillover may spread across
| humans at a low level of efficiency for months, mutating
| for higher affinity towards humans, and only becoming
| pandemic once a high level of affinity has been achieved.
|
| All viruses which have higher affinity for humans spilled
| over, didn't they?
| raccoondogs wrote:
| That's what happened with H1N1 but we know that hasn't
| happened with Sars2 because Sars2 only spreads
| efficiently with a furin cleavage site but the furin
| cleavage site also makes it more pathogenic so it would
| definitely not spread undetected.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Studies have found that people living near bats in Yunnan
| have immunity against this class of coronaviruses due to
| exposure, which would strongly blunt pathogenicity. There
| is also more to pathogenicity than you let on.
| randomperson01 wrote:
| [dead]
| varelse wrote:
| [dead]
| throwaway2990 wrote:
| > The spread of SARS-CoV-2 looks exactly like it originated
| in the Seafood market.
|
| Huh? No it doesn't. The discussion of a possible SARS
| outbreak started weeks before the seafood market incident.
| The lab leak theory started in China BEFORE the seafood
| market was pinned as the cause.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > If it was transported to the seafood market by someone
| who worked at the lab that is highly coincidental that the
| place they infected first just happened to be the most
| likely place for zoonotic spillover
|
| If we're going with highly coincidental pairings, it seems
| like we can't ignore "the disease originated in the only
| city in China to have an institute that specializes in
| virology, viral pathology and virus technology."
|
| I'm not convinced of any particular conclusion as to
| COVID's origin, but I don't down-weight the coincidence of
| the city of origin hosting WIV nearly as much as you appear
| to.
| danenania wrote:
| Also, zoonotic transfer happening naturally in any
| particular time and place is _extremely_ unlikely, even
| in places where the conditions are optimal.
|
| I always thought this was a good test for whether someone
| can apply Bayesian reasoning. It turns out not many can,
| including a lot of highly educated people.
|
| Without hard evidence to contradict it, lab leak should
| have always been the default hypothesis. That it hasn't
| is a case of political propaganda winning out over basic
| statistics.
| lamontcg wrote:
| Your prior should be that it was just like the SARS-CoV-1
| outbreak which happened in a different city without this
| research lab and also involved in a spillover in wet
| market of a virus whose closest known relative was found
| hundreds of miles away in bats (in close to the same area
| that RatG13 was found).
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Bayesian reasoning is that your prior is a 99.999% chance
| that the virus is natural, as all other viruses are.
|
| The probability that a virus would crop up in Wuhan out
| of all cities in China is 1/70.
|
| Feel free apply Bayes' formula.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| goatlover wrote:
| Where's the part with the virus being collected and
| brought to a lab in Wuhan where gain of function research
| was done prior to the outbreak? Feel free to include that
| in your formula.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| There is no evidence SARS-COV-2 was being studied.
|
| But even if you were to accept that, the bayesian
| reasoning would be that you'd say that the probability
| it's from Wuhan it's a leak is 100%, and 0% for any other
| city. You could go further and look at the viruses that
| have caused zoonoses in China in the past (the evidence
| is that hundreds of SARS-like coronaviruses have) and
| compare it to what was being studied. Even then, if you
| apply Bayes' formula, you'd have overwhelming odds
| towards a natural origin.
| upsidesinclude wrote:
| At this point can we not just state plainly, the whole
| denial argument is predicated on politics?
| secondcoming wrote:
| Some janitor or whatever sold an infected animal to the market.
| Clubber wrote:
| It could be as simple as someone got infected in the lab and
| went to the market.
| Pigalowda wrote:
| Right? As if any handling or safety gear and equipment is
| 100% perfect. Never any needle stick or glove failures.
| Respirators and protective clothing always 100% perfect.
| Everyone perfectly followed all lab safety precautions with
| no absent minded failures. Just perfect all the time
| forever.
|
| I've always thought it was a handling contamination that
| got into community spread. It's a very parsimonious
| explanation.
| Gasp0de wrote:
| Did you read the article? They patented a device to cut
| off blood flow to limbs in case of accidental injury with
| a needle.
| cheaprentalyeti wrote:
| If they were doing experiments with serialized passage
| through so-called humanized mice and they escaped you'd have
| the engineered virus suddenly showing up being carried by
| many different species at the wet market in spite of natural
| viruses jumping species much more slowly.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses
|
| There should be more attention on this. We're busy worrying
| about AI that can troll at a college level, while scientists
| are _still_ busy making frankenviruses after a pandemic
| plausibly caused by a lab leak.
| Fomite wrote:
| You've jumped from "do research" to "making frankenviruses" -
| which beyond being a sensationalist term with no formal
| definition, isn't necessarily the sum totality of viral
| research. Just the bit that the popular press likes writing
| lurid articles about.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Fair enough, but I'd file gain of function research in that
| category, it's common, and seeing a possible outcome of it,
| it's something we need to rethink very carefully.
| Fomite wrote:
| In that regards, I actually agree with you. It's been the
| better part of a decade since I saw a talk by a colleague
| I immensely respect arguing against it, and I think it's
| value (whether it caused this outbreak or not) is
| speculative at best.
|
| But I should not that not all viral engineering is gain
| of function, and while it gets a lot of attention, even
| in laboratory virology is relatively rare.
| srj wrote:
| It may just be that they went looking for covid cases there and
| found them. If they looked around the institute they may have
| found clusters there too.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| The article implies (but doesn't state) that RaTG13, although
| discovered in the Mojiang cave, was worked on in the Wuhan lab.
| It does state that it was being worked-on by Shi Zhengli
| ("Batwoman") and her team at the lab.
| onethought wrote:
| Exactly. The lab leak theory is a story of cherry picking
| evidence to match your conclusion.
|
| Why was the wet market on the other side of the city the only
| identified outbreak site if it came from the lab? There
| were/are many markets on the other side of the river that would
| be much more relevant to residents living and working on that
| side.
|
| People looking up flu symptoms in the middle of winter is not
| evidence of anything abnormal.
|
| I don't understand the intellectual effort going into the lab
| leak theory... it feels like some kind of state run propaganda
| piece, I assume to just keep a negative view on China in
| people's minds. It's crazy given that whatever the truth there
| is no consequence... literally an inconsequential endeavour
| lovemenot wrote:
| >> it feels like some kind of state run propaganda piece, I
| assume to just keep a negative view on China in people's
| minds.
|
| China is a fantastic country filled with amazing people,
| culture, history and so on. It is quite possible to recognise
| a country's positive characteristics while questioning
| specific actions by some of the people within that country.
| This is as true of China as it is of any other country.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > I assume to just keep a negative view on China in people's
| minds.
|
| America was involved with that lab, too. It should really be
| the rest of the world with a negative view of America and
| China.
| adh636 wrote:
| Trying to better under the origins of a global pandemic is
| not an inconsequential endeavor.
| onethought wrote:
| That's not what people are doing, they are trying to prove
| a lab leak theory, else all this effort would be in "how'd
| it get to that wet market" if you can't answer that, then
| you do not have a logical chain to its true origin lab leak
| or not.
| pessimizer wrote:
| How have you justified deciding that the only important
| question for anyone to answer is why it was in the wet
| market? What's the case for that?
|
| It wasn't _exclusively_ in the wet market, it was in lots
| of places.
| onethought wrote:
| Because right now that is the origin point. But we also
| know it was there for quite some time before it hopped to
| humans. It wasn't in a lot of places... it was just at
| the wet market as far as we know, we have no earlier
| outbreaks than that.
| darkerside wrote:
| > The map presented upfront from is also misleading, the early
| cases clustered around the market not the lab
|
| Is this a case of yet another heat map being a population
| density map? I assume the wet market is a popular local
| destination and gathering place, while the lab is not. You
| would expect there to be more cases where there are more
| people.
|
| I speculate in ignorance of the actual social dynamics in the
| city of Wuhan.
| beebmam wrote:
| It is excusable for a lab to accidentally leak a contaminant.
| It is not excusable to cover it up and prevent a full
| investigation, like China has done.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| Biorealism wrote:
| The NIH terminated the Wuhan Institute of Virology's
| subaward for continued refusal to share records last year.
| WHO is still pleading with the PRC to share data on both
| the animal trade and Wuhan labs.
|
| https://thebulletin.org/2022/08/nih-to-terminate-
| ecohealth-a...
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Not really what the parent was talking about
| jesusofnazarath wrote:
| [dead]
| TheBigSalad wrote:
| Only three labs in the world had Coronaviruses and this lab
| specialized in it. Yes the first cases were traced to the
| market, but it's in the same town as the one lab in the world
| that specializes in very similar viruses (which were never
| naturally observed nearby). It is objectively quite a
| coincidence if the virus didn't leak from that lab.
| 0x706B wrote:
| Source? Coronaviruses (e.g. SARS and MERS) have been
| researched all over the place as it was years ago (before
| COVID outbreak) already stated as one of the major virus
| groups with potential for pandemics.
|
| Prolly you'll have a hard time finding a metropolis which
| wasnt researching corona viruses.
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| Actually, the closest natural viruses to covid were sent to
| Wuhan for study. I mean, that is what the Wuhan institute of
| coronaviruses was built to do right?
|
| The indirect evidence of a lab leak theory is overwhelming
| frankly. And it doesn't require any malice. No one credible is
| saying china intentionally released the virus or built it with
| the intention of building a weapon.
|
| Gain of function research is real, scientists intentionally
| make viruses which _could_ start a pandemic. They do this for
| the purposes of knowledge and preparedness for the inevitable
| natural spillover events that will happen. It isn 't nefarious.
|
| But it is risky, and there many people now and before who
| thought it was a practice that should be curtailed because of
| the risk.
| Matl wrote:
| > The indirect evidence of a lab leak theory is overwhelming
| frankly.
|
| There was some indirect and even some more direct evidence of
| Iraq doing nuclear weapons research in some capacity at some
| point too, this is incredibly dangerous line to go own
| without being 250% sure. Indirect evidence simply doesn't cut
| it.
|
| > No one credible is saying china intentionally released the
| virus or built it with the intention of building a weapon.
|
| It may not be someone 'credible', but within the current
| context of the U.S. preparing for what increasingly looks
| like a direct confrontation with China, it sure suits a lot
| of neocons in Washington, who seem to always be failing
| upwards in the ranks despite having lost all credibility over
| a dozen times in the last decade alone.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Saddam intentionally let the WMD claims be made
| unchallenged because he wanted Iran to be reluctant to
| attack while Iraq was too weak to defend itself.
| smeagull wrote:
| [flagged]
| distortionfield wrote:
| No, it doesnt. All the "indirect evidence" of the lab
| leak hypothesis could be interpreted multiple other
| totally reasonable and likely ways, and it would be
| irresponsible to motivate foreign policy on that
| "indirect evidence".
| [deleted]
| qwerasdf5 wrote:
| Can you please list the other "totally reasonable and
| likely ways"? I'm interested.
| irjustin wrote:
| "Reasonable" could be simply truly accidental like
| someone carried a vial, drops it and then someone gets
| sick from that?
|
| The point the parent comment is trying to make is all we
| have is speculation and you can speculate either way.
| Just make whatever you want up in your head that doesn't
| include malice.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > "Reasonable" could be simply truly accidental like
| someone carried a vial, drops it and then someone gets
| sick from that?
|
| What you described is still the lab leak theory.
| irjustin wrote:
| Oh you're right, i'm supposed to support "not lab leak".
|
| Bats -> humans in the market.
|
| Point remains the same. We're all speculating because I
| agree with the statement that trying to create foreign
| policy based on speculation creates so many problems -
| Iraq war for one (but, being fair, supposedly that was
| credible).
| distortionfield wrote:
| The point is we will never know and anyone claiming
| otherwise is selling you something
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| Are you of the belief that the lab leak theory implies
| intention?
| irjustin wrote:
| i'm of the belief that we only have speculation.
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| The fact that we only have speculation is due to yet
| inability to find a natural source of covid and China's
| refusal to be a decent member of the world and instead
| chose to obstruct and hide as much as they could.
|
| But, I'm sure china would admit to the world that their
| research lab was the fuck up that killed millions of
| people. It isn't like china would ever try to censor and
| control information that makes them look bad.
| avereveard wrote:
| "they didn't make the research archives disappear
| intentionally, lee from accounting just dropped some tea
| on the server"
| steve76 wrote:
| [dead]
| boston_clone wrote:
| There is no such thing as "overwhelming" indirect evidence.
|
| To quote Doyle - "never theorize before you have data [...]
| you end up twisting facts to suit theories instead of
| theories to suit facts".
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| Maybe you are right, I shouldn't have characterized the
| evidence as indirect.
| [deleted]
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| >> No one credible is saying china intentionally released the
| virus or built it with the intention of building a weapon.
|
| The latter is what the article above is suggesting, that the
| Wuhan lab was working for the Chinese military to develop a
| virus for biological warfare research. For example, if you
| look at the ridiculous hero image of the article, you'll see
| someone who looks like they might be a Chinese military
| officer holding a clipboard and wearing a mask, while the
| Chinese flag's star is surrounded by what look like little
| stylised coronaviruses.
| makmanalp wrote:
| > Actually, the closest natural viruses to covid were sent to
| Wuhan for study
|
| Please don't "actually" something with an uncited statement
| without backing it up with any sort of detail. A news
| article? Anything, honestly.
|
| > that is what the Wuhan institute of coronaviruses was built
| to do right?
|
| Really? It's "Wuhan institute of virology". Not
| "coronaviruses". Right?
|
| I have no specific horse in this race but I feel like I'm
| losing my mind every time I read any discussion on this
| subject because there's always folks throwing around random
| statements as if they're established fact and I feel like at
| this point, on this specific subject, on this website, we
| should know better, geez.
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| I read this in a non-paywalled source a while ago, but this
| is all that easily came up in my search now. Maybe you
| think the title is sufficient to back up my claim, maybe
| you don't, IDK.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-05/covid-
| lik...
| m00x wrote:
| From wikipedia:
|
| > The institute has been an active premier research center
| for the study of coronaviruses.[6]
|
| > In 2015, an international team including two scientists
| from the institute published successful research on whether
| a bat coronavirus could be made to infect a human cell line
| (HeLa). The team engineered a hybrid virus, combining a bat
| coronavirus with a SARS virus that had been adapted to grow
| in mice and mimic human disease. The hybrid virus was able
| to infect human cells.[17][21]
|
| The evidence is pretty damning, and points to way too much
| to be coincidental. It's not solid evidence, but that would
| be impossible to get since China blocked anyone from
| visiting or doing independent investigations.
|
| My major and Msc are related to microbiology (which is
| highly related to virology), and I'd estimate it's a 95%
| chance of having originated from the lab.
| Fomite wrote:
| I've got a PhD in infectious disease epidemiology who got
| his start in researching respiratory pathogens and whose
| work on coronaviruses has been cited 387 times.
|
| I'd both put my estimate at _much_ lower than 95%, and I
| 'd be substantially less confident in it, since my
| expertise kicks in about two weeks after an initial
| spillover event occurs.
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| It is fact that a group that funds research in Wuhan (Eco
| health alliance) submitted a grant request to DARPA to
| fund research to engineer a coronavirus which could
| infect human lungs by inserted a specific cleavage site.
| Covid has that mutation exactly where the grant proposal
| planned to insert it. And no viruses in teh wild have
| been found to have that feature. This grant proposal was
| submitted in 2018.
|
| For covid to be natural it would have had to mutate in
| the same way as planned in the grant proposal within 2
| years of the grant proposal, and then travel hundreds of
| miles not infecting anyone on the way until it got to the
| city where this research was planned to be done.
|
| Think about it.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| > Think about it
|
| Did you consider that maybe the reason this proposal was
| written was because this mutation was the most likely way
| this kind of virus could mutate to infect humans?
|
| I don't understand why people keep throwing around all
| kind of unsubstantiated facts like if they suddenly made
| things clearer.
|
| The facts are not that complicated. Could the pandemic be
| linked to an accidental leak from a gain-of-function
| study at the Wuhan lab? Most certainly. Do we have
| evidence that it did? No, we don't. Could it come from
| somewhere else? Sure, it can. Was there a properly done
| inquiry with full collaboration from the lab and the host
| country? Absolutely not, China was extremely
| uncooperative and did all it could to control the
| narrative surrounding the pandemic.
|
| From that, I conclude that it's highly unlikely we will
| ever learn anything definitive. Therefor, discussing this
| is pretty much pointless.
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| Discussing this isn't pointless just because we don't
| have definitive proof. We need to determine what happened
| based on what we do know. 7+million people are dead. Gain
| of function is happening in labs all over the world.
| Humanity can do something here to reduce risk.
| [deleted]
| elmolino89 wrote:
| Despite rather intense searching the closest strain to
| C19 in the wild split ca 50 years ago. Please tell how do
| you introduce this famous mutation not into any of the
| commonly found covid viruses but create C19 differing
| from these.
|
| Who in a right mind (just leaving for a moment how) would
| do that? As: create a separate strain of coronavirus just
| to introduce one specific mutation.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > We need to determine what happened based on what we do
| know.
|
| Incorrect. We need to determine what happened based on
| all the evidence. We can't just make stuff up to fill in
| the blanks.
|
| i.e. If what we know doesn't contain facts essential to
| the determination, we can't just "think about it" harder.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > Think about it.
|
| That's the hard-hitting evidence that was missing.
|
| And that's why this topic is so taboo and annoying.
| People turn coincidence into proof.
|
| Clearly, you have an agenda that encourages people to
| stop looking at facts and instead to make things up they
| don't have answers for.
|
| Think about it. (This means I'm right, right? This means
| if you don't agree with me, you aren't thinking, right?)
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| It's an appeal to Occam's razor. The most simple
| explanation of why a novel virus started infecting people
| in a city with a virology lab is that the written plan to
| make covid in that lab was executed.
| godelski wrote:
| > No one credible is saying china intentionally released the
| virus or built it with the intention of building a weapon.
|
| To add to this, most countries have turned away from
| infectious biological weapons because they are near
| impossible to control. The the release of them might harm
| your enemies, but at a serious cost to yourself. It is like
| trying to cut off your enemy's leg by cutting off your own
| arm. It ends up kinda being like MAD except you're also the
| aggressor. The threat of a infectious weapon is not from
| other nations, but from a terrorist organization (which of
| course dramatically reduces risk). Not to say that this can't
| happen, but it is well known enough that were a contagious
| disease to get out, it would be more likely accidental. It
| would also be odd to release the disease into your own
| community first. I'm not saying it was or wasn't a lab leak
| or bioweapon, but if we're discussing weapon vs accident,
| there's good reason to believe a weapon is unlikely. Gain of
| research has significant value outside weapons and this also
| shows you why the weapon arguments against GoF aren't of high
| concern to those that are close to the work. Contagion
| weapons are the weapons of those with nothing left to lose
| (which aren't big/rich countries, even in dire
| circumstances).
| startupsfail wrote:
| Can the lab be sued out of existence for damages?
|
| It is quite clear that they did amplification research as
| they've planned. And had inserted the furin site into the
| coronavirus . And they've mismanaged the research and
| they've let the virus to spread. This had caused a lot of
| damage, in particular the deaths, economical damage, long-
| covid damages, mental illnesses and diminished IQ (covid
| brain fog). There've been some positive sides: diminished
| air travel, diminished carbon emissions, transition to work
| from home, more pedestrian zones in the cities, mRNA
| vaccine technology. But the negative side from the pandemic
| is still overwhelming.
|
| Arguably this lab should be sued out of existence for
| damages.
| irjustin wrote:
| That requires corporation of a foreign government that
| isn't friendly.
| sh34r wrote:
| > Can the lab be sued out of existence for damages?
|
| It's in China, not America. Come on now.
|
| The CCP might remove the lab from existence, but they're
| not gonna do it with a lawsuit.
| antonvs wrote:
| > And had inserted the furin site into the coronavirus
|
| A claim was made about that, but it's far from settled.
| One could argue it has been debunked. See "SARS-CoV-2
| furin cleavage site was not engineered":
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2211107119
|
| > And they've mismanaged the research and they've let the
| virus to spread.
|
| That's speculation. Irresponsible speculation, in fact,
| which has been pushed by people who should have known
| better. But they pushed it for jingoistic reasons.
|
| > Arguably this lab should be sued out of existence for
| damages.
|
| That's an emotional reaction which you're not examining
| rationally. If you remove the confirmation bias you're
| applying to the evidence, there's simply no substantial
| basis for the conclusions you're reaching.
| foobiekr wrote:
| Engineered is a very careful word choice. None of the
| properties they call out are things you would not expect
| from research involving gain of function by evolutionary
| means.
| peyton wrote:
| It's speculation because nobody's been allowed to
| investigate the lab thoroughly.
| oilchange wrote:
| > To add to this, most countries have turned away from
| infectious biological weapons because they are near
| impossible to control.
|
| Most countries ( small to mid-tier ) lack the expertise,
| will or reason for it. But most major countries are working
| on biological weapons. If you think the US, Russia, China,
| UK, France, Germany, Japan, Israel, etc aren't running bio-
| weapons labs, then you are being too trusting at best or
| too naive at worst. Or maybe I'm just being too cynical.
|
| > The the release of them might harm your enemies, but at a
| serious cost to yourself.
|
| Never prevented intentional disease warfare throughout
| history. What makes you think leaders aren't willing to
| hurt their own countries to hurt their enemies? More
| importantly, what makes you think these countries will
| develope bio-weapons, but not vaccines for them?
|
| > The threat of a infectious weapon is not from other
| nations, but from a terrorist organization (which of course
| dramatically reduces risk).
|
| Every major terrorist organization is or was created,
| funded and controlled by major nations.
|
| > Contagion weapons are the weapons of those with nothing
| left to lose (which aren't big/rich countries, even in dire
| circumstances).
|
| And yet, all weapons labs in history were created by
| big/rich countries. You so desperately want a world without
| bio-weapons that you are blinded to the contradictions in
| your argument.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| You wrote: But most major countries are
| working on biological weapons.
|
| And provided no evidence or sources.
| godelski wrote:
| > If you think the ... aren't running bio-weapons labs,
| then you are being too trusting at best or too naive at
| worst.
|
| No, they are. But that's a bit different. Though I
| understand the confusion. Gain of function research can
| be classified as weapons. You got to develop weapons to
| defend against them. And of course, momentum. Especially
| in politics, where once funding is given it is hard to
| take it away, though not hard to reduce. I'm more saying
| if they would seriously deploy such a weapon and how
| serious the research is.
|
| > What makes you think leaders aren't willing to hurt
| their own countries to hurt their enemies?
|
| Some yes, some no. I think most countries have learned
| that the Russian strategy doesn't lead to great outcomes.
| Then again, you think Russia would have learned it too.
| But most countries realize that you can't rule over the
| dead. But you're right, that I may be too trusting. As
| far as vaccines, it is hard to keep those secret.
| Especially if we're talking about a country like China
| with a billion people, where you have to distribute at
| least a few hundred million. You don't think a few are
| going to fall off the truck? There'd be a lot of money
| for such a situation. Or even just the recipe. I mean
| vaccines don't confer 100% immunity so it still comes
| with big costs to yourself. But you're right, Russia
| keeps doing the Russian strategy. Though this is more
| easily done in an authoritative country. This is a lot of
| what jcranmer is pointing to. One more thing to consider,
| it is hard to invade this region after. You might think
| the same thing about nuclear but there's a reason they've
| focused on increasing the explosion and decreasing the
| radiation. Same reasons.
|
| > Every major terrorist organization is or was created,
| funded and controlled by major nations.
|
| Not quite true, but if they were, then the above
| arguments would apply there so that no terrorist
| organization would get the bio weapons from the big
| countries. You might want to ask why there haven't been
| any dirty bombs, despite that this should be easier,
| especially after the collapse of the USSR where many
| nuclear materials went missing. They all went somewhere
| (smaller countries and probably bigger countries too, to
| keep away from smaller countries), but we'll probably
| never know the full extent.
|
| > And yet, all weapons labs in history were created by
| big/rich countries.
|
| I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. Not all
| weapons were created in big countries. But weapons like
| nuclear, bio, and others were from big countries because
| to have such a program is quite expensive. Currently
| bioweapons, of the kind we're discussing, are still
| fairly expensive. This may change as things become
| cheaper. But regardless, these types of weapons are more
| attractive to the crazy anarchist who wants to watch the
| world burn than the angry dictator. They just aren't
| practical in the modern globalized world.
|
| But there's got to be a logical reason for well over a
| century of research in the area and not seeing it used in
| practice. If it were a good weapon, it would have been
| used.
| oilchange wrote:
| > No, they are.
|
| Okay good, I'm glad we are agreed.
|
| > Some yes, some no.
|
| If some are, then "everyone" has to, especially major
| powers. Just think about it.
|
| > This is a lot of what jcranmer is pointing to.
|
| I debunked what he wrote.
|
| > the Russian strategy
|
| What's that?
|
| > Though this is more easily done in an authoritative
| country.
|
| No. It's done more easily in a democracy. An
| authoritative country never developed nuked and used it
| on innocent civilians. It was one of those wonderful
| democracies. Just like a wonderful democracy and our
| democratic friends overthrew the ukrainian democracy and
| now another wonderful democracy is invading ukraine. Most
| of the horror in this world has been done by democracies.
| Funny how all parties involved in ukraine are
| democracies...
|
| > Not quite true
|
| No. Absolutely true.
|
| > I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here.
|
| You wrote "Contagion weapons are the weapons of those
| with nothing left to lose (which aren't big/rich
| countries, even in dire circumstances)."
|
| And I was pointing out that all "contagion weapons" were
| created by big/rich countries. I was simply debunking
| your claim.
|
| > But there's got to be a logical reason for well over a
| century of research in the area and not seeing it used in
| practice.
|
| Has it not been used "in practice". Biological weapons
| have been used since ancient times. Biological weapons
| have been used more often than nuclear weapons.
|
| The blind and naive were adamant our agencies don't
| collect data and spy on us. And were absolutely shocked
| when it was revealed they do. Of course they do. As I
| said, people who are too naive or too trusting believe
| otherwise. I guess the third option are state actors or
| those who brainwashed by the media. Or maybe I'm just too
| cynical.
| godelski wrote:
| > If some are, then "everyone" has to
|
| Very clearly false dilemma.
|
| > I debunked what he wrote.
|
| That's a strong word for what you wrote.
|
| > What's that?
|
| I'd link it to you, but you said you don't want to read
| "silly blogs". So I'm not sure how I can communicate
| anything to you. I don't feel like it'd help. I think
| we're done here.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > But most major countries are working on biological
| weapons. If you think the US, Russia, China, UK, France,
| Germany, Japan, Israel, etc aren't running bio-weapons
| labs, then you are being too trusting at best or too
| naive at worst. Or maybe I'm just being too cynical.
|
| https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-
| use-ch... covers this in some detail (it's geared towards
| chemical weapons, but biological weapons are the same
| boat). In short, chemical and biological weapons just
| aren't useful. For any platform you put it on,
| conventional explosives will do more damage. For major
| militaries, there's no point in using them, which is why
| the "big" military powers have all signed up to the anti-
| chemical weapons and anti-biological weapons treaties,
| but not the anti-nuclear or anti-cluster munitions or
| anti-landmines, etc.
| oilchange wrote:
| > For major militaries, there's no point in using them,
| which is why the "big" military powers have all signed up
| to the anti-chemical weapons and anti-biological weapons
| treaties
|
| If chemical and biological weapons aren't useful, why
| does one need a treaty to ban them? Makes one wonder? Is
| there are treaty to ban feathers as weapons? The fact
| that there is an anti-biological weapons treaty is proof
| enough that countries are working on biological weapons,
| just like the anti-nuclear weapons treaty is proof that
| countries are working on nukes.
|
| The ability to think is a far greater tool than reading
| silly blogs. Take it from someone who has read too many
| silly blogs and watch too many silly youtube videos.
|
| Also, pretty much every treaty ( international and
| intranational ) has been broken. Some even say treaties
| are meant or created to be broken.
| godelski wrote:
| > If chemical and biological weapons aren't useful, why
| does one need a treaty to ban them?
|
| Serious question, are you surprised governments do things
| that aren't useful? That they'll focus more on signaling
| than utility? That's literally 80% of politics: show.
|
| > The fact that there is an anti-biological weapons
| treaty is proof enough that countries are working on
| biological weapons, just like the anti-nuclear weapons
| treaty is proof that countries are working on nukes.
|
| Now that we got the above out of the way, maybe notice
| that China, Russia, and the US have all signed the
| Biological Weapons Convention[0] (outlaw bio weapons).
| All signed during the cold war. Then maybe notice that
| China, Russia, and the US have NOT signed the ban on the
| use of nuclear weapons[1].
|
| > The ability to think is a far greater tool than reading
| silly blogs
|
| I agree. I mean just the dichotomy of [0] and [1] really
| tells a lot. You make a good point that governments are
| difficult to discuss because you can't take anything they
| do at face value so you have to dig in and think about
| their actions and what signals they are making.
|
| [0] https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/bwcsig
|
| [1] https://treaties.unoda.org/t/tpnw
| jcranmer wrote:
| Your attempts at "gotchas" here are unpersuasive. If the
| point of treaties is to be broken, why bother signing up
| to them in the first place? Perhaps more interestingly,
| why would a country sign up to some treaties banning
| weapons but not others, if its intent were to use all
| those weapons?
|
| Yes, countries can break treaties. But there is a real
| cost to doing so. The point of treaties (especially the
| anti-war treaties) is essentially to break a prisoner's
| dilemma: all parties can agree to do something that is
| mutually beneficial for everybody, but only when no one
| defects. The first arms control treaty was the Washington
| Naval Treaty, which was signed when most countries were
| literally unable to find the resources to keep up with
| the naval arms race and proposed by the one country that
| _could_.
|
| If you read the post I linked (I suspect you did not, as
| you are only reacting to my comments and not other
| material within the post), you'll see that there are many
| other lines of evidence we can use to ascertain the
| inutility of chemical weapons, not least of which is the
| _lack_ of its use in conflicts after WWI, even in
| existential state conflicts like WWII or the Arab-Israel
| wars.
|
| > If chemical and biological weapons aren't useful, why
| does one need a treaty to ban them?
|
| The same reason why we have laws against murder. The
| existence of the treaty isn't to keep people from doing
| something useful (indeed, if you look at which treaties
| are acceded to, it's the treaties that keep people from
| doing something useful that _don 't_ get the
| signatories). Instead, it's to signal the unwillingness
| to use it and to pressure _others_ not to consider its
| use. And if you know sufficiently few people are willing
| to use it, then you can avoid spending the money on
| countermeasures to chemical weapons.
| George83728 wrote:
| > _[...] infectious biological weapons because they are
| near impossible to control._
|
| You mean contagious, not infectious. Biological weapons
| which are infectious but _not_ particularly contagious,
| such as anthrax, are much easier to control and have been
| the focus of most biological weapons research. Biological
| weapons are banned and aren 't, used not because they don't
| work, but because other things work better and with less
| political fallout.
|
| And FWIW, very contagious pathogens could be used as
| weapons for strategic effect if you had reason to believe
| they would hurt your economy less than your enemy's. For
| instance, if you believe your authoritarian government will
| allow you to flatten the curve but liberal governments will
| have a disordered response that precludes this. I'm not
| saying they did it, but the possibility isn't patently
| absurd.
| Arkhaine_kupo wrote:
| > No one credible is saying china intentionally released the
| virus
|
| Half this very thread. "you couldn't mention the lab without
| being called a racist" and then they proceed to talk about
| china bioengineering weapons instead of an accidental lab
| leak.
|
| The constant "the news suppresed this because of trump" is
| also a pretty loud dogwhistle.
|
| The idea that a lab could have a leak was studied, there were
| multiple papers on it. The evidence did not add up to much,
| other than the circumstancial. The zootropic evidence had a
| bit more weight but still came up with "we might not have
| enough data to come up with a conclusive answer".
|
| Because scientists said they leaned on that evidence the
| popular science outlets explained it as "origin is a bat not
| a lab leak" which should have had more nuance in the
| headlines but popular science outlets try to summarise hard
| science into easy to understand articles and they are fairly
| guilty of clickbait (how many times have we cured cancer, or
| some physics experiment done something close to a black
| hole). And between that and a number of bad actors starting
| conspiracy theories about the lab being a hidden bioweapon
| lab and China releasing it intentionally the discourse got
| all sorts of distorted.
|
| The problem is Bioweapon dudes hid behind lab leak concerns
| and the lack of evidence from a scientific prespeective gave
| the wet market Patient 0 more visibility. To this day, half
| this thread is people with conspiracy theories hidding behind
| the lab leak. Makes a conversation about it almost entirely
| useless when you engage with someone and a few messages in
| they say the media is jewish and wanted to destroy the
| economy with lockdowns to make trump lose (this is a comment
| on this very thread further up, although i think they have
| been shadowbanned already)
| julianeon wrote:
| There is a huge difference though between "lab leak" meaning
| "a wild virus collected and stored at the Wuhan lab escaped",
| vs. "biomedical engineers manufactured a super weapon which
| escaped." I think the evidence, or at least the plausibility,
| of the former is excellent. For the latter, it's poor.
| raccoondogs wrote:
| That's not correct. There's evidence of genetic engineering
| in the genome of the virus. There's a 2018 DARPA DEFUSE
| proposal from scientists at WIV/UNC/EcoHealth Alliance
| which essentially predicts what SARS-COV-2 would look like.
| nextos wrote:
| I think it is also worth adding that there is good evidence
| of some lab leaks that caused pandemics in the past.
|
| See for example:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_Kingdom_foot-
| and-m...
|
| In my opinion, gain of function is too dangerous with current
| security measures, and we should consider a moratorium. Lab
| biocontainment is exceptionally hard.
| arcticbull wrote:
| More specifically there were a few lab escapes of
| coronaviruses (SARS) in China that Beijing copped to in the
| early 2000s [1]. It happens to everyone, way more than it
| should. Yes, including America. [2]
|
| [edit] To be clear, I'm not saying this definitely did or
| did not happen, I don't know. I'm saying if it came out
| later that it did, I wouldn't be surprised.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7096887/
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosec
| urity...
| whyenot wrote:
| In the mid 1960s, my mom worked in an infectious disease
| lab. One day, her and her colleagues were tasked with
| cleaning out a freezer full of samples. Shortly thereafter
| her and everyone else in the lab got a flu-like illness
| that did not clear up for many days.
|
| It really makes me wonder how many lab leaks may have
| happened during this time period when we started collecting
| and storing samples but we didn't yet have the ability to
| track diseases like we do today.
| joering2 wrote:
| Back in 2009 I used to date a girl in Connecticut. She
| was attending Yale. She was a very nice person but very
| sloppy. She would always break something or spill
| something, it was her nature. One day she told me she's
| running late with school stuff so "meet me at the lab". I
| came in, got thru security and went to her lab. There she
| was feeding some 200 mosquitoes sick with malaria,
| buzzing in a rather small jar, all packed there nicely.
| This was her assignment for 3 weeks that she had to do
| twice a day. I could never get over the fact how little
| security was in place and how, if jar would break, there
| was absolutely no way to catch them all, in the middle of
| summer, with all windows wide open. I will never forget
| this story...
| SantalBlush wrote:
| Well I don't have any mildly interesting anecdotes about
| dating a bat who got sick in a cave, so I guess all the
| evidence points to a lab leak.
| peyton wrote:
| It's worth investigating the lab to gather evidence. I
| think that is the point of the anecdote; things happen.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| I was under the impression that there already were
| investigations, so if your assumption is true, then the
| anecdote would be too late.
|
| But it's intellectually dishonest of you to pretend that
| was in fact the purpose of the anecdote, and not to serve
| as evidence of a lab leak.
| thsksbd wrote:
| [dead]
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| I saw an interview with a virologist, but I don't remember
| where (somewhere on YouTube). He said that there _is_ a
| moratorium on gain of function research, but that it's a
| joke because virology is pretty much about studying gain of
| function.
| dekhn wrote:
| Even better: modern gene therapy is done with
| lentiviruses which were derived from HIV. This is
| commonly done; thousands of research labs around the
| world do this as a regular practice. We typically call
| them lentiviruses, rather than HIV-derived, though. https
| ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lentiviral_vector_in_gene_ther..
| .
| tripletao wrote:
| Lentiviral vectors are engineered to make them less
| harmful (and hopefully beneficial) to humans. They're
| also tested to ensure they're replication-incompetent, so
| that even if they did turn out to be harmful they
| couldn't spread from patient to patient.
|
| https://www.criver.com/eureka/why-are-lentivirus-vector-
| safe...
|
| The gain of function research of concern takes viruses
| already capable of sickening and killing humans (or their
| close relatives), and deliberately makes them deadlier
| and easier to spread among humans. This is a tiny
| fraction of virology, and has yet to deliver any
| practical benefit.
|
| There's a legitimate concern that an overbroad ban on
| gain-of-function research could restrict safe and
| beneficial activities. The WIV's work was pretty far at
| the dangerous extreme, though--Ralph Baric's work was
| already controversial, and the WIV was working with a
| greater diversity of viruses, at lower BSL.
| dekhn wrote:
| While many people define gain-of-function in virology as
| "enhancing existing attributes which would promote
| virulence", molecular biologists in general are more open
| to the idea that other functions, such as gene therapy,
| would also qualify as gain-of-function.
|
| Either way my point was that we actively use a known
| highly transmissible virus, with some parts removed,
| under the general assumption that it's safe, and it's
| been demonstrated to not cause large issues (compared to
| other problems in gene therapy). I think people should be
| aware of that and in some sense I am surprised there
| isn't more attention placed on this practice.
| tripletao wrote:
| There's a recording from 2014 where David Relman and
| Ralph Baric talk about that distinction:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw-nR6-4kQQ&t=2466s
|
| I said "gain of function research of concern", which is
| vague but seems to have become the standard phrase to
| convey that narrower sense. There's definitely some grey,
| but the WIV's work was pretty deep in the black.
|
| I'm reading more about lentiviral vectors now, and not
| totally comforted to see all the ways the earlier
| generations could regain replication competence. That
| still seems much less frightening to me than GOFROC,
| which is deliberately just one containment failure away
| from a novel pandemic.
| nextos wrote:
| There was a NIH moratorium, but it was lifted in 2017.
|
| I don't agree about the point of virology being just
| about studying gain of function. There are tons of things
| you can study in virology without needing to create novel
| viruses.
| whyenot wrote:
| Yes, but are those things going to get you grants,
| tenure, and the recognition that doing something more...
| "cutting edge" (blech) like GoF research?
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| Fair enough, I know almost nothing about it.
| russdill wrote:
| Why is the gain of function thing always thrown in? This
| makes the case much harder to prove and seems entirely
| unnecessary. The family of viruses is already very contagious
| and potentially dangerous with covid19 hardly being the worst
| combination of the two properties.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Because the virus was never found in the wild, so it seems
| likely.
|
| Also because gain of function research is risky as hell
| with seemingly little benefit. The same lab had requested
| funds to do it on viruses that were much deadlier.
| russdill wrote:
| Why is it the expectation that the specific strain would
| be noted in the wild before the start of a pandemic? Is
| there precedent for such a thing?
| zosima wrote:
| Yes, the zoonotic origins of e.g SARS and MERS were found
| shortly after the outbreaks.
|
| In fact COVID seems somewhat unique amongst modern
| maladies to not have a clear zoonotic origin.
| russdill wrote:
| It doesn't appear that there is a clear zoonotic origin
| for SARS-CoV-1 and MERS either. The case is
| circumstantial in a similar way to SARS-CoV-2. Yes there
| are several animal reservoirs that carry similar viruses,
| but there wasn't a specific one found from which any of
| the 3 strains came.
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| Covid has a novel mutation never seen in any natural
| coronavirus. Further there was a grant proposal from 2018
| to insert the identical mutation as found in covid. There
| was a plan to engineer covid 2ish years before covid
| existed.
|
| But I'm sure nature evolving this exact mutation
| coincidentally in a relatively short period after
| scientist documented their plans to engineer it is an
| equally likely outcome.
| elmolino89 wrote:
| Which mutation are you talking about?
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| "But what was really notable about this grant proposal
| was that they proposed to insert cleavage sites, similar
| to the mystifying furin cleavage site in the SARS-CoV-2
| genetic sequence, and to insert those into their
| coronavirus sequences to see if it would make them more
| infectious. And to many people, when that was exposed,
| that DARPA grant -- and it only got exposed, I believe,
| last year -- that really looked like a kind of smoking
| gun, which was that the research that was being proposed
| in the DARPA grant looked like a kind of directional
| arrow to a SARS-CoV-2-like virus. So that was quite
| significant." -
| https://theintercept.com/2022/05/06/deconstructed-lab-
| leak-c...
|
| "Farzan was "bothered by the furin site and has a hard
| time explaining that as an event outside the lab (though,
| there are possible ways in nature, but highly unlikely)."
| On the question of whether the virus had a natural origin
| or came from some sort of accidental lab release, Farrar
| reported that Farzan was "70:30" or "60:40" in favor of
| an "accidental-release" explanation and that "Bob" -- an
| apparent reference to Robert Garry -- was also surprised
| by the presence of a furin cleavage site in this virus.
| Farrar quoted Bob saying: "I just can't figure out how
| this gets accomplished in nature. ... it's stunning." -
| https://theintercept.com/2023/01/19/covid-origin-nih-
| emails/
| russdill wrote:
| Can you explain how "similar to" becomes "identical" in
| your retelling?
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| There are a number of details about it which are the same
| as the plans from 2018. I don't think it's reasonable to
| think the plans of scientists don't get revised as they
| work. And as soon as the virus starts spreading, even in
| test mice in the lab, it will start to mutate. So it is
| entirely possible that what leaks from a lab is a natural
| mutation off of an engineered virus.
|
| Trying to use difference in details in this case to sow
| doubt isn't reasonable in my opinion because it's details
| that are realistically impossible to nail down.
| russdill wrote:
| I personally find it quite unsurprising that researchers
| in virology might be researching future scenarios that
| seem like a future possibility.
| cygx wrote:
| Refutation: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2211107119
|
| I'm not qualified to evaluate these arguments on their
| merit.
| HardlyCurious wrote:
| I'm not qualified to evaluate the claims either, but I'm
| not convinced the authors are trustworthy. They say:
|
| "Harrison and Sachs (1) allege that scientists at NIH and
| elsewhere, including myself and colleagues, conspired to
| suppress theories of a laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2.
| This is false. A possible laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2
| was discussed in our earlier publications"
|
| But there absolutely was a conspiracy to suppress the lab
| leak theory. This conspiracy is why the infamous letter
| published in the lancet that admonished the lab leak
| theory as a 'conspiracy theory's was retracted by the
| lancet. Peter daszak was one of the signers of the
| letter, but it came out he attempted to avoid signing the
| letter even though he arranged the entire thing. The
| reason he didn't want to sign it? In his words:
|
| "so it has some distance from us and therefore doesn't
| work in a counterproductive way." -
| https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/wuhan-lab-
| collaborat...
|
| Why might he feel that way? Well for one his name was on
| the DARPA grant proposal from 2018 to engineer a
| coronavirus with the same mutation covid has.
| elmolino89 wrote:
| """However, with analogy to influenza, it was shown many
| years ago that the simple insertion of a polybasic site
| into an H3 virus does not result in a high pathogenicity
| phenotype7 and is likely to only function in the context
| of a series of other genomic changes provided by a
| process of natural selection."""
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS266
| 6-5...
| goatlover wrote:
| Because if it so happens that gain of function research
| accidentally caused a global pandemic, we need to know so
| we can properly evaluate the risk of continuing such
| research. Which could also be part of the motivation for
| governments to cover that up. I'm not saying that's
| necessarily true, but I haven't seen that it's false
| either, and the way China and other officials and related
| expecrts have acted, trying to dismiss the lab leak theory
| as just wild conspiracy theories or politically motivated,
| makes me suspicious.
|
| There were serious attempts to completely shut the
| conversation down and prevent investigations into there
| being a lab leak.
| russdill wrote:
| Your argument here is circular. There are other viruses
| from the same family that nearly caused a global
| pandemic.
| goatlover wrote:
| So it would be okay if it was a lab leak where gain of
| function was used because similar viruses almost caused a
| pandemic? I doubt the general public would see it that
| way.
| russdill wrote:
| The discussion isn't whether labs need to be secure, or
| if a lab leak is bad. The discussion is whether it not
| it's likely that SARS-CoV-19 was a lab leak.
| [deleted]
| prepend wrote:
| > indication of any ill-intent
|
| I don't think ill-intent is the accusation, I think the
| argument is that the lab has poor safety protocols and made
| errors. I haven't studied the "lab leak theory" extensively,
| but everything I read seems to be about lab failures resulting
| in a leak, not anything purposeful or ill-intentioned.
| kcplate wrote:
| This is the straw man that people who want to argue against
| the possibility lab leak use to try and ad hominem the person
| arguing for the possibility.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| The article claims that Chinese army researchers were at the
| lab researching viral weapons. That sounds like ill-intent to
| me.
|
| It also states that Covid-19 is the only Coronavirus
| discovered with a furin cleavage site on the spike, and that
| the lab had applied for funding to research the insertion of
| such a site.
|
| I don't think anyone is suggesting that the lab deliberately
| launched a pandemic by deliberately releasing the pathogen
| _on its own doorstep_.
| Ireallyapart wrote:
| > The article claims that Chinese army researchers were at
| the lab researching viral weapons. That sounds like ill-
| intent to me.
|
| The US does weapons research it does not mean ill intent.
| The Chinese does weapons research for the same reason the
| US does it.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Well, no one knowledgeable about the field. I have,
| unfortunately, heard otherwise intelligent people saying
| that the Chinese government doesn't mind sacrificing it's
| own people, and did launch it in its own city on purpose
| (which is, to be clear, ridiculous).
|
| "Never ascribe to conspiracy, what is adequately explained
| by incompetence".
|
| I think the evidence is pretty clear that at least the
| Chinese government believes that the covid-19 virus came
| from their lab (they could, of course, be mistaken about
| that).
| staunton wrote:
| > I think the evidence is pretty clear that at least the
| Chinese government believes that the covid-19 virus came
| from their lab
|
| What evidence are you referring to?
| revelio wrote:
| Unfortunately, the article states explicitly that there was
| ill intent and extensive PLA involvement with the lab.
|
| _The military was also given positions of responsibility in
| the Wuhan institute, according to a US Senate report. A book
| published in 2015 by the military academy discusses how Sars
| viruses represent a "new era of genetic weapons" that can be
| "artificially manipulated into an emerging human disease
| virus, then weaponised and unleashed".
|
| The authors are PLA researchers, and one of the book's
| editors has collaborated on numerous scientific papers with
| Wuhan scientists. They discuss how Sars can be weaponised by
| fusing it with other viruses and "serial passaging" the
| resulting mutant to make it more dangerous.
|
| The investigators believe the Chinese military had taken an
| interest in developing a vaccine for the viruses so they
| could be used as potential bioweapons. If a country could
| inoculate its population against its own secret virus, it
| might have a weapon to shift the balance of world power._
| bostonsre wrote:
| If true, it's probably good that they were incompetent in
| leaking the virus and incompetent in making a vaccine to
| front run the virus. Wonder if that would have started
| world war 3 of they successfully vaccinated their
| population then either accidentally or on purpose released
| the virus.
| revelio wrote:
| Given how people are reacting here, they could literally
| release it at the same time as mass vaccinating their own
| population with pre-stockpiled vaccine, assert that it
| was simply the massive superiority of Chinese science
| that allowed it and western governments/media would
| immediately swallow this story whole.
|
| The evidence about what was happening is not only
| overwhelming but notice how not a single government is
| going to lift a finger about it. The NIH just _refunded_
| this work and the Biden admin doesn 't give a shit.
| They're all deep in denial at this point and will never
| even admit to what has happened, let alone start WW3 over
| it.
| Amezarak wrote:
| > Additionally, the closest relative to SARSCov2 that has been
| identified (RaTG13) was found in a cave in Mojiang county in
| Yunnan, over 1,000 km away, with no evidence that it was ever
| studied in the Wuhan lab.
|
| Maybe I'm deeply confused, but the Wuhan lab was reported by
| NYMag to be the one that _discovered_ RaTG13.
|
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca...
|
| > How Did It Get Out? 1. The Tongguan Mine Shaft in Mojiang,
| Yunnan, where, in 2013, fragments of RaTG13, the closest known
| relative of SARSCoV-2, were recovered and transported to the
| Wuhan Institute of Virology; 2. The Wuhan Institute of
| Virology, where Shi Zhengli's team brought the RaTG13 sample,
| sequenced its genome, then took it out of the freezer several
| times in recent years;
| jug wrote:
| Also, before one draws conclusions based on the _kind_ of virus
| that is researched, coronaviruses aren't even uncommon. So
| better evidence is clearly necessary than innuendo.
| Biorealism wrote:
| It's not just a coronavirus, it's a sarbecovirus with a furin
| cleavage site never seen before in sarbecoviruses. The
| nearest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 are found in Yunnan and Laos.
| The only link with Wuhan is WIV's sampling in both locations.
|
| In 2018, WIV was part of a proposal with EcoHealth Alliance
| and UNC to add furin cleavage sites into novel SARS-related
| bat coronaviruses. DARPA declined to fund it. This
| investigation suggests the work went ahead. Something Nick
| Patterson suggested often occurs even when funding is
| declined. WIV had both NIAID and CAS grants to study
| spillover risk of SARS-related coronaviruses. They were also
| doing classified work with the PLA from 2017.
| tripletao wrote:
| > Additionally, the closest relative to SARSCov2 that has been
| identified (RaTG13) was found in a cave in Mojiang county in
| Yunnan, over 1,000 km away, with no evidence that it was ever
| studied in the Wuhan lab.
|
| As others have noted, this is mostly wrong. The WIV is the only
| lab in the world ever to publish a genome for RaTG13. They'd
| published a portion (under a different name, Ra4991) before the
| onset of the pandemic. The similarity to SARS-CoV-2 made it
| obvious they had something relevant, so they published the rest
| after. Perhaps you meant there's no evidence that the WIV ever
| had live RaTG13, and that's true--indeed, there's no evidence
| that anyone ever has, and some highly speculative claims that
| it might be an in silico fraud.
|
| It's also not the closest relative anymore. From your other
| comments here, I believe your knowledge is about a year behind;
| you're repeating many old arguments that even those arguing
| most strongly against a possible research-related origin have
| long since abandoned.
|
| > The map presented upfront from is also misleading, the early
| cases clustered around the market not the lab [0].
|
| The market was the first big cluster, but the earliest cases
| show much less structure. See the paragraph beginning "A later
| study by academics at Wuhan University located the hotspots in
| Wuhan where people were reporting on social media that they
| needed treatment for Covid", which I believe is intended as
| explanation for that map (though that's not completely clear to
| me).
|
| In any case, there's no reason to expect the first identified
| cluster in the same location as the first introduction. For
| example, SARS-CoV-2 must have been introduced into other
| continents at airports and seaports; but the first clusters
| were elsewhere, at nursing homes, choir practices, and other
| locations where the (a) the virus spread easily, and (b) the
| patients are likely to get sick enough for people to notice.
|
| > Furthermore, several different isolates were found in the
| market, indicating that SARSCoV2 had been circulating before
| the epidemic took off.
|
| I guess you're referring here to Pekar et. al? Their "different
| isolates" are literally just two SNPs apart. Roughly 1/10 of
| human-to-human transmissions result in two lineages at least
| that different, so this seems intuitively like it could easily
| evolve in cryptic human spread. Pekar did some complicated
| epidemiological modeling that claims otherwise, but I don't
| think it means much; see for example the criticism at
|
| https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.10.511625v1
|
| https://twitter.com/NimwegenLab/status/1563490916006264833
|
| https://twitter.com/nizzaneela/status/1509431997713764352
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| I'm sure most of this is true or at least true-ish but to be
| appropriately skeptical, all evidence which has a Chinese
| source here should be considered as potentially made up.
|
| Regardless of whether or not there was a coverup, the Chinese
| government has certainly _acted like_ it was covering something
| up.
|
| The circumstantial evidence is sort of ridiculous here though.
| An institute with weak safety controls experimenting with
| creating novel pathogens has an outbreak of a novel pathogen
| next door? No no, it's because of climate change (an actual
| argument I have seen).
| lamontcg wrote:
| > the Chinese government has certainly acted like it was
| covering something up.
|
| Yes, they covered up the existence of racoon dogs and other
| susceptible animals at the market.
| oneshtein wrote:
| They may cover up something completely orthogonal to Covid.
| For example, they may cover up a corruption scheme, to steal
| money granted for research, or they acted as proxy for
| Russians, to spy at USA, or they mismanaged facility and
| leaked virus from the lab in Wuhan second time, AFTER the
| initial outbreak (1.5-2.5 month of delay between projected
| start of epidemic in mid-September-mid-October and start of
| epidemic in Wuhan in December must be explained somehow),
| etc.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| The "circumstantial evidence" is only novel if the event in
| question is novel, which the emergence of a new strain of a
| virus is not.
|
| It is certain that a new strain of some virus is emerging
| right now next to a lab that works with viruses, because that
| is a thing that happens continuously in nature, and labs
| exist within nature. It's also likely that such a new strain
| will not cause human illness, as most viruses do not.
|
| SARS-COV-2 only looks novel to humans because it made a lot
| of humans sick. There were tons of allegations that HIV was
| created in a lab too. This says more about our self-regard
| than about the virus itself.
| JPLeRouzic wrote:
| > " _There were tons of allegations that HIV was created in
| a lab too._ "
|
| Scientists' best guess is that the precursor of the most
| common "M" virus jumped from the Cameroon chimps to humans
| sometime before 1931.
|
| https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/virus/origins
| ....
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| This would all be more compelling if the WIV were not
| _explicitly experimenting with creating viruses like SARS-
| COV-2_! If HIV had emerged proximal to _a lab experimenting
| with creating viruses like HIV_ then that lab origin theory
| would be much more credible!
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Saying "viruses like SARS-COV-2" only makes sense for
| broad applications of the word "like."
|
| As other comments have pointed out, while that lab was
| working with coronaviruses, none of the strains were
| genetically close to SARS-COV-2. Coronavirus is a broad
| category of viruses.
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| Betacoronaviruses with SARS-like attributes and natural
| reservoirs in bats is supposed to be a "broad application
| of the word 'like'"? Bit of a stretch, no?
| stormfather wrote:
| According to who? The lab?
| living_room_pc wrote:
| > Most importantly, the general reader should know that all
| labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses.
| After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses.
|
| That is completely untrue. Agricultural labs for instance
| research plant viruses which are _incompatible_ with humans
| completely. Still these plant virus would have to be researched
| under stringent isolation because of the damage they may pose
| to crops.
|
| > Most importantly, the general reader should know
|
| Speak on our level, don't baby us.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| pcrh wrote:
| Agricultural viruses are dangerous to human food security. At
| least the ones under study usually are.
| peteradio wrote:
| > Most importantly, the general reader should know that all
| labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses.
| After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses.
| So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is
| not in itself an indication of any ill-intent.
|
| What exactly are you trying to say here anyway? If they
| were researching some other virus type it wouldn't be
| getting a look. But they were researching coronavirus.
| ajross wrote:
| My position hasn't changed for years: if covid was really a lab
| creation we'd know, because someone would have told us. An
| email dump, a memo, a document, an interview. _Something_ would
| have leaked out. The incentives are just too high and the
| access is too pervasive[1] to believe otherwise.
|
| Is it possible? Sure! Is it likewise possible that some of the
| circumstantial claims about WIV are true? Sure! But if someone
| made this thing, someone else would have told us by now.
|
| [1] This is science! There are notes and logs and backups and
| email and chat and whiteboard photos and conference attendees
| and visiting scholars, all spread around a population all
| trained to compete with each other.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Shouldn't an oppressive regime change the math here? The
| ability to suppress potential whistleblowers means the
| absence of whistleblowers isn't all that convincing. Compared
| to moon landing conspiracy theories, where this argument is
| very convincing imo
| ajross wrote:
| Again, these are scientists. You really don't think one of
| them could move to a post at Stanford or wherever and spill
| the tea? No one has an old copy of an incriminating memo
| they can forward to a friend in Taipei? And regardless, the
| PRC does _not_ in fact have a great record in the opsec
| department even within its military and espionage arms. How
| many "Chinese spies" get arrested every year?
|
| Part of any conspiracy theory is positing a great
| totalitarian enemy who is able to keep all these important
| truths from The People. The PRC is economically large and
| somewhat questionably ambitious. It's absolutely not the
| kind of super state people want to imagine.
| bostonsre wrote:
| If the military was indeed involved, then it seems highly
| plausible that they would have been able to keep
| communications under control and that they would be able
| to repress a few dozen workers. Threats against them and
| their families would probably work pretty well.
| ovi256 wrote:
| > You really don't think one of them could move to a post
| at Stanford or wherever and spill the tea? No one has an
| old copy of an incriminating memo they can forward to a
| friend in Taipei
|
| Not after the top PLA vaccine researcher, Zhou Yusen
| died, allegedly "falling off the roof of the WIV" in May
| 2020. That sends a loud message.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| > You really don't think one of them could move to a post
| at Stanford or wherever and spill the tea?
|
| When? There's a pretty short window where a WIV scientist
| might have known the subject they were studying had
| escaped the lab before the PRC did. Certainly by January
| 2020 the PRC could've clamped down on those scientists.
|
| Spies caught outside the country don't tell me much about
| internal operations.
|
| ETA: I think my thinking here is pretty colored by Tank
| Man, whose name is unknown. The CCP claims they don't
| know anything about him. Even if that's true, presumably
| he had friends, family, and fellow protestors who have
| decided it would be a very bad idea to even give his
| name.
| Biorealism wrote:
| It took over a decade to confirm the Sverdlovsk anthrax
| outbreak was the result of an outbreak. In that case
| intelligence did suspect an accidental cause although
| scientists argued contaminated meat was the cause.
| Information can be tightly controlled under authoritarian
| regimes. Recall those who even reported the outbreak in the
| community faced recriminations.
|
| What is known is the nearest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 are
| found in Yunnan and Laos. Both areas WIV sampled and they
| refuse to share their records with WHO or the NIH.
| toomim wrote:
| We still don't know what happened to JFK, 60 years later.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| This is a really great point. And it may not be knowable
| beyond what we already know.
| ajross wrote:
| Yikes. I mean, yes, in this sense you're right. We've never
| found conclusive _disproof_ of the various conspiracy
| theories around the assassination and have been forced into
| a consensus that, y 'know, Oswald shot him. But you don't
| believe that. And nothing is going to make you. So from
| you're perspective "we still don't know". WIV is going to
| be the same. You'll never get the _disproof_ you demand, so
| you 'll continue to disbelieve the consensus opinion.
|
| Yours is a world where disproof rules, and conspiracies are
| assumed true until proven false. I'm sure it's
| entertaining, but it's not "true" any more than mine is.
|
| In my world, Oswald _probably_ shot JFK and covid was
| _probably_ a natural virus, because those are the
| hypotheses that demand the least of the existing evidence.
| I 'm willing to change my priors with more evidence, but
| not because of the lack of disproof of an entertaining
| counter-hypothesis.
| toomim wrote:
| More to the point-- the US Government still hasn't
| released the classified documents that describe what
| happened to JFK.
|
| I don't personally hold an opinion one way or another on
| JFK, but the fact is that the information on what
| happened still hasn't leaked out.
| latency-guy2 wrote:
| We also did not know that Cuba housed missles from Russia
| during the crisis. We also did not know to the extent that
| Cuba's leadership explicitly did have plans to strike the
| US alongside their Soviet allies.
|
| It took until 1992 for what appears to be the truth to be
| discovered, 3 decades with far more people involved in the
| process, and a much darker outcome than a man being
| assassinated.
| dekhn wrote:
| The us had credible satellite evidence of soviets
| building housings for nuclear warheads in Cuba during and
| before the crisis.
| https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/photos.htm
| (perhaps I misunderstand your argument; 1992 was when our
| knowledge was formally confirmed, IIUC)
| tim333 wrote:
| There has been stuff leaking out. The DEFUSE paper for
| example. As to why someone in the Wuhan lab wouldn't leak
| direct info, you are dealing with a military related lab in
| the country with the highest number of executions in the
| world. That could be a disincentive.
| Etherlord87 wrote:
| What is the time limit a secret of this magnitude could
| survive without being revealed by someone? A year, two years?
| If we look at our history, we will only see secrets that were
| revealed within that maximum period?
|
| Snowden revealed quite shocking information, and I think it
| is safe to say the secret of mass surveillance was going on
| for much longer than 4 years.
| ajross wrote:
| And if such information pops up, I will (with great
| surprise) re-evaluate my priors. Nonetheless I think
| history bears out my intuition here. The _overwhelming_
| majority of conspiracies likes this, especially ones in
| fundamentally civilian organizations like science labs, don
| 't survive a year if that.
| ergodic1 wrote:
| Making the claim that you know the proportion of
| conspiracies that get reported implies you know the
| number of conspiracies not reported.
|
| Im not aware of any way you could know that or the
| relative proportion of each.
|
| Where do you get your certainty here?
| ajross wrote:
| I have no certainty, that's the point! The evidence for
| natural evolution is pretty reasonable (it matches every
| other pandemic ever -- these are hardly unknown!), the
| evidence for lab genesis is at best circumstantial and
| frankly pretty heavily spun by everyone dealing in it.
|
| You want the fact that I can't prove you wrong to be
| evidence that you're right, and that's not how logic
| works.
| ergodic1 wrote:
| I think you misunderstood. Your claim is:
|
| "The overwhelming majority of conspiracies likes this,
| especially ones in fundamentally civilian organizations
| like science labs, don't survive a year if that."
|
| How do you know that the overwhelming majority of
| conspiracies don't survive a year if that? It's like
| sampling sick people and concluding that all people are
| sick. Without an estimate of the number of conspiracies
| that actually are kept hidden (which to me seems nearly
| impossible), how could you possibly know the proportion
| as you claimed?
|
| This seems like a base rate fallacy to me.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy
| ajross wrote:
| It's an intuition based on a lifetime of watching dumb
| bureaucrats try to hide stuff and failing. But your logic
| is symmetric: where are all the successfully hidden
| conspiracies then? Obviously your response will be "we
| don't know by definition because they're hidden", which
| sorta makes your point non-falsifiable, doesn't it?
|
| I'll put my money on bureaucrats being dumb over
| globalist nation state super autocracy every day.
| Etherlord87 wrote:
| His point would be non-falsifiable if he claimed to the
| opposite of your claim. He didn't. What he claims is the
| logic flaw of yours and argues deductively.
| iosono88 wrote:
| [dead]
| randomperson01 wrote:
| Just like someone leaked out about the Sverdlovsk lab
| accident - how many years did that take?
|
| http://web.archive.org/web/20210621032149/https://www.nytime.
| ..
| ajross wrote:
| Sverdlovsk was instantly and correctly interpreted in
| western intelligence communities as evidence for a
| weaponized anthrax program. It wasn't admitted to be so
| until the 90's. It's true this wasn't a "leak", but only
| because there was no one to leak to (the civilian world was
| mostly unaware it had even happened). I'm not sure I
| understand why you think this is evidence for the ability
| of the USSR to keep it secret or otherwise control
| perceptions?
| tripletao wrote:
| The civilian world was quite aware of the incident; they
| just mostly swallowed the cover story whole. A Harvard
| prof (Matthew Meselson) went to Russia to investigate,
| and came back with a public report agreeing that the
| anthrax came from tainted meat. Obviously some people
| doubted that, but until the fall of the USSR there was no
| incontrovertible evidence, just the same circumstantial
| patchwork as we have for SARS-CoV-2 now.
|
| Even closer to the SARS-CoV-2 case, the 1977 flu pandemic
| killed ~700k people and near-certainly arose from a
| research accident, probably a failed vaccine trial:
|
| > The 1977-1978 influenza epidemic was probably not a
| natural event, as the genetic sequence of the virus was
| nearly identical to the sequences of decades-old strains.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4542197/
|
| That article argues that vaccine trial accident doesn't
| count as a "lab accident", which seems like legalistic
| wordplay to me; but I believe the historical context is
| good.
|
| But in 1978, the WHO wrote:
|
| > Laboratory contamination can be excluded because the
| laboratories concerned either had never kept H1N1 virus
| or had not worked with it for a long time.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2395678/pdf/
| bul...
|
| It took decades for the consensus to change, and there's
| still been no official admission (though note the
| unverified personal communication from C. M. Chu via
| Peter Palese in Gronvall's paper, 27 years after the
| accident).
| zkms wrote:
| >I'm not sure I understand why you think this is evidence
| for the ability of the USSR to keep it secret or
| otherwise control perceptions?
|
| The USSR successfully manipulated many prominent Western
| civilian scientists (and subsequently Western newspapers)
| into buying the "bad meat" Soviet cover-up story, hook,
| line, and sinker: _to the point that they publicly chided
| the American military for still believing in the "anthrax
| factory leak" theory_:
|
| > But Dr. Alexander Langmuir, a former director of
| epidemiology at the United States Centers for Disease
| Control, who presided at the session, said Tuesday that
| based on what he knew so far, "the current position of
| the U.S. military needs thorough re- examination; that is
| clear.'
|
| > Dr. Philip Brachman of Emory University, a U.S. anthrax
| expert who has advised the Central Intelligence Agency on
| the incident, said the Soviet talk was a "landmark
| report" providing "a pretty good indication that this
| incident was an outbreak of gastrointestinal anthrax"
| from eating contaminated meat.
|
| > Dr. Alexander Langmuir, a former chief epidemiologist
| for the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta,
| agreed that the Soviet account was "very credible so far"
| but added that he hoped to obtain further details during
| the Soviets' weeklong stay.
|
| The "bad meat" Soviet coverup story was fawningly
| parroted in _Science_ in 1988:
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.3358121 (full
| text at https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.3358121) and
| also ended up in prominent American newspapers like the
| New York Times
| (https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/14/world/russians-
| explain-79...) and Wall Street Journal (https://www.washi
| ngtonpost.com/archive/politics/1988/04/13/s...), from
| which the above quotes are taken.
|
| How did this happen? Why did this work so well? Because
| scientific methods designed for operation in adversary-
| free environments are _catastrophically_ unfit for
| drawing dependable conclusions when intelligent motivated
| adversaries have tampered with the available data. The
| Western civilian scientists were thinking
| like...scientists, so they got easily manipulated into
| producing and disseminating _literal Soviet
| disinformation_ while believing they were furthering the
| causes of science and of fighting anthrax. Oops:
|
| > Three Soviet officials came to visit the National
| Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., on 11 April:
| Pyotr Burgasov, retired deputy minister of health;
| Vladimir Nikiforov, infectious diseases chief at the
| Moscow Institute for the Advanced Training of Physicians;
| and Vladimir Sergiyev, director of the Institute of
| Parasitology and Tropical Medicine. They gave the same
| explanation as in 1980, but provided many more details,
| convincing some long-time doubters that the account was
| true. U.S. intelligence officials still maintain a
| military facility was involved.
|
| Spoiler alert: Pyotr Burgasov was part of the response to
| the leak and part of the Soviet biowarfare program.
|
| The argument for a natural origin of Sverdlovsk anthrax
| is tragically familiar: establishing a highly plausible
| way it could have been zoonosis, along with providing
| evidence consistent with a zoonosis. From the _Science_
| article:
|
| > The citizens of Sverdlovsk did not have to look so far
| to find the bacillus. It has been endemic to the region
| for centuries.
|
| > The source of the outbreak was traced to a single
| 29-ton lot of bone meal (cattle feed) sold in March from
| a factory in Aramil, 15 kilometers to the southeast of
| Sverdlovsk. It must have taken in and ground up the bones
| of animals who died the previous year of anthrax. Its
| product clearly contained live anthrax. An official
| investigation found that the factory did not follow the
| prescribed heating and pressure treatment methods. The
| feed it produced went to a state farm, where
| veterinarians inoculate the animals, and to private
| owners, whom state veterinarians often do not bother to
| visit, according to Burgasov. On the approach of the May
| Day holiday, animals are slaughtered, generally the
| weakest (in this case, the sickest) first. The meat from
| the private butchers is thought to have triggered the
| outbreak, Burgasov said.
|
| It's only collapse of the USSR that enabled the truth to
| come out in public. Two Soviet pathologists, against KGB
| orders, had kept some autopsy samples, which (along with
| a defector's testimony) annihilated the "bad meat" cover-
| up story. Turns out the outbreak of airbone anthrax that
| happened in the same city as the industrial-scale
| weaponized anthrax spore factory was indeed caused by the
| industrial-scale weaponized anthrax spore factory! https:
| //www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/11/sverdlovs...
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| It's amazing how easily some people deploy unfalsifiable
| theories to justify a presupposition.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| It's against the site rules to accuse other users of being
| shills in this way. Please see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do
| this again. Instead, if someone is wrong or you feel they
| are, please explain how they are wrong and provide correct
| information without taking swipes.
|
| For a longer explanation of why we don't allow this, see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35932851 and https://hn.
| algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... The
| short version is that the vast majority of these perceptions
| aren't grounded in evidence and we don't want discussions to
| be poisoned by accusations of bad faith.
|
| p.s. Your comment would have been fine without that first
| paragraph.
| _gabe_ wrote:
| > Most importantly, the general reader should know that all
| labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses.
| After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses.
|
| I'm curious how you came up with this heuristic. It seems to me
| that there's plenty of incentives to study benign viruses: the
| primary one being to develop a deeper understanding of the
| biology of viruses in general.
| andelink wrote:
| I'm getting paywalled even on the archived links?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| From the start, the claims about the Mojiang are unproven and
| they don't have a shred of evidence to back it up [0]. I don't
| think you can divorce the newfound popularity of the lab leak
| from the new cold war we're entering.
|
| [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8490156/
| Gasp0de wrote:
| This article does a lot of finger pointing, but there are no
| suggestions on what should be done differently. Its all "The
| chinese military is at fault!" but no serious discussion on
| whether or not gain-of-function research should be prohibited or
| not.
| redreceipt wrote:
| Can I read the article for free anywhere?
| Alifatisk wrote:
| Someone posted the archive link
| fuckyah wrote:
| [dead]
| ionwake wrote:
| I'm just annoyed I was given -3 downvotes here on HN for saying
| there was research indicating artificial/lab gene markers were
| discovered indicating it probably had a lab origin. I didn't say
| anything else just mentioned a research paper and I got downvoted
| here on HN. :(
| hayst4ck wrote:
| If anyone's in for a long read, despite the hokey sounding name,
| I found this to be one of the best contemporaneous explorations
| of Covid in china that I've seen to date:
|
| https://project-evidence.github.io/
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| cheaprentalyeti wrote:
| Because if we're relying on the people who are funding
| bioweapons research in hostile countries to tell us how to
| treat said viruses, under the delusion that they'd learn
| something useful, it's the kind of thing we need to know
| about before waking up three years later and finding out (per
| the Northwestern study) that we could have avoided a lot of
| deaths by simply following the sort of treatment regimen we
| used for more common flu varieties and given the patients
| azithromycin.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Why not do something about this directly. This lab leak
| wild goose chase isn't required.
| khazhoux wrote:
| For one, if it was proven that a lab leak was the cause of
| such global destruction, that may encourage stronger lab
| regulations in the future.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| We can and should do that anyway, why do we need a smoking
| gun, I mean, beyond the pandemic we had.
| khazhoux wrote:
| I'd avoid loaded terms like "smoking gun" in this
| discussion. My point is that if the pandemic was caused
| by a leak, then that would be a prior that could aid in
| future decision-making.
|
| I don't understand your position that we should not seek
| the truth. Somehow knowing the truth about a past event
| can have no bearing on the future?
| th0ma5 wrote:
| I don't think it is ultimately knowable in a way that is
| helpful. We need to act as if any of the possibilities
| happened because any of them could.
|
| I guess I also don't see why articles like this are
| needed to work on pandemic prevention.
|
| I can totally see why people need them for at the very
| least getting clicks and attention.
| kortilla wrote:
| It's possible aliens came from space and dropped the
| virus off to see how we would handle it. How much effort
| should we put into preventing that pandemic path?
|
| Nearly every airline regulation that results in air
| travel being so safe today is because we spend such an
| enormous amount of resources investigating the root
| causes of accidents with the NTSB. Try suggesting to them
| "it doesn't matter why the plane crashed, let's just push
| for generic improvements to planes". You'll get
| (rightfully so) laughed out of the room.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| The limit is five why's and often you can't even get
| that. Planes still crash. Perhaps we've pulled on this
| thread as much as we can. Especially with long ass
| articles like this that say nothing new.
|
| Seriously, what are we expecting to learn. This is like a
| plane at the bottom of the ocean never to be found. We'll
| never know what happened to this plane, and we don't have
| to.
|
| We know that situation was probably poor pilot mental
| health but pilots still have to lie about
| antidepressants. We don't need to find that plane to fix
| that.
| kortilla wrote:
| > The limit is five why's and often you can't even get
| that. Planes still crash.
|
| This is a shockingly ignorant statement or willfully
| misleading. Air safety has improved by at least an order
| of magnitude[1] because of the culture of seeking out the
| truth, regardless of how disruptive or inconvenient.
|
| It is very rare to have a commercial airline crash now
| and significantly rarer to not understand exactly why
| (MH370 being a notable exception).
|
| Wherever you got that "often you can't even got that" is
| complete and utter bullshit.
|
| 1. https://news.mit.edu/2020/study-commercial-flights-
| safer-eve...
| th0ma5 wrote:
| The fact that commercial airlines don't have many crashes
| is due to a completely vertical integrated system beyond
| just the analysis of crashes. Are you saying we need to
| integrate virology globally?? I'm for that, sure. General
| aviation is 3x as dangerous as motorcycles.
| khazhoux wrote:
| > We'll never know what happened to this plane,
|
| You've decided the truth is unknowable, no good would
| come from knowing the truth, and searching for the truth
| is itself causing harm.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Well we stopped looking for it though
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Because exploring the truth is a worthwhile endeavor
| particularly in the face of an oppressive regime that made it
| very clear they did not want the truth to be explored.
|
| Just to be clear what I posted seemed like Chinese people
| exploring what actually happened more than a blame based
| document or fear mongering based document.
|
| I would really encourage you to give it a chance because it
| is very impressive investigative work and, really, an
| impressive exercise of investigative journalism from a
| country that hates investigative journalists.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| xcv123 wrote:
| You are spamming this thread. Looks like you are working
| for the CCP. Don't make it too obvious.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Lol. If the treatment of their own people wasn't bad
| enough and it took a pandemic conspiracy theory to hate
| them, then I feel like you need to read more.
| [deleted]
| hayst4ck wrote:
| The purpose of that article is not to bring down china.
| It's not ideologically opposed to china. It was not some
| conservative agenda article. It's a group of people who
| want to understand what happened. The article comes from
| a stance of curiosity. What I linked is very compatible
| with the HN mindset and not particularly ideological.
|
| You clearly have not read it because your comment makes
| no sense in the context of that article.
|
| If you don't want to be curious then don't be.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| randomperson01 wrote:
| Its a good compilation that I saw in mid 2020 that was one of
| the sources of data leading me to question the zoonotic
| spillover hypothesis that I had read in Zhou et al (RaTG13
| paper) and Anderson et al. That the WIV was conducting exactly
| the type of research that could have led to a highly human
| infectious novel SARS-CoV was poo-pood and cast as a conspiracy
| theory. As Ian Lipkin stated following the Fauci teleconference
| "we have a nightmare of circumstantial evidence to deal with"
| [deleted]
| ricksunny wrote:
| And helpful that it's hosted on GitHub. PRC can't block
| Github on a strategic level. So content can be hosted there
| that gets through the GFW that PRC netizens can see.
| throwawayio wrote:
| [flagged]
| chihuahua wrote:
| Peter Daszak says no.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| So many comments and not any of them, nor this article, have any
| new facts.
| anonzzzies wrote:
| [flagged]
| soeptical wrote:
| Daszak/ecohealth alliance and by extension NIH and us govt are
| also culpable for a Wuhan lab originating virus
| maeil wrote:
| You're right that Daszak and the Ecohealth Alliance are
| culpable, but it must be noted that various USG orgs were not
| supportive of his actions
|
| > _The report he finally did submit stated that scientists
| planned to create an infectious clone of Middle East
| Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a novel coronavirus found in
| dromedaries that had emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and
| killed 35% of the humans it infected. The report also made
| clear that the NIH grant had already been used to construct
| two chimeric coronaviruses similar to the one that caused
| Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which emerged in
| 2002 and went on to cause at least 774 deaths worldwide. (A
| chimeric virus is one that combines fragments of different
| viruses.) These revelations prompted the NIH's grant
| specialists to ask a critical question: Should the work be
| subject to a federal moratorium on what was called gain-of-
| function research?_
|
| > _But the [2015 research paper he
| cited](https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985) was not
| particularly reassuring. In it, Shi Zhengli and a preeminent
| coronavirus researcher at the University of North Carolina,
| Ralph Baric, mixed components of SARS-like viruses from
| different species, and created a novel chimera that was able
| to directly infect human cells. (Baric did not respond to
| written questions seeking comment.)_
|
| > _If anything, the MERS study Daszak proposed was even
| riskier. So he pitched a compromise to the NIH: that if any
| of the recombined strains showed 10 times greater growth than
| a natural virus, "we will immediately: i) stop all
| experiments with the mutant, ii) inform our NIAID Program
| Officer and the UNC [Institutional Biosafety Committee] of
| these results and iii) participate in decision making trees
| to decide appropriate paths forward."_
|
| > _This mention of UNC brought a puzzled response from an NIH
| program officer, who pointed out that the proposal had said
| the research would be performed at the WIV. "Can you clarify
| where the work with the chimeric viruses will actually be
| performed?" the officer wrote. Ten days later, with still no
| response from Daszak, the program officer emailed him again.
| On June 27, Daszak responded, buoyant as ever:_
|
| > _"You are correct to identify a mistake in our letter. UNC
| has no oversight of the chimera work, all of which will be
| conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.... We will
| clarify tonight with Prof. Zhengli Shi exactly who will be
| notified if we see enhanced replication...my understanding is
| that I will be notified straight away, as [principal
| investigator], and that I can then notify you at NIAID.
| Apologies for the error!"_
|
| > _Allowing such risky research to go forward at the Wuhan
| Institute of Virology was "simply crazy, in my opinion," says
| Jack Nunberg, director of the Montana Biotechnology Center.
| "Reasons are lack of oversight, lack of regulation, the
| environment in China," where scientists who publish in
| prestigious journals get rewarded by the government, creating
| dangerous incentives. "So that is what really elevates it to
| the realm of, 'No, this shouldn't happen.'"_
|
| In general, his actions make clear he's much more aligned
| with the Chinese government than the US, so extending Daszak
| to US govt purely based off of nationality seems unjust.
|
| > _On January 30, Daszak went on CGTN America, the U.S.
| outpost for Chinese state television, and said two things
| that proved to be spectacularly wrong. "I'm very
| optimistic...that this outbreak will begin to slow down," he
| said. "We're seeing a small amount of human-to-human
| transmission in other countries, but it's not uncontrollable.
| " He went on to conclude that the Chinese government was
| taking all necessary steps "to be open and transparent, and
| work with WHO, and talk to scientists from around the world,
| and where necessary, bring them in to help. They're doing
| that. It's exactly what needs to happen."_
| Ins43b wrote:
| [flagged]
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| LeonB wrote:
| Early on the article makes a conjecture that others also make
| which I think is part of why the topic is so hot:
|
| "Whether the virus emerged as a result of a leak from a
| laboratory or from nature has become one the most controversial
| problems in science."
|
| The words "in science" are my problem here: people thinking this
| is a "scientific" question.
|
| It's a history question, a political question, and could be made
| into a forensic question. But science does not ask this kind of
| question!
|
| Is it possible for a lab to leak a virus? That's a question
| science can ask, but it doesn't answer this one.
|
| So we end up with a belief that scientists can answer this
| question... but it isn't a "scientific" question in the first
| place.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| > But science does not ask this kind of question!
|
| I disagree, it _is_ a scientific question. Whether we can
| answer it in isolation of politics and prejudice is the
| question for me.
|
| But if you observe some gravitational waves in a single event,
| you can correlate it to optical or radio observations, you can
| try to analyse the signals to match them to existing hypotheses
| of gravitational waves origination etc. The singularity of the
| event doesn't make it not science. Same as the emergence of a
| novel virus.
|
| It is just a shame that most of the evidence is subjective and
| non-scientific. But the _question_ itself is well posed
| scientific endeavour.
| LeonB wrote:
| The top level question is not a scientific question.
|
| In order to investigate it, many many many smaller questions
| may be asked, _some_ of which are scientific.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I think it's splitting hairs, but even then I disagree. I
| can't see how the evolution and emergence of a virus is
| _not_ a question of applied science.
|
| That it is commingled with a million political questions,
| yes it's true. But to me that's a nuisance variable, not
| fundamentally changing the underlying question.
| switch007 wrote:
| I interpreted it as "in the scientific community".
| seydor wrote:
| why not? it is an important scientific question to guide
| research to mitigate the virus and prevent similar future
| disasters
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| throwaway2990 wrote:
| The lab leak theory started in China. It has never been
| about xenophobia. The only people pushing the whole
| xenophobia thing was the CCP. Chinese news called it wuhan
| virus long after it was given the name Covid-19.
|
| So stop trying to protect the CCP.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Protect them from what? Being blamed? What does that do
| except stoke fear? There are actual things to talk about
| like their aggressive naval horseshit why do we have to
| make them nefarious mind controllers or secret world
| saboteurs or whatever this lab leak hypothesis is
| supposed to prove.
| throwaway2990 wrote:
| Knowing how the virus leaked allows us to figure out how
| to try and prevent it happening again.
|
| When you cover it up, prevent investigations, destroy
| data, and try to blame the rest of the world. That does
| not help understand how we can prevent it happening
| again.
|
| If China was open and honest from day 1, countries would
| have actually tried to help. But instead all the CCP did
| was hide it and blame everyone else.
|
| It's clear that you side with the CCP. You don't want to
| prevent another pandemic or make sure people are safe.
| All you seem to want to do is defend them and get angry
| at everyone who wants to discuss the issue.
| camillomiller wrote:
| Yeah, in fact being honest, sincere and collaborative
| with foreign powers is the tenet of NSA, CIA, and all
| major security agencies in the USA, right?
| th0ma5 wrote:
| I agree sort of with this sentiment, but it ultimately
| doesn't matter even if it is that china is covering up
| their bioweapon accident just like anyone might. We'll
| never know, and we don't need that to hold them
| accountable for many many many other wrongs, and we don't
| need it to start working to prevent the next pandemic
| either.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| I don't side with them, I side with reason.
|
| 1. Lab leak hypothesis being proven is not a requirement
| for any kind of prevention
|
| 2. If everyone was honest all the time life would be
| roses
|
| 3. These lab leak articles don't make anyone safer they
| just cause conspiratorial thinking.
|
| I don't trust the China for shit, but I'm sick of
| Americans suckered in by lazy bullshit thinking. I can't
| think of anything positive to say about China, but you
| can't say this because it is all a dead end useless thing
| that serves no purpose.
|
| How about putting back in our observers like Trump kicked
| out, arguably hobbling our view into what was going on.
| We still have not done this. Instead we're here dicking
| off about shit that doesn't matter. Way to be people.
| [deleted]
| computerfriend wrote:
| Don't ascribe motive ("cause xenophobic feelings") unless
| you can back it up.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| That's the very point I'm trying to make about this
| dubious article and all the people posting conspiracy
| theories here. How can we say they aren't trying to cause
| xenophobic feelings?
| at_compile_time wrote:
| Ah, so when people disagree with you, it's because
| they're conspiracy theorists and you're ready to make
| wild assumptions about their motives. How perfectly
| reasonable of you.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| This article literally explores and lays out theories
| about how potentially events and people could've
| conspired to our present day. I don't think that is
| intellectually helpful.
| computerfriend wrote:
| If you can't say either way, don't say it at all.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Yes exactly ... If you can't prove the lab leak stop
| writing articles about it, people.
| computerfriend wrote:
| Don't accuse people of xenophobia, is my point.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Sure yes, that is a fair point, but this conversation
| doesn't ascribe that kind of limitation in the argument,
| because we're already talking about other motivations.
| Maybe (probably lol) they were negligent, maybe it was an
| accident, my point is if we are also trying to get people
| to think for a moment "or maybe they did it on purpose"
| then it follows that people are pushing that idea, if
| false, for xenophobic reasons.
| [deleted]
| arisAlexis wrote:
| "Is it possible for a lab to leak a virus? "
|
| What do you mean? Ofc it's possible and has been done hundreds
| of times in the past with different viruses and lab security
| levels.
| qup wrote:
| Please, scientists, no need to peer review Wuhan.
| stewbrew wrote:
| Of course it could be a scientific to estimate the probability
| that ...
| pyuser583 wrote:
| There was a peer reviewed paper earlier in the pandemic where
| scientists used their knowledge of viral anatomy to argue it
| wasn't engineered.
|
| Subsequent scientific have disagreed.
|
| But this isn't purely historical.
| throwaway2990 wrote:
| The one with Peter Daszak who was hand picked by the CCP for
| the investigation and money trail back to the CCP??
| LanceH wrote:
| Apologies to those accused of being conspiracy theorists,
| xenophobic, and spreading misinformation will be going out
| shortly.
| camillomiller wrote:
| They will not, because those accusations came from people
| who intended to use them to discredit Chinese people in
| general, or that closely associate the leak with the
| Chinese way of doing things and so on. These accusation led
| to racist attacks against Asian people all over the us.
| camillomiller wrote:
| So, pointing out implicit racism now gets you downvoted
| to hell on Hacker News, as long as China's involved. Good
| to know.
| kcplate wrote:
| Ok, so the original motivations for some making that
| claim were suspect. Should that automatically excuse or
| prevent discussion that better safety protocols should be
| used or a better "ways of doing things" should be
| undertaken when handling viruses and pathogens that are
| capable of killing 7M people? I think it's a valid topic
| and important one that should be verboten lest the next
| time we accidentally kill 14M with carelessness as the
| cause.
| plagiarist wrote:
| If the people making that claim had been sane, instead of
| pushing it in the middle of; "it's not deadly, just a
| flu," "masks do nothing," "maybe a bit of bleach is fine
| in the lungs," "hydroxychloroquine cures everything,"
| "no, wait, it is horse paste that cures everything," "the
| vaccine will kill you in X months, guaranteed," and
| "GREAT RESET," it'd be easier to transition into a
| serious discussion about studying deadly viruses in labs.
| goatlover wrote:
| So you want to let the conspiracy theorists dictate
| discussion. And not everyone claiming there could have
| been a lab leak was pushing for those other things. There
| were sane claims. You seem to want to ignore the
| possibility that the Chinese and American governments had
| something to coverup, if there was a lab leak given the
| kind of research done there.
| Natsu wrote:
| The middle ground always gets pushed to the extremes when
| there's a strong push to alienate some views.
|
| Covid was worse than the flu, but the flu is also deadly
| and we should be paying more attention to vaccinating it.
| The deaths aren't evenly distributed, either, young
| healthy people have less to worry about, but "less" isn't
| "nothing." For masks, you really wanted N95 masks, not
| cloth, and you still have to avoid large indoor
| gatherings.
|
| Nobody said that bleach in the lungs was good. Trump
| mentioned _disinfectant_ presumably butchering a
| description of the HealLight which would use UV to
| destroy the virus, effectively "disinfecting" the lungs.
| There are always idiots poisoning themselves with bleach,
| though, but nobody pays much attention to the poison
| control stats most of the time. HCQ and Ivermectin had
| some promising studies but no real effectiveness for the
| things people wanted them for. There probably is some
| rise in myocarditis due to vaccines... but they're still
| a lot safer if you look at mortality rates. "Great Reset"
| was from an actual policy proposal someone put out, but
| doesn't really stand for the things the conspiracies say
| it does.
|
| All of these things got pushed into extreme caricatures
| depending on what side you trust.
| kcplate wrote:
| I honestly don't see much difference in the level of
| extremism between everything you listed vs people
| deciding a specific topic is off limits just because the
| theory may not be politically correct, or because the alt
| opinion may have some factual basis.
| plagiarist wrote:
| Yes, of course, everyone should treat disingenuous
| propagandists as if they were attempting to have a
| serious discussion. If anyone objects to that, it is
| "deciding a topic is off-limits," which is insane. Of
| course we should let them run their horse paste grift and
| just patiently repeat over and over, "no, no, studies
| show it doesn't work. Please wear a mask to reduce
| spread."
| kcplate wrote:
| Considering that you are intentionally misconstruing that
| ivermectin position that folks were discussing at the
| time using the same tired and dishonest "horse paste"
| media talking point, I'll assume that "disingenuous
| propaganda" runs in many directions.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| throwaway2990 wrote:
| Science is in agreement that it is most likely not natural
| and was engineered. The missing piece is where it
| originated and majority agree that it most likely
| originated from the wuhan institute of virology.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > but it isn't a "scientific" question in the first place.
|
| ... which is true of the pandemic response in general.
| "Science" doesn't tell society how to react to something.
| Science is a process to test hypothesizes--it isn't a book of
| facts or direct answers on the trade-offs of various mitigation
| techniques. It can only inform, not dictate.
| fsckboy wrote:
| So, science doesn't have a problem when results of experiments
| are faked, because science doesn't ask this question, it's a
| question for politics, forensics, and history? Nice try! Still
| your move.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| oneshtein wrote:
| Yes, you nailed it properly. If results of experiments cannot
| be reproduced and confirmed by two independent researchers at
| least, then it's not a scientific process. History of science
| is full of fakes.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| There's a lab at U of A that accidentally infected their
| student researcher with cholera, and another case of
| campylobacter.
|
| It's just sloppy work, but when you're there for 12 hours a day
| for 5-6 days a week, you're bound to get sloppy
| toomim wrote:
| Is the big bang theory science or history, by that logic?
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| tim333 wrote:
| Science very much does ask that kind of question - what is the
| origin of some thing. With SARS1 it also answered it easily -
| testing showed if came from palm civets at the market. This
| time though scientific investigation has been blocked by the
| politics.
| pbreit wrote:
| How is science not involved in a major way here? Of course
| science will continue to play a huge role in the matter.
| mikrotikker wrote:
| A few possible reasons.
|
| The communist party is sensitive doesn't want it to be known
| that a Chinese lab leaked a dangerous virus (see also "how
| does RBMK reactor explode?")
|
| The ecohealth alliance that Fauci and Dazack were involved in
| don't want it widely known that they had a hand in the WIV
| GoF (that Obama banned stateside) and worked early in the
| pandemic to obscure their own involvement in it.
|
| Trump doesn't want it widely known that his administration
| contributed $100k to the Ecohealth alliance.
|
| Lots of powerful people working to not take responsibility
| and obfuscate reality.
| baxtr wrote:
| I think when they say Science they actually mean: the
| scientific community.
| toomim wrote:
| Which actually means: a scientific community.
| LeonB wrote:
| One of the allegations is that one or more lab workers were
| sick with covid in 2019.
|
| Their colleagues - the scientific community - cannot through
| science alone determine if this was true.
|
| If it happened then they went to a nearby hospital. To
| investigate there is possibly a police matter, certainly a
| health matter, a political matter and many things - but is
| not answered by waving the magic science wand. And so on.
|
| People who claim it's a science question are shallow or
| deceitful.
| tuxguy wrote:
| non-paywall version : https://archive.md/Edw0k
| yyyk wrote:
| Leaving aside the question of where and how the virus emerged,
| it's interesting to note that the lab was nigh useless during the
| pandemic, despite its main specialty was investigating
| Coronaviruses! It looks like a lot of dangerous research went on,
| and even if nothing bad happened because of that research,
| nothing was gained. A lot of risk for nothing.
| Manjuuu wrote:
| Yep. Top notch research.
| calderwoodra wrote:
| Are you implying the lab shouldn't have existed at all? And/or
| future coronavirus labs shouldn't exist either?
| Thorentis wrote:
| They're not implying anything. They're nearly making the
| observation that the supposed reason this lab existed was to
| research dangeours viruses like covid, and yet the lab itself
| did nothing to help during the pandemic.
| wwtdtgotiatl wrote:
| > yet the lab itself did nothing to help during the
| pandemic.
|
| Which people in this thread are somehow believing as truth
| instead of the bald-faced propaganda it is.
|
| Do you actually think a virus research lab in the epicentre
| of an outbreak would not be put to use?
|
| From Wikipedia:
|
| > As the virus spread worldwide, the institute continued
| its investigation. In February 2020, a team led by Shi
| Zhengli at the institute were the first to identify,
| analyze and name the genetic sequence of the novel
| coronavirus (2019-nCoV), upload it to public databases for
| scientists around the world to understand,[28][29][30] and
| publish papers in Nature.[31] On 19 February 2020, the lab
| released a letter on its website describing how they
| successfully obtained the whole virus genome.[32]
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology
| yyyk wrote:
| Gene sequencing is table stakes with modern tech, and
| many countries did that during the pandemic. We don't
| need a BSL-4 level lab in the middle of a large city to
| do a gene sequence. It happened that they published early
| what many other labs would have done (and did do). On the
| other hand, the vaccines and effective cures had nothing
| to do with their work. The benefit/risk ratio seems very
| poor here.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| > It looks like a lot of dangerous research went on, and
| even if nothing bad happened because of that research,
| nothing was gained. A lot of risk for nothing.
|
| Your previous comment is clearly incorrect as shown by
| the parent, something is a lot more than nothing.
| dendriti wrote:
| So you're not going to admit you were ignorant or just
| lying?
| DangitBobby wrote:
| What was gained that would not have been gained without
| the existence of the lab?
| Thorentis wrote:
| You really missed the whole point of their post didn't
| you? If we are going to allow a BSL-4 lab to exist and
| introduce the risk of possible leaks or other problems,
| we need to get something in return. That "something"
| needs to be more than what other lower security labs can
| already do. It is fascinating that a lab which was
| supposedly researching coronavirsuses for so long (and
| which may have led to the outbreak, but regardless) was
| unable to do anything that other labs could not.
| himinlomax wrote:
| Afaik they weren't even applying BSL4 security to their
| coronavirus research. On top of that, before the
| outbreak, the Pasteur institute, who was incidentally
| supposed to be a research partner but was kept at arms'
| length, raised an alarm on their apparent general lack of
| safety compliance.
|
| That and the fact that the Chinese dicatorship blocking
| any inquiry into the matter are enough to put the blame
| on that lab until proven otherwise.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| They shouldn't perform gain of function research because the
| risk/reward is comically high
| asynchronous wrote:
| Heaven forbid we hold people accountable and/or learn from
| our mistakes as a species.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| I'd like for high risk biological research to be done under
| the same security arrangements as nuclear weapons research.
| Covid and influenza have together killed several orders of
| magnitude more humans in the last 150 years than nuclear
| weapons/accidents have. Thus GoF research presents a
| potential human cost much higher than nuclear weapons, and
| should be treated as such.
|
| If that makes it "too expensive and slow" then so be it.
| Perhaps there are some things humans should not be doing.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| Well, historically, you know, nuclear weapons research
| involved a lot of cavalier scientists doing dangerous
| things with limited knowledge, and of course in the early
| days, there was plenty of above-ground range testing; is
| that something you want included as well?
|
| If my information is correct, I believe that nearly all
| nuclear testing these days is 100% simulation on
| supercomputers, which is as safe as safe can be, as long as
| you can trust supercomputer simulations to render the
| correct answer to those trusting researchers.
| Clubber wrote:
| Not only that, the US is missing 6 nuclear weapons.
|
| https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/us-military-
| missing...
|
| To add to your point, regardless of safeguards and
| protocols, accidents happen.
| revelio wrote:
| That seems reasonable, yes.
| Biorealism wrote:
| Yes, the whole virus hunting grift that Peter Daszak's
| EcoHealth Alliance and PREDICT tout has been exposed as
| ineffective. Now they are doubling down with further funding
| and blanket denials that it could have come from a lab
| accident. They never mention the nearest relatives to SARS-
| CoV-2 are found in Yunnan and Laos. And that happens to be
| where WIV sampled.
| justanotheratom wrote:
| "nothing was gained"
|
| I see the irony (gain of function)
| lapama wrote:
| Gain of risk
| brutusborn wrote:
| Don't forget gain of funding
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| xcv123 wrote:
| [flagged]
| th0ma5 wrote:
| That article says the first thing you said but not the
| second.
| xcv123 wrote:
| [flagged]
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| xcv123 wrote:
| [flagged]
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| xcv123 wrote:
| No it is not an ad hominem attack to say that your
| argument is childish and stupid. You're not even having a
| debate. You're just spamming the forum with drivel.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| I am trying to say that either it leaked or it didn't,
| but that we'll never know, but that it doesn't matter
| anyway.
| prepend wrote:
| We will know, eventually, hopefully. I think it really
| matters. To better prevent future pandemics and to
| establish frameworks for restitution. And it definitely
| matters for future economic reparations.
|
| If negligence is the cause of a multi-million death,
| multi-trillion dollar response it needs to be corrected
| to prevent future similar errors.
| totallychinese wrote:
| The linked article is from 2004. It clearly says nothing
| re: point 2.
| [deleted]
| xcv123 wrote:
| So what? You missed the point or are pretending to ignore
| it. Another CCP troll.
| akomtu wrote:
| HN should limit the rate of comments per user per post. This
| user is seriously worked up to mute this discussion and spams
| in every comment thread. Edit: this user wrote 26 out of 88
| comments here.
| yorwba wrote:
| HN already has a rate limit. You get the message "You're
| posting too fast" when you exceed it. Though I think it's
| also tied to karma and might not trigger when all those
| comments get upvoted. And if you try to downvote them all,
| you'll run into the protections against mass-downvoting.
| Tuning the feedback loops to encourage good discussions
| while damping flamewars is a difficult problem.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Once you have some post history, I'm pretty sure the
| harsh rate limit, the one that would stop someone from
| posting in every comment thread, is only triggered
| manually by the mods if you're a prick (personal
| experience).
|
| The basic new account rate limit and the one you get from
| getting downvote quickly are too weak to stop what they
| are complaining about.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| And they should ban throwaway accounts too which you can
| also see spreading more conjecture.
| arisAlexis wrote:
| I remember still when it was considered a conspiracy theory and
| we got downvoted here and banned on reddit for even implying the
| possibility. Unfortunately something similar is happening with AI
| x-risk right now.
| tim333 wrote:
| I don't think that's true with AI. Loads of people worry about
| it and I've never heard that called a conspiracy theory.
|
| It's true with covid though and I always thought the allegation
| a bit unfair. I mean suggesting the origin of X is from the
| nearest source of X has never seemed much of a conspiracy to
| me.
|
| I had long messages on the Wikipedia discussion before they
| allowed the idea to be mentioned without a this is conspiracy
| disinformation disclaimer, after many months of fighting.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| jansan wrote:
| Same with pointing out at the first studies that indicated that
| the virus was airborne. I got downvoted to oblivion here for
| posting a link to the study.
| asynchronous wrote:
| Despite that becoming at least partially true years later
| when the CDC admitted it.
| [deleted]
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| oneshtein wrote:
| Accusation without evidence is witch-hunting.
|
| We still have no strong evidence for lab leak from BSL4 lab in
| Wuhan, while we have some evidence (two early strains of SARS-
| CoV-2: A, then B; B was in Wuhan in December; where and when
| was parent of A and B?) that suggests start of epidemic outside
| of China in mid-September 2019. Russians start to delete videos
| about blast at their BSL4 lab "Vector" in Novosibirsk on Sep 16
| 2019[0], which suggests that this information may cause harm
| for them.
|
| So, "Lab leak" theory may be right, while "lab leak from BSL4
| lab in Wuhan" theory may be wrong.
|
| [0]:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20200407175030/https://www.youtu...
| arisAlexis wrote:
| We are playing with words. Accusation vs possibility vs open
| to options vs etc. The problem is that it was called which
| hunting anything that was not natural origin.
| asynchronous wrote:
| I won't forget no matter how many times they try to make me.
|
| What happened several years ago was a clown show of the highest
| order.
| realjhol wrote:
| It's going to take a long time before the mainstream is ready to
| think critically about the COVID narratives, but it's good to see
| first steps toward the recovery of rationality.
|
| But there's still a lot to cover:
|
| - Lockdowns did little to prevent the spread of COVID and lead to
| increased deaths by other causes, egregious violation of people's
| fundamental rights, massively destruction of the economy, and
| many people's mental health.
|
| - Cloth masks were pointless security theatre
|
| - The vast majority of people except the very elderly and obese
| were in very little danger
|
| - The vaccines never prevented transmission
|
| - The vaccines only offered very limited protection for a brief
| period
|
| - The rate of side effects (including serious side effects up to
| and including death) is a lot higher than anyone wants to admit.
|
| - To most segments of the population, the danger of death by
| vaccine side effects is greater than the danger of death by
| COVID-19
|
| I'm hoping in a decade or so, we'll get towards something
| approaching a "sorry, you were right", like we did with the Iraq
| war, but there's still a long way to go.
| Xerox9213 wrote:
| [dead]
| mft_ wrote:
| Wow, there're a lot to parse here, and it looks like you're
| coming at this from an "I've already decided" and "axe to
| grind" angle.
|
| > - Lockdowns did little to prevent the spread of COVID...
|
| _< citation needed>_
|
| > - Cloth masks were pointless security theatre
|
| _< citation needed>_ - and most rational people (and
| countries) immediately switched to N95 masks as soon as supply
| chains could support the demand. That said, I'd bet that even
| less-proven masks would have some lesser but still positive
| impact.
|
| > - The vast majority of people except the very elderly and
| obese were in very little danger
|
| ...except there are plenty of examples of fit, young people
| having life-altering acute and/or longer-term symptoms. On a
| population-level, you're right that the numbers are small(er),
| but I'd argue that each individual case to the contrary is a
| disaster for the indiviudal involved.
|
| As Stalin said: _"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death
| of a million is a statistic."_
|
| You appear to be looking at the statistics; I was happy to
| accept changes to my lifestyle to diminish risk of harm to
| individuals.
|
| > - The vaccines never prevented transmission
|
| That's a straw-man argument - that's not the primary purpose of
| a vaccine.
|
| > - The vaccines only offered very limited protection for a
| brief period
|
| Nah. Vaccines offered significant protection _against severe
| disease_ for a period of months (which itself is a factor of
| how the human body function). With widespread vaccination, the
| world was able to 'get on top of' the pandemic, and its
| effects of healthcare over-utilisation.
|
| > - The rate of side effects (including serious side effects up
| to and including death) is a lot higher than anyone wants to
| admit.
|
| _< citation needed>_
|
| > - To most segments of the population, the danger of death by
| vaccine side effects is greater than the danger of death by
| COVID-19
|
| _< citation needed>_
| realjhol wrote:
| >> - Lockdowns did little to prevent the spread of COVID...
|
| > <citation needed>
|
| https://iea.org.uk/publications/did-lockdowns-work-the-
| verdi...
|
| >> - Cloth masks were pointless security theatre
|
| > <citation needed>
|
| https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD.
| ..
|
| > I was happy to accept changes to my lifestyle to diminish
| risk of harm to individuals.
|
| We now have a massive unexplained excess deaths crisis, but
| suddenly it's "see no evil, hear no evil".
|
| >> - The vaccines never prevented transmission
|
| > That's a straw-man argument - that's not the primary
| purpose of a vaccine.
|
| That is not public officials and talking heads were saying at
| the start. See this montage:
|
| https://twitter.com/XvirtueSignaler/status/16657702694186147.
| ..
|
| > With widespread vaccination, the world was able to 'get on
| top of' the pandemic
|
| The world never "got on top of" COVID. It never had any
| significant control over it. Omicron came along, and spread
| through the population with mild symptoms, leading to
| widespread natural immunity.
|
| > its effects of healthcare over-utilisation.
|
| That never happened anywhere in the world.
|
| >> - The rate of side effects (including serious side effects
| up to and including death) is a lot higher than anyone wants
| to admit.
|
| > <citation needed>
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36055877/
|
| In randomized control trials of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines
| here in the UK, we now know that the risk of serious adverse
| effects from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines was 12.5 per
| 10,000 vaccinated i.e. a ~1 in 800 chance of serious adverse
| effects.
|
| >> - To most segments of the population, the danger of death
| by vaccine side effects is greater than the danger of death
| by COVID-19
|
| > <citation needed>
|
| The UK government has now published its estimate of the
| number of people needed to vaccinate to prevent a COVID-19
| hospitalisation:
|
| https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/.
| ..
|
| In Table 3, notice how in every age group except 70+, the
| number-needed-to-vaccinate to prevent a hospital visit figure
| is higher than 1 in 800.
|
| And in Table 4 notice not even 70+ are more in danger of
| severe hospitalisation than 1 in 800.
| Manjuuu wrote:
| I'm hoping that in a decade or so, people will stop using
| "vaccines never prevented transmission" as an argument since it
| has been said at least a billion of times since the beginning,
| VACCINES PREVENTED SERIOUS ILLNESS. Same thing about the
| imaginary widespread side-effects or the mask being useless.
|
| Depressing.
|
| Personally I'm more worried about the people that went full
| retard about covid alternative views and conspiracies, I've
| lost a few friends to that. Sometime I wonder if you will be
| able to integrate into society ever again.
| brutusborn wrote:
| It's depressing that public institutions mishandled this so
| badly that a huge segment of the population has lost trust in
| them.
|
| I can agree that the messaging I got was that the vaccine was
| meant to prevent serious illness. Regardless, the absurd
| policies, suppression of information and discussion on
| vaccine side effects was unforgivable.
|
| People went full retard because the institutions meant to
| provide them with good information instead treated them like
| children and suppressed detailed debate. The only alternative
| was to go online and risk the lunacy that is internet
| research, so people did so.
|
| Now more people are anti-vaxers than ever before, and not
| just for mRNA vaccines but old-school shots like measles.
|
| At a minimum many institutions need change of leadership
| after this fiasco, and maybe complete reform of others.
| Manjuuu wrote:
| Yeah, the handling was not great but sadly I'm not really
| sure if the population was ready for detailed debate,
| considering that a good chunk of it ended up
| misunderstanding most of the official notices and falling
| for the most stupid conspiracy theories.
|
| We need to improve education, by A LOT. And it's everyone
| responsibility.
| realjhol wrote:
| > I'm hoping that in a decade or so, people will stop using
| "vaccines never prevented transmission" as an argument since
| it has been said at least a billion of times since the
| beginning, VACCINES PREVENTED SERIOUS ILLNESS.
|
| No. They said vaccines prevent transmission. Over and over.
|
| You may have forgotten what was said at the time, but we
| won't:
|
| https://twitter.com/i/status/1665770269418614784
|
| It's the reason I was prevented from entering the US until
| just a couple of weeks ago. It's the reason why my mother-in-
| law lost her job as a nurse. People who refused this medical
| treatment, were treated as dangerous _because_ officials
| claimed that we presented a transmission hazard.
|
| This was a lie, which you are further compounding with more
| lies.
| Manjuuu wrote:
| I don't forget anything. As I can't forget all the times
| that I had to explain, since the beginning, that the only
| statistics available where about reducing to 0 the risk of
| serious illness. Don't try to change history, please.
|
| And don't link me some random idiot's tweet as proof, we
| are better than this.
|
| Just stop now and accept reality, it's a good thing that
| they got rid of your mother in law, I wonder in how much
| more pseudo science she believes in.
|
| Where I live, people that refused the vaccine were treated
| as utter idiots but still welcome in hospitals, most of the
| famous local covid denier died there too.
| realjhol wrote:
| > And don't link me some random idiot's tweet as proof,
| we are better than this.
|
| Watch the video clip in the tweet. It shows a montage of
| officials and talking heads claiming that the COVID
| vaccines would prevent you from getting COVID and
| transmitting it.
|
| Here's another one if you prefer:
|
| https://twitter.com/alliemarie777/status/1667561378398318
| 592
|
| > Just stop now and accept reality, it's a good thing
| that they got rid of your mother in law, I wonder in how
| much more pseudo science she believes in.
|
| No it isn't. The NHS now has chronic shortage of nurses.
|
| If there were a problem with pseudoscience, then they
| should have fired her for that, not some vague proxy.
|
| You're rather proving my point. So many people are just
| not ready to have a rational conversation about these
| narratives. It's all just tribalism and dogma, and we
| will have to wait years for people like you to calm down
| to the point where you are able to have reasonably
| conversations on these topics again.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| the issue is that the conversation is so polarized and
| religious its literally impossible to discuss any of these
| issues. the poster you are responding to states some things
| which are reasonable and others which are complete nonsense.
| Its like people cant help themselves once picking a side to
| just wholesale accept every position all the way to "covid
| isnt real" on one end and "no one should ever leave their
| house again" on the other end.
|
| The initial batch of vaccines were explicitly marketed as
| having a 95% effectiveness against transmission for the
| original strain. This was the entire basis of the herd
| immunity narrative and it was true for about 3 months until
| delta happened and the medical community did an egregiously
| bad job of communicating that.
|
| Cloth masks are objectively useless for personal protection.
| Manjuuu wrote:
| > as having a 95% effectiveness against transmission for
| the original strain.
|
| 95% reduction of serious illness. The objective of the mass
| vaccination was having as much people as possible survive
| the pandemic. Herd immunity was just noise. There were a
| lot of noise and nonsense.
|
| > Cloth masks are objectively useless for personal
| protection.
|
| Proper masks are effective as measured multiple times, tons
| of statistics on it.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| its remarkable how you managed to not actually respond to
| my points or are just gaslighting me as covidians have a
| tendency to do.
|
| heres a miriad of links touting the infection prevention
| after a 5 second google.
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/21/dr-fauci-says-covid-
| vaccines...
|
| https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-
| shows/553773-fauci-...
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/Health/pfizer-vaccine-
| shows-94-effect...
|
| i said cloth masks, and you respond proper masks. Yes,
| fitted n95 masks work. a tshirt over your face does not.
| Manjuuu wrote:
| Actually I was not sure which kind of masks you meant so
| I pointed out that real masks worked, but yes, obviously
| cotton/silk/lines/whatever masks without any kind of
| filter are useless.
|
| Don't post random "he said this, he said that" links
| please, there has been 0 doubt in my mind that since the
| release of the vaccines the only effect they had was to
| reduce the probability of serious illness, as repeated
| multiple times above.
|
| > or are just gaslighting me as covidians have a tendency
| to do.
|
| What? Cmon.
| Izkata wrote:
| And here's some links from a few months earlier showing
| we knew it was never tested for preventing
| infection/transmission:
|
| https://www.washington.edu/news/2020/12/02/covid-19-vacci
| nes...
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/who-says-no-evidence-
| coronav...
|
| https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-
| news/2020/12/covid-...
|
| Here's Pfizer's press release:
| https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-
| deta...
|
| Notice how it switches between SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19?
| That's because they're very specifically saying it
| prevents sickness, and not making any claims about
| infection/transmission. That came months later, per your
| links, from media and politicians who either didn't
| understand or were just straight lying. The 95% they're
| claiming came straight from the press release which was
| _only_ about sickness, not infection.
|
| It's pretty amazing just how hard this got memory-holed.
| DocSavage wrote:
| Of course it was tested for preventing infection. It was
| tested for that as well as efficacy against severe
| disease: "Efficacy against laboratory-confirmed COVID-19
| (with an onset of >= 7 days after receipt of the second
| dose) and against severe COVID-19.. was assessed among
| the participants 12 years of age or older."
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2110345
|
| You seem to be conflating the vaccine having efficacy
| against infection and whether a vaccinated individual who
| still catches COVID-19 (since protection against
| infection is obviously not 100%) can transmit it. The
| efficacy against original COVID-19 strain infection was
| high (91.3% for the Pfizer vaccine).
|
| Your first link speaks to the situation of a breakthrough
| infection being further transmitted. Since it wasn't
| clear HOW MUCH it curbed infection (under non-ideal/trial
| conditions), quarantines and caution were reasonable.
|
| Here's a chart that showed the original test results
| across a number of vaccines. The efficacy vs infection
| dropped quite a bit with variants though the efficacy vs
| severe disease holds up better:
|
| https://jbiomedsci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12
| 929...
| Manjuuu wrote:
| A lot of people were extremely confused during the
| pandemic and that's why they couldn't differentiate
| between actual verifiable information being shared and
| some random newscaster saying, wrongly, that vaccines
| prevented infection. A few years later they don't even
| know what is true anymore.
|
| > The 95% they're claiming came straight from the press
| release which was only about sickness, not infection.
|
| Yep, I repeated this so many times that toward the end I
| started just insulting people for not knowing.
| Nemrod67 wrote:
| looking at the majority of comments here, I'd say it'll take
| more than a decade...
|
| People just seem to blank out anything really bad done by
| "their team" (be it either orange man bad or clinton is a
| traitor).
|
| I fear for the future of Human civilization
| whimsicalism wrote:
| It might also just be because most of those claims are wrong.
| Unless you use 'prevent' to mean 'fully eliminate', every
| single one of those claims is wrong except for potentially
| the last one, which I am not sure of because I haven't
| researched.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Your positions, if these are all yours, are quite maximalist in
| one direction, and in some cases I have read pretty credible
| studies that contradict you. So, you may not get your Iraq
| moment.
| DocSavage wrote:
| Agreed. His first position on lockdowns is a GBD talking
| point that is strongly opposed by Sweden vs Norway through
| mid-2021 (the end of major vaccine rollout) when they had
| different positions on lockdown but shared many other
| characteristics. Sweden had 10x more deaths during that time
| period, about 1200 extra deaths per million people. It also
| completely ignores the morbidity introduced by all the extra
| cases while focusing on non-COVID morbidity.
|
| That vaccines never did anything to prevent transmission is a
| pretty ridiculous contention for the initial wave.
|
| That vaccines posed more of a danger to most of the
| population compared to COVID-19 itself is also ridiculous.
| The US had the largest vaccination drive in its history in
| early 2021, peaking at 3.5 million jabs per day in April.
| Excess death dropped dramatically throughout the rollout and
| kept falling past mid-2021.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > I have read pretty credible studies that contradict you.
|
| Studies cannot show if something was the right course of
| action. This isn't something that can be accounted for by
| some peer-reviewed research paper.
|
| The fact of the matter is, the response to covid was a
| massive disaster that did far more harm than good. And that
| is an absolute fact and one that will take a long time for
| people to swallow. It's hard to realize you literally wasted
| several years of your life for absolutely nothing at all.
| aadvark69 wrote:
| American Leftists declared it wrongthink and Big Tech overlords
| banned anyone who wanted to discuss it.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| Ironic that their research aimed at giving them a head start on
| vaccine development, and yet China's covid vaccine ended up being
| garbage compared to the American and European ones.
| hn_thrwn wrote:
| [flagged]
| ricksunny wrote:
| The sourcing and style will raise eyebrows. The revelations are
| valuable, and clear enough to be verifiable through one channel
| or another.
|
| And given that we are at 7 days remaining before the 90-day WIV
| intel disclosure deadline, old journo hands expect that info
| leaks are more likely to happen.
|
| https://twitter.com/mbalter/status/1667668700885819395?s=20
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| The response to Covid tells you that it came from their
| bioweapons lab. Their first response was to start burning people
| with flamethrowers and sealing in entire cities. You don't do
| that if it's a random virus you've never seen before.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Their first response was to try to suppress it.
|
| Burning _people_ with flamethrowers is propaganda, plain and
| simple. I challenge you to source that.
| turtleyacht wrote:
| From the article,
|
| > _You infect the mice, wait a week or so, and then recover the
| virus from the sickest mice. Then you repeat._
|
| From _The Hardware Hacker_ (2017) by "bunnie" Huang:
|
| > _So, a single base-pair change--simply flipping two bits--might
| be all you 'd need to turn the H1N1 swine flu virus into a
| deadlier variant... for just over $1,000._
|
| > _[Influenza] packs a deadly punch in 3.2 KB... and we [still]
| haven 't eradicated it. Could influenza do hacks like the one I
| just described on its own already? The short answer is yes._
|
| > _... on average, every copy of an influenza virus has one
| random mutation._
|
| > _[H1N1] was probably just a couple of mutations away from being
| a bigger health problem._
|
| > _... novel H1N1 acquired a mix of RNA snippets that gave it
| high transmission rates and made it something humans weren 't
| innately immune to. That's the perfect storm for a pandemic._
|
| > _If there were a computer analogy to this RNA-shuffling model,
| [random relinking of virus "files" at runtime]... would also
| proliferate a diverse set of viruses in the wild..._
|
| Fortunately for swine flu at least,
|
| > _... a patient [had] a novel antibody... to confer immunity to
| all 16 subtypes of influenza A._
|
| Against Covid, research by Dr. Weismann and Dr. Kariko led to the
| development of the mRNA vaccine:
|
| https://www.bu.edu/articles/2021/how-drew-weissman-and-katal...
| bredren wrote:
| > Witnesses are said to have told the US investigation that Zhou
| fell from the roof of the Wuhan institute, although this has not
| been verified.
|
| This guy who published a suspiciously early patent on a covid 19
| vaccine fell off a roof three months later?
|
| That's kind of buried in the article a bit but was this claim
| been made anywhere else?
|
| Also, the section on activity at the lab at the time of the
| outbreak does not mention analysis of private app data.
|
| IIRC, one of the early discredited reports suggesting lab origin
| had relied, in-part, on commercially available app data. The kind
| of adware built into "free" apps that violate user privacy.
|
| This data supposedly showed clear activity supporting a temporary
| shutdown of the Wuhan lab.
|
| This information always seemed the easiest to latch on to. Not to
| prove origin but at least offer an important fact for a pattern.
|
| US military bases have had their locations and perimeters out on
| the public web thanks to fitness apps.
|
| Was the WIV associated app data not real? If it was, why isn't it
| included in this article?
|
| The article relates a study "by academics at Wuhan University
| located the hotspots in Wuhan where people were reporting on
| social media that they needed treatment for Covid."
|
| How would this be more compelling than raw app data showing
| movement of employees or security workers in and around WIV?
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| ricksunny wrote:
| >This guy who published a suspiciously early patent on a covid
| 19 vaccine fell off a roof three months later?
|
| >That's kind of buried in the article a bit but was this claim
| been made anywhere else?
|
| As someone who's followed the debate closely, (with the
| submission history to demostrate that), I can tell you that the
| parent article is the first time the assertion that Zhou fell
| from the roof has ever been made in tbe public-facing side of
| the debate.
| verisimi wrote:
| I've never seen a virus in my life! So how did they make one in
| Wuhan?
|
| I'm pretty convinced that media departments are real though!
| christkv wrote:
| Nobody will ever want the truth because if it did come from the
| lab it implicates the Chinese government as well as the US
| government given that the US funded research in Wuhan through the
| EcoHealth Alliance to get around the ban on Gain of Function
| research in the US.
| tim333 wrote:
| The general public want the truth. It seems to be gradually
| leaking out.
| christkv wrote:
| The public sure, the governments no.
| tim333 wrote:
| It's gone oddly partisan in the US with the republicans
| wanting to investigate lab leaks and the dems not. Not sure
| I really understand that one.
|
| Seems to me that from the point of view of public health
| and not having millions die unnecessarily it would be good
| to figure what went on. Then if it's a lab leak you could
| restrict that stuff and if natural you could up research on
| nature.
| NovaDudely wrote:
| The only thing I have said about the whole lab leak theory for
| the last 3 years is this.
|
| IF it was a lab leak, that is the best case scenario. It means
| the virus was a part of peoples hubris and messing around with
| viruses. I potentially one time accident.
|
| If it isn't the lab leak, that means it is because of our
| intrusion on the wild world via agriculture and eventually the
| conditions of factory farming. If that is what it is, Covid will
| be the first of many like it.
| QuantumGood wrote:
| Summary: The Case for a Lab Leak, from a Sunday Times
| investigation (C):
|
| (1) The institute sought funding to research something (A), which
| Covid could result from. (Said later they didn't do the planned
| research), but funding from the military appears to have been
| given.
|
| (1.1) They planned to do the research at the time and approximate
| place where Covid later emerged.
|
| (2) Protections at the lab were not what they should have been.
|
| (2.2) Lab scientists had previously created a highly infectious
| super-coronavirus (not Covid-19) with a very high kill-rate that
| in all probability would never have emerged in nature. Their
| tests showed no known (at that time) way to effectively limit its
| spread were it to leak.
|
| (3) NO animal testing was reported in a wide vicinity around the
| the Hunan market. Samples of Covid found in the market were NOT
| from animals (B).
|
| (3.1) The market is a busy place in the center of the city where
| the virus would almost certainly be once it's spreading between
| people.
|
| (3.2) There is some evidence that researchers from the lab were
| hospitalized with Covid-like symptoms in November 2019, and one
| of their relatives died.
|
| (4) The biggest hotspot of people reporting illness via social
| media (in the month before the province was locked down on
| January 23) was at the institute, though this was partly hidden
| in initial reports. The first case in Britain was recorded a week
| later.
|
| (A) The Wuhan Institute of Virology sought funding for inserting
| a furin cleavage site. The institute is a 40-minute drive from
| the Huanan Seafood market.
|
| (B) In January 2020, Chinese officials cleared the market without
| testing live animals. The presence of SARS-CoV-2 was from
| environmental samples (animal cage, hair-and-feather-removal
| machine, etc). Covid-susceptible animals were present but NOT
| tested. The study of those samples was criticized for not having
| any animal samples.
|
| (C) Information above drawn from archive.ph/L2BSO and comments
| and links here in this HN thread.
|
| ---------------------------
|
| "The Sunday Times has reviewed hundreds of documents, including
| previously confidential reports, internal memos, scientific
| papers and email correspondence that has been obtained through
| sources or by freedom of information campaigners in the three
| years since the pandemic started. We also interviewed the US
| State Department investigators -- including experts on China,
| emerging pandemic threats, and biowarfare -- who conducted the
| first significant US inquiry into the origins of the Covid-19
| outbreak. The closest relatives to Covid known were too far from
| Covid to have developed into Covid on their own in a short time.
| So bringing in dangerous viruses and accidentally leaking them is
| an unlikely cause." Earlier reporting by the Times:
| archive.ph/Mkqox
|
| Genome statistical estimates indicate the "relatives" are decades
| away from Covid. In February 2020, RaTG13 was identified as the
| closest known relative of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes
| COVID-19, sharing 96.1% nucleotide identity. It was found near
| the town of Tongguan in Mojiang county in Yunnan, China. However,
| in 2022, scientists found three closer matches 530 km south, in
| Feuang, Laos, designated as BANAL-52 (96.8% identity), BANAL-103
| and BANAL-236. However, it is alleged that one virus at the Wuhan
| institute was an even closer match to Covid-19 than RaTG13. Note
| that bat viruses had never been known to harm humans.
| Intermediate animals apparently catching a virus from bats and
| passing it to humans had been known to happen.
|
| In the lead-up to the pandemic, the Wuhan institute frequently
| experimented on coronaviruses alongside the Academy of Military
| Medical Sciences, a research arm of the People's Liberation Army
| (PLA). In published papers, military scientists are listed as
| working for the Beijing Institute of Microbiology and
| Epidemiology, which is the military academy's base.
| QuantumGood wrote:
| Overly-speculative information supporting a lab leak:
|
| "Scientists with close relationships with the Wuhan Institute
| of Virology said it was their belief that there was vaccine
| research going on in the fall of 2019, pertinent to Covid-19
| vaccination"
|
| "Investigators believe the Chinese military had taken an
| interest in developing a vaccine for the viruses so they could
| be used as potential bioweapons. If a country could inoculate
| its population against its own secret virus, it might have a
| weapon to shift the balance of world power."
|
| In May 2020, one of the key researchers died from unconfirmed
| causes at age 54.
|
| "On November 19, the safety director of the Chinese Academy of
| Sciences made a visit, according to the institute's website. He
| addressed a meeting of the institute's leadership with
| important 'oral and written' instructions from China's
| president, Xi Jinping, regarding 'a complex and grave
| situation'. "
|
| "In the first months of the pandemic, many Chinese scientists
| visited bat caves in Yunnan to see whether they could find a
| place where Covid may have originated.... 7 scientists
| attempting to visit were told the Moijang mine (known source of
| at least one Covid-like coronavirus) was closed, so they
| sampled bats in another abandoned copper mine nearby. On the
| first day of their work, police arrived, seized the samples and
| took them to their station, where they were interrogated and
| detained for 48 hours. Officers also went to their hotel and
| seized the samples they had collected from elsewhere. Even
| though the team had approval to test in the area, they were
| ordered to leave. Searching for bat viruses was banned in
| Yunnan in early 2021"
| lakomen wrote:
| Weird, I'm getting ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH on the
| archive.ph link in Chrome on Android via 4G.
| lifelong wrote:
| https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statem...
|
| Also posted on HN 2 years ago with ... zero comments"
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nih.gov%2Fabout-...
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| aaplok wrote:
| > The investigators believe the Chinese military had taken an
| interest in developing a vaccine for the viruses so they could be
| used as potential bioweapons. If a country could inoculate its
| population against its own secret virus, it might have a weapon
| to shift the balance of world power.
|
| This part doesn't make sense to me. Coronavirus is known to
| mutate constantly and rapidly. Having a vaccine against a strand
| might provide a temporary advantage, but that advantage would
| subside quickly. Coronaviruses would make poor bioweapons
| considering how impossible it would be to control them.
|
| If an army wants to develop a virus-based weapon wouldn't there
| be better viruses to base it from than COVIDs?
| Fomite wrote:
| To be frank, given SARS-CoV-1 as well as MERS, and the known
| prevalence of coronaviruses in and near China, if I was the
| military I think I'd be justified into looking at viruses not
| as potential bioweapons but as a force readiness problem.
|
| The U.S. has done this, and indeed, most of our public health
| infrastructure is an outgrowth of it.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| You're not meant to ask questions. You're meant to blindly
| swallow this non-sense because it agrees with your pre-existing
| prejudices, political views or just emotional need to feel like
| you're part of a group of special people with inside knowledge
| trying to wake up the sheeple or something...
| revelio wrote:
| Viruses mutate because they are constantly exposed to the
| immune systems of people who were already previously infected,
| so they have to mutate in order to dodge prior natural
| immunity. That isn't a concern if most people who get infected
| die.
|
| Moreover, the first SARS-CoV-2 variant took a long time to
| start mutating and even then it was only minor mutations. If
| you release an extremely infectious very deadly virus and you
| have a vaccine for it, then at that moment it's a Deus Ex
| scenario and whoever can manufacture the vaccine can take over
| the world because your enemies are now collapsing and will do
| anything to obtain the vaccine including giving up their own
| autonomy. Guess that's the theory, at least.
|
| As to why SARS-CoV-2: because it's airborne and can spread long
| distances via gas-like clouds (which is why lockdowns, masks,
| wiping surfaces etc didn't work). You can't really get better
| if you want to very rapidly infect a whole country.
| 2devnull wrote:
| Governments investigate imperfect weapons. Consider LSD.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| cnity wrote:
| You don't do research and development on things that are
| already perfect. You do it on things you hope one day might be
| refined into something more useful. Similarly you don't halt
| all research on all other possible avenues because one single
| avenue _might_ be better.
| johnea wrote:
| Too bad the article is from a UK equivalent to the National
| Inquirer...
| Biorealism wrote:
| Nonsense. The Times is one of the main UK publications along
| with the Guardian and The Telegraph.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| You posted 68 (!) comments in this thread, most of which
| were either unsubstantive (like this one), or flamebait, or
| both. That's not what this site is for, and destroys what
| it is for. We have to ban accounts that post like this, so
| please don't do it again.
|
| The idea here is: if you have a substantive point, make it
| thoughtfully; if not, please don't comment until you do.
| And please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow
| the guidelines in the future.
| frank_bb wrote:
| [dead]
| highfrequency wrote:
| The idea that Covid19 was accidentally leaked from the Wuhan lab
| has moved from conspiracy theory to mainstream view of many US
| gov't agencies with the most classified information available to
| them.
|
| John Ratcliffe, former Director of National Intelligence: "My
| informed assessment, as a person with as much or more access than
| anyone to our government's intelligence during the initial year
| of the virus outbreak and pandemic onset, has been and continues
| to be that a lab leak is the only explanation credibly supported
| by our intelligence, by science and by common sense. From a view
| inside the IC, if our intelligence and evidence supporting a lab
| leak theory was placed side-by-side with our intelligence and
| evidence pointing to a naturally occurring "spillover" theory,
| the lab leak side of the ledger would be long and overwhelming
| while the "spillover" side would be nearly empty."
|
| https://oversight.house.gov/release/covid-origins-part-2-hea...
|
| The Furin cleavage site is one of the more compelling pieces of
| evidence. 1.5 years before the outbreak, the Wuhan Institute
| applied for a grant from Darpa to explore _mutating coronaviruses
| to make them more infectious to humans_ , particularly through
| the addition of a Furin cleavage site. (Darpa declined to fund
| the research).
|
| The Covid-19 virus is notable for being the only coronavirus to
| have a Furin cleavage site. Not only that, but it appears to be
| basically a _perfect mutation_ that specifically modifies the 12
| nucleotides necessary for the Furin site, without modifying other
| base pairs.
|
| Here's a quote from email excerpt included in the recent Congress
| hearing:
|
| "Before I left the office for the ball, I aligned nCoV with the
| 96% bat CoV sequenced at WIV. Except for the RBD the S proteins
| are essentially identical at the amino acid level - well all but
| the perfect insertion of 12 nucleotides that adds the furin site.
| S2 is over its whole length essentially identical. I really can't
| think of a plausible natural scenario where you get from the bat
| virus or one very similar to it to nCoV where you insert exactly
| 4 amino acids 12 nucleotide that all have to be added at the
| exact same time to gain this function - that and you don't change
| any other amino acid in S2? I just can't figure out how this gets
| accomplished in nature. Do the alignment of the spikes at the
| amino acid level - its stunning. Of course, in the lab it would
| be easy to generate the perfect 12 base insert that you wanted."
|
| https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lette...
| ricksunny wrote:
| (That latter quote is Tulane virologist Robert Garry. Like his
| peers he would go on to downplay the LL hyp in the wake of the
| Feb 1st conference call organized by then-head of Wellcome
| Trust Jeremy Farrar.)
| [deleted]
| marsven_422 wrote:
| [dead]
| jeswin wrote:
| I'd like for someone to throughly research and write about how it
| became taboo to discuss the virus leak theory. How researchers
| who discussed it were shunned, tagged as racists, and in some
| cases had their posts banned from Social Media. About how almost
| the entire scientific community discarded the idea as impossible.
| How during the early pandemic years, no mainstream news media
| dared talk about the possibility.
|
| Tech companies too had a role to play here. For the sake of free
| speech, what happened here is worth discussing.
| tmaly wrote:
| > But the Wuhan institute withheld information about the mine
| deaths from EcoHealth and the US government.
|
| This reads more like CYA piece
| ttflee wrote:
| It was kinda pro-trumpish to say that before Joe nailed the
| presidency.
| OscarTheGrinch wrote:
| Humans have a bias towards: "That would be terrible if true,
| therefore it is not true."
| throwaway485 wrote:
| There was a brief window at the beginning where it would have
| mattered to know the origin of the virus. Intervention at a wet
| market or in a wuhan lab could have happened. However, this
| theory was circulated and promoted to inspire hatred and
| distrust of many authority figures. Authorities who put
| significant resources forward to save lives. Even today we're
| still seeing thousands die from what may very well be a
| conspiracy theory.
|
| Both can be true: It originated in a lab, and the distrust that
| inspired is still killing many. It's dangerous to talk about it
| because it's still killing people.
|
| If we found out 100% the lab theory is false, you'd still have
| millions who want it to be true and who want to be enraged. You
| have millions who want to put themselves at risk. There are
| larger problems with society than this virus. That's what this
| conspiracy uncovered.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| > _However, this theory was circulated and promoted to
| inspire hatred and distrust of many authority figures._
|
| Don't forget that some people just want to know the truth,
| and don't like being lied to. I don't think it's a good
| principle that whenever the truth is used as an excuse for
| bad things (insofar as "distrust of authority figures" is
| even a bad thing), it is justified to lie.
|
| > _Even today we 're still seeing thousands die from what may
| very well be a conspiracy theory._
|
| And how many past and future deaths can be attributed to _the
| lack of trust caused by trying to cover up the truth_? Many
| more, I 'd wager. There's a crucial irony in trying to
| maintain trust by hiding the truth. Many people just can't or
| don't want to understand this.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| >It's dangerous to talk
|
| A bear charging at you is dangerous. Talking is not.
| [deleted]
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Uh if it came from the lab we could still today have a shot
| at finding out what went wrong and then use that to improve
| safety at other labs worldwide. Assuming relevant records
| weren't destroyed, anyway. If we can tell that they were
| destroyed, then USA et al should immediately stop supporting
| Chinese virology research in any way and pressure them to
| close the facilities via sanctions etc. In order to find out
| either of these things, we need an investigation. This all
| seems pretty straightforwardly true, and it totally drowns
| out any other second order concerns IMO.
| throwaway485 wrote:
| We're too far removed from the time and place to accurately
| determine what happened. Even if we had first-hand
| witnesses or documentation, the disinformation 'aura'
| around the whole thing makes it impossible to get the
| honest truth out. There's no chain of custody for evidence
| that you, yourself would trust. That's what I mean that at
| this point it doesn't matter what the reality was, the
| damage is still compounding from it. The absolute worst
| thing out of the last 3 years is the terrible messaging
| from authority figures to unify around public safety. To
| say 1 thing and impress upon everyone the legitimacy of the
| danger, without distracting from that message and leveling
| conspiracies. From an objective historical point of view we
| want to know what happened, but no one will be able to
| confirm the legitimacy of that now.
|
| It's still killing people. I directly vaccinated thousands
| in Los Angeles, I had several family members die, and 1 of
| my aunts - an RN - is getting reinstated after 2 years
| because she was fired for telling people "the jab will kill
| you". This was after she tried to convince my other aunt -
| another RN - that she should not get the vaccine while
| being in a risk category.
|
| Never have we seen disinformation used to harm so many.
| It's too dangerous to talk about, and if we found the truth
| no one could corroborate it or convince others of it. It is
| done, millions are dead.
|
| As a sidelong thought, I'm convinced in this information
| age that there is no truth. The truth is anything you want
| it to be if you can inspire a viral cult around a
| contrarian thought. I'm sorry if I just sound so jaded.
|
| I still remember assisting a woman who /wanted/ the vaccine
| while her husband screamed at us outside the tape line with
| officers nearby - screaming about how the government was
| trying to kill black Americans and citing events like
| Tuskegee. We earned that, and I still see the fear in his
| eyes when we swabbed her arm.
| stef25 wrote:
| > 1 of my aunts - an RN - is getting reinstated after 2
| years because she was fired for telling people "the jab
| will kill you". This was after she tried to convince my
| other aunt - another RN - that she should not get the
| vaccine while being in a risk category
|
| It's crazy how many nurses don't trust science and news
| reports. Here in Belgium it was a big problem too. So
| many of them seem to be very cynical about and have
| serious distrust in big pharma while they themselves
| administer drugs that make (most) patients better. How
| they can just overlook that and keep their jobs is beyond
| me (no offense meant to your family)
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| They do get to see how the sausage is made. Are you sure
| that the reality around patient drug experiences is so
| positive? Is it more likely that such nurses are
| completely delusional, or that they have information or
| experience that you or I don't? Keep in mind that
| everyone in medicine has a financial and career incentive
| which points towards aligning with and advocating for the
| system they are so invested in, so there would be a
| tendency for this point of view to be under expressed, if
| anything.
| kiltedpanda wrote:
| You might want to look into what disinformation you were
| personally subjected to that brought you to your own
| perspective. People who aired their own personal vaccine
| adverse event experiences were maligned, shamed and
| cancelled. What makes you think you have the correct
| information on vaccine adverse events?
|
| I personally know 3 people who have had life altering
| negative effects due to the vaccine, including myself.
| You no doubt think that is a lie or a statistical
| anomaly. What you've missed is that it is ridiculously
| hard to register an adverse event, due to procedural
| process, and the negative bias of medical practitioners
| such as yourself who are unwilling to attribute an event
| to a recent vaccine, or blame it on the virus itself
| (without any symptoms of course).
|
| The 'Trusted News Initiative' is one mans life-saving
| purveyor of truth, and another mans very obvious
| propaganda network.
|
| I would encourage you to look at an Israeli study "Survey
| of reported symptoms after a third vaccination Of Pfizer
| against 19-COVID".
|
| 4% of men experienced chest pain after vaccination (page
| 16) 7% of women experienced chest pain after vaccination
| (page 16)
|
| A survey based approach is more likely to get better
| statical results IMO because it removes the laborious
| reporting procedure as well as medical practitioner bias.
|
| I'm fed up of self-righteous do-gooders who think they
| have an exclusive view of 'the truth'. I wouldn't care so
| much about it were it not for the negative effect those
| do-gooder's actions can have on other people's health, as
| it did in my own case.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I'm confused by your post. "the jab
| will kill you"
|
| Why did, an educated RN, believe this? And why was she
| trying to spread the idea? Is this RN also (generally) an
| anti-vaxxer? I'm not sure if it is the location of so
| many media outlets, but Los Angeles County (and Orange
| County) does seem to be the epicenter of anti-vaxxer
| culture in the US.
| throwaway485 wrote:
| A presidential campaign lured in my educated aunt. It
| will never make sense.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Thank you to share your story. I'm sorry that you lost
| family members.
| AeiumNE wrote:
| It's very arrogant to take your understanding of the benefit
| of the truth, finding it lacking, and then assuming that this
| is same negligible benefit the truth will have for everyone
| else.
| bruce511 wrote:
| To me fair the folk dying today are tangential to the origin
| story.
|
| I'm not sure the origin story mattered a whole lot along the
| way, other than being a useful political distraction. I don't
| think it informed personal or medical behaviour.
|
| Of course discussions around vaccines, masks, social
| distancing etc did have a huge impact on personal behaviours,
| so those are far more impactful both than and in hindsight.
|
| The different strategies applied, the messaging, the
| outcomes, from New Zealand to Sweden and everything in-
| between will be disected by anthropogists for decades to
| come.
|
| The actual origin is a red-herring, it really doesn't matter.
| Viruses come from lots of places. We can't prevent that. What
| we can control is our response. As long as our first question
| is "who to blame" our outcomes will be similar, or worse, the
| next time around.
| cheaprentalyeti wrote:
| The origin story matters because we had the authoritarian
| bureaucrats who helped create the virus AND LIED ABOUT IT
| running the virus response in this country and they took
| all of their new powers and produced one of the highest per
| capita death rates from the virus in a so-called advanced
| country.
|
| It looks a lot worse than suspicious.
| bruce511 wrote:
| You don't say which country is "this country" - but from
| the context I'm assuming China? And sure if it was
| created in a lab then that opens the door to lots of
| political questions.
|
| But the source of the virus remains less important to the
| folk that died from it. They're no less dead because it
| escaped from a lab than if it came from a wet market.
|
| Responses in every country were different. Which ones
| were the right ones are valuable lessons moving forward,
| and anthropologists will be studying that data for
| decades.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| I think OP meant the US. Anthony Fauci was one of the
| main individuals in the government responsible for
| sponsoring gain of function research, including funding
| some of it at the Wuhan institute. It was incredibly odd
| that a virologist with no public health background (and a
| very questionable role in past HIV policy) effectively
| commandeered the CDC's job here, but it makes sense if
| you think about it as a " cover my ass" move from him.
| inciampati wrote:
| The actual origin is critical to understand, because it
| will happen again. We should be ready and able to watch out
| for where it might come from.
|
| Can you agree that, if it was generated by human activity
| that we can control, it'd be critical to know this and
| spread information about it widely?
| bruce511 wrote:
| Absolutely. Perhaps it was grown in a lab, perhaps it was
| released, or perhaps it escaped. All happened before, all
| will happen again.
|
| Given that I don't think we -can- control human behavior,
| there are good labs, there are bad labs, etc, I think the
| ability to -respond- I paramount. While the origin is
| interesting in an historical way, lessons from the
| response will be more useful going forwards.
|
| We need to respond in a way that is independent of
| origin. That will ultimately lead to better outcomes, and
| incidentally reduce the risk of bio-terrorism.
|
| [Aside - if it was lab grown I don't think it was
| released on purpose (it wouldn't have been released
| locally). Which means some sort of failure in the safety
| protocols, which likely means human error. General
| discussion on that topic I useless except for a tiny
| sliver of people doing that work. I'm not sure discussing
| it on social media really achieves anything. ]
| JoshuaDavid wrote:
| Well if it did come from a lab, there is the obvious
| question of whether the type of research that lab was
| doing had benefits commensurate with the risks, and also
| whether the middle of a dense city is the best place to
| conduct that kind of research.
| cirgue wrote:
| The origin 100% does matter. It demonstrates that some
| kinds of virus research pose an existential threat to
| humanity if not handled properly. That seems relevant,
| especially when simultaneously Covid demonstrated that such
| research is also _really important to do_. Like the origin
| actually does pose some serious, non-trivial ethical
| questions about disease research that the public absolutely
| has a right and obligation to participate in.
| bruce511 wrote:
| >> some kinds of virus research pose an existential
| threat to humanity if not handled properly.
|
| I mean, I'm not trying to be a dick, but ... duh. This
| has been the primary plot point of a zillion movies for
| forever.
|
| Oh, and accidents at labs happen more often than you'd
| like[1]. And the frequency seems to be going up, not
| down. >> the public absolutely has a right and obligation
| to participate in.
|
| I'm sure the "public" (by which I assume you mean random
| people on social media) are not qualified in the
| slightest to participate in this discussion. If you feel
| that you have an "obligation" to weigh in, then by all
| means feel free. No-one is stopping you. It's completely
| possible to have discussions on lab safety without having
| to point fingers at a specific incident.
|
| As you point out there's a really strong tension at play
| here - it's very important to be able to do virus
| research. Working with viruses is dangerous. It can be
| made as safe as possible, but it's still dangerous. There
| is a very fine line here, which is best walked by people
| highly qualified and working in this space. Given they
| are the most likely first victims of any accident, I'm
| sure they are highly motivated to be safe.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_bios
| ecurity...
| kiltedpanda wrote:
| Perhaps it matters so that we can hold those responsible to
| account to reduce the chances of it happening again?
| Wouldn't you want to know if a rogue group had a gain-of-
| function project rejected by DARPA and then secretly moved
| it to China to avoid oversight and then that project caused
| a pandemic?
|
| And perhaps the people that did that shouldn't be in charge
| of how to handle the pandemic and shouldn't be in charge of
| determining how the pandemic started?
| sacrosancty wrote:
| With some of these controversial topics, there always seem to
| be people who prefer disinformation over truth for the reason
| that the general public can't be trusted with the truth since
| it might motivate them to do bad things.
|
| The question then is, does it apply to yourself, or are you
| special? What knowledge motivates you to do bad things? Do
| you wish that was hidden from you so you weren't such a
| harmful person?
| [deleted]
| kubectl_h wrote:
| > There was a brief window at the beginning where it would
| have mattered to know the origin of the virus.
|
| This is such a fatalistic and cynical way of looking at the
| world. It mattered then -- as it matters now -- because we
| can act on information. Everything that happened after that
| "window" was not overdetermined.
| harryf wrote:
| You might find https://globalhealthproject.org is going some of
| this direction.
|
| > We're building a community of doctors and patients affected
| by medical tyranny. Our goal is to rebuild the sacred trust
| between the medical community and those they serve.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > Our goal is to rebuild the sacred trust between the medical
| community and those they serve.
|
| Sure but looking at just one of the GHP people (Molly
| Rutherford) shows a Twitter timeline promoting conspiracy
| theories, anti-vaxxers, Epoch Times, anti-LGBTQ, etc. It
| doesn't engender much confidence in her reliability as a
| narrator.
| jkingsbery wrote:
| Jim Geraghty of National Review has written a lot about this,
| as he pretty early advocated for the possibility of the lab
| leak. Because he writes for a right-leaning publication though,
| there are lots of ad hominem attacks thrown his way that are
| pretty baseless.
| ricksunny wrote:
| I HN-submitted the parent article originally. By way of
| demonstrating topic familiarity, I have a track record of
| submitting origns content to HN. (It usually founders or gets
| user-flagged). I didn't guess that this one would garner quite
| so much attention.
|
| >I'd like for someone to throughly research and write about how
| it became taboo to discuss the virus leak theory
|
| IMO part of it was a lot of self-preservation instinct of
| biomedical research scientists, operating in the context of a
| calcified monopsony of a national funding organization. In
| other words, any biomedical scientist's legitimizing LLH too
| stridently would not necesssrily have healthy to one's grant
| fundng prospects.
|
| Caveating that 'none of the content of this comment necessarily
| reflects the opinion of BiosafetyNow', I also serve on
| BiosafetyNow's leadership team. BN was formed in the wake of
| the wagon-circling & gaslighting of the lab leak hyp.
| https://biosafetynow.org/ (Richard Ebright, mentioned elsewhere
| in the comments, is also on the leadership team. More familiar
| names are Colin Butler, & Milton Leitenberg).
|
| We recently released a petition to ban ePPP research (i.e.
| 'GoF')
|
| https://www.change.org/prohibit-ePPP.
|
| It just passed 1000 signatures yesterday. I would love for
| concerned visitors to these comments to add their name. Despite
| that we advocate a simple ban today, our org has in its mission
| statement to see a _moratorium_ on ePPP research _until
| sufficent biosafety measures are put in place_ whereupon it
| becomes (highly) _regulated_ ePPP researxh instead of out-and-
| out banned. The definition of 'sufficient' is not left to
| scientists alone to determine, and I contribute toward
| representing the non-scientist public to advocate for what
| should be considered sufficient biosafety measures.(Pro-tip:
| More representation of the non-scientist public remains needed
| here :) )
|
| The nonprofit still operates on a shoestring budget, so if
| readers were inclined to help with that, it would be most
| appreciated. (Can also find origins censorship-themed
| merchandise which some folks might find fun :) )
|
| If you'd like to volunteer your talents - software and
| otherwise - to BiosafetyNow's advocacy effort, it would be
| similarly most welcome.
| Symmetry wrote:
| Matthew Yglesias wrote a whole thing on how the idea initially
| became politicized in the US. The short of it was that when
| Trump was downplaying the danger of human-to-human transmission
| early on because his friend Xi told him that wasn't happening
| Senator Tom Cotton started talking up the idea that the Chinese
| government might be lying about because it escaped from a
| government lab. But then there was a game of telephone and it
| turned into the idea it was a Chinese bioweapon.
|
| https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-medias-lab-leak-fiasco
| mellosouls wrote:
| It wasn't taboo - the associated conspiracy theory about the
| leak being a _deliberate_ release of a bio-weapon was rightly
| dismissed.
|
| The idea of it being an accidental release though was discussed
| a lot; it merely lacked strong evidence (no doubt partly due to
| Chinese obfuscation) to take pole position against the meat
| markets theory.
|
| Additionally there was definitely a ridiculous and likely
| harmful "anti-racist" thrust by the usual censorious suspects,
| including those you mention that tried to control conversation,
| as they do.
|
| Unfortunately the merging of the two theories at the time
| (which I think is continued here by wrongly suggesting the
| accidental-leak case was "taboo") has never helped clear
| discussion.
| revelio wrote:
| It was all dismissed as misinformation and conspiracies.
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/13/us/coronavirus-made-in-
| la...
|
| _The latest poll from the public opinion fact tank shows
| that misinformation around the virus is still king, even as
| fact checkers and public health officials work furiously to
| dispel it and save American lives.
|
| A total of 23% of adults polled said they believe the virus
| was created intentionally. This is almost certainly not true,
| according to the genetic detectives studying the virus's
| origins.
|
| The theory that the virus originated in a lab was one
| repeatedly shared on One America News Network, a far-right
| channel favored by President Donald Trump._
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52224331
|
| _From the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak,
| conspiracy theories about the origin and scale of the disease
| were spread on online platforms.
|
| Among these were the false claim that the virus was part of a
| Chinese covert biological weapons programme.
|
| The claim that the virus was man-made has been pushed by
| numerous conspiracy groups on Facebook, obscure Twitter
| accounts and even found its way on to primetime Russian state
| TV."_
|
| Now what we read is that the virus was man made and the WIV
| was doing secret military work for the PLA, with the idea
| being to create a virus and vaccine simultaneously so the
| attacker controls who survives i.e. a bioweapon. That's the
| same as what the BBC called a false claim and conspiracy
| theory.
|
| The reason this investigation was initially done by anonymous
| people who found each other via backchannels on Twitter is
| because suppression of this discussion was near total.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Now what we read is that the virus was man made and the
| WIV was doing secret military work for the PLA, with the
| idea being to create a virus and vaccine simultaneously so
| the attacker controls who survives i.e. a bioweapon. That's
| the same as what the BBC called a false claim and
| conspiracy theory.
|
| In a tabloid, recycling claims that have already quite
| questionable without any additional evidence (ie. the
| Mojiang mine stuff is not nearly as cut-and-dry as this
| article makes it out to be).
| saiya-jin wrote:
| What the heck are you writing about, this was discussed in all
| mainstream media I ever cared to look at, since almost
| beginning of lockdowns. Maybe you watch some strange subset of
| those?
|
| Sure, the overall narrative was that this is just an unproven
| theory and nothing more, but it was out there, people were
| discussing probabilities of some lab employees error who went
| to nearby wet market afterwards.
|
| I am not saying this didn't happen in scientific community, I
| don't follow them closely enough to claim that. I recall few
| cases in Europe where paranoid scientists were claiming this,
| on top of quite a few other crank theories about various
| topics, also ie pushing hard for high doses of Ivermectin,
| dismissing all vaccinations etc. Understandably, with just
| throwing around various claims without backing them up with
| facts, they were not received well in community.
| sixQuarks wrote:
| In the beginning of the pandemic, I fell for Fauci's lies. I
| saw him as a pillar of truth and science against the backdrop
| of Trump's idiocracy. So, I can empathize with those who still
| think he's a good person, they have not been exposed to all the
| evidence of how he orchestrated lies and smears to cover up the
| lab leak theory, and how he funded the gain of function
| research that likely lead to the pandemic (even though gain of
| function was outlawed in the US). He even lied about it under
| oath. And why has nothing happened? Because big pharma is one
| of the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic and they are the
| biggest advertisers on corporate mainstream media. The whole
| thing is sick and twisted. And I know this sound like a
| conspiracy nut to those who have not looked into this deeply,
| but it is what it is.
| localplume wrote:
| [dead]
| usrme wrote:
| The best book I've read on the topic of the lab leak theory is
| "Viral" by Alina Chan & Matt Ridley. It goes into the nitty-
| gritty scientific detail as well, but also covers some of the
| things you mentioned too.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| We need the same for the complete 180 on lockdowns. From
| universally against to forced lockdowns. I think people forget
| how strong the consensus (including medical) against lockdowns
| was.
|
| I was in China during the outbreak. All western media and
| healthcare experts had to say about lockdowns was that they
| were counterproductive and have never been part of the medical
| playbook. And that it violates civil rights. A month later this
| seemed to be completely forgotten.
|
| Personally, I believe this is all a function of the states
| ability to enforce it. It wasn't possible before, but they
| found that it was possible now. But it was summarily rejected
| on principal prior to that.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| It was an election year. Trump _really_ didn 't want to do
| anything that would upset the economy, and he gambled all his
| chips on "ignore it until it goes away." Public officials
| were begging and pleading to take measures to get R under
| control from the very start of exponential growth in the US,
| but they were not able to break through the political
| stonewall. Conservatives will say & do anything to get you to
| forget how hard they went on the wrong side of history.
|
| People came to their senses when the following level of
| urgency was reached: "if you don't lockdown NOW, in two
| doubling periods -- one week -- every hospital will have a
| parking lot full of people slowly dying for want of a
| respirator. Do you want that news story as your legacy?"
| nradov wrote:
| It turns out that mechanical ventilators weren't very
| helpful. They did more harm than good for many patients,
| and overuse was a factor in the unusually high infection
| fatality rate seen in New York during the first phase of
| the pandemic. Ironically, some patients walking around
| today probably survived only because there was a shortage
| of ventilators.
|
| https://apnews.com/article/health-us-news-ap-top-news-
| intern...
| hospitalJail wrote:
| No one wants to say why the lockdowns happen, but I'll say
| it.
|
| The Democrats wanted a bad economy for Trump going into the
| 2020 election and it worked.
|
| (What is worse? That Democrats ignored
| epidemiologists/scientists recommendations and Republican's
| did listen to them? Or that they deliberately sabotaged the
| economy to replace Trump?)
|
| EDIT: Downvotes mean that your favorite team's color ignored
| scientific recommendations? Yikes... I'm much happier to say
| the Democrats played politics correctly and ousted Trump.
| Zetobal wrote:
| Thank God 99% of all the other countries were in on it
| otherwise they would have looked really foolish as one of
| the only countries without lockdowns.
| [deleted]
| hospitalJail wrote:
| Yes exactly. The faction out of power saw this as a wedge
| issue that could divide the nation.
|
| It has that demagogue wiff of 'this is a good idea'
| without it actually being a good idea.
|
| Do you really think that every country's politicans
| ignored scientists? Or is it more likely this was a
| political tool?
|
| This makes me think we need a mandatory "Work in politics
| for 6 months" requirement. Locking down the nation for
| political points is one of the less egregious things I've
| seen. If I told you the lengths politicians would go to
| change 0.5% of the vote, it would blow your mind.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| The Dems didn't make Trump bet everything on "ignore it
| and it will go away." He could have pushed for public
| health measures in February 2020 ("Stop the China Virus,
| wear a MAGA mask!"). He didn't. He squandered the
| opportunity to use gentle R reduction, so we had to jump
| to strong R reduction with lockdowns.
|
| I know that following the science doesn't come naturally
| to Republicans, but this is basic shit. If you had
| figured it out then, you wouldn't need to be on Trump
| daiper duty in 2023.
| Zetobal wrote:
| Go ahead.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| EDIT: Disclaimer, this was for one of the most principled
| politicians I've ever met. To this day, he will say he is
| an anarchist in public. (Although, he would say it in a
| pleasurable way)
|
| Sure, so to change 0.5% of the vote, we would find people
| with demographics that people vote for.
|
| For instance, if there is a women on the ballot, run
| another women because at least 0.5% of people vote for a
| women, so this splits the vote. Or find someone with
| similar/same names, bonus points if their signage only
| has their last name.
|
| Anyone with the enemy's yard sign, gets the negative ad.
| Each neg ad was tested considerably.
|
| There is a huge database of every voter, their petitions
| they signed, odds of being dem/gop, odds of voting, their
| pet names(if registered), etc... You go up to someone's
| house knowing they support guns because they signed a
| petition. Heck, the candidate would pretend they
| remembered the dog's name from a few years ago.
|
| Lying and plausible deniability is like a daily thing.
| Looking back on it, I would have been sacrificed in a
| second for putting neg ads in people's mailboxes
| illegally.
|
| Those are some heavy hitters. I feel like I forgot like 2
| major stomach churning events, maybe I blocked them out.
| (Oh gosh, when I went to the enemy's campaign rally and
| put neg ads on everyone's cars, got followed by their
| staff, jumped over a fence/bush area to escape...) Okay,
| I'm only missing 1 stomach churning event from my memory.
| I think it was strategy related, maybe it had to do with
| old people.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Those sound like basic things that politicians or even
| salespeople do. You sound like you went in naive, got
| your mind blown, and now believe anything is possible. I
| hate to break it to you but you haven't uncovered any
| shocking secrets and your 'destroy the economy so we can
| beat Trump even though he is defeating himself with his
| handling of the epidemic' theory doesn't water.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| So you think the Democrats ignored scientists?
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Democrats are not some monolithic entity. A 'democrat' is
| basically someone in the US who votes who has empathy for
| others and/or isn't in favor of Christian religious
| doctrine as a basis for legislating morality and/or
| thinks that making it super easy for anyone to buy a gun
| makes gun violence exponentially more likely.
|
| I really doubt they all coordinated to destroy the
| livelihood of millions of American's to make the
| president look bad when he was doing it just fine by
| himself day after day.
|
| If you are going to go the conspiracy route why not look
| to Republican politicians? They are much more unified and
| they universally hate Trump (do you even remember the
| primary debates? He literally insulted other opponent's
| families) and they only got in line because he
| demonstrated he could destroy their career by motivating
| his base to action. They wanted him gone just as much as
| anyone else -- they just couldn't say or do anything
| overt about it.
|
| But no, that didn't happen either. A idiotic narcissist
| who refuses to listen to anyone and is obsessed with how
| he looks under stage lights more than welfare of the
| American people can lose an election just fine on his
| own.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| So you do think that most Democrats ignored
| scientists/science?
|
| I know you've been asked this question 3 or 4 times now,
| and ignored it each time, but I thought maybe you'd
| answer it this time.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| The question makes no sense. What democrats? What
| scientists? About what?
|
| Do you think that men aged between 30 and 35 ignored
| wives?
|
| Can you answer such a vague and useless question?
|
| 'Democrats', 'scientists', and 'ignored (about subject)'
| and 'at which point in time' are not things that you can
| just assume and the fact that you think you can group all
| these things into one question is baffling.
| bena wrote:
| Well, if you said it, it must be true and we must accept
| these anecdotes as the complete truth and you as the best
| source of it.
| George83728 wrote:
| Well since you've responded sarcastically, it must be
| debunked.
| bena wrote:
| There's nothing to debunk. That's the entire point. He's
| trying to prop up his claims with more claims. If we
| cannot determine the veracity of his anecdotes, they are
| of no use to us in determining the validity of his
| conclusions.
|
| His entire response could be boiled down to "Trust me,
| bro".
|
| I get the feeling he knows he cannot defend his position
| based on either commonly known information or on
| reasoning about the situation. So he has to purport to
| have special information that most don't. And that
| special information, which you cannot have, is enough to
| turn everything around. But he also won't give you enough
| information to independently verify. He won't tell you
| which campaigns he did these things for, which
| politicians he worked for. But they were top men. Top.
| Men.
| Manjuuu wrote:
| There has never been any strong consensus (including medical)
| against, quite the opposite. That's why the lockdowns were
| done in the first place.
|
| Don't try to turn your personal beliefs into accepted
| reality.
| lock-the-spock wrote:
| There was never a consensus for or against lockdowns. Cant
| speak for the US and it's utterly broken media landscape but
| in Europe experts were asking for this from day one. It is
| also a known tool of any epidemic/pandemic management, it
| just has rarely been necessary at such scale given the
| intensity and wide distribution of COVID.
| revelio wrote:
| This is revisionism. The only place in Europe that didn't
| lock down was Sweden and they were viciously attacked in
| the media for it, additionally Anders Tegnall was also
| attacked by other epidemiologists.
|
| I followed it all very closely at the time. Tegnall and his
| mentor stood alone. With the exception of the Great
| Barrington crew and maybe Ioannidis, _all_ the other so-
| called experts were loudly and vocally demanding lockdowns
| as a strategy. Great Barrington meanwhile was viciously
| attacked, described as fringe, non-consensus, would kill
| millions etc.
|
| The attempts to rewrite what happened in this whole thread
| are incredible to witness (not just your post, many
| others). It was only a few years ago! Our memories aren't
| that bad! And the internet is full of receipts on this. The
| idea there was robust academic debate about lockdowns or
| masks or the lab leak or anything else is a fantasy.
| sampo wrote:
| > all the other so-called experts were loudly and vocally
| demanding lockdowns as a strategy
|
| This is not true. Denmark, Finland, Netherlands and UK
| [1] had their own versions of "Tegnell". That is,
| epidemiologists who recommended the let-it-rip, "herd
| immunity" strategy. In these countries, politicians
| finally decided to follow the majority consensus among
| countries, and ignore those epidemiologists who were
| among the "herd immunity" school of thought.
|
| Even in New Zealand it was a somewhat close call, would
| the government listen to Michael Baker [2] as they
| eventually did, or Simon Thornley [3].
|
| > Great Barrington meanwhile was viciously attacked,
| described as fringe, non-consensus, would kill millions
| etc.
|
| Maybe because it was somewhat fringe, definitely non-
| consensus, and would kill millions?
|
| [1] _" For a time, he advocated a herd immunity
| approach."_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Vallance#COVID-19_p
| and...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Baker_(epidemio
| logist)...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Thornley#Covid_Pl
| an_B_gr...
| revelio wrote:
| Vallance is in no way comparable to Tegnell. Valance and
| the other UK/SAGE "experts" were quite happy to invert
| their advice overnight on the basis of nothing. Like all
| the others they were making decisions based on politics
| and ideology, not a mature of understanding of science.
| Tegnell picked one position and stuck with it because
| there was no reason to change it, in that he was
| virtually alone.
|
| _> Maybe because it was somewhat fringe, definitely non-
| consensus, and would kill millions?_
|
| It's amazing how many people still never got the memo
| that lockdowns and masks had no effect whatsoever. This
| isn't even up for debate anymore, the data is openly
| available and has been analyzed to death. These
| interventions simply did not work, and it was known from
| the start that they wouldn't work. Heck the idea they
| wouldn't work _was_ the consensus right before 2020,
| which is why a "consensus" of these idiots is worth less
| than the electrons used to transmit it.
| cygx wrote:
| _It 's amazing how many people still never got the memo
| that lockdowns and masks had no effect whatsoever._
|
| Do you have a source for that? It's been a while since
| I've looked at Covid numbers, so the only research I know
| off the top of my head that claims there was no effect is
| a meta-analysis by some economists, which originally
| claimed lockdowns only prevented 0.2% of deaths. After
| criticism, they had to re-evaluate their approach and
| arrived at 3.2%. However, not all objections were
| addressed, so who knows if there isn't another order of
| magnitude hiding somewhere.
|
| Personally, I've been leaning towards lockdowns having
| the potential to be effective based on excess mortality
| in the nordics: Sweden was the only nordic country that
| did not lock down in March 2020, and it's also the only
| one of these countries that saw significant excess
| mortality in April 2020. There could of course be another
| reason for that, but until someone offers such, the
| lockdowns seem to be the obvious factor...
| gmarx wrote:
| Perhaps your April 2020 number is correct but I think
| it's irrelevant because it is too time-boxed. I did an
| analysis (matching those by others) using the OECD excess
| deaths data and if you extend the time period through
| last fall, Sweden did either best (according to other's
| analysis) or second best (according to mine). Excess
| deaths actually continued after the pandemic has subsided
| in many countries (US and UK at least I recall) and I
| think it reasonable to assume the pandemic and pandemic
| policy had something to do with it. To judge overall
| success of policies you need to look at the whole time of
| the pandemic and its aftermath and the Swedes did better
| than almost everyone
| cygx wrote:
| I haven't run the numbers, but it seems hard to believe
| just visually comparing excess mortalities for, say,
| Sweden and Denmark:
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-
| deat...
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-
| deat...
|
| April 2020 did a real number on that country...
| cygx wrote:
| But severity and timeline of lockdown measures varied
| from country to country, ie there was some diversity of
| opinion. Also note that even Sweden eventually
| implemented policies such as restricting opening hours of
| bars and restaurants, limiting the size of some
| gatherings, etc. for a time.
| boston_clone wrote:
| A scientific consensus is significantly different than
| media opinion.
|
| Second, there is no "debate" regarding efficacy of masks
| and limiting exposure via quarantining. Masking reduces
| the likelihood of contracting SARS from others, and
| staying home reduces the spread to others and strain on
| hospitals. Unsurprisingly, the people attempting to
| debate this typically had no medical background
| whatsoever.
|
| Millions died in the US alone, and a non-trivial
| percentage of them would likely still be alive if our
| public officials did a better job of respecting the
| medical professionals and their recommendations.
| gmarx wrote:
| I have a medical background and when the pandemic started
| I did a literature to see if masks had helped with other
| respiratory virus epidemics (as masking had been common
| for years in many Asian countries ). the results were
| decidedly unimpressive and I concluded masks might to
| something but it was not a big effect at a societal
| level. The mistake that many smart people without medical
| backgrounds make is assuming that if a measure "makes
| sense" from a basic science point of view, it must have a
| real effect in a patient or a society. Counter-
| intuitively this almost always turns out to be wrong.
|
| I did a study of mask based on self reports early in the
| pandemic and I did show a significant slowing of the
| progress of the pandemic in states that had a high
| claimed rate of mask use. I had (I thought) some clever
| ways of eliminating other differences between states in
| my analysis and was surprised to see so much slowing.
| However, I am not sure which way the causality runs. I
| can easily see heavy masking making it such a bummer to
| go to bars (e.g.) that the lack of socialization caused
| the slowing.
|
| But in summary, to your point, to the medically
| knowledgeable there was a lot of evidence before that
| masks would not do much (not nothing) and there is a lot
| more now that masks didn't do much
| anthonypasq wrote:
| Oppositions to lockdowns were never about whether they
| would reduce deaths or not in the short term. Anyone with
| a brain could understand that if people weren't in a
| position to breath on each other, the virus wouldnt
| spread as quickly.
|
| Oppositions to lockdowns were always about tradeoffs and
| whether they were worth it. Its just such a boring
| critique.
|
| My main question still remains, what would your plan have
| been if we still didnt have a vaccine? From my
| perspective lockdown supporters got completely bailed out
| by one of the greatest medical/scientific achievements in
| human history (developing and deploying an extremely
| effective vaccine within 1 year).
|
| The only thing lockdowns do is push cases into the
| future.
| Mechanical9 wrote:
| Pushing cases into the future was always the stated goal
| of lockdowns. That was what "flatten the curve" meant.
| The idea was to accept some temporary consequences in
| order to prevent deaths until vaccines could be made.
|
| I also don't think it was any stroke of luck that
| resulted in vaccines being made quickly. Our scientific
| establishments correctly devoted their resources to
| developing vaccines. A lot of us were closely following
| their development and knew that they were just around the
| corner. Even without advancements in MRNA technology,
| other types of vaccines were being made that could
| prevent the majority of deaths.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > Pushing cases into the future was always the stated
| goal of lockdowns. That was what "flatten the curve"
| meant. The idea was to accept some temporary consequences
| in order to prevent deaths until vaccines could be made.
|
| The idea we needed to "flatten the curve until a vaccine"
| was obsolete the day many states closed their completely
| unused field hospitals. That should have been the
| indicator that covid wasn't nearly as bad as predicted.
| That was the day everything should have gone back to
| complete normal.
|
| These lockdown "experts" never had an end game. They kept
| pushing the goal posts further and further until they
| completely lost the plot. That was one of my first
| objections to such mitigations. There was zero success
| criteria. Fuckers were just winging it. Which might be
| okay for some minimally invasive crap like enhanced
| handwashing protocols but it is absolutely bat-shit
| insane for something as impacting as lockdowns.
|
| What we did was insane. I still have no idea how people
| look back, given all the data, and say "yup, what we did
| made sense". None of it make a single ounce of sense at
| all...
| anthonypasq wrote:
| When "flatten the curve" came out as a slogan they told
| us 2 weeks. Absolutely no one in public health believed
| that would be true. It doesnt make sense on any level
| whatsoever. i mean it just beggars belief that they told
| the public that with a straight face. the only person i
| recall in early days of 2020 saying this was going to be
| many months if not years was Mike Osterholm which i
| respect for not gaslighting the public.
|
| heres an article in the NYT about managing vaccine
| expectations.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/30/opinion/co
| ron...
|
| also you argument falls apart when lockdowns
| (restrictions, npis, whatever you want to call them)
| continued way beyond vaccine rollout. I was first in line
| to get vaccinated and im very glad i did, because they
| promised us that would be a return to normal, but it
| wasnt for at least a year afterwards and i still havent
| been given an explanation why.
| cygx wrote:
| _and i still havent been given an explanation why_
|
| I'm just guessing, but an obvious reason would be because
| the vaccines were not as effective against the new
| variants? As in, while the vaccines still protected the
| vaccinated person, they did not effectively prevent
| spread of the disease, so other ways to do so remained
| relevant...
| boston_clone wrote:
| About a year after vaccines became available, only 60% or
| so of folks had received two doses [0]. Public messaging
| from the initial administration is an obvious contributor
| to the remaining 40%.
|
| County / MSA hospital capacities, percent available ICU
| beds, ventilator use, admission increase rates, deaths,
| and various other stats were factored into restrictive
| policy decisions. However, this varies city by city and
| state by state (I suppose as an effect of federalism).
|
| 0. https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-
| tracker-st...
| boston_clone wrote:
| > Oppositions to lockdowns were always about tradeoffs
| and whether they were worth it. Its just such a boring
| critique.
|
| Fully agreed; saving lives / community responsibility is
| the noble choice. Unfortunately, many folks in states
| with poor education (e.g., Texas), would make remarks
| questioning the actual existence of the virus - even
| after Trump contracted it and was treated at Walter Reed.
|
| But, work on a vaccine began almost immediately, no? I
| trusted that shifting the focused lens of US policy
| toward medical research would produce some incredible
| results, especially with the private sector
| pharmaceutical behemoths battling it out, so to speak.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| yes "started." there was literally no guarantee we would
| even have a vaccine at all. There was absolutely no
| historical precedent for development and deployment of a
| vaccine with a year of virus discovery. it was incredible
| achievement and government official literally bet the
| entire world economy on it for some reason i still cant
| understand.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > The only thing lockdowns do is push cases into the
| future.
|
| Even without vaccination, mortality from covid is
| significantly lower than it was early in the pandemic.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > Unsurprisingly, the people attempting to debate this
| typically had no medical background whatsoever.
|
| You don't need to have a "medical background" to debate
| lockdowns or masks. The decision to use those should
| never have been made exclusively by people with "medical
| backgrounds". It isn't their job. Just because the
| "medical people" say it's gonna work, doesn't mean it is
| worth the cost to society. And it isn't at all the place
| of people with "medical backgrounds" to figure out what
| those costs are and if they are worth it...
|
| "Experts" shouldn't be decision-makers. They should only
| inform decision-makers. A good decision-maker should take
| input from everybody who will be impacted. This was never
| done at all. Had it been done openenly and transparently
| we'd never have done lockdowns, school closures or
| anything else. Such things are completely insane no
| matter how much "medical experts" suggest to use them.
| boston_clone wrote:
| > A good decision-maker should take input from everybody
| who will be impacted.
|
| You're right; I'm really glad I polled thousands of
| fellow employees before forcing multifactor auth, or that
| time I chatted with a sysadmin to make sure they really
| did mean to open RDP on a public server before taking it
| offline.
|
| Sarcasm aside, in a time of a medical emergency, it is
| the job of medical professionals to make decisions,
| because public safety supersedes individual freedoms.
| It's why we have speed limits. It's why you have to wear
| a seatbelt. It's why you can't shoot fireworks off during
| a drought. It's why products are restricted from being
| sold. The concept is fundamentally the same.
|
| It's also the same reason I'm glad cybersecurity policy,
| strategy, and operations are not a truly democratic
| process.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > Sarcasm aside, in a time of a medical emergency, it is
| the job of medical professionals to make decisions,
| because public safety supersedes individual freedoms.
|
| This might be true for like the first week or two of
| march but after that... the response should absolutely
| not be solely in the hands of nothing but "medical
| experts". Those people were never elected, are not
| accountable at all for their actions, and were granted
| virtually unlimited control. That is what we call a
| dictatorship.
|
| I would much, much rather have a diverse party of people
| calling the shots and not just one very specific niche
| class of "expert". Without a diverse set of people
| involved you'll wind up where we got... an extremely
| myopic fixation on exactly one single respiratory virus
| for two+ years to the complete disregard for the damage
| it caused to our children and communities.
|
| I used to think technocracy would be awesome. What better
| than to have a bunch of experts doing things "the right
| way". But covid opened my eyes to how incredibly bad of
| an idea that is. Experts are only expert on one specific
| thing. All their advice and mandates are made through
| that narrow lens.
|
| > You're right; I'm really glad I polled thousands of
| fellow employees before forcing multifactor auth, or that
| time I chatted with a sysadmin to make sure they really
| did mean to open RDP on a public server before taking it
| offline.
|
| But you also chatted with business people to get insight
| into the costs of forcing multifactor auth on people
| would be worth the security gains? Right? Because forcing
| 2FA is absolutely not something a security expert gets to
| decide. A good security expert would realize they are an
| advisor and not the person calling the shots. They know
| their role is to outline "what would happen if we did
| blah blah" and then let the business people know the pros
| and cons so said business people can make a decision. The
| business people, if they are any good, realize that there
| are multiple often conflicting requirements and have the
| hard work of deciding what the right tradeoffs to make
| are. Experts don't get to decide those tradeoffs at
| all...
|
| I mean, could you imagine if the only input you got for a
| product, say a car seat, was just from a bunch of
| lawyers? The product would be absolutely lawsuit proof
| but I bet it would suck as a car seat.
| boston_clone wrote:
| > the response should absolutely not be solely in the
| hands of nothing but "medical experts"
|
| This wasn't the case, and to say so is a blatant
| misrepresentation of the past. Did Fauci issue a travel
| ban, enact the Defense Production Act, or redirect the
| supply of medical equipment? Did the CDC somehow
| supersede congressional authority and directly fund
| research via the CARES Act? Were appellate courts no
| longer hearing cases regarding COVID and civil liberties?
|
| > you also chatted with business people to get insight
| [...]
|
| this reinforces my point: anyone who happens to be
| impacted is not entitled to input. Conversations between
| medical professionals and public officials were occurring
| every single day. But - do you think Trump was genuinely
| listening to his advisors?
|
| > there are multiple often conflicting requirements and
| have the hard work of deciding what the right tradeoffs
| to make are
|
| that's exactly my point, again. No one knew it was going
| to mutate that quickly and stay an issue. The tradeoff
| for doing less was more people dying.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > The tradeoff for doing less was more people dying.
|
| That is quite simply not true at all.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > There was never a consensus for or against lockdowns.
|
| So when was the last lockdown before covid?
| boston_clone wrote:
| Please don't try and have other people do your research
| for easily answered questions.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3559034/
| Izkata wrote:
| The article is conflating quarantines with lockdowns.
| They're not the same thing. Quarantines are more like the
| much-derided Great Barrington Declaration.
| boston_clone wrote:
| TFA is generalizing that type of response to various
| outbreaks, and notes the differences.
|
| A related comment of mine has a link with examples for
| the last several hundred years.
| Arkhaine_kupo wrote:
| do you think if they could google simple questions they
| would still parrot silly talking points 3 years after?
| naasking wrote:
| Quarantining people who may have been exposed is a whole
| universe away from the lockdowns being discussed here,
| where whole cities, states and countries _proactively_
| prevented the free movement of their people who they had
| no reason to suspect had been exposed. Don 't conflate
| these two.
| boston_clone wrote:
| It seems you may be looking to only discredit an argument
| instead of arguing the merits.
|
| FTA:
|
| > However, the use of quarantine and other measures for
| controlling epidemic diseases has always been
| controversial because such strategies raise political,
| ethical, and socioeconomic issues and require a careful
| balance between public interest and individual rights.
|
| Here's a list of about 30 examples since the 15th century
| where various governments have prevented the free
| movement of their people (because even then, they
| recognized that public health is more important than
| individual travel).
|
| https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/short-history-of-
| quara...
|
| In the face of a never-before-seen rapidly spreading and
| mutating virus, what the hell do you think medical
| professionals and governments ought to do? Stand by idly
| and let people die?
| naasking wrote:
| > Here's a list of about 30 examples since the 15th
| century where various governments have prevented the free
| movement of their people (because even then, they
| recognized that public health is more important than
| individual travel).
|
| You mean those centuries before we truly recognized
| individual rights? Not a compelling argument. Again,
| quarantine of people who had possibly had exposure is
| very different than the proactive lockdown approach taken
| during COVID.
|
| > In the face of a never-before-seen rapidly spreading
| and mutating virus, what the hell do you think medical
| professionals and governments ought to do? Stand by idly
| and let people die?
|
| Inform the public and let them personally assess the
| level of risk they're willing to accept. You know, like
| they do with literally every other health question.
| Expanding protections for people facing dangerous working
| conditions because of the virus to opt out of work, and
| mandatory sick leave, is perfectly reasonable as well.
|
| I don't know why people act like this obvious answer is
| completely out of the question. Will it result in more
| death? Quite possibly. Giving governments moral authority
| to limit people's rights in such a fashion is never the
| right answer though. Would you support the draft too?
| boston_clone wrote:
| > You mean those centuries before we truly recognized
| individual rights?
|
| I'm not sure what this means. Individual rights have been
| recognized long before the founding of the United States,
| though.
|
| > Inform the public and let them personally assess the
| level of risk they're willing to accept.
|
| This is impossible and irresponsible when you cannot
| accurately assess the risk.
|
| The question of a draft is so unrelated I'm intentionally
| ignoring it.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > It is also a known tool of any epidemic/pandemic
| management, it just has rarely been necessary at such scale
| given the intensity and wide distribution of COVID.
|
| That must be why all the pandemic planning guides from
| various national health agencies specifically said _do not
| do lockdowns, do no close schools and don 't force
| masks_...
|
| It was never a "known tool" to anybody. It was an insane,
| unproven pharmaceutical intervention that somehow,
| suddenly, became something "we always knew about".
|
| What we did for covid was absolutely insane.
| boston_clone wrote:
| > That must be why all the pandemic planning guides from
| various national health agencies specifically said do not
| do lockdowns, do no close schools and don't force
| masks...
|
| Could you provide a citation? I've read the opposite from
| NIH, CDC, NHS, etc.
|
| For example, this is from 2013:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3559034/
| evandale wrote:
| In Canada we wanted lockdowns pretty quickly and our prime
| minister said no and even refused to close the borders
| because he considered closing the borders to be racist. They
| tried to say border closures would have no effect on stopping
| covid.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/covid-coronavirus-
| pandemic-...
| carimura wrote:
| There are folks who were speaking out early despite harsh
| criticism. RFK JR (who happens to be running for president on
| the democratic ticket in the US) has another book coming out
| soon that will likely be very thoroughly researched around this
| topic.
| gregwebs wrote:
| Chris Martenson did a lot of this as it was ongoing- of course
| his YouTube videos got flagged. As another commenter mentioned
| Dazik had a big role- he lead the delegation that went to China
| to investigate the origin even though he had an obvious
| conflict of interest. 60 minutes interviewed him without
| digging into the conflict of interest. There are now public
| emails between Fauci and others coordinating the NIH position
| that there was no lab leak. That silences much of the
| scientific community that doesn't want problems with their
| grants. Not to mention Fauci constantly going on TV doing
| interviews to try to control the conversation.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| > videos got flagged
|
| Why do we use passive terms "got flagged". There was a
| coordinated international coverup lead by governments, with
| the supposed free press falling in line, goose stepping along
| to lead the largest propaganda and brainwashing effort in our
| lifetimes.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > goose stepping along to lead the largest propaganda and
| brainwashing effort in our lifetimes.
|
| It's crazy really. I wonder how many decades will have to
| go by before it becomes okay to acknowledge what a major
| fuckup the response to covid was. Currently, there is way
| too many people, at least on forums like this, that haven't
| woken up to how badly mislead they were.
|
| Pure hysteria, politics and poorly interpreted data all
| bundled into one package. Shit was crazy.
| ricksunny wrote:
| >Dazik
|
| Daszak.
| joshstrange wrote:
| I think Chris Martenson/Peak Prosperity goes too far on
| certain things (a little too-prepper/gold+silver) but I did
| find his videos for the first few months of COVID to be
| informative and well done especially when it came to the lab
| leak theory. His coverage of Hydroxychloroquine was well
| measured for the time it came out and I felt like he did an
| appropriate about-face once it was clear it didn't help.
| deanCommie wrote:
| Ah, the classic racist defense of "It's not racist if you turn
| out to be right. The mugger DID turn out to be black, did they
| not?"
|
| The early voices spouting the lab leak theory weren't
| scientists basing it on any evidence, it was racists, basing it
| on racism. China was a useful target at that moment, the Trump
| Administration was amping up the geopolitical pressure. And in
| that moment in time, being able to blame China on a global
| pandemic - either because they were malicious OR because they
| were incompetent was incredibly convenient for the US Right.
|
| They turned out to be right, but it did not negate their
| motivations, or mechanisms to getting to be right. A broken
| clock is still useless until 12 hours from now when it'll be
| right again.
| realjhol wrote:
| The clock isn't broken if it consistently tells the time
| correctly.
| nononotme wrote:
| Not all of the early lab-leak voices were racist. Some people
| went for that conclusion because of the proximity of the
| outbreak to the Wuhan lab which was researching that sort of
| virus. They may have been a little quick to do so but they
| guessed right. It wasn't that big of a leap, and it wasn't
| anti-Chinese to think that, just sort of obvious. I know that
| because I felt that way at the time. And then there were the
| Tucker Carlsons who called it the "Chinese coronavirus" and
| all that, and you're probably right about them.
| Snacktivist wrote:
| > Not all of the early lab-leak voices were racist.
|
| That sort of statement is always true, but that doesn't
| negate the real dangers of the Right using it for political
| advantage. Their general approach is to drive a wedge
| between different groups in the US (and abroad), pit them
| against each other, and have them take out their rage on
| each other as a means to distract them from the real issues
| going on. It was clear at the time that the Trump
| administration wasn't after "the truth" but more after a
| way to keep people occupied - and if that puts a lot of
| people in danger, they don't really care.
|
| And before anyone tries to defend the Right, take a look at
| these basekless attacks on drag queens. Meanwhile we have
| school shootings happening all the time and they don't do
| anything about it. It's a big shame because the a large
| portion of the USA isn't about trying to make things better
| - they just want to rage and cause damage towards others.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| So you are really a proponent of the post-truth society?
| It is better to believe a lie than to believe the same
| truth as right-wing people?
| deanCommie wrote:
| It's not about what you believe, it's WHY do you believe
| it.
|
| It's better to start with logic, reason, and scientific
| evidence - not with guesses, fear, or conspiracy
| theories.
|
| Sometimes the conspiracy theories are true!! The US
| government DID test mind control and psychadelic drugs on
| people. They DID forcibly sterilize thousands of african
| americans. But was 9/11 an inside job? Doesn't seem like
| it.
|
| Don't forget, most of the same people screaming Lab Leak
| were later screaming Horse Worm Medicine.
| stormfather wrote:
| Anytime anyone starts talking about left or right in a
| scientific discussion I instantly discount the rest of
| their view, because we aren't talking about science
| anymore. Nothing is gained from making this discussion
| part of that asinine tribal tug of war.
| deanCommie wrote:
| You ignore the tribal tug of war at your own peril.
|
| You become a useful idiot to those that would manipulate
| science for their own needs.
|
| In a broader sense, when one side wants to make change,
| and one doesn't, the "centrist" position benefits the
| side that doesn't want to make progress.
|
| The scientific reality is that at this point in the
| pandemic cycle, the best evidence now suggests
| credibility to the lab leak theory. In 2020 it did not.
| patrickk wrote:
| It would be interesting to know the background of the infamous
| Lancet letter[1].
|
| _According to journalist Paul Thacker, the Lancet letter
| "helped to guide almost a year of reporting, as journalists
| helped to amplify Daszak's message and to silence scientific
| and public debate." This affected reporting on the origins of
| the virus, "characterising the lab leak theory as unworthy of
| serious consideration"._
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_letter_(COVID-19)
| cookiengineer wrote:
| I have a treat for you:
|
| https://the-eye.eu/public/Random/wuhan%20coronavirus/
| [deleted]
| somenameforme wrote:
| This is a weird topic to me, because I'm unsure if I live in a
| different bubble, or we're all just kind of playing the
| euphemism game (with a bit of self censorship on top) or what.
| Because what happened is hardly ambiguous. One thing, more than
| any, that the Twitter files provided evidence of was various
| governmental organizations, and individuals, pressuring at
| least one large tech company to censor for often arbitrary, and
| sometimes overtly fake, reasons. I think the chances of that
| behavior being limited to Twitter, or even tech companies in
| general, are zero.
|
| The tech companies are obviously, at the minimum, complicit.
| Because "pressure" is just that - pressure. When the 'Russian
| trolls' narrative was being built up in Congress, Twitter knew
| it was entirely fabricated, and even referred to the requests
| as coming from "Congressional Trolls", and then they gave those
| said trolls nearly everything they wanted, and remained
| absolutely silent about what was happening. That strongly
| reflects upon the character, or lack thereof, of former Twitter
| leadership - but the source is the government.
|
| The large scale centralization of speech has created an angle
| shoot of the 1st amendment. Pressure a handful of companies
| into censoring whatever you want censored and you likely
| achieve even more than a law would have, since you end up
| censoring it on a far larger scale than just domestically.
| Expecting politicians of a country to actually care about the
| intent of the constitution of that country is clearly no longer
| a reasonable expectation to have.
| AdamN wrote:
| The problem was that almost nobody was saying the source
| 'might' have been a lab leak - they were saying that the source
| was 'definitely' a lab leak and then usually adding that Fauci
| sponsored gain of function research into viruses and then into
| conspiracy theory land.
|
| Most of us were open to the idea of a lab leak but the
| disinformation was so hard around the topic that sensible
| people had to push back and the loser was the legitimate
| 'theory' that a lab leak was a possible source.
|
| This is still a theory btw and not proven.
| slothtrop wrote:
| > almost nobody was saying the source 'might' have been a lab
| leak
|
| Untrue, from memory, but what's the use in anecdotes. Other
| users have shared links.
| gizmo wrote:
| No no no. The problem was that talking about a lab leak in
| any way was considered deplorable. So much so that the only
| people who still dared to speak about the lab leak in public
| were outcasts, lunatics, and people who didn't have a
| reputation that could be destroyed.
|
| In times of crisis a large fraction of the population will
| latch on to authoritarianism. This is universally true, and
| there are many historical and contemporary examples. The
| world is messy and complicated and people desperately want
| simple answers. People will cheer on the collapse of hard-won
| civil rights and the advent of military rule if they believe
| it's necessary for the greater good. Thankfully it didn't
| come to this during covid. But not because there was an
| invisible line in the sand that nobody dared to cross. People
| were not held in check by their principles, covid just didn't
| "necessitate" an even harsher response.
|
| This is why many people are so upset about the censorship
| surrounding the lab leak theory. They got a rude awakening.
| One, that fundamental rights like free speech can curbed very
| effectively, and two, that it's the citizenry itself that
| demands their rights be taken away. It's scary to be suddenly
| robbed of naive notions about rights and process and
| governance.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| You guys can actually just search old Hacker News
| discussions and also look at old media reporting to see
| that this narrative of "media suppression" is just
| blatantly false.
|
| GP is absolutely correct - people reacted negatively (and
| remind that someone not liking what you say does not mean
| you are censored) because people (including now in this
| thread) are saying that there is 'definite proof of lab
| leak' when that is just bull?
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > I'd like for someone to throughly research and write about
| how it became taboo to discuss the virus leak theory
|
| It was politicized.
|
| At the same time, it was a "theory" based on little to no
| evidence early on. Rather than let scientists work through and
| figure things out, people were shouting it through the roof as
| if it was confirmed. Basically, it was an answer in search of
| evidence, rather than using the evidence to direct the answer.
|
| There was a lot of pushback against that sort of talk,
| especially here.
|
| Couple that with a divisive administration here in the US that
| caused confusion and chaos, there was little to no hope for it
| being anything other than taboo.
| wesapien wrote:
| I think the problem is that moderates think you can have
| democracy without having to participate in politics which can
| sometimes become costly. Extremists already accepted the costs
| and reap the rewards (control, influnce, power) because people
| won't stand up to them.
| px43 wrote:
| At a high level, it's pretty simple. There was a very well
| coordinated and intentional conflation of the term "lab leak"
| with the conspiracy theories around China and the WHO
| intentionally developing and deploying bio-weapons as a means
| of global population control.
|
| These conspiracy theories lead to a marked rise in violent
| attacks on anyone of Asian descent in the US, and generally fed
| into the wet dream fantasies of western warlords looking for
| any excuse to enter that eternal war against Eastasia.
|
| Any time that anything relating to information around Wuhan
| labs was released, there was a massive flood of how the "lab
| leak" theories were right all along, and China is, in fact,
| trying to kill us all. This is the sort of virulent hatred that
| no social media company wants to help propagate.
| revelio wrote:
| _> These conspiracy theories lead to a marked rise in violent
| attacks on anyone of Asian descent in the US_
|
| Where? Can you back this up with clear evidence? And assuming
| this claim isn't simply made up, in what universe would it be
| a good strategy to address a USA specific problem by
| systematically and globally destroying the credibility of the
| entire scientific, media and public health establishment? The
| solution to violence is police; no one in their right mind
| would decide the best solution to this would be to establish
| a global conspiracy.
|
| No, the above is all retroactive justification. We have the
| emails from the virologists as they planned the letter that
| claimed it was all a conspiracy theory. They weren't
| motivated by violent attacks. They were worried about being
| blamed for it, and that maybe it'd be harder to fund work in
| China in future. They say that, in writing.
| Daz1 wrote:
| This is some amazing damage control well done
| 015UUZn8aEvW wrote:
| I think you overstate how much the lab leak and the bioweapon
| stories were being conflated. I recall that most people were
| able to distinguish between them, and that the most prominent
| figures raising red flags about a potential leak weren't
| talking about bioweapons.
|
| In any case, the most alarming aspect of the lab leak
| hypothesis is that gain-of-function research is STILL being
| done, and that the same thing could happen AGAIN. Since this
| risks creating another pandemic, suppressing the story
| because of concerns about street crime is very misguided.
| trimistermota wrote:
| You either recall wrongly or are looking at the wrong set
| of population in the world.
| pfisherman wrote:
| > the most alarming aspect of the lab leak hypothesis is
| that gain-of-function research is STILL being done, and
| that the same thing could happen AGAIN.
|
| This right here is an example of why we can't have reasoned
| discussion around the topic.
|
| You can explain one of the many reasons why gain of
| function research is necessary: anticipating next year's
| version of the flu, designing drugs and vaccines such that
| resistance mutations reduce evolutionary fitness.
|
| You can explain how it is done: lots of computational
| simulations, and some benchtop with results feeding back
| into computational methods.
|
| You can explain some of the safeguards in place: BSL 3/4
| facilities, regulatory / institutional oversight, security
| services, etc.
|
| And then someone will stand up on a chair and yell "SUPER
| VIRUS!"
|
| Anyway from my perspective, the "lab leak" theory tends to
| be people pushing an unsubstantiated theory to either (1)
| blame China for an "act of god/nature" or (2) argue for a
| moratorium on infectious disease / vaccine / therapeutic
| research.
|
| Please note that no one here is calling you a racist. But I
| think calling parts of your comment uninformed or
| misinformed is fair game for discussion.
| stormfather wrote:
| > the "lab leak" theory tends to be people pushing an
| unsubstantiated theory to either
|
| For me it's just common sense. It probably came from the
| coronavirus lab with a bad safety record it popped up
| next to. Duh. And I "push" it because I value the truth
| and want to live in a rational society where the truth
| isn't gamed for emotional or political reasons. And
| that's probably the same for most of us.
| oneshtein wrote:
| There is significant delay between lab leak in mid-
| September-mid-October 2019 and start of epidemic in
| December in Wuhan.
|
| Can such contagious virus as SARS-CoV-2 cross the
| distance between lab in Wuhan and wet market in Wuhan in
| few days? Of course. In few months? No way.
| neffy wrote:
| fwiw... there were posts floating around at the beginning
| of 2020 claiming that the epidemic was well established
| in Wuhan by December, and that cases were seen back to
| September, October.
|
| It's unfortunate in so many way - admit a mistake was
| made, acknowledge the problem, and clean it up is so much
| more respectful of everybody's time and resources.
| Between Asian traditions of saving face, and US
| traditions of lawyers suing anything that moves, that
| approach never stood a chance of course.
| baja_blast wrote:
| Yes, covid was in the US months before we bothered to
| check and count cases. There were rumors of a virus
| spreading months before it was officially acknowledged
| stormfather wrote:
| Not all the early cases could be traced back to the wet
| market, so there is no reason to suspect it started there
| if you don't already suspect a zoonotic spillover origin.
| And exponential curves ramp up slowly at first.
| shlant wrote:
| > For me it's just common sense
|
| > Duh
|
| This is the kind of argument one makes when they don't
| have an argument
| stormfather wrote:
| It's so obvious that an appeal to common sense is all
| that's necessary. How many markets do you think are in
| China? 100,000? 1,000,000? And how many of those are
| within driving distance of the one lab where:
|
| - They study novel coronaviruses - They sampled the same
| regions where the closest relatives to the virus were
| found - They applied to put a furin cleavage site in a
| coronavirus before the pandemic - They were cited in
| diplomatic cables for poor safety standards - The
| database containing records of the viral sequences was
| taken down right before the pandemic - A scientist
| working at the lab at the time of the origin disappeared
| - A scientist who patented a coronavirus vaccine a few
| months into the pandemic "jumped off the roof"?
|
| Does a lab accident not immediately jump out as the
| obvious leading possibility to you?
| Eisenstein wrote:
| 'Common sense' says that the thing which has occurred
| periodically throughout human history (plagues and
| epidemics) completely naturally and is occurring around
| the same period after the last one ('Spanish' flu of
| 1918-20) would have the same causes as those before it,
| but with accelerated time frames due to ease of travel
| and population density.
| stormfather wrote:
| There have been plenty of lab leaks in history too.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| There have been more cases of 'almost epidemic but for
| action by health officials' with SARS and avian flu etc
| which makes it 'common sense' that these things occur
| pretty frequently and would be happening more often
| naturally if not for luck and structures in place to
| mitigate them. Those structures also happened to be
| dissolved by the US leaders in charge at the time, which
| seems to fit the puzzle.
|
| So, 'things happened before' are heavily tilted towards
| 'nature did it' in any case.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| It's absolutely not common sense, we have tens of
| thousands of years of evidence that viruses can evolve to
| cause human illness, and zero documented examples of a
| man-made novel virus doing so.
|
| It would be an extraordinarily rare and noteworthy event
| in human history. The bar to prove that it happened to
| cause COVID is very high and the direct evidence (not
| circumstantial) for it is so far very low.
| wizofaus wrote:
| Did GP imply if a virus was leaked it must be man-made?
| Obviously the fact that the exact virus hadn't been seen
| before is suggestive of that but it's not inconceivable
| the lab happened to have samples of a never-before-seen
| naturally occurring virus that they were planning to do
| research on. That wasn't the same lab that released the
| first genome sequencing of the virus though (I gather it
| was in Shanghai). Not sure how virus research is usually
| done but I would have thought genome sequencing would be
| one of the first procedures you'd undertake, and there's
| no suggestion the Wuhan lab had done such sequencing
| (implying if they had, it was covered up).
| wizofaus wrote:
| Btw this seems to be a pretty thorough and technical
| overview of the various hypotheses:
| https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.00583-23 It
| concludes zoonotic origin to be the most likely, though
| certainly doesn't rule out other alternatives.
| bitemaja wrote:
| I think real risk is testing these chimera viruses on
| mice with humanized cells.
|
| Letting viruses evolve in-vivo is the problem especially
| when they are so viral.
|
| There needs to be limitations on what R is allowed to be
| produced in-vivo, even more so because calculating the
| risk of virality of the outbreak is trivial if in-vitro
| studies are done.
| pfisherman wrote:
| Chimera virus. You mean like a spike protein expressing
| VSV? Do you think that (pseudo virus) requires a higher
| or lower BSL certification to work with than bonafide
| Coronavirus? Why?
|
| And why are you worried about humanized mice and not
| human cell lines like HEK or CALU? Why not primary cells
| or organoids? Somewhere the "Outbreak" monkey is crying.
|
| I admit that I am being a bit snarky and passive
| aggressive here; but for the past few years I have
| watched people butcher bioscience in online discussions.
| Imagine being a classically trained pianist and having to
| watch people misattribute all of Mozart's work to Brahms.
| It is enough to drive anyone mad.
| baja_blast wrote:
| A classically trained pianist's profession does not carry
| the risk of killing millions of people! There is zero
| proof outside of circumstantial conjecture that SARS2 has
| a natural origin. Up to 20 million people have died due
| to an animal virus modified to be highly infectious
| towards humans and you expect everyone to just take your
| word for it?
|
| I mean it sucks if it hurts your career or impacts your
| profession, but highly dangerous work needs to be
| reviewed and banned if need be!
|
| Humanity > Your personal career
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| > You can explain one of the many reasons why gain of
| function research is necessary: anticipating next year's
| version of the flu, designing drugs and vaccines such
| that resistance mutations reduce evolutionary fitness.
|
| If this research indeed caused the pandemic (and might
| cause more), do those things make the juice worth the
| squeeze?
|
| A chance at a better flu vaccine doesn't seem like enough
| reward for what we all went through.
| naasking wrote:
| > You can explain one of the many reasons why gain of
| function research is necessary: anticipating next year's
| version of the flu, designing drugs and vaccines such
| that resistance mutations reduce evolutionary fitness.
|
| None of these require gain of function research.
|
| > You can explain some of the safeguards in place: BSL
| 3/4 facilities, regulatory / institutional oversight,
| security services, etc.
|
| All of these have a long history of failures [1,2]. And
| those are just the acknowledged, some have actually been
| covered up [3].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_bios
| ecurity...
|
| [2] https://www.amazon.ca/Pandoras-Gamble-Leaks-
| Pandemics-World/...
|
| [3] https://health.wusf.usf.edu/health-news-
| florida/2023-04-25/d...
| pfisherman wrote:
| > None of these require gain of function research.
|
| Please elaborate on this. How should I go about
| anticipating which mutations in which genes / protein
| will result in resistance to a candidate therapy /
| molecule / mechanism that I am considering advancing into
| phase 1 trials?
| baja_blast wrote:
| > You can explain one of the many reasons why gain of
| function research is necessary: anticipating next year's
| version of the flu, designing drugs and vaccines such
| that resistance mutations reduce evolutionary fitness
|
| A few problems with this. First modifying wild animal
| viruses to be infectious towards humans is different than
| modifying human viruses to model potential mutations.
| Modifying animal viruses to be infectious towards humans
| has done nothing but cause risks. Despite this research
| being conducted for almost a decade it has yet to predict
| or prevent any pandemic and probably started this one.
|
| Additionally the idea that modifying animal viruses to
| easily transmit towards humans will allow us to develop
| vaccines is absurd. You can't test a vaccine that is not
| circulating in humans, so trails can not start until the
| pandemic has already started.
|
| So yes, there should be moratorium on research that
| modifies infectious diseases! The public has a right to
| consent on whether such research is worth the risks.
| aero-deck wrote:
| It's really arrogant to think that any argument for a
| moratorium must be based in lack of information.
| migro23 wrote:
| To be fair, vaccines can be created in a matter of days
| now so the benefit of gain of function research to
| anticipate the virus that will cause the next pandemic is
| modest at best.
|
| Temper this proposed modest benefit with the potential
| cost in terms of human adapted viruses being
| accidentially/intentionally released in the wild given
| the vagaries of both biolab security protocols in the
| labs accross the world conducting this kind of research
| and individual human psychology makes the justification
| of such research a pretty hard sell.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| I'm honestly under the impression that people are just
| too irresponsible to do some things. People are not
| machines who go into a bsl 4 lab and do proper safety
| precautions each and every day without slipping or
| becoming lax. If you have a lab making viruses,
| eventually, it will escape. If the viruses they are
| making are capable of shutting the whole world down for a
| year, then we really need to ask whether we should have
| them.its not a question of "is doing this useful?",
| because I'm sure it is. It is a question of is this worth
| doing even though we know it will inevitably go bad? You
| can talk about all the precautions and regulations you
| want, if people are involved then eventually someone or a
| group of someones will do something idiotic or malicious
| and break everything. There's literally an entire
| Wikipedia page about lab outbreaks. https://en.m.wikipedi
| a.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecuri...
| ochoseis wrote:
| I think a lot of it comes down to: if it has happened
| once, it is likely to happen again. If it was indeed a
| leak from WIV, which ended up killing millions, then what
| can we do to prevent that kind of thing from happening
| again in the future? Surely some more transparency would
| be helpful toward that goal.
| [deleted]
| Izkata wrote:
| There was a lot of conflation, but it was almost entirely
| from the people attempting to debunk it, using the
| bioweapon one to claim no leak could happen. It was like
| they just couldn't understand those were two different
| things no matter how much people said "no, that's not what
| I'm saying".
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| I've said the same thing since the beginning. "It would be
| weird if the world superpowers that develop nukes and other
| weapons of mass destruction wouldn't research biological
| warfare(and stuff)".
|
| I never thought the leak was intentional though.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| > There was a very well coordinated and intentional
| conflation of the term "lab leak" with the conspiracy
| theories around China and the WHO intentionally developing
| and deploying bio-weapons as a means of global population
| control.
|
| I don't recall a single instance of this. A year ago, people
| were saying on this site and elsewhere was that the issue was
| conflating "lab leak" with "intentionally engineered". A year
| before that, people argued that the issue was conflating "lab
| leak" with "leaked from WIV", when WIV was established in
| that location due to the prevalence of novel coronaviruses in
| the region.
|
| The goalposts keep moving.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _I don't recall a single instance of this._
|
| I saw the birth of r/WuhanFlu and other related subreddits
| that were created in early 2020, and accusations of it
| being a bioweapon were there from the start, and once
| someone looked up "Wuhan" on Google Maps and saw the
| virology institute, people were saying it was a lab leak.
| callalex wrote:
| What goalposts? Just because you didn't personally
| experience something doesn't mean it prant exist/didn't
| happen.
| mjburgess wrote:
| [flagged]
| dahfizz wrote:
| I think this says more about you than others. "every
| single instance" is a gross exaggeration. This is your
| personal bias at play so that when you read "lab leak",
| you perceive "racist conspiracy theory"
| trentearl wrote:
| Strange, I have the exact opposite experience. I have
| personally have felt ostracized multiple times for
| suggesting it was likely there was an unintentional lab
| leak. I often got criticized for suggesting it was a bio-
| weapon, while I never thought that and never even said
| those words. Sometime in the past 12 months this
| disappeared.
| jstarfish wrote:
| > Sometime in the past 12 months this disappeared.
|
| We're trying to groom public appetite for war with China.
| Anything that paints them in the worst possible light is
| acceptable now.
|
| After artificial chip shortages, the weather balloon
| incident, and TikTok, now it's suggested China was
| responsible for COVID. Expect more to follow.
| mistermann wrote:
| In Canada, China "interfering with our democracy" is all
| the latest rage... At one point about a month ago, 11 out
| of the top 20 posts on /r/Canada had some negative
| reference to China (most being related to the democracy
| interference story, but a few others I can't remember the
| topic of).
| nradov wrote:
| What "weather balloon incident"? China intentionally sent
| a _spy_ balloon into US airspace to gather intelligence
| and test our response. You can 't seriously expect us to
| believe that it was for weather observations.
| jstarfish wrote:
| Yes, true. Based on what we're _told_ about it, it does
| sound like a legit spy balloon.
|
| What gives me pause is that our collective national
| security apparatus saw fit to let it traverse the entire
| fucking country before doing anything about it. And in
| the end, America even acknowledged that it was blown off
| course-- which is what the Chinese were saying from the
| start.
|
| I don't trust the Chinese-- at all. I don't trust America
| either though. I remember the certainty with which they
| said there was evidence of WMDs in Iraq.
| atlantic wrote:
| What I don't get is that people automatically equate a
| lab leak _in_ China with a lab leak _by_ China. It 's
| uncontroversial that American funding was involved. The
| most likely intentional scenario would be a leak caused
| by the United States to harm the Chinese economy. If it
| hadn't spread beyond China's borders, the epidemic would
| have been a massive win for the US.
| Jochim wrote:
| What's not to get? Trump, Fox news, and a vanguard of the
| Republican party framed Coronavirus as a Chinese attack
| on the world in an attempt to boost their support.
|
| Why some people are willing to believe the nonsense
| spouted by both I don't understand, but the fact that
| people do explains why so many view it as an intentional
| act by China.
| ChemSpider wrote:
| That is nonsense. Even highly qualified people like Alina
| Chan were pushed in the conspiracy camp during the first
| year - just for saying that the lab leak is one (of many)
| possible sources of the virus.
| mannykannot wrote:
| In this post and the one it is replying to, we see an
| example of how dichotomization gets in the way of
| discussing complex issues, and anecdotal dichotomization
| doubly so.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| > I never met anyone who didn't equate "lab leak" with an
| intentional act by china
|
| You must have a very conspiratorial group of friends /
| contacts !
|
| I followed the whole covid story pretty closely, and as I
| recall "lab leak" was taken by almost everyone as
| "accidental lab leak". Was the lab perhaps doing some
| type of "gain of function" research that they were not
| meant to be doing? TBD, but the massive (as it turns out)
| initial over-reaction to covid in China certainly doesn't
| look like something they intended to inflict on
| themselves (as well as eventually the rest of the world).
| mda wrote:
| I always thought when people mentions lab leak theory
| they meant an accident. Never heard the bio weapon thing
| before honestly.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| Totally bollocks answer to the point that either the
| commenter is trolling or is deep into the Qanon nutjob
| circles
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Utter rubbish.
|
| The theory was on the table and was discussed at the time
| ...
|
| Most efforts however were focused on dealing with the
| immediate danger.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| Hi me! And a veritable ton of Hacker News folks back
| then. I have plenty of misgivings about China but I am
| also a reasonable person. Turning this into an everybody
| weaponized it against Asians argument is handing a lot of
| us a weapon we never picked up.
| nayrf wrote:
| bizarre. it's even in the name, "leak". very weird to
| pretend there weren't a lot of people who thought a lab
| worker contracted it and passed it to the food market
| zkms wrote:
| > I never met anyone who didn't equate "lab leak" with an
| intentional act by china
|
| The likes of Alina Chan and Richard Ebright are "easy
| mode" counterexamples for your statement.
|
| I'll swing for the fences: Even _Tom Cotton_ was -- at
| least once, I am exceedingly uninterested in combing
| through all his tweets and media appearances -- careful
| to distinguish between "lab leak" and "intentional act",
| despite being brazenly political and probably inspired by
| anti-China animus.
|
| From the thread beginning at https://twitter.com/SenTomCo
| tton/status/1229202134048133126:
|
| "Let me debunk the debunkers. @paulina_milla and her
| "experts" wrongly jump straight to the claim that the
| coronavirus is an engineered bioweapon. That's not what
| I've said. There's at least four hypotheses about the
| origin of the virus:
|
| 1. Natural (still the most likely, but almost certainly
| not from the Wuhan food market)
|
| 2. Good science, bad safety (eg, they were researching
| things like diagnostic testing and vaccines, but an
| accidental breach occurred)
|
| 3. Bad science, bad safety (this is the engineered-
| bioweapon hypothesis, with an accidental breach)
|
| 4. Deliberate release (very unlikely, but shouldn't rule
| out till the evidence is in)
|
| Again, none of these are "theories" and certainly not
| "conspiracy theories." They are hypotheses that ought to
| be studied in light of the evidence, if the Chinese
| Communist Party would provide it.
|
| We ought to be transparent with the American people about
| all this. Maybe some of these so-called experts think
| they know better. I don't. And they really don't either."
| mjburgess wrote:
| I think you aren't in the position of governing society,
| and of governing institutions of society -- such as
| social media. _During a crisis_.
|
| It's trivial to find people inside your echo-chamber
| being well-behaved --- this doesn't answer what a
| platform's moral responsibility is to society.
|
| Huge roiling waves of conspiratorial alarmism leading,
| eg., to Jan 6th -- now occur around trivial events like
| elections. Can you imagine what unadulterated social
| media might have done during lockdowns? I'm suprised
| there weren't roving militias pointing guns at local post
| office officials.
|
| Social media is putting society in a routinely
| ungovernable state. Looking at the words of Tom Cotton
| isn't relevant.
|
| Platforms are daily trying to prevent the sharing of
| abject none-sense to massive amounts of people forming
| pique'ing cliques of loons ready to riot at a pin-drop.
| zkms wrote:
| > It's trivial to find people inside your echo-chamber
| being well-behaved --- this doesn't answer what a
| platform's moral responsibility is to society.
|
| I am not a Republican, Tom Cotton is _incredibly_ far
| away from anything which could be considered my "echo
| chamber", and I never claimed he was well-behaved.
|
| I chose him specifically to make the specific and narrow
| point that even _brazenly political actors_ were careful
| to explicitly distinguish between accidental
| /unintentional release and an intentional release; and
| also made clear that "intentional release" was the
| possibility they regarded as _least_ likely. This was in
| response to the comment I replied to, whose author said
| "I never met anyone who didn't equate "lab leak" with an
| intentional act by china".
|
| I think most people -- political leaders and otherwise --
| are perfectly capable of distinguishing between "high-
| risk research goes tragically wrong" and "a bioweapon was
| released on purpose".
|
| If anything, these hamhanded efforts (equating a prosaic
| "people and/or equipment messed up" scenario to
| "intentional release of bioweapon", making spurious
| accusations of racism, claiming that the case for a
| natural origin is ironclad, government agencies refusing
| to hand over relevant documents to Senators with the
| right to see them, etc) to censor discussion and impede
| investigation of the former has _fueled_ incredibly
| noxious conspiratorial thinking.
| the8472 wrote:
| Last time I checked our democracies are still running on
| the premise of informed voters. If discussion of
| hypothesis needs to be suppressed during a 3-year-long
| "emergency" then we have an issue.
| toofy wrote:
| i think you'd find that in just about every significant
| crisis of any significant timeframe plenty of examples of
| clamping down on witch-hunts in these very democracies.
|
| am i advocating for this? of course not, however, we have
| countless examples where conspiracies and just plain
| paranoid thinking spun out and resulted in very very real
| atrocities. significant atrocities that were much more
| real and much more severe than "oh woe is me, i was muted
| on a social media site."
|
| again, i'm not advocating _for_ this, but any
| conversational talking point surrounding this topic which
| ignores those issues is not a serious one.
| gordian-mind wrote:
| Could you please elaborate on what atrocities were caused
| by conspiracy theories?
| caeril wrote:
| The canonical example is January 6th, in which a bunch of
| unarmed QAnon conspiracy theorists, along with embedded
| agent provocateurs from the FBI, committed the following
| atrocities:
|
| 1. Larped as a Viking 2. Stole a podium 3. Placed feet on
| a desk 4. Broke a window 5. Caused a woman, who was not
| in the same building, to cry
|
| There were several other terrible acts committed by these
| evil people, but these were the most commonly cited ones.
| Sicknick's death was widely publicized at first, but then
| magically got blackholed later when it turned out that a
| group of QAnon-influenced platelets formed a blood clot
| that killed the poor patriot.
|
| Fortunately for us, these evil insurrectionists were
| denied their due process rights for years, and our
| hallowed and beloved Congress members spent a full month
| of their valuable time on hearings to get to the bottom
| of this genocide.
|
| January 6th: Never Again.
| Communitivity wrote:
| As public awareness of HIV increased and became the AIDS
| Crisis, so too did incidents of attacks on homosexuals.
|
| "What man does not understand, he fears; and what he
| fears, he tends to destroy." - William Butler Yeats
|
| Plenty of sources on the uptick in attacks during the
| AIDS crisis, but here are three:
|
| * https://review.gale.com/2017/05/17/the-homophobic-aids-
| crisi...
|
| * https://www.apa.org/pi/aids/resources/exchange/2012/04/
| discr...
|
| * https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/23/us/violence-against-
| homos...
| panarchy wrote:
| https://www.stuyalumni.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/05/Anti-A...
|
| "In the first four months of the pandemic, there were 145
| reports to the NYC Commission on Human Rights of
| coronavirus-related Anti-Asian hate incidents. That's 12x
| the year before."
|
| " 1/3 of Americans report they have witnessed blame on
| Asians for the outbreak"
| krapp wrote:
| The obvious example is the Holocaust.
|
| Violence (including mass shootings and church burnings)
| inspired by replacement theory and incelism.
|
| Anti-vax beliefs led to more deaths due to COVID, and
| greater economic and systemic stress than otherwise would
| have occurred had a significant number of people afraid
| of adrenochrome harvesting and the New World Order not
| purposely undermined pandemic control efforts.
|
| Currently the "groomer" conspiracy theories seem to be
| headed towards some mass cultural violence event towards
| trangender people, with politicians openly calling for
| the "elimination" of transgerism, but that remains to be
| seen.
|
| But let's ask what atrocities have ever been prevented by
| conspiracy theories? None. QAnon has been more of a
| hindrance to efforts to combat child abuse and human
| trafficking than a benefit, and they were entirely
| focused on "decoding" the Podesta emails and "exposing"
| satanic rituals in the Democratic Party while Epstein was
| going about his business.
|
| It should go without saying that none of the doomsday
| scenarios the COVID conspiracy theorists predicted came
| to pass. All they accomplished was making the pandemic
| worse. And no doubt the seeds of paranoia and mistrust
| they laid will make the next pandemic worse as well.
|
| Hell, even MKUltra wasn't uncovered by conspiracy
| theorists - it was exposed by accident through an
| unrelated FOIA leak. NSA spying? The Simpsons did a bit
| about that before Snowden, but conspiracy theorists were
| going on about mind-control rays being beamed through
| televisions and mass hypnosis.
|
| These people want the world to believe they are the the
| ones constantly telling truth to power, the only ones who
| can see the dark truths hidden behind the curtain, and
| they'll insist they are always right. But at best they
| only coincidentally appear to be right, in the same way
| as a stopped clock, and always in a way that does more
| harm than good.
| mistermann wrote:
| As a conspiracy theorist, it kind of burns my britches to
| be mocked by a clairvoyant in public _and not be able to
| do anything about it_.
|
| May you live in interesting times indeed.
| krapp wrote:
| -\\_(tsu)_/- Do what any other conspiracy theorist would
| and just call me a naive sheep or a disinfo agent and go
| on about your business.
|
| I do live in "interesting" times, thanks. In no small
| part because of the efforts of people like yourself.
| DocSavage wrote:
| I'd love "informed voters" though from what I see of
| social media, it does anything but inform through its
| creation of cliques and upvoting based on popularity,
| _not veracity or even reasoned argument_.
|
| One example is the switch to paid blue checkmarks on
| Twitter. Prior to the switch, there'd be some semblance
| (not great) of debate on comments. Now, all the musk fans
| and RW-oriented subscribers completely dominate so all
| you see in response to a Dem or "RINO" tweet is reflexive
| comments calling the OP lies, incorrect whataboutism,
| conspiracy theory of the day, etc, with more reasoned
| fact checking buried way down.
|
| This is particularly pronounced with any tweet about the
| Trump indictment with little discussion of the
| _substance_ of the indictment. The crackpot hypothesis
| /meme of Paul Pelosi's attack being a gay love spat is
| another example. The participants didn't even want to
| read the police report before moving on to another
| conspiracy theory _about the report's generation._
| Reasoned discussion would be great. It's just not
| happening.
| coding123 wrote:
| That's probably because for the years prior the same
| people were bashed into the ground for their beliefs. Now
| that it turns out it's more true than not, they're
| probably mad.
|
| aka, you're on the other side now.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| > If discussion of hypothesis needs to be suppressed
| during a 3-year-long "emergency" then we have an issue.
|
| Unfortunately, we do have an issue. Ignoring that it is
| one will not solve it, nor will brushing it under the rug
| by the lame attempts at disinformation removal. We need
| to face the fact that a decent amount of our population
| is acting out of anger and fear, often irrationally and
| without evidence, and that they were used and manipulated
| for political and monetary gain and it has gotten passed
| the point where it can be walked back.
|
| Social media is a vector but not the cause. I don't know
| what the answer is, but we certainly do _have an issue_.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| You didn't see any 'Wuhan flu' bioengineering conspiracy
| theories about how china made covid on purpose to attack
| America? If not, you're either intentionally not seeing it
| or I want to use your media filter because it was literally
| everywhere.
| lordfrito wrote:
| I find it deeply disturbing that excuses as flimsy as "hate"
| or "possible hate crime reaction" would be used as
| justification to suppress the truth, especially with a
| situation as grave as COVID-19. Who is to say whether the
| uptick with Asians is causation and not just correlation?
| Meanwhile, thousands of Americans were dying daily during the
| peak of the pandemic. Everyone was scared, needed to know
| what was going on.
|
| The average person was much more worried about the potential
| harm to millions of citizens than a much smaller uptick in
| one particular sector. It's of paramount importance that we
| don't repeat the mistakes that led to the pandemic in the
| first place. The only way we can do that is getting to the
| bottom of what happened.
|
| If "possible Asian hate crimes" was the best excuse that the
| censorship industrial complex could come up with, then it is
| clear to me that any excuse would have done, and the
| conclusions I draw is that the suppression was 100%
| politically motivated. I want to know who was involved in
| making the decision to suppress, and to what ends they were
| trying to shape public opinion. At the minimum I want to know
| who I should be working to vote out of office.
|
| How can I know who to vote for when we're normalizing lying
| as a justifiable policy up and down the chain of government
| communication and mass media?
| rtkwe wrote:
| It wasn't just the lab leak theory going around though, it
| was extremely tightly coupled with the "COVID bioweapon"
| conspiracy which really tainted it especially in the early
| days when there really wasn't much more info available
| other than it was first detected as a big outbreak in the
| same city as the coronavirus lab. In an ideal situation
| they'd be separable but they were so closely deployed
| trying to address the bioweapon conspiracy caught a lot of
| less out there discussion of the lab leak.
|
| Also important though is it never really went away. For all
| the talk of censorship and suppression the possibility of a
| lab leak never left the investigation. It's also a very
| difficult thing to investigate without access to the labs
| to see what strains they were working on looked like which
| we still don't have afaik. It's been a process of
| eliminating other possiblities to some extent as other
| vectors that could be looked into were and turned out to be
| less likely.
| lordfrito wrote:
| > Also important though is it never really went away.
|
| Sort of true -- but only because you can't kill the idea,
| the need to find the cause of the pandemic to avoid a
| repeat.
|
| This is cold comfort to the people who were getting
| banned had their accounts cancelled for suggesting things
| that turned out to be actually true.
|
| There's was a lot of collateral damage here, all in the
| name of... well I'm not sure. Trust is hard to build, and
| once broken takes a long time to regain.
|
| The point is, as a society we're heading in the wrong
| direction. Freedom of speech is becoming freedom for
| those who keep their mouths shut.
| yarg wrote:
| I never believed it was a bioweapon.
|
| Why? Because China was behind on vaccine development, and
| when they finally produced on it was not only late, but
| barely functional.
|
| Late is one thing - if you release a bioweapon, it's far too
| suspicious to release a co-developed vaccine simultaneously.
|
| But ineffective?
|
| When it got out the WHO was parroting China's talking points
| from day one - it's not airborne, that's just a racist
| conspiracy. It was nuts.
|
| And from the same group that was ignoring the big red flags
| from Taiwan's early warning system (Taiwan, who incidentally
| is refused membership as part of the world's China
| appeasement policy).
|
| Then China shutdown domestic travel from Wuhan, while still
| allowing it internationally.
|
| They didn't develop it as a bioweapon - but that did not stop
| them from weaponising it after the fact.
| Jochim wrote:
| > Then China shutdown domestic travel from Wuhan, while
| still allowing it internationally.
|
| Lie[0]:
|
| > On April 21, Ferguson provided an "update" to his April 5
| column in which he acknowledged, "Data from sensors
| tracking actual flight paths would seem to indicate that no
| flights left from Wuhan itself to other countries in the
| world after January 23."
|
| [0] https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/trumps-flawed-china-
| travel...
| HaZeust wrote:
| I can, and will, continue to advocate and affirm that
| criticizing the Chinese Communist Party - and people with
| Chinese descent - are 2 very different things, and that the
| former is acceptable.
| peppermint_gum wrote:
| > These conspiracy theories lead to a marked rise in violent
| attacks on anyone of Asian descent in the US,
|
| It should be noted that the statistics don't support the
| media narrative and there was no wave of white supremacist
| attacks on Asians.
|
| Here are the stats from New York ("Arrest Statistics by Bias
| Motivation"): https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/reports-
| analysis/hate-cr...
| djbusby wrote:
| This article from the Guardian says there was an uptick
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/21/asian-
| americ...
| justaman wrote:
| There was an uptick but its taboo to talk about the
| demographic.
| status200 wrote:
| Which data points are you referencing from your source?
| There is a spike YOY between 2019 to 2020.
|
| Annual for 2019: 1 out of 420
|
| Annual for 2020: 27 out of 265
|
| Is that not enough of a percentage increase for you? Edit:
| Apologies for not seeing the other users' replies who have
| already made this point.
| speff wrote:
| From your own link "hate-crime-complaints-by-motivation-
| annual" 2020 vs 2021:
|
| +Anti-Asian 2019: 1
|
| Anti-Asian 2020: 27
|
| Anti-Asian 2021: 131
|
| *+ Edit: Added 2019 as suggested below
| naasking wrote:
| Looks like there was a general increase in complaints as
| lockdowns eased. From the data, there were upticks in
| anti-jewish, anti-gay, anti-muslim and more. Asians still
| saw relatively more of an uptick than other motivations.
| zolland wrote:
| This is maybe more interesting.
|
| Anti-Asian 2019: 0.2%
|
| Anti-Asian 2020: 10%
|
| Anti-Asian 2021: 25%
|
| EDIT: Regarding an uptick in anti-jewish etc.
|
| Anti-Jewish 2019: 57%
|
| Anti-Jewish 2020: 43%
|
| Anti-Jewish 2021: 37%
| naasking wrote:
| I take it these are percentages of all complaints?
| Because the number of complaints for anti-Jewish hate
| crimes was 116 in 2020, but 198 in 2021, so a definite
| increase, but hate crime overall basically doubled as
| well, so the relative amount to the total is lower.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| That could be an increase in reporting. After all you'd
| expect the uptick to happen in 2020-- it was COVID- _19_
| after all.
|
| Also worth to know that anti-asian hate was also a
| narrative pushed by the CPC to label things like
| supporting Hong Kong democracy protests or criticizing
| uighur genocide as "anti-asian hate", which happened
| after the CPC noticed the effectiveness of BLM protests
| in sowing us discord (mid-2020) so to trust any stats
| post 2020 it would _at least_ need to segregate the two
| use cases.
| jibe wrote:
| You should be comparing 2019 to 2020.
|
| 2019 is the pre-covid default state.
|
| 2020 is when covid rhetoric was hot.
|
| 2021 is Vaccines and Biden is president
|
| 2019 stats are in the archive at the bottom of the page.
| I'd pull them but on a phone.
| croes wrote:
| How long does it take from pent-up anger and rhetoric to
| action?
|
| 2021 values could be the result of 2020's rhetoric.
| speff wrote:
| Good call. I was going to, but for some reason I didn't
| see the report in 2019 when checking. Edited into the
| original comment
| heliodor wrote:
| Shouldn't you be looking for these numbers as a percent
| of total crime?
| peppermint_gum wrote:
| Arrests involving Anti-Asian hate crime incidents in
| 2020:
|
| BLACK: 11 (55%)
|
| WHITE HISPANIC: 5 (25%)
|
| BLACK HISPANIC: 2 (10%)
|
| WHITE: 2 (10%)
|
| Total: 20
|
| 2021:
|
| BLACK: 31 (53%)
|
| HISPANIC: 15 (26%)
|
| WHITE: 7 (12%)
|
| ASIAN / PACIFIC ISLANDER: 5 (8%)
|
| UNKNOWN: 1 (2%)
|
| Total: 59
|
| 2022:
|
| BLACK: 39 (49%)
|
| WHITE HISPANIC: 20 (25%)
|
| WHITE: 17 (22%)
|
| ASIAN / PACIFIC ISLANDER: 2 (3%)
|
| BLACK HISPANIC: 1 (1%)
|
| Total: 79
| doom2 wrote:
| As a personal anecdote, living as an Asian in a US city
| with a population over 1M people, I definitely saw a change
| in peoples' stance towards Asians in general and Chinese in
| particular, and not in a good way. There was a lot more
| suspicion about Asians, their businesses, etc. It wasn't
| the same level of suspicion as during post-9/11 America but
| it had a similar vibe. A lot of dog whistling with
| sentiments like, "I'm criticizing the Chinese government,
| not the Chinese people." (spoiler alert: it was both) Maybe
| that didn't result in violent crime, but it was not (and
| still isn't) a good time to be Chinese or display pride in
| one's Chinese heritage.
|
| I hope one day we can look back at this period and think
| about how to better critically think about these things
| without applying personal biases and fears to a whole
| population.
| George83728 wrote:
| > _A lot of dog whistling with sentiments like "I'm
| criticizing the Chinese government, not the Chinese
| people." (spoiler alert: it was both)_
|
| 'Dog-whistling', meaning they don't overtly say it and
| you _infer_ that they mean it. If they make it overt such
| that it doesn 't need to be inferred, they're not longer
| dog whistling.
|
| How do you _know_ your inference is correct and that is
| their intent? How can you be sure that wasn 't just an
| impression given to you by [social] media? The CCP has a
| vested interest in conflating any criticism of itself or
| the PRC generally with racist criticism of all Asians.
| They also say that criticism of their Uyghur genocide is
| dog whistling anti-Asian racism. The CCP say this of
| _anything_ that criticizes them, and their narratives do
| not stop dead at their borders. I 've heard it echoed by
| some of my coworkers, PRC nationals working in America,
| and even western media that might not endorse such
| narratives will still give voice to consideration of
| those narratives.
|
| Now allow me to be frank; during the supposed surge of
| anti-Asian hatred ostensibly motivated by Trump and
| perpetrated by white nationalists, much of anti-Asian
| crimes that were being reported had been perpetrated by
| African Americans. It was probably crime motivated by
| class/social/economic inequality, and insofar as it
| disproportionately targeted Asian Americans at all
| (rather than selective reporting merely creating that
| appearance) it probably had nothing to do with any
| politician's covid rhetoric and was instead was an
| artifact of geographic proximity and inequality in
| policing (Asian American neighborhoods receive less
| protection from the police, making Asian Americans an
| easier target for crime.) In this last regard, you can
| easily show that racism against Asian Americans played a
| role, but such inequalities in policing are problems that
| go back many generations and have little if anything to
| do with covid.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| In what way did they claim to be criticizing the Chinese
| government but actually criticized Chinese culture?
| Because it is possible and valid to criticize the Chinese
| government and not the people. And it is also a
| possibility that your own personal biases could make it
| difficult to differentiate between the two. We have a
| surplus of Americans who take any criticism of America,
| the nation-state, as a personal insult, so I'm sure the
| same thing happens elsewhere.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| Sorry you had to go through that. But I have to ask about
| this:
|
| > A lot of dog whistling with sentiments like, "I'm
| criticizing the Chinese government, not the Chinese
| people." (spoiler alert: it was both)
|
| Did you have some extra context there? Or do you just
| assume that anyone criticizing the ccp is also
| criticizing chinese people? Because I feel like that's a
| reasonable stance towards any nation.
|
| It seems like sometimes people aggressively read between
| the lines (probably because of real past experiences with
| shitty people), and it makes it so that reasonable people
| now can't express reasonable ideas and have other people
| understand what they're actually saying.
|
| I especially notice this in online forums where some
| topics have been discussed in depth by a subset of the
| population. Through all that discussion, they've
| basically invented a whole field of study, and turned
| everyday phrases into jargon with unintuitive subtext.
|
| Then someone new comes along, says something that seems
| completely innocuous, and the community jumps on them for
| the subtext that they're not even aware exists.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| >A lot of dog whistling with sentiments like, "I'm
| criticizing the Chinese government, not the Chinese
| people."
|
| This is a reasonable thing to say. I think mainland
| Chinese are oppressed by the Chinese Communist Party, and
| I hope I live to see the end of this cruel regime.
| jbritton wrote:
| "There was a very well coordinated and intentional conflation
| of the term "lab leak" with the conspiracy theories"
|
| Only by those wishing to shutdown legitimate discussion.
|
| So back to the original question. Who was behind trying to
| change the narrative.
|
| Dr. Fauci's emails have shown he orchestrated deceiving the
| public. I'm not sure that is sufficient to explain the total
| media backlash against a lab-leak.
| delfinom wrote:
| Yea, unfortunately the conspiracy theorists hijack talking
| points and social media platforms amplify their bullshit to
| the extreme.
|
| Meanwhile they ignore all the near misses the US seems to
| have with anthrax and smallpox being misplaced in US labs
| every year lol.
| faangsticle wrote:
| And yet maybe it was right?
| ra1231963 wrote:
| I don't think people attacking Asians had that nuanced of a
| motive. More like: it came from Asia so they resented Asians,
| regardless of whether it was designed or leaked or whatever.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The news was reporting on anti Asian feelings prior to covid.
| When covid hit this automatically became racist. Wearing a
| mask was racist. Bizarre. It caused many to ignore
| media/leaders because they were so obviously off base and
| constantly proven wrong and backtracking they lost
| credibility.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > Wearing a mask was racist
|
| Not sure what crazy publications you all were reading.
| shri_krishna wrote:
| It is funny how you say it so nonchalantly that the reason
| for not discussing lab leak theory is it lead to "marked rise
| in violent attacks on anyone of Asian descent". However none
| of this applies to rhetoric against Russia, Middle East or
| any such country where US is at War with right now. How come
| no US citizen is attacking Russians, or Middle Easterners
| (Libyans, Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans etc) in US soil when the
| Media is 24 x 7 discussing how these countries are the
| "Enemy" of the United States? Do you not see the dichotomy
| here?
|
| It totally feels orchestrated. Someone somewhere in the US
| establishment needed an excuse to not discuss about the lab
| leak theories. So the attacks on people of Asian descent
| turned out to be the perfect excuse. That's what it comes
| across to me as an observer of US politics. There is
| literally no reason for censoring information on discussion
| of a lab leak that did not even happen on US soil but in
| Wuhan. If you can discuss Russia, 9/11, terror attacks in
| various parts of the globe, without US citizens going bonkers
| and attacking people of those races, I am pretty sure
| discussing lab leak theory would not piss US citizens off
| that much. But bring in race attacks angle and you have the
| people by your side asking for and justifying censorship.
|
| Let me ask you another question: How do you think people in
| Asia discussed the COVID pandemic? Did people in China not
| question their own government (CCP) and its role in the
| pandemic? How sure are you that they all believed that the
| virus did not come from the Wuhan lab but, as per CCP, came
| from the West?
| kweinber wrote:
| At the time the US had a president that routinely used
| race-baiting as a divisive political technique. He admired
| Vladimir Putin and defended Russian actions, so the Russian
| people weren't a subject of his attacks.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > At the time the US had a president that routinely used
| race-baiting as a divisive political technique.
|
| This is at least as true now and in 2015
| shri_krishna wrote:
| That's a weird way to defend censorship of lab leak
| theory. Whatever floats your boat I guess.
|
| > At the time the US had a president that routinely used
| race-baiting as a divisive political technique
|
| What exactly did the US President, at that time, say
| specifically that exacerbated attacks on Asians, after
| breakout of COVID, and more importantly could be used as
| a justification for Worldwide censorship of lab leak
| theory? Don't forget that the lab leak theory was being
| suppressed on behest of the US Government by Big Tech and
| that suppression of information was not limited to just
| the US but entire World. As far as I remember, Trump was
| only the President of USA. He wasn't the President of the
| World. So you can't blame Trump if Big Tech is doing a
| Worldwide censorship of lab leak theory. I don't buy that
| argument at all.
| kweinber wrote:
| I'm not defending anything about a lab leak. I'm
| addressing the previous poster's question about why there
| were attacks on Asian Americans and not Russian ones.
|
| The lab leak theory and weaponization theories were never
| squelched. The right wing in this country fantasizes that
| their viewpoints are marginalized while having their most
| extreme viewpoints broadcast on the top watched news
| programs in history. The idea that the lab theories were
| squelched was floated by those very same programs as part
| of their promotional formula.
| cygx wrote:
| _However none of this applies to rhetoric against Russia
| [...] How come no US citizen is attacking Russians [...]_
|
| Quoting
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/03/03/anti-
| russia...
|
| _As Putin's invasion of Ukraine intensifies, some Russian-
| themed businesses and Russian Americans in the United
| States are suddenly getting a frosty reception -- and in a
| few cases, experiencing outright hostility. A Russian
| restaurant in Washington, D.C., called Russia House, was
| vandalized and the owner indicated that he thought anti-
| Russian sentiment might be to blame. Some Russian Americans
| say their children are being bullied at school._
|
| _"Americans were encouraged to sympathize with the people
| of Russia rather than the government. And that seems to me
| to be what is really different from what we're seeing now,
| where you see people at protests with signs saying all
| Russians are to blame for Putin's aggression," he said._
|
| _Thulien pointed to another incident in which the parents
| of a close friend, a couple in their 80s, had their car
| scratched and vandalized overnight this week._
|
| Also note that in the context of the US culture war, Russia
| is seen as an ally against the 'woke left', leading to the
| bizarre situation where Putin himself made references to
| Harry Potter author JK Rowling in a speech about the
| invasion of another sovereign country. This might shield
| Russians against at least some antagonism from that part of
| the political spectrum.
| shri_krishna wrote:
| Okay and have these attacks stopped coverage against
| Russia in the US media? If the argument for censoring lab
| leak discussion is "attack on Asians" then why isn't
| coverage on Russia censored for "attack on Russians"?
| XorNot wrote:
| There's a whole lot of Russian expats who have been quite
| vocal in _supporting_ the war against Ukraine by Russia.
|
| When Russians complain they're being victimised, it might
| behold you to consider that "Russian" is pretty much not
| an identifiable group amongst the wide range of eastern
| Europeans who have immigrated - including Ukrainians.
|
| So when Russians complain they're being mistreated, is
| worth asking what they were doing at the time. Because it
| tends to be vocally supporting the Russian invasion[1] or
| the whole idea of it is being straight up invented and
| pushed by Kremlin propaganda agents[2].
|
| [1] https://www.rferl.org/a/germany-pro-russia-rallies-
| discrimin...
|
| [2] https://time.com/6257372/russia-ukraine-war-
| disinformation/
| shri_krishna wrote:
| The point I was making is not whether Russians feel
| mistreated or Asians feel mistreated etc. That is a
| separate debate. I am only making a limited point on "Lab
| leak theory was censored because it lead to rise in Asian
| hate crime". This makes absolutely no sense to me.
| Investigating possible lab leak theory that lead to one
| of the worst pandemics in recent times should be done
| irrespective of whether there is hate crime or not. Both
| have no correlation. And investigation can be done behind
| the scenes too. The problem is that there was absolutely
| no attempt at doing proper investigation. Whether it
| leads to conclusion or not is secondary.
| XorNot wrote:
| You introduced Russia not me, and my point is that your
| example isn't even slightly equivalent.
| shri_krishna wrote:
| It is 100% equivalent. You are saying we will censor A
| topic because it will hurt X race. In the same breath,
| you will not censor B topic even if it hurts Y race. That
| is hypocrisy. Everyone sees through it. Some may choose
| to be blind to this hypocrisy. And that is not my
| problem.
| XorNot wrote:
| Again, I'm not saying anything about that. I am saying
| that public opposition to some Russian persons is not
| because they're Russian it's because of their direct
| public actions and statements - as cited in my original
| post.
|
| Claims of an anti-Russian bias or set of hate crimes is
| literal Kremlin propaganda which amongst other things was
| used to justify the Ukraine invasion, the South Ossetia
| invasion in Georgia, and has been a general talking point
| as to why Russia should consider invading many other of
| its neighbours.
| zztop44 wrote:
| Are you sure there was absolutely no attempt at doing a
| proper investigation? I wasn't super fixed on the news at
| the time, but I do remember a number of reports, fact
| finding trips, etc by international and governmental
| bodies trying to investigate the origins.
| oneshtein wrote:
| There is absolutely not attempt at doing a proper
| investigation of blast in BSL4 lab "Vector", Novosibirsk,
| Russia on Sep 16 2019 and following epidemic of unknown
| origin in Siberia, which caused hospitals overwhelmed
|
| Wuhan was hit by strain B in December. Strain A, original
| virus, was released about 2 months before that. Where it
| was for 2 months?
| cygx wrote:
| I don't believe the main reason for suppression (insofar
| as that happened) and ridicule of the lab leak theory was
| a reasoned evaluation of any negative consequences.
| Rather, it became a partisan issue, and instead of being
| seen as an independent hypothesis that one should
| evaluate on its own merits, it became part of a whole
| package contentious issues (masks, vaccines, ivermectin,
| ...) that divided people along party lines. That the lab-
| leak hypothesis was pushed by the conspiracy crowd of
| course did not help.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Because you can't blame dear grandpa's death on Russia
| maybe however you try ?
|
| I am pretty sure 9/11 - War on Terror saw a rise in
| aggression of muslim looking people even though it
| concerned less people than covid did.
|
| You're pretending there was no such thing as people on TV
| blaming it on people eating "bat soup" and stuff like that.
|
| When lab leak hypotheses were able to rise above the
| conspiracy theories thanks to reasonable argumentation, it
| was finally heard. At first only on HN, thanks to which I
| first gave credence to the hypothesis and now you here you
| have it in mainstream media. It all takes time and debate,
| it's normal.
|
| The only conspiracy I see is from people, whether in the
| state apparatus or the scientific community that _really_
| did not want people to look too much into Gain OF Function
| research. I think the existence of such research and
| democratic control over is the debate now worth having.
| shri_krishna wrote:
| > Because you can't blame dear grandpa's death on Russia
| maybe however you try ?
|
| And what does it have to do with State censorship of
| information? The State has no societal relationships
| (like
| grandpa/grandma/brother/sister/husband/wife/son/daughter
| etc) that can pressure it to shutdown flow of
| information. We are talking about State apparatus
| censoring information here. With Big Tech actively aiding
| it.
|
| > You're pretending there was no such thing as people on
| TV blaming it on people eating "bat soup" and stuff like
| that.
|
| I am not pretending anything. Also people blaming people
| eating "bat soup" has nothing to do with lab leak theory.
| Both are totally different issues altogether. I don't see
| how they are related?
|
| > At first only on HN, thanks to which I first gave
| credence to the hypothesis and now you here you have it
| in mainstream media.
|
| Many of us knew it from the very beginning once the
| censorship started that it has to do with lab leak. The
| only ones interested in suppressing information are the
| ones who have something to hide. Age old adage.
|
| > It all takes time and debate, it's normal.
|
| No it is not normal. Even post 9/11 no conversation was
| censored in US media. Even conspiracy theories were not
| snubbed or wiped off. Censorship was rampant only post
| COVID. It only tells me, as an observer of US politics,
| that the people high up in the US establishment, who had
| a stake in the Wuhan lab, had something really nasty to
| hide.
|
| > The only conspiracy I see is from people, whether in
| the state apparatus or the scientific community that
| really did not want people to look too much into Gain OF
| Function research. I think the existence of such research
| and democratic control over is the debate now worth
| having.
|
| Exactly. But having a debate now is mostly useless
| anyways. Whatever window of opportunity we had to
| investigate lab leak theory is now long gone. All the
| actors who wanted to cover their tracks have now had
| enough time to do so. So even if you are able to prove
| that lab leak did occur (to some degree) it won't lead to
| any indictments. And with an authoritarian CCP, good luck
| getting any leads directly from the labs itself.
|
| Most post COVID conspiracy theories have actually come
| true. Be it mask mandates, lockdowns, GoF, harmful
| vaccine side effects or lab leak theories. In a couple of
| years we will have even more information about why
| information was censored and who were behind this
| censorship. Such things cannot be hidden for long. That's
| a given. But what we lose out now on is the scale of the
| things that went on behind the scenes. Now that these
| nefarious actors have had enough time to clean their
| evidence, even if you find any evidence it would be
| really weak leading to no indictments/charges forget
| prosecutions and convictions.
| fumar wrote:
| > No it is not normal. Even post 9/11 no conversation was
| censored in US media
|
| No true. 9/11 was a nearly perfect military industrial
| play and no one could publicly question the US actions
| post the event. It felt like a lockstep war machine with
| vengeance at an all time high. You must've not lived
| through it.
| shri_krishna wrote:
| Was born in late 80s. Lived through all of the major
| events post that. And no you could publicly question
| everything back then. There were no calls for
| cancellations or boycotts just because you believed in
| controversy theories.
|
| Look up 9/11 Truthers movement and "Bush Did It!" to get
| an idea of the conspiracy theories that emerged right
| after 9/11. The "Bush Did It!" rallies took place in
| September 2002, just 1 year after 9/11.
|
| Personally I don't believe in the 9/11 Truthers movement
| but I wouldn't even know about it if COVID level
| censorship was adopted back in 2001. Mainstream media was
| very different back then. Compared to what it has
| devolved into now.
| cygx wrote:
| _> And no you could publicly question everything back
| then._
|
| You're remembering things through rose-colored glasses.
| Ellen DeGeneres and Laura Dern, Bill Maher and the Dixie
| Chicks can tell stories of what happened in the 90s and
| 2000s when you went against the mainstream. In fact,
| people were cancelled over the silliest things (remember
| nipplegate?). Government censorship was also alive and
| well: Under the Bush junior administration, NASA and EPA
| scientists were not allowed to use the phrase 'global
| warming'.
| cassepipe wrote:
| State is mainly concerned with public order as far as I
| can tell. What you call "State censorship" I call State
| asking politely CEOs who are in the same social class as
| most politicians to stop the spreading of (alledgedly
| false) rumors. And rumors, howevever false, have often
| cause a great deal of social unrest. The reason it
| happens now and it did not happen it 2001... Well had you
| heard of Youtube in 2001 ? Facebook ? Probably not, I
| know I didn't. All powers have somewhat regulated
| information, the US is a society where you can say almost
| anything except calling people to go and kill ${group). I
| haven't heard of a lab-leak these proponent having been
| arrested, nor websites taken down etc... This my friend
| is _state_ censorship. Now if your concern is that most
| media is owned by billionaires and private law is law on
| their platform, well ok, but that 's another concern.
|
| > Also people blaming people eating "bat soup" has
| nothing to do with lab leak theory. Both are totally
| different issues altogether. I don't see how they are
| related?
|
| Because the bat soup people where the first one to jump
| on the lab-leak theory. That did not help the cause. We
| use network of trust to digest information. I don't have
| no trust in people saying crazy stuff even though they
| might sometimes be right.
|
| > Exactly. But having a debate now is mostly useless
| anyways. Whatever window of opportunity we had to
| investigate lab leak theory is now long gone. All the
| actors who wanted to cover their tracks have now had
| enough time to do so. So even if you are able to prove
| that lab leak did occur (to some degree) it won't lead to
| any indictments. And with an authoritarian CCP, good luck
| getting any leads directly from the labs itself.
|
| I don't agree. It didn't matter more at the time to know
| if it was a lab-leak or not, situation had to be handled.
| Now that there's less urgency maybe we can investigate
| the dark corners and do something about it so it won't
| happen again. It m atters more than ever.
|
| > Most post COVID conspiracy theories have actually come
| true. Be it mask mandates, lockdowns, GoF, harmful
| vaccine side effects or lab leak theories
|
| How are mask mandates and lockdowns conspiracists
| predictions turned true... ? The real conspiracy was not
| telling people they should wear masks to protect _others_
| because there wasn 't enought for everybody. How was
| lockdown a conspiracy rather that government trying to
| pretend they were doing something ? I don't think the
| economy benefited fromt that\
|
| Harmful vaccine side effects ? What about getting covid
| side-effects ? Listen you would have caught it no matter
| what and it would probably be worse. The discrepancy
| between deaths of vaccinated and unvaccinated people
| should tell you much.
|
| GOF was known before too, it just wasn't in the public
| eye
| misja111 wrote:
| > Because you can't blame dear grandpa's death on Russia
| maybe however you try ? I am pretty sure 9/11 - War on
| Terror saw a rise in aggression of muslim looking people
| even though it concerned less people than covid did.
|
| And yet there was no censorship on conspiracy theories
| about the CIA being behind 9/11, for instance.
| smithsps wrote:
| So, the reason we didn't see CIA being behind 9/11 story
| in the Wall Street Journal because that actually it
| wasn't censored?
|
| In contrast to the lab leak theory which made the front
| page more than once, was actually the was much more
| heavily "censored".
| BurningPenguin wrote:
| Not from the US, but i don't see how it was ever a "taboo". The
| general gist was "we don't know" or "unlikely". However, what i
| did see on Social Media, was a bunch of nutjobs pushing their
| nonsense about "deep state", "population control" and so on.
| sharperguy wrote:
| I believe that these 'nutjobs' were promoted to the forefront
| of popular discussion for purposes of sensationalism and to
| discredit more careful dissenting voices by association.
|
| In many ways, it makes sense to try to get the entire
| population on board with a single narrative, in order to have
| a coherent response to an emerging situation. On the other
| hand, it opens the doors to corruption by leaving those in
| charge with no credible voices willing to criticize or draw
| attention to the holes in that narrative.
| BurningPenguin wrote:
| These nutjobs were all over Twitter, Facebook & Co. Usually
| platforms that reward engagement with more visibility. The
| people who were pushing this narrative were relying heavily
| on a mix of gullible people, fake accounts and bots. Many
| accounts being merely a few weeks or up to a month old.
| This is essentially the reason i left Twitter in the first
| place. I'm observing the conspiracy milieu for over 10
| years now. This tactic isn't new, they already used this in
| 2009 to push comments on certain websites to their side.
| Back then, it was mostly manual work. Also, thanks to
| social media, they don't need help from trashy news
| agencies to be seen.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > I believe that these 'nutjobs' were promoted to the
| forefront of popular discussion for purposes of
| sensationalism and to discredit more careful dissenting
| voices by association.
|
| It's interesting that this social media promoting action
| was so coordinated that it is happening on this very thread
| in Hacker News.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| >I believe that these 'nutjobs' were promoted to the
| forefront of popular discussion for purposes of
| sensationalism and to discredit more careful dissenting
| voices by association.
|
| That just sounds like an unfounded conspiracy theory.
|
| More likely is that extreme statements on social media
| generate more reactions, which is more engagement, so they
| get more traction in feeds because that is what social
| media is optimised to do, irrespective of what the content
| is.
|
| And these nutjobs routinely invoked the term "lab leak",
| which organically led to an association in most people's
| minds between the term "lab leak" and crazy conspiracy
| theories.
| okeuro49 wrote:
| Michael Shellenberger covered the topic regarding censorship on
| twitter. Gives an interesting interview here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqi4JbpsbVc
| wesapien wrote:
| Test
| Manjuuu wrote:
| It became a taboo because there was zero evidence, only
| conspiracy losers pushing the idea because it was aligned with
| their agenda.
|
| Let's discuss things based on evidence, zero evidence = zero
| need for discussion, it's not hard.
| carimura wrote:
| and that right there is how you promulgate a social
| suppression campaign.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| When did people start conflating people disagreeing
| vehemently with them and censorship/suppression?
|
| I've been called a moron for saying that I don't think the
| evidence is fully there yet for lab leak, does that make me
| a victim of a counter-censorship?
|
| It's nonsense.
| Manjuuu wrote:
| They are just too enamored with their opinions, you are
| ok, let them make a fool of themselves.
| Manjuuu wrote:
| No, that right there is how I remind you that if you want
| your hypothesis to be taken seriously you need proofs or at
| least a very compelling argument. There was neither.
| cubefox wrote:
| Nonsense. There were plenty of arguments from the very
| beginning for the lab leak theory. The alternative "bat
| cave" hypothesis had plenty of implausiblies (e.g. huge
| distance) and was far from being "proven".
| cygx wrote:
| There is, however, quite a bit of precedent for bat
| coronaviruses eventually infecting humans, most likely
| through zoonotic spillover via an intermediate species
| (e.g. HCoV-NL63, HCoV-229E, SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, SADS-
| CoV), and thanks to humans shipping animals all over the
| globe, huge distances aren't necessarily a deal breaker.
| baja_blast wrote:
| The difference between previous spillovers like SARS1 and
| MERS was these viruses rapidly mutated as they adapted
| towards humans allowing for the identification of the
| intermediate species within months. SARS2 on the other
| hand was already pre-adapted towards humans, had almost
| no adaptive mutations and no intermediate host has been
| found. And guess what when a virus crosses into humans
| the virus does not suddenly go extinct in the
| intermediate species, it continues to circulate, for
| example we still to this day find camels infected with
| MERS. But SARS2 we just can't seem to find this
| progenitor virus circulating.. . . very strange isn't it?
| cygx wrote:
| As far as I'm aware, we still do not know the first
| intermediate species of SARS-1 (cf Wikipedia: "Infected
| palm civets at the market were traced to farms where no
| infected animals were found. It is unknown whether the
| virus was originally introduced to the market by civets,
| humans, or another animal." and "Phylogenetic analysis of
| these viruses indicated a high probability that SARS
| coronavirus originated in bats and spread to humans
| either directly or through animals held in Chinese
| markets.") So no, it hasn't been months, but 20 years...
| blub wrote:
| How did it become taboo to discuss biological sex, race, the
| effects of migration on society and other topics in democratic,
| liberal countries?
|
| How did it become taboo to discuss the pros and cons of a
| specific vaccine or the complex geopolitical background of the
| Russo-Ukrainian war?
|
| An ad-hoc coalition of political parties, NGOs, activists and
| journalists has hijacked public discourse, are manufacturing an
| official narrative and selling it as as unassailable truth
| while bullying and mobbing any dissenters.
| sampo wrote:
| > I'd like for someone to throughly research and write about
| how it became taboo to discuss the virus leak theory.
|
| I think the story is pretty much documented in Wikipedia:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EcoHealth_Alliance#COVID-19_pa...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Daszak#COVID-19_pandemic
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_letter_(COVID-19)#Criti...
|
| Unless you mean to ask, why was their PR stunt so very
| successful? For that I don't have an answer.
| misja111 wrote:
| The problem was that the epidemic started in the middle of the
| US election campaign. At some point the Trump team started to
| support the lab leak theory. And then it became political;
| Biden supporters started framing them as conspiracy theorists,
| anybody who dared to support the leak theory was labeled as a
| Trump supporter etc.
|
| In China some people must have been amazed how the US was
| arranging such a thorough cover-up all by themselves.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| So basically the timeline is Orange Man Bad
| revelio wrote:
| Lab leak theory was suppressed worldwide, it wasn't just in
| the USA.
| misja111 wrote:
| I know, I live in Europe. But where I live in Europe we
| were simply following the pattern from the US; once the lab
| leak theory was linked to Trump, people supporting it were
| seen as Trump supporters. Trump isn't very popular in
| Europe as you might know, so this was enough to make most
| people be quiet.
| George83728 wrote:
| [Not] incidentally, around the world it's easy to find
| people who know more about American politics than their own
| local politics. I'm friends online with several Brazilians;
| they spend as much if not more time talking about Trump
| than Bolsonaro. Why is that?
|
| I think this is for a few reasons; America is a [the?]
| global hegemon; so American domestic politics have some
| earnest global relevance. But more than that; reporting one
| country's news is more efficient than reporting N
| countries' news. Fewer stories means fewer writers to pay,
| less research and investigation to do, etc. Furthermore
| people have an appetite for news, but a finite appetite;
| sate people with news about America and you'll have them
| thinking less about local issues. Therefore, news
| organizations in other countries have both an economic and
| political incentive to report American news instead of
| local news. What's more, America encourages this because
| for America it is a form of soft power to live rent-free in
| the minds of everybody else.
|
| Point is: when a narrative becomes taboo in American media,
| that's likely to rub off on the rest of the world.
| Particularly so in countries where a sizeable portion of
| the population consume at least some English-language
| media, participate on English-language forums, etc.
| shri_krishna wrote:
| > The problem was that the epidemic started in the middle of
| the US election campaign. At some point the Trump team
| started to support the lab leak theory. And then it became
| political; Biden supporters started framing them as
| conspiracy theorists, anybody who dared to support the leak
| theory was labeled as a Trump supporter etc.
|
| You hit the nail on the head.
|
| > In China some people must have been amazed how the US was
| arranging such a thorough cover-up all by themselves.
|
| Exactly. Even in India we were amazed by the cover-up. I am
| pretty sure every Asian country knew it was a cover-up. The
| very first reports on Coronavirus I came across was not even
| in the media. It was on a Korean Youtuber who posted regular
| video updates on the virus leak in China even before the news
| was picked up in the West. He was warning how CCP was
| arresting scientists who put out information about the virus
| and even sharing videos of doctors who had recorded
| themselves warning about the virus itself (one of the first
| few who treated patients of the virus and fell sick
| themselves). I can't, for the life of me, find that channel
| on Youtube anymore. But yeah there was, and still is, a lot
| of censorship aided and abetted by Big Tech.
| Jochim wrote:
| > He was warning how CCP was arresting scientists who put
| out information about the virus and even sharing videos of
| doctors who had recorded themselves warning about the virus
| itself (one of the first few who treated patients of the
| virus and fell sick themselves). I can't, for the life of
| me, find that channel on Youtube anymore. But yeah there
| was, and still is, a lot of censorship aided and abetted by
| Big Tech.
|
| The death of the doctor was widely reported on throughout
| the pandemic[0][1][2].
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/06/whistlebl
| ower-...
|
| [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-
| diseas...
|
| [2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-55963896
| shri_krishna wrote:
| I am talking about before the mainstream media took it
| seriously (few days before that video of the doctor
| became viral). If I could find the Korean Youtuber I
| would have linked it here. Can't remember the name. The
| other prolific one who was giving daily updates was
| "Koreana Jones". Was following these two Youtubers for
| updates.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| There seems to be a tendency for many to believe that
| academics, researchers, and physicians are above personal and
| political bias, particularly when it comes to their fields. But
| as far as I can tell, it largely stemmed from the fact that
| some of the earliest insinuations around the origins came from
| fringe right-wing talking heads, and particularly people
| surrounding Donald Trump, immediately caused many in positions
| of power, either in academic or media circles, to shut down
| such notions as racism, xenophobic, anti-intellectual
| conspiracy theories not based on facts. This despite those same
| people were largely coming to that conclusion in an anti-
| intellectual manner also not based on facts.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| Was it really taboo? I didn't get this feeling where I live
| (admittedly not the USA). It's just that it became clear pretty
| quickly that the investigation was going nowhere as China
| wasn't going to honestly cooperate. That didn't leave much to
| discuss.
|
| For the official response, it was to be expected. The UN does
| plenty of compromises with authoritarian countries for the sake
| of being able to operate. It would have been surprising to see
| the WHO press China.
| ra1231963 wrote:
| It was absolutely taboo. If you tried to bring it up you were
| shouted down as a far right conspiracy theorist, or racist.
|
| Mashup of clips from the news: https://youtu.be/zl-X-Lgrlf0
|
| Jon Stewart was the first to call this into question
| publicly, which was brave at the time. Watch Colbert push
| back on Stewart's line of reasoning:
| https://youtu.be/sSfejgwbDQ8
|
| Honestly questioning anything covid-related was taboo at that
| time, including the vaccines, masks, ivermectin, etc. Please
| note, I am not making any claims about these things, other
| than it was taboo to question anything "official sources"
| stated.
| coding123 wrote:
| [flagged]
| nosianu wrote:
| As the other commenter said, I'd like to add an example
| because I think it's worth it adding this to the
| discussion given that you are angry about a death in your
| family.
|
| Just imagine, there are - to pick an example - new cancer
| cases (or anything really) every single day. Therefore,
| the vaccination will coincide with the diagnosis
| perfectly for a pretty large number of people.
|
| But as should be obvious, that is not _because_ of the
| vaccine. For there to be no diseases exactly following
| vaccinations there would have to be a stop of all disease
| for a week or two for anyone getting vaccinated. Now
| _that_ would be an outlier.
|
| If you want to see if a disease _cold_ be because of
| vaccination you would at the very least have to show that
| among those getting vaccinated statistically
| significantly more people get the disease than normal.
|
| Just remember, normal life and normal things - including
| all kinds of diseases - go on all the time. Vaccinations
| take place in this context, not "outside the environment"
| (to use a quote from a famous sketch).
| boredumb wrote:
| I understand how people have been obsessing over
| vaccination for a while, but the things are not
| infallible and I highly doubt some guy on the internet
| feels better that his dad is dead now that you've
| absolved pharmaceutical companies of any responsibility.
| Given enough big coincidences I imagine everyone stops
| giving the media, government and big business the benefit
| of the doubt no matter how politically expedient it may
| be to hand wave away.
| [deleted]
| PierceJoy wrote:
| Very sorry about your Dad, but you have no evidence
| vaccination was related to his ALS. Hundred of millions
| of people were vaccinated in short period of time, and
| there is obviously a group of people who were always
| going to develop ALS within that time frame. Given the
| large n of the first group, overlap was inevitable.
| Temporal proximity doesn't establish causation when
| there's an overlap.
| boredumb wrote:
| Or it could be the mRNA vaccine the guy got, neither of
| us know. Definitely getting deja vu to covid times though
| with this feeling of not even being sure what you could
| possibly gain by telling someone their dead dad could
| have just been coincidentally dead from ALS... to make
| sure the "warp speed" mRNA vaccines stay beyond
| discussion?
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| [flagged]
| skissane wrote:
| There is _tentative_ evidence that COVID vaccines may
| rarely trigger onset of ALS in susceptible individuals -
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10035647/
|
| It is _possible_ you are right and it was just a
| coincidence - but it is also _possible_ that the vaccine
| was the trigger for ALS to develop. We don't have enough
| evidence yet to confidently say
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Lots of people thinking you are an idiot does not mean you
| can't say it. I saw plenty of people saying things about
| vaccines, masks, ivermectin.
|
| But yes, when hundreds of thousands of people are dying
| globally, I think patience for those things wears thin in a
| personal capacity.
|
| But I would seriously question whether something is really
| 'taboo' if ~half of the country is watching media outlets
| where they ask these questions regularly, which is the case
| in the domestic US.
| ra1231963 wrote:
| It is exactly the attitude you are still exhibiting that
| was the problem. "We're in a crisis, no time to ask
| questions. Fall in line or you're a far right conspiracy
| theorist/idiot."
| whimsicalism wrote:
| It is a legitimate opinion and not censorious that if you
| are going and telling people to take ivermectin for covid
| you are legitimately harming people.
|
| Having that attitude is not "a problem", having opinions
| on dumb stuff people say is not censorious.
|
| This new interpretation that freedom of speech means
| freedom from having people criticize you is novel.
| [deleted]
| dontupvoteme wrote:
| Wow, I already liked Stewart but really respect him to have
| the stones to bring that up. He doesn't fall into the left
| or right dichotomy.
| nwienert wrote:
| He is extremely far left but had a new show coming out
| and needed to generate a bit of hype
| defrost wrote:
| "extremely far left" by US standards, sure .. otherwise
| pretty moderate middle of the road.
| nwienert wrote:
| By which standards? Every country is different, even
| within Europe there are much more conservative countries
| than the US.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > "extremely far left" by US standards, sure .. otherwise
| pretty moderate middle of the road.
|
| Globally the world is right of the US on most issues, but
| you're probably pretending that the rest of the world is
| just Europe.
| George83728 wrote:
| Unsurprisingly, Americans generally evaluate American
| media by American standards.
| ryanbrunner wrote:
| He's never run for political office or anything like that
| so most of what we can glean is from his shows, which for
| sure attack the right more than the left but don't
| advance their own policy proposals.
|
| The most overt stuff he has done politically is the late
| 2000s rally with Colbert which was very middle-of-the-
| road decorum-focused Democrat in tone, I don't think
| there's a lot of evidence for him being "hard left". If I
| had to guess, I think he'd be more in line with the Obama
| / Biden type camp than Sanders.
| [deleted]
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > He doesn't fall into the left or right dichotomy.
|
| I am a fan of Jon Stewart, but the fact that I have never
| heard someone on the right-wing claim that Jon Stewart is
| non-partisan while I hear it frequently from mainstream
| democrats should tell you something about the veracity of
| the claim.
| ftxbro wrote:
| yes it was taboo in the media and even on hacker news. if you
| mentioned it then you were literally laura ingraham
| whimsicalism wrote:
| The fun thing about claims about Hacker News opinion is
| that you can actually fact check it on Algolia. [0]
|
| Most of it is either people saying that we can't know
| whether the lab leak is true or not and people who are
| claiming persecution on "Reddit/the Media/etc" because
| "they" are keeping the lab leak theory from being
| discussed.
|
| [0]: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=33&prefix=t
| rue&qu...
| [deleted]
| elorant wrote:
| That's because China finances a lot of western institutions and
| research labs which where afraid that speaking publicly would
| harm their grants.
| smohare wrote:
| [dead]
| laserbeam wrote:
| This is the kind of writing you need to properly discuss the lab
| leak hypothesis. It's not perfect, there are no good links to
| sources which suggests a lot of it is made up.
|
| However, this kind of writing should only happen after years or
| months of investigation. You can't do the lab leak panic 2 days
| into the pandemic. You can't even really do it half way through
| the pandemic.
|
| I'm glad such investigations are being caried out. I only wish
| links to whatever is declassified from the investigations to be
| made public for such publications. Authors need to prove their
| research effort when it comes to such news.
| oneshtein wrote:
| > It's not perfect, there are no good links to sources which
| suggests a lot of it is made up.
|
| Existing evidence points to another lab: BSL4 lab "Vector" in
| Novosibirsk, Russia. They worked on their "Sputnik" vaccine
| when blast in laboratory on September 16 2019[2] caused chain
| of incidents: broken windows, unprotected soldiers break in,
| which checked rooms for signs of fire, equipment stolen from
| BSL4 lab by those soldiers[0][1], epidemic of unknown virus in
| Siberia, Military World Games in Wuhan[3].
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w7SAeNcXA8
|
| [1]:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20200407175030/https://www.youtu...
|
| [2]: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/17/health/russia-lab-
| explosi...
|
| [3]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7813667/
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| mkoubaa wrote:
| >However, this kind of writing should only happen after years
| or months of investigation.
|
| In other words, censorship
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| laserbeam wrote:
| I mean... There are references to names, institutions
| carrying out certain investigations, references to
| experiments done prior to the pandemic. Yeah, some of it can
| be congecture. Which is why I really want the direct links to
| data, not just mentions to the events.
|
| I'm not sure it's a conspiracy theory. I think it's a
| legitimate thing to investigate by an international entity
| like the UN (not the US), and the outcome (if it turns out to
| be true) should likely be some proportional sanction/payments
| by China.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Sure, but the article is implying there something new that
| actually would have some kind of bearing or meaning.
| oneshtein wrote:
| Russians started to clean up evidence, which points to
| BSL4 lab "Vector".
|
| IMHO, this article is a part of their disinformation
| campaign. The name of their vaccine "Sputnik V" (Follower
| 5) suggests that there was "Something","Sputnik I",
| "Sputnik II", "Sputnik III", "Sputnik IV" before "Sputnik
| V".
|
| It's impossible for Russians to produce 5 vaccines in row
| in such short span of time, just few months, which took
| billions of dollars and year of time for western
| companies.
|
| IMHO, Russians started developing of their vaccine since
| SARS-CoV-1 outbreak in 2003.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > The name of their vaccine "Sputnik V" (Follower 5)
| suggests that there was "Something"
|
| No, a regime known for throwing people out of windows if
| they say one word too much isn't so dumb to hide a hint
| like that in plain sight.
| dbtc wrote:
| Or they had 12 teams working in parallel, competition
| style, and team 5 won.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Sounds ominous but also completely devoid of useful
| explanations, blame, or actionable knowledge.
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| It was named after the satellite Sputnik 1 and the V is
| not a roman five but stands for victory, multiple sources
| consistently claim? Sounds reasonable that this was just
| PR propaganda to connect to prior great successes in
| Russia..
|
| (Even without that knowledge I'd find this theory a bit
| far fetched, there could be many other good reasons for
| that naming).
| oneshtein wrote:
| "Sputnik" is a regular Russian word, which means "one who
| travels together with another" (s-put-nik s-=with,
| -put-=travel/road/journey, -nik=somebody).
|
| Victory is Latin word. Russian word for victory is
| "pobeda" (po-beda po-=after, -beda=bad/something very
| different from good, "after bad times").
|
| It looks like 5 in the name is from Ad5 component of
| vaccine.
|
| Moreover, the vaccine produced by Vector is called
| EpiVacCorona[0].
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EpiVacCorona
| asynchronous wrote:
| Oh? But we can publish the Lancet document, asserting with
| ridiculous grandeur that it was NOT a lab leak, a mere 3 months
| into the pandemic?
|
| The same document that turned out to have been paid for and
| produced despite having numerous errors and lies, simply to
| turn a narrative?
|
| Let's hold everyone to the same standard shall we?
| pinewurst wrote:
| https://archive.ph/L2BSO
| liberty-DNBWM wrote:
| I just don't understand this at all. Is it not obivous that US
| government discovered this virus a long time ago and started
| researching? There are too many proofs on this. How the fuck is
| this related to Wuhan? Are these publishers not thinking normal
| people too stupid and easy to be manipulated?
| terramex wrote:
| non-paywall link: https://archive.ph/22j9L
| kazinator wrote:
| Or: turn on Firefox reader mode, click refresh.
| _nalply wrote:
| Didn't work for me even after refresh, probably you and me we
| were disposed differently. Whatever, using archive.
| major505 wrote:
| Remember when someone would acuse you of being paranoid when you
| said that was the most problable couse of covid pandemic? Yeah...
| Manjuuu wrote:
| When there were zero evidences? Yeah, go figure.
| anthonypasq wrote:
| there was zero evidence for either scenario, yet only 1 of
| them got you labeled a conspiracy theorist
| saalweachter wrote:
| I mean, one of the scenarios involves a conspiracy to cover
| up the accidental or intentional release of a virus.
|
| The other one doesn't involve a conspiracy of raccoon dogs
| to sneak a sick member into the city to punish the humans
| for their consumption.
|
| It can't really be symmetrical.
| Manjuuu wrote:
| Only the one that resembled a textbook conspiracy, the
| first one had some evidence and is still considered part of
| where the issue started.
| Xen9 wrote:
| I personally believe in Rootlclaim's Bayesian analysis
| (https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COV...)
| which states that "the virus was developed during gain-of-
| function research and was released by accident (89% probability)"
|
| This is consistent with David Martin's speech in Europe:
| https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1661698114917646336
|
| I haven't checked the "publicly available references" but many
| who inssist on a natural cause read about the bat theory in the
| first few months and then haven't updated & aren't willing to
| update their models.
|
| If you find any faults that can really change the results in the
| analysis Rootclaim made, I would be interested.
| jmull wrote:
| > If you find any faults that can really change the results in
| the analysis Rootclaim made, I would be interested.
|
| This is an interesting way to analyze the problem but the set
| of criteria and weights applied at each step are made up.
|
| The flaw is that you can use this form of analysis to reach any
| conclusion you want.
|
| For example, the "Already well adapted" section -- a "2x"
| factor for lab escape. We wouldn't even be thinking about this
| virus if it wasn't well adapted to spread among humans. So
| that's baked into the ground and isn't a factor of anything.
|
| Then take "Furin cleavage" -- a whopping 8x factor for lab
| escape relative to zoonotic. This is the same thing as already
| well adapted, so now we've got a combined 16x for something
| that should be 1x.
|
| The weight for "Chimera" -- another whopping 8x for lab escape
| relative to zoonotic -- seems really high for something that is
| found both in nature and in labs that merely "seems less likely
| to combine in nature". We should probably be arguing about
| whether this is 1.5x or 2x.
|
| The real conclusion is we don't know. The Chinese probably do,
| but it would be a very closely guarded secret and obviously
| they would never admit to a lab leak. I lot of people hate
| ambiguity and want an answer, but in this case it doesn't seem
| that we are going to get one.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| > it would be a very closely guarded secret and obviously
| they would never admit to a lab leak
|
| A complicating factor is that some (much?) of the funding
| came from the US. Which means admitting to a leak is against
| the interest of not only Chinese but also the US government
| which would have a hell of a time explaining to taxpayers how
| pandemic was engineered on their money doing research banned
| in the US. (Though I don't think US government played any
| part in resisting the research tbh, CCP probably did all that
| at their accord.)
|
| I think all in all we shouldn't give up, and even if we don't
| find the actual data I don't see the world can be okay
| without big fat follow up over not some lab making a mistake
| (humans make those) but all obstruction of research into the
| origins of what could have been an extinction level event if
| the virus was a bit better engineered, whether it came from
| Chinese communist party or US scientists scared for grant
| money.
| Xen9 wrote:
| Idea:
|
| Community / site for collective truth-seeking. Possibly
| integrated with Metaculus.
|
| One can submit new pieces of evidene which would be
| commentable (in threads), votable, and programmable (to
| toggle / affect of other submitted evidence threads).
|
| Users can adjust the weights, vote on them (to generate a
| certain consensus / prediction), and even toggle of pieces
| of evidence manually.
|
| The site automatically gives the probabilities for
| different scearions. I don't have an instant vision on how
| "all" possible scenarios would be chosen.
| ricksunny wrote:
| Neat idea, if you can keep it from getting gamed.
|
| It sounds a little like this RootClaim (I just learned
| about here) https://www.rootclaim.com/how-rootclaim-works
| but with the users adjusting & voting on weights?
|
| This is a strawman demonstrator I'm wware of w r t
| origins probability surveying & calculation.
| https://www.getguesstimate.com/models/18631
|
| It's intended for any one user to evaluate ther priors
| and see how they stack up all together. like that your
| idea woukd aggregate & have comments & a voting
| mechanism,
| throwaway290 wrote:
| resistance to manipulation can probably come from things
| like more substantial evidence + personal reputation or
| identity confirmation.
|
| By the way, why do people weigh zoonotic spillover so
| high relatively to lab leak accident? There were lab
| leaks before even in Beijing, eg. of the original SARS
| when it was researched. That SARS kills faster so it
| didn't get to infect too many people... And that's only
| what's documented, considering it's China there could've
| been any number of other times.
|
| Intentional leak chance is low but accidental leak is so
| likely it's surprising this pandemic didn't happen before
| considering security practies _that were known and raised
| questions before the pandemic_. But everyone magically
| forgets about it. All because some US scientists wanted
| grant money too much and so laughed everyone who
| disagrees out of the room.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| whimsicalism wrote:
| This sort of thing is only going to give more ammunition to
| people saying STEM students _must_ take ethics
| /reasoning/philosophy courses :)
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| cubefox wrote:
| > But why do you think it is important to prove a lab leak?
|
| Perhaps because it is _slightly_ interesting what caused the
| worst pandemic since the Spanish flu? Because millions of
| people died? Because knowing the cause could _perhaps_
| prevent something similar happen again? Perhaps prevent
| millions of deaths?
|
| I'm astonished by this question.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Sure but what if it just isn't knowable?
| cubefox wrote:
| Historians are still finding out things that happened
| hundreds of years ago. Do you really think the origins of
| Covid are lost in the mists of time?
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Yes, why do you not? Or why do you need it so bad? You
| can do whatever you were going to do anyway.
| nepthar wrote:
| I'd ask the inverse question to you - why would you think it
| is unimportant to determine the cause of things that happen
| in the world?
| th0ma5 wrote:
| I don't
| peteradio wrote:
| You can't in one comment complain about investigations using
| "made up priors" and then in another complain that we are
| investigating something which could actually provide a
| measured prior.
| th0ma5 wrote:
| Could! But hasn't... Otherwise yes good points. I don't see
| how they measure all the rest of the probabilities and the
| article seems to be designed to settle arguments among dumb
| people or something? It is not even remotely scientific.
| peteradio wrote:
| > I think the whole premise that arbitrary priors and
| dreaming up probabilities and then washing them all
| together isn't applicable to a unicorn type event.
|
| Now I believe you said it. Maybe not exactly "made up
| priors" so pardon me for the misquote. But I'd be
| interested to see if you can make a distinction.
| some_random wrote:
| I remember when this was first released, everyone clowned on it
| (including me) for a few reasons the biggest one being the
| classic problem with these sorts of Bayesian analyses. That
| being, the individual weights per piece of evidence are pretty
| arbitrary.
|
| Meanwhile, it seems quite likely to have produced the correct
| results so -\\_(tsu)_/-
| th0ma5 wrote:
| [flagged]
| nova22033 wrote:
| This David Martin?
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-covid-vaccine/f...
| tsss wrote:
| Regardless of the merits of the lab leak theory, David Martin
| is a NWO-level conspiracy theorist who thinks that Pfizer
| colluded with Bill Gates and the US government and infected the
| whole world with a virus, on purpose, just to push their
| vaccine on people. The conference that you allude to has
| nothing to do with the European union. It was organized by two
| equally nutty far right EU-politicians in one of the
| parliament's public rooms to give a false legitimacy to their
| "conference" and mislead people to think that it was an
| official event.
| Xen9 wrote:
| He seems to have worked on projects that are questionable in
| importance / authenticity but likely to have made profits.
| Claiming that the video filmed in EU was from an "official EU
| conference" would be uniformed or mispresenting him, indeed.
| But I think it's worth watching; Phizer's patent application
| and other claims he made are interesting and haven't been
| repeated elsewhere (from my perspective).
| LodeOfCode wrote:
| That Rootclaim analysis seems sloppy as hell. From the "Show
| More" of the outbreak location section:
|
| >Thus, the ratio of zoonotic:bioweapon:zoonotic
| collection:modified lab escape is 2:5:100:50, or a reduction of
| a zoonotic origin by 50x, a bioweapon origin by 20x, and a lab
| escape by 0.5x.
|
| Those aren't the same ratio.
|
| >To account for the possibility that there is a yet
| unidentified reason why Wuhan is a more likely location for a
| zoonotic outbreak, these numbers are generously adjusted to a
| reduction of a zoonotic origin by 20x and a bioweapon origin by
| 15x, with lab escape remaining at 0.5x.
|
| But what they actually apply is a reduction of a zoonotic
| origin by 20x and a bioweapon origin by 15x, with _zoonotic
| collection_ at 2x. Which isn 't the result of applying that
| adjustment to either of the original ratios, so apparently
| they've just applied the lab escape factor to wrong category
| hn_thrwn wrote:
| [flagged]
| paulwilsondev wrote:
| In the morning!
| [deleted]
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