The Wuhan Institute of virology should explain how a virus can go from not being detected at all in animals or humans to being easily spread from human to human in the space of one month.
This simple doesn't happen SARS did not occur in one city, but was widespread as it was spread from animals to people over time in a wide geographic area.
SARS-2 Cov did not act like a naturally occurring virus as it originated in Wuhan.
Add in the Chinese government's continuing cover-ups and I think we all have alot of impo
You are not allowed to question the narrative; its a "Conspiracy Theory".
You a free to question it. In fact, many expert virologist have weighed in [slashdot.org] and concluded that Covid-19 originated in bats, transferred into some second animal (suspected to be pangolins) and then transferred to humans. Implying that it man-made is a conspiracy theory as there is no evidence to even suggest that being the case. What you have is an authoritarian regime that has been embarrassed by it's citizens actions (eating wild animals) which in turn makes makes them livid that anyone has the gall to f
Honestly though, if they had actually engineered this shit
I don't think anyone believes they 'engineered it'. I think the suspicion is that they were studying a whole bunch of different animal coronaviruses (which we know they were doing at that lab) and running pretty standard gain of function experiments on them. Then one (or maybe even a bunch) of these experiments leaked out.
Thing is this sort of thing happens in western BSL4 labs, so it's not even saying the Chinese are less competent to believe it happened in one of theirs.
It seems to me that if this came from a lab accident, then that is a very very good thing. It means we can prevent this sort of thing from happening again by just enforcing better standards in BSL4 labs. If, instead, it did come from a spontaneous zoonotic event, then that is going to be substantially harder to protect against in future.
Yes, that point is sort of frustrating to me. "Escaped from a lab" and "Engineered by a lab" are two wildly different hypotheses, with the former vastly more credible-seeming than the other. Accidents happen. But "escaped from a lab" is also MUCH more embarrassing to the Chinese government than "caused by human-animal interaction in the wild" (who wants to admit to a mistake that cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars?), and so I'm betting we'll never, ever get to the truth of this.
The problem is, when you can't trust a government (not unique to the Chinese government, but there are definitely differences in degrees of trust), there's really no information that government can offer which fundamentally negates that inherent mistrust. It's like trying to prove a negative.
It very well could have occurred entirely in the wild, but given how the Chinese are not cooperating very well, it's hard to square that as the truth. Otherwise, why would they not be more forthcoming? The only reason I can offer is either inherent reluctance to do so in a culture of secrecy, or else it may expose another embarrassing fact, like that they covered up their own Covid numbers.
The number of interactions with wild animals carrying corona virus strains is orders of magnitude greater than the number of interactions with viruses in those labs (and the security protocols much worse). While it's possible that there was a lab accident, given what we know now the probability of that would be very low. 1% I think would generous.
Otoh, lab contact is orders of magnitude greater than being in the same neighborhood of the woods as bats. I would estimate the probability of a lab accident as at least 50%.
The lab scientists are cooperating with the WHO team. Everyone working in the lab as well as the entire WHO team agree that there was no lab incident, and that the virus was never in the lab to begin with. So we're talking about at least 30 people, which, to me, puts this conspiracy about halfway between 9/11 inside job and NASA fake moon landing.
I agree completely on your first para. But I was listening to an interview on NPR yesterday, and at least according to them this team was not an official WHO inspection--it simply included people from the WHO. Furthermore, the director of the WHO has come out in public saying the lab hypothesis can't be excluded. If these points are true, then WHO may be more independent of Chinese pressure than you and I had thought.
"Everyone working in the lab as well as the entire WHO team agree that there was no lab incident, and that the virus was never in the lab to begin with. "
There's nothing new here. He's saying lab escape is the least likely hypothesis. I'm not changing my score until someone comes forward with evidence to support it.
If, instead, it did come from a spontaneous zoonotic event, then that is going to be substantially harder to protect against in future.
If it didn't.
Shutting down the labs studying them will put us as a distinct disadvantage when it happens again. And it will happen again. As it has also happened before. Viruses naturally jump species all the time. We know this already.
Wuhan Institute of Virology (Score:2, Insightful)
The Wuhan Institute of virology should explain how a virus can go from not being detected at all in animals or humans to being easily spread from human to human in the space of one month.
This simple doesn't happen SARS did not occur in one city, but was widespread as it was spread from animals to people over time in a wide geographic area.
SARS-2 Cov did not act like a naturally occurring virus as it originated in Wuhan.
Add in the Chinese government's continuing cover-ups and I think we all have alot of impo
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You are not allowed to question the narrative; its a "Conspiracy Theory".
Let the Bureaucrats at WHO tell you what to believe, and do that. It is much easier on everyone that way.
Re: (Score:5, Informative)
You are not allowed to question the narrative; its a "Conspiracy Theory".
You a free to question it. In fact, many expert virologist have weighed in [slashdot.org] and concluded that Covid-19 originated in bats, transferred into some second animal (suspected to be pangolins) and then transferred to humans. Implying that it man-made is a conspiracy theory as there is no evidence to even suggest that being the case. What you have is an authoritarian regime that has been embarrassed by it's citizens actions (eating wild animals) which in turn makes makes them livid that anyone has the gall to f
Re:Wuhan Institute of Virology (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly though, if they had actually engineered this shit
I don't think anyone believes they 'engineered it'. I think the suspicion is that they were studying a whole bunch of different animal coronaviruses (which we know they were doing at that lab) and running pretty standard gain of function experiments on them. Then one (or maybe even a bunch) of these experiments leaked out.
Thing is this sort of thing happens in western BSL4 labs, so it's not even saying the Chinese are less competent to believe it happened in one of theirs.
It seems to me that if this came from a lab accident, then that is a very very good thing. It means we can prevent this sort of thing from happening again by just enforcing better standards in BSL4 labs. If, instead, it did come from a spontaneous zoonotic event, then that is going to be substantially harder to protect against in future.
Re:Wuhan Institute of Virology (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, that point is sort of frustrating to me. "Escaped from a lab" and "Engineered by a lab" are two wildly different hypotheses, with the former vastly more credible-seeming than the other. Accidents happen. But "escaped from a lab" is also MUCH more embarrassing to the Chinese government than "caused by human-animal interaction in the wild" (who wants to admit to a mistake that cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars?), and so I'm betting we'll never, ever get to the truth of this.
The problem is, when you can't trust a government (not unique to the Chinese government, but there are definitely differences in degrees of trust), there's really no information that government can offer which fundamentally negates that inherent mistrust. It's like trying to prove a negative.
It very well could have occurred entirely in the wild, but given how the Chinese are not cooperating very well, it's hard to square that as the truth. Otherwise, why would they not be more forthcoming? The only reason I can offer is either inherent reluctance to do so in a culture of secrecy, or else it may expose another embarrassing fact, like that they covered up their own Covid numbers.
Re: (Score:3)
The number of interactions with wild animals carrying corona virus strains is orders of magnitude greater than the number of interactions with viruses in those labs (and the security protocols much worse). While it's possible that there was a lab accident, given what we know now the probability of that would be very low. 1% I think would generous.
Re: (Score:2)
Otoh, lab contact is orders of magnitude greater than being in the same neighborhood of the woods as bats. I would estimate the probability of a lab accident as at least 50%.
Re: (Score:2)
Engineered in Lab also requires Escaped from Lab to get it out of the lab.
Unless you want to add another option called "Intentionally Released from Lab". That in turn can be standalone without the Engineered in Lab option.
It's possible (but not probable) that it was intentionally released.
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Re: (Score:3)
I agree completely on your first para. But I was listening to an interview on NPR yesterday, and at least according to them this team was not an official WHO inspection--it simply included people from the WHO. Furthermore, the director of the WHO has come out in public saying the lab hypothesis can't be excluded. If these points are true, then WHO may be more independent of Chinese pressure than you and I had thought.
Re: (Score:2)
"Everyone working in the lab as well as the entire WHO team agree that there was no lab incident, and that the virus was never in the lab to begin with. "
FALSE - https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
If, instead, it did come from a spontaneous zoonotic event, then that is going to be substantially harder to protect against in future.
If it didn't.
Shutting down the labs studying them will put us as a distinct disadvantage when it happens again. And it will happen again. As it has also happened before. Viruses naturally jump species all the time. We know this already.
Re: (Score:2)
and running pretty standard gain of function experiments on them
And why would anyone do that?
And: how would YOU know?