'Claim That Covid-19 Came From Lab In China Completely Unfounded Scientists Say' (newsweek.com) 411
Newsweek reports: There is no evidence to back claims the coronavirus that has caused the COVID-19 pandemic emerged from a lab in China, scientists have told Newsweek.
Adam Lauring, an associate professor at the University of Michigan Medical School and an expert in the evolution of viruses, told Newsweek: "This claim is a conspiracy theory and it is not supported at all by the available data... The SARS-CoV-2 virus has some key differences in specific genes relative to previously identified coronaviruses — the ones a laboratory would be working with," said Lauring. "This constellation of changes makes it unlikely that it is the result of a laboratory 'escape.'"
Alexandre Hassanin, a lecturer at France's Sorbonne University National Museum of Natural History department of origins and evolution, similarly highlighted to Newsweek: "Even if it is difficult to prove that a laboratory accident did not take place, you should know that SARS-CoV-2 is not closely related to any previous viruses; it was never sequenced (even partially) in previous studies, and the COVID-19 outbreak began in November/December, as in previous SARS epidemic events (2002 and 2003)."
Hassanin said: "These two points suggest therefore that the current outbreak was not the consequence of a laboratory accident."
An anonymous reader adds: Today the Associated Press also called it "an outlier theory" being spread by president Trump and officials in his administration "without the weight of evidence."
On Twitter, Eric Hundman, an Assistant Professor at NYU Shanghai, had stern words for anyone still spreading this misinformation. "Insinuating that the virus escaped from a lab in China by saying 'well, there's no evidence that it didn't' is not only untrue, it amounts to disinformation that could further ratchet up US-China tensions and distract from more urgent priorities.
*There actually is scientific evidence against the "escaped from a lab" theory."
He then cites five different scientists who wrote in Nature magazine that "We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."
In fact, "Most experts push back on the lab leak theory," CNN reported earlier this month. "I think it has no credibility," they were told by Vincent Racaniello, a microbiology professor at Columbia University who hosts a podcast called "This Week in Virology."
And they got the same response from Dr. Simon Anthony, a professor at the public health grad school of Columbia University and a key member of PREDICT. "It all feels far-fetched. Lab accidents do happen, we know that, but... there's certainly no evidence to support that theory."
That's also the opinion of America's intelligence community. Business Insider writes: The US intelligence community has also been investigating whether the virus was collected by researchers and then accidentally leaked from a Chinese lab but has found no evidence to date backing it up, according to Politico, which cited multiple sources familiar with the matter. Or, as Politico puts it: Congressional intelligence committees have been asking various agencies if hard evidence exists to support it. So far, there is none, multiple sources familiar with the matter told POLITICO.
UPDATE (4/19/20): On Sunday even Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House's Coronavirus Task Force response coordinator, acknowledged "I don't have evidence that it was a laboratory accident."
Adam Lauring, an associate professor at the University of Michigan Medical School and an expert in the evolution of viruses, told Newsweek: "This claim is a conspiracy theory and it is not supported at all by the available data... The SARS-CoV-2 virus has some key differences in specific genes relative to previously identified coronaviruses — the ones a laboratory would be working with," said Lauring. "This constellation of changes makes it unlikely that it is the result of a laboratory 'escape.'"
Alexandre Hassanin, a lecturer at France's Sorbonne University National Museum of Natural History department of origins and evolution, similarly highlighted to Newsweek: "Even if it is difficult to prove that a laboratory accident did not take place, you should know that SARS-CoV-2 is not closely related to any previous viruses; it was never sequenced (even partially) in previous studies, and the COVID-19 outbreak began in November/December, as in previous SARS epidemic events (2002 and 2003)."
Hassanin said: "These two points suggest therefore that the current outbreak was not the consequence of a laboratory accident."
An anonymous reader adds: Today the Associated Press also called it "an outlier theory" being spread by president Trump and officials in his administration "without the weight of evidence."
On Twitter, Eric Hundman, an Assistant Professor at NYU Shanghai, had stern words for anyone still spreading this misinformation. "Insinuating that the virus escaped from a lab in China by saying 'well, there's no evidence that it didn't' is not only untrue, it amounts to disinformation that could further ratchet up US-China tensions and distract from more urgent priorities.
*There actually is scientific evidence against the "escaped from a lab" theory."
He then cites five different scientists who wrote in Nature magazine that "We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."
In fact, "Most experts push back on the lab leak theory," CNN reported earlier this month. "I think it has no credibility," they were told by Vincent Racaniello, a microbiology professor at Columbia University who hosts a podcast called "This Week in Virology."
And they got the same response from Dr. Simon Anthony, a professor at the public health grad school of Columbia University and a key member of PREDICT. "It all feels far-fetched. Lab accidents do happen, we know that, but... there's certainly no evidence to support that theory."
That's also the opinion of America's intelligence community. Business Insider writes: The US intelligence community has also been investigating whether the virus was collected by researchers and then accidentally leaked from a Chinese lab but has found no evidence to date backing it up, according to Politico, which cited multiple sources familiar with the matter. Or, as Politico puts it: Congressional intelligence committees have been asking various agencies if hard evidence exists to support it. So far, there is none, multiple sources familiar with the matter told POLITICO.
UPDATE (4/19/20): On Sunday even Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House's Coronavirus Task Force response coordinator, acknowledged "I don't have evidence that it was a laboratory accident."
Perhaps unfounded, but not unbelievable (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not really certain it matters one way or another. It isn't like China is going to make the necessary changes to prevent it from happening again. Not to admonish them too much though. Most other countries aren't a lot better especially historically, but at least they won't run over you with tanks if you complain about it in public.
It doesn't matter (Score:3)
That said, no, it's not a Chinese bioweapon. The gene sequencing already showed it wasn't. You can't make a lab virus without there being indications that it was made in a lab. You have to mutate it too fast. There are telltale markers when you do.
This is just an attempt to shift blame for multiple Administration's p
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, no, it's not a Chinese bioweapon.
I don't think anyone seriosly believed it was. The claim is "came from a bioweapon research lab", not "was a bioweapon". Isn't it a near-certainty at this point that it came from bats?
Whether is came from a Wuhan wet market directly from a bat, or from a researcher studying an infected bat who was having lunch at the market, it's sort of an academic distinction.
Go onto some of the alt right sites (Score:2)
Do they sell bats for food in Wuhan? (Score:5, Interesting)
The word I hear is that 1) bats were not sold in Wuhan "wet markets" and 2) the kind of bat that is eaten for food is not the kind that the virus is believed to have originated, 3) there is a virology lab in the Wuhan area.
The "theory" is that this was an industrial accident.
Accident/incident that an authoritarian government tried to cover up? Does Chernobyl come to mind? Sverdlovsk (anthrax release)? Nyonoska (the "Skyfall" missile)?
Re: (Score:3)
The word I hear is that 1) bats were not sold in Wuhan "wet markets" and 2) the kind of bat that is eaten for food is not the kind that the virus is believed to have originated, 3) there is a virology lab in the Wuhan area.
The "theory" is that this was an industrial accident.
4) The Wuhan virology lab uses the type of bat where the virus is believed to have originated. This bat's habitat is hundreds of kilometers from Wuhan.
5) Many of the early patients had no connection to the wet market. The virus seems to have originated elsewhere.
China restricted virus origin research (Score:3)
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:4, Interesting)
Whether is came from a Wuhan wet market directly from a bat, or from a researcher studying an infected bat who was having lunch at the market, it's sort of an academic distinction.
Not really. The difference is that it would be known that the research institute(s) in China that let this out (if they did, which is more and more likely at this point since tracing of the earliest known infected people do no match with the wet market that China was so quick to point to) would then be known to be lacking in proper safety protocol. That lapse in safety failure and protocol would then force a change in it given how damaging this has already been.
I think China is afraid in some sense that they will be held accountable if it was in fact a government run research lab that was the initial cause, especially with the initial cover-up to suppress information to the front line first responders (doctors and medical personnel) who were dealing with the cases. Add to it the new restrictions in China on continued research into the origins (I mean, seriously, no reason to censor such research unless you suspect that such research will show that it did come from a lab, otherwise you would be doing everything you could research wise to find the initial cause).
Also there isn't anyone saying that this virus was engineered in a lab, simply that it was something sampled, collected, taken to a lab, and then due to a lapse in safety protocols, escaped from that lab.
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Making the assumption that because this couldn't be a bioweapon that it obviously couldn't have come from a lab is fallacious reasoning. One could just as easily
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Not really, the CCP has every reason to make sure it doesn't happen again because it is killing their political push across the world. Admittedly the alleged administration is ceding the Asia-Pacific to them, so they have that going for them.
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Then why don't they just use that virus on those minorities? I mean, that would be by far the easiest and, at least currently, most acceptable way to "deal" with that issue. How tragic that they got hit by the virus so heavily, oh the humanity, yadda yadda.
If that was a weaponized virus, i.e. if they have it in their bioweapon arsenal, why not use it now to get rid of those they don't want to have in their population? Right now, they could easily wage a biological war against those minorities and nobody wou
Re:Perhaps unfounded, but not unbelievable (Score:5, Insightful)
When you have a country that's putting ethnic minorities into concentration camps [npr.org] it makes it a lot easier to believe that just maybe those allegations or rumors seem a lot more plausible.
When you have a military lab with a history of biological weapon development [wikipedia.org], known accidents [google.com], and initial cover-up and closure right before this coronavirus outbreak [military.com] in a country that repeatedly jailed whistleblowers [wikipedia.org], it makes it a lot easier to believe that just maybe those allegations or rumors [nytimes.com] seem a lot more plausible.
When you have YOUR country that's putting ethnic minorities into concentration camps [wikipedia.org] it makes it a lot easier to believe that just maybe those allegations or rumors seem a lot more plausible.
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Re: Perhaps unfounded, but not unbelievable (Score:3)
China has literally been driving the conspiracy that COVID has been spread by black peoples and as a result are rounding up and driving out their African population.
But you don't hear about that anywhere in the media either.
Re: (Score:2)
1989 Tianamen Square Protests [wikipedia.org]
Tank Man [wikipedia.org]
I'm not particularly sure the dead care too much whether they were run down or gunned down. I suppose the modern tactics of just putting people under permanent or longterm house arrest are slightly better, but the people of China deserve so much better than the authoritarianism that they live under.
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No, I think the tanks rolled in, started shooting people as an example, and let the rest flee for their lives.
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Most of the deaths were protesters who tried to stop the tanks from reaching the square by violent means and by setting up barricades
Ok, I'll say it: You do not end civil protests by using tanks.
China fucked up. China knows that China fucked up because China's spent the 30 years since doing its best to memory hole the entire fucking event. But the world knows China fucked up and the world will keep letting China know that China fucked up and letting the Chinese know that China fucked up because China fucked up.
Now, how the fuck do I get this one past the swear filter.
There's not likely to be proof either way (Score:5, Insightful)
If it came from a lab, that doesn't necessarily mean it was engineered. The lab could have been culturing the virus from local fauna, including bats. That's not engineering. It's just having a bunch of infected lab animals.
If the real Patient Zero was a lab worker, there's a good chance they're dead and not talking. If lab workers know about a breach in protocol *or* an engineered virus, they're not talking. If they talked, it wouldn't be for long. The CCP isn't going to subpoena *anybody*. Nobody else has the power.
This is a story that's almost certainly going to stay in the deep, dark, murkiness of history.
Re:There's not likely to be proof either way (Score:5, Insightful)
I know people love conspiracy stories and finger pointing, but if this is a naturally occurring virus (as seems to be the near universal opinion of scientists who have studied the genome), then doesn't it seem more likely that it came from the wet market where these corona-infested critters were being sold for eating, than it having escaped from a level-4 bio lab?
Frankly it'd be more reassuring if nasty viruses like these did only exist in secure labs than being out in the wild on the lunch menu, but that does not appear to be the case.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure. But it's also plausible they would be studying it if it's common in animals people buy at the wet market, because they're not stupid, and they know it's a possibility for such a virus to cause a problem.
Ultimately there's no way for us to know, and the root problem is the wet markets either way, so this is just a sort of masturbatory exercise. We should pressure them to close the wet markets permanently regardless
Heh (Score:3)
If only I had fifty cents for every time I got modded down for saying something negative about China
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Frankly it'd be more reassuring if nasty viruses like these did only exist in secure labs than being out in the wild on the lunch menu
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Why is this virus appearing now? Wet markets have always been around, so I think that points to the lab, which is heavily examining similar viruses since the SARS outbreak.
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The lab in question was the first one in China to be so certified, and there were concerns over how good their security actually is at the time [washingtonpost.com].
Then consider the fact that the lab in question was specifically studying coronaviruses in bats, and the possibility of their transmission to humans. To the point where they were involved in a study in which they "generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone" [nature.com].
It could still all be a
Re: (Score:2)
If it came from a lab, that doesn't necessarily mean it
was engineered. The lab could have been culturing the virus from local fauna, including bats. That's not engineering. It's just having a bunch of infected lab animals.
If the real Patient Zero was a lab worker, there's a good chance they're dead and not talking. If lab workers know about a breach in protocol *or* an engineered virus, they're not talking. If they talked, it wouldn't be for long. The CCP isn't going to subpoena *anybody*. Nobody else has the power.
This is a story that's almost certainly going to stay in the deep, dark, murkiness of history.
Quoting you against the censorious troll mods, but I wish I had an Insightful mod point to give you.
In the end, a stupid debate... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does anyone care where it came from? Would the situation be any better if it had emerged from some spot in Africa? The bottom line is that this is all a political ploy to divert attention from this administration's poor response.
Origin Matters (Score:4, Insightful)
If an asteroid hits a city and kills thousands, that's a natural disaster.
If your weapon hits a city and kills thousands, that's fucking WAR!
If SARS-CoV-2 came about naturally, that's unfortunate for all.
If SARS-CoV-2 accidentally escaped a lab, then that's negligence and culpability.
If SARS-CoV-2 was an engineered weapon that originated in China, that's a paddlin'
Re:In the end, a stupid debate... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why does anyone care where it came from?
Knowing where it came from is the first step in containing the virus, and it is also useful to know how the virus made the leap to the human population.
You apparently assume the only reason to know the origins of the infection is to punish/shame the residents of the point of origin - far from it. The more we know about a virus the more effective and focused our response can be.
Re:In the end, a stupid debate... (Score:4, Informative)
"Knowing where it came from is the first step in containing the virus,"
No, it isn't.
The virus is already out. Knowing where it came from doesn't help contain it any more than knowing where a pig escaped from helps you catch it, when you're looking right at it. It doesn't matter.
Knowing where it came from is the first step in preventing it from happening again, but it wouldn't help at all with containing an outbreak currently in progress.
"You apparently assume the only reason to know the origins of the infection is to punish/shame the residents of the point of origin"
Forget punishment, the goal should be to prevent it from happening again.
"The more we know about a virus the more effective and focused our response can be."
We already know where coronaviruses come from.
TFS contains a quote stating that there is no hard evidence that the virus came from a lab. Okay, there's no hard evidence of where it came from regardless. We don't know for sure it came from a wet market. There's no hard evidence that it didn't come from a lab. There's only evidence that it wasn't engineered. That only suggests that it didn't come from a bioweapons lab, not that it didn't come from a lab. And it doesn't even prove that either, it could have gotten out before it was re-engineered.
We certainly should be asking where it came from, in an attempt to stop this from recurring. But there's no hard evidence of its origin PERIOD. Or if there is, China is keeping it under wraps.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
If you can assign negligence as a cause, then it opens the Chinese govt up to potential compensation claims for the trillions of dollars this has cost.
Re:In the end, a stupid debate... (Score:5, Informative)
Why do you think the administration's response is poor? Stop parroting what the media is telling you and look at the actual global virus stats for yourself [worldometers.info]. Click on deaths per 1 million (twice) to sort it by the countries hit the hardest.
1149 - San Marino
901 - New York
471 - Belgium
453 - Andorra
429 - Spain
384 - Italy
296 - France
228 - UK
210 - Sint Maarten
210 - Netherlands
158 - Switzerland
150 - Sweden
121 - Channel Islands
117 - USA
116 - Ireland
115 - Luxembourg
67 - Portugul
64 - USA if you subtract New York (117 * (38766-1761) / 38766) = 63.67
60 - Iran
60 - Denmark
53 - Germany
Overall, the U.S. is doing fairly well compared to other OECD nations. Better than Belgium, Spain, Italy, France, the UK, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden. And if you subtract New York, it's doing as well as the best of the OECD nations (e.g. Germany). If there's any conspiracy here, it would have to be a political ploy to divert attention away from New York's poor response.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, if I pick Italy and remove *populationthathascornoavirus* it drops down too!
In fact, take any of these places, remove the hotspots, and look, it goes down! It's almost like removing larger numbers from a set reduces the average!
Cherry picking data doesn't help. So stop it.
Re:In the end, a stupid debate... (Score:5, Insightful)
Overall, the U.S. is doing fairly well compared to other OECD nations.
Indeed the USA is doing fairly well. Unfortunately it's defenders still have no idea how to track outbreak graphs and insist on comparing day to day stats ignoring that the outbreak started at different times in different places.
Now when you overlay all the graphs setting the start dates at the Y axis for the first reported 100th case, the USA looks fucking horrible both on a per capita basis and on a total case basis. That is quite representative of a country that wished the virus away while ignoring their own medical department's advice.
But sure keep living in your bubble.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, that's a lot of cherrypicking. "Sint Maarten"? Do you even know where this political entity is? Of course, you already omitted most of the OECD countries that have fewer deaths per capita than the US.
The US already has more detected cases per capita than the European Union, even though the European outbreak began much earlier. And it's not because the US is testing more - the US has run fewer tests per capita, and a higher percentage of them have come back positive (which suggests more cases being mis
Re: (Score:3)
Your comment is a ploy to divert attention from people responsible for the release of this thing:
They did it once in 2003 and they did it again now.
It does not matter what happened. We need to shut this thing for good.
The response needs to be united, international, swift
China must allow international inspections in all their biolabs. Or else: severe sanctions.
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But could we at least try to put out the burning plane before we try to figure out why it crashed so it doesn't ignite the whole airport?
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The analogy falls apart because knowing why the plane crashed doesn't help you put out the fire. Knowing the origins of the virus might aid efforts to develop a treatment or vaccine.
ah? Newsweek reports (Score:2)
Just my 2 cents
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Escape from Wuhan (Score:5, Interesting)
My take: it was not engineered in the lab in Wuhan, but it was being studied there. Then, after some major cockup, it ended up outside the lab infecting people.
Two parallel arguments (Score:2)
I've heard people claim that the virus "escaped" from the lab, meaning something along the lines of an accidental infection of a worker, or an accidental release of an infected animal... Key word "accidental"
I've also heard people claim that the virus was intentionally released from the lab... Key word "intentionally"
Now we can all agree that there is no "hard evidence" that is was intentionally released from the lab, and any such claims are irresponsible, but the first example, describing "accidental" rele
The Evidence (Score:2)
Ya, already knew this ... (Score:2, Insightful)
One persistent myth is that this virus, called SARS-CoV-2, was made by scientists and escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began.
A new analysis of SARS-CoV-2 may finally put that latter idea to bed. A group of researchers compared the genome of this novel coronavirus with the seven other coronaviruses known to infect humans: SARS, MERS and SARS-CoV-2, which can cause severe disease; along with HKU1, NL63, OC43 and 229E, which typically cause just mild symptoms, the researchers wrote March 17 in the journal Nature Medicine.
"Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus," they write in the journal article.
Analysis showed that the "hook" part of the spike had evolved to target a receptor on the outside of human cells called ACE2, which is involved in blood pressure regulation. It is so effective at attaching to human cells that the researchers said the spike proteins were the result of natural selection and not genetic engineering.
Here's why: SARS-CoV-2 is very closely related to the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which fanned across the globe nearly 20 years ago. Scientists have studied how SARS-CoV differs from SARS-CoV-2 — with several key letter changes in the genetic code. Yet in computer simulations, the mutations in SARS-CoV-2 don't seem to work very well at helping the virus bind to human cells. If scientists had deliberately engineered this virus, they wouldn't have chosen mutations that computer models suggest won't work.
But, you know, info better late than never, I guess.
So what are the chances? (Score:5, Insightful)
And then, what are the chances that the first major virus outbreak in modern times happens within 20 mile distance from such laboratory.
Re: (Score:2)
Russian Anthrax Leak (Score:5, Informative)
The leak of Anthrax from a USSR lab was unconfirmed, until it was confirmed after the fall of the USSR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Not a conspiracy theory, not a conspiracy nut (Score:4, Insightful)
https://youtu.be/bpQFCcSI0pU [youtu.be]
It's well-researched and reasonable. Compare this possibility to "someone ate a bat in the wet market" when the alleged Patient Zero was a worker at a seafood stall, and it begins to look like the wet market explanation seems less-plausible.
Re: (Score:3)
Also
https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
My scientist says it did... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah well, my scientist says it did. My Nobel prize for medicine winning, HIV discovering scientist:
https://www.pourquoidocteur.fr... [pourquoidocteur.fr]
I mean really, is it that much of a stretch to think that a bat originated coronavirus leaked from a lab that we know has been studying them for at least 10 years since they've published scientific papers on them as early as 2010? A lab that just happens to be in the same town where the virus originated from? A town that has the only BSL4 lab in all of south east asia? A lab that had posted job opportunities in December for researching a newly discovered highly infectious virus?
Or did it come from a wet market.... which never sold any bats.
All China's Lies (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe if China hadn't lied so extensively [battleswarmblog.com] about everything related to the Wuhan Coronavirus in the first place, we might believe them.
Re: (Score:3)
Your blog is clearly a credible source. Let's just apply Occam's razor here:
1) China's lies about the virus were an attempt to cover up incompetence and prevent panic.
2) China's lies about the virus were an attempt to cover up a experiments on turning a coronavirus into a bioweapon even though a coronavirus would make a terrible bioweapon because in a matter of months it will spread all around the world and cause MAD.
#1, unlike #2, doesn't require any extraneous unknowns.
This isn't about believing or disbel
Re: "Scientists Say'" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: "Scientists Say'" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: "Scientists Say'" (Score:5, Insightful)
If the had studied the virus, they'd have sequenced its DNA and published it. That would have been in the chain of their reward system. So the idea that it escaped from a lab studying it is more unlikely.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
. . . unless it spread while they were in the middle of collecting samples, and they didn't have time to publish any papers before the CCP went into full-blown cover-up mode.
Re: "Scientists Say'" (Score:4, Informative)
Humans and gorillas share 98% identical genes [scientificamerican.com]. One has taken over the world. The other is critically endangered.
Waiting for evidence (Score:2)
A few weeks ago, the reports I saw said there was no evidence it came from the lab. It's *possible*, sure. It's *possible* that you're a crack head; there is no evidence of that. Without evidence, I don't think you're a crack head and I don't think the virus came from the lab.
Over the last few days, there are preliminary reports that there may be evidence. I'll be interested to hear if that pans out.
Re: (Score:3)
Conversations with a coworker who grew up in Sichuan province reminded me of the absolute desperation of many people during the cultural revolution, during which time many millions died of starvation. Many were reduced to trying to find anything even remotely edible.
I'm guessing that "wet markets" came about because anything that moved but not quickly enough to avoid becoming dinner became "fair game" to a starving population, and remained in existence afterword.
That does not excuse the Wuhan and Mubei prov
Re: "Scientists Say'" (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently I need to put these higher to head off the conspiracy theorists.
This is not new folks. We've known this was coming for *years*.
2016 study...
https://link.springer.com/cont... [springer.com]
2015 studies...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
"A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
"Bat origin of human coronaviruses"
2013 study (note bats in *ITALY* not china)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
"Detection of Coronaviruses in Bats of Various Species in Italy"
2012 study
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
"Metagenomic Analysis of Viruses from Bat Fecal Samples Reveals Many Novel Viruses in Insectivorous Bats in China"
I read a 2010 study last month that showed the same thing PLUS isolated humans in the area had antibodies meaning there had already been bat/human transmission back in 2010 but hadn't spread because human population density is low in those areas. It said the bat colonies were harboring over 400 strains of coronovirus too.
So why all the surprised pikachu faces and accusations of deliberate release, manipulation etc.
It's not necessary- was bound to happen- and plus it's *dumb* to release a bioweapon- it can mutate and all your protection becomes worthless. Also why release it on your own population first when you could easily release it elsewhere with a few dedicated infected sleeper agents.
Re: "Scientists Say'" (Score:5, Interesting)
2015 studies... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov] "A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence"
There is some real irony in your citing this specific study given that it involved the successful creation of a coronavirus chimera in North Carolina and that one of the scientists involved has worked at the Wuhan lab. It is quite clear that "gain of function" work with coronaviruses was going on (and clearly not just in China). I also note that a strain of SARS has escaped from that lab previously, that the BS4 lab and the Chinese CDC lab both have had safety issues (specifically conducting research at level 2 which probably needed to be done at level 4), so the idea of an accidental release and, say, an infected employee shopping at the busy market on their way home, is hardly far-fetched. It would neatly explain the origin and initial spread. But nor is there any proof at the moment.
Something else people seem to forget is that a good bit of "gain of function" research is not like sitting down to write a shell script from base pairs or library fragments nor even as calculated and high tech as the North Carolina hybrid you reference. A lot of it is simply exposing tissue cultures to infection repeatedly and seeing what happens. (Sometimes it involves practices a good bit less ethical, but we'll leave that aside for now.) Often this is done to see if an animal model can be developed for a pathogen known or discovered to infect humans, or, as in the NC experiement, human features are mapped onto an animal model. Sometimes "what happens" is quite unexpected, and if they were conducting some of that in level 2 when the unexpected happened... again, no proof, but it explains the events with very little effort. An initial transfer from bats to humans in the market doesn't really involve less than that as some intermediary is needed to explain some of the features of this virus. The intermediary could be a pangolin as some suppose (a creature I am probably not alone in not having been aware of until recently) or it could be a tissue culture, lab animal, or chimeric model just as easily, with none of the options having particularly more explanatory power given what we know.
The other interesting thing is that even the Chinese suspected it was a leak. There was the paper written by a Chinese researcher saying, "Hey, this is likely a leak and we've had them before," and there is the fact that the Chinese worked so hard to cover up the initial outbreak and tighten down their lab security practices! The Chinese themselves may or may not have been right in those suspicions, but one might be forgiven for having precisely the same suspicions from afar.
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You make lots of assertions but do not back them up to links to the papers so either cite them or regard your post as clickbait.
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Yes, it is possible. However, I think we cannot rule out the possibility of invisible pink unicorns.
Re: "Scientists Say'" (Score:5, Funny)
It is safe to say invisible pink unicorns don't exist. If they did they would surely be for sale in Chinese wet markets.
(Glad that backfired on you.)
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It is safe to say invisible pink unicorns don't exist. If they did they would surely be for sale in Chinese wet markets.
How do you know they are not?
Re: "Scientists Say'" (Score:4, Funny)
If they're invisible, how do you know they're pink?
Re: "Scientists Say'" (Score:4, Interesting)
It's clear from their actions that the chinese government valued human lives more than most western countries.
They shut down the entire damn country, built 14 hospitals, moved in 50,000 medical professionals.
Meanwhile, the "life loving west" continued to hold rodeos, futball games, concerts, festivals, and conventions so they wouldn't "hurt the economy" and suggested the elderly and sick should politely just die please to protect the economy. The CEO of Wells Fargo said workers would have to come back in and some would die and some would get sick but too bad. Conservative commentators who were safely in their cocoons were suggesting everyone else should go back to work, get sick, and die. Boris Johnson's first plan was basically the literal eugenics based decimation of UK's population.
I'm from Texas and I call them as I see them. And it's clear that China cared about human lives while many in the west don't give a damn about human lives. It's capitalism gone evil. Many of the religious people who used to backstop us against unlimited capitalism have been corrupted.
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"plausible and conceivable."
Aside from the fact that all the expert consensus doesn't agree, China holds 5% of US debt and 23% of the world's debt. Considering that they're basically net exporters to the world and significantly vested in it's debt, it doesn't even make financial sense.
If you make shit everyone buys you kinda have motivation to assure they can still buy your shit.
Re: Define "supposed to"... (Score:5, Informative)
I will tell you something else, which will get me modded down. Trump, love him or hate him, follows a pattern. He says outlandish things. Crazy things. Like: the Obama administration is spying on me! Then the media gets worked up in a frenzy explaining in agonizing detail how wrong he is, what laws prevent it, and how it doesn't make sense. He must be lying. Then, we find out months later, he was right! Sometimes not exactly right but near as makes no difference. If Trump makes a claim, I'll wait until the dust settles before judging what sunlights reveals.
The problem isn't the conspiracy loons (Score:3, Insightful)
Meanwhile we have Fox News hosts literally calling for war with China [youtu.be] and Florida's Governor Reopened Beaches [theguardian.com] during a pandemic.
Please folks, show up in November and vote these lunatics out.
Re:The problem isn't the conspiracy loons (Score:5, Informative)
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I thought it was low humidity that caused the droplets to evaporate quick and killed the virus?
Still if people keep their distance, including taking the wind into consideration, Florida should be able to keep its numbers low. Haven't looked but I assume with the weather there, they have very few cases.
Whether you care or not is irrelevant (Score:5, Insightful)
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For the hardcore conspiracy loon, any comment that says it doesn't come from the Wuhan lab will just make them more sure it does. Because they will view it as more proof of a larger cover up. They have their minds made up and everything is either agreeing with them or is more people who are supposedly a part of the conspiracy that demands them to further "take up the fight"
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Yah, even unto ganging up on a putz like Bill Gates. I presume they'll be saying he's Jewish shortly, or has a Chinese mother.
Proving the negatives? (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess that was supposed to be a joke, and it's even based on a bit of insight. If I ever had a mod point to give, then I'd even give it the Funny, but my primary reaction was more like the rhetorical "Is that the best Slashdot has to offer?" [Can't even guess how many years it has been since I last received a givable mod point. Does the system log it somewhere?]
The next visible comment was actually more promising as the start of a productive discussion, though it still feeds the conspiracy buffs. Your [ar
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Let's see, the alleged administration would have every reason to publish such evidence if they had it. They haven't, they don't, they won't, they can't, they even ain't...shades of Frank Zappa.
Re:"Scientists Say'" (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you have any evidence that the current US president would let the life of one agent stand in the way of a publicity win?
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"Especially since there is mounting evidence that it did, in fact, come from a lab."
Memes on Facebook are not evidence.
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Fine. I turn it around, and at the far end there's evidence.
Take the conspiracy theory and turn it around any way you want, and there's nothing there but BS.
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It's easy enough to check *my* position. All you have to do is read TFA and look up the *Nature Medicine* letter it refers to.
Your position is founded entirely on the summary contradicting something you believe without evidence.
Re:Turn it around (Score:5, Informative)
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https://www.smh.com.au/nationa... [smh.com.au]
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"Eric Hundman, an Assistant Professor at NYU Shanghai"
They're not even trying to hide the links.
Re:Check scientists for links to China (Score:5, Informative)
I've done what you suggested.
Here's a citation for letter:
Andersen KG, Rambaut A, Lipkin WA, Holmes EC, Garry RF
The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2
Nature Medicine 26, 450–452, 2020
TL;DR:
These guys are scientific heavy hitters. They do not have to whore for Chinese grant money. This is also Nature Medicine we're talking about. It's not some kind of predatory journal that doesn't check ethics declarations.
Kristien Anderson
Institutional Affiliation: Andersen Lab Department of Immunology and Microbiology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA USA
Place of Birth: Denmark
Education: B.Sc., Molecular Biology, University of Aarhus, DK, 2004,Ph.D., Immunology, University of Cambridge, UK, 2009, Post Doc Harvard University & Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Andrew Rambaut
Institutional Affiliation: Institute of Evolutionary Biology, University of Edinburgh, Fellow of Royal Society of Edinburgh
Place of Birth: Scotland
Education: BSc University of Edinburgh, PhD Oxford
W Ian Lipkin
Institutional Affiliation: Center for Infection and Immunity, Mailman School of Public Health of Columbia University
Place of Birth: Chicago
Education: BA Sarah Lawrence, MD Rush University, Residency: UCSF, University of Washington, University of Pittsburgh
Fellowships: University College London, Scripps
Edward C. Holmes
Institutional Affiliation: National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia), Fellow of the Royal Society
Place of Birth: UK
Education: BSc University College London, PhD Cambridge University
Robert F. Garry
Institutional Affiliation: Tulane University School of Medicine, Zalgen Labs
Place of Birth: US
Education: BS Indiana State, PhD University of Texas, Austin
Re:Check scientists for links to China (Score:5, Insightful)
Nature magazine just published an apology for "associating" 2019-SARS-nCOV-2 with China, but publishing research that suggested it originated there.
That's not the act of an ethical journal that isn't afraid of pushback from politicians.
Given that we have decades of scientists (Score:2)
Oh, and just to scare the shit out of everybody: China isn't the only country with unsanitary wet markets. Get ready for COVID 2: Electric Boogaloo in a few years unless we step up our foreign policy and get them shut down. Sure would be nice if the State Department hadn't been gutted...
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Oh, and just to scare the shit out of everybody: China isn't the only country with unsanitary wet markets. Get ready for COVID 2: Electric Boogaloo in a few years unless we step up our foreign policy and get them shut down. Sure would be nice if the State Department hadn't been gutted...
The so-called "wet markets" have existed for decades, even centuries, and the unsanitary conditions there have been known for decades - why are you blaming the current administration for their continued existence? And do you not think that China might just take it the wrong way when we somehow attempt to shutdown these popular types of markets in China? As an example, Hillary's State Department, and later John Kerry's State department could have just as easily shut down the Chinese Wet Markets, since you ha
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and it is not supported at all by the available data
Nor is it unsupported. You can't differentiate design by reference to the DNA.
This is where rationality ends.
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The fact that Sen. Cotton is pushing this conspiracy theory tells me all I need to know about it.
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If I was making a bio weapon in a lab I would try to make it look like it didn't come from my lab.
So I think these guys have no basis for saying it isn't possible or is highly unlikely it originated in a lab.
So the proposition that it came from a lab cannot be falsified, and anything that implies that it didn't is further evidence that it did?
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Any weapon that kills old and frail, but leaves younger combat aged people largely without symptoms is a shitty weapon. Thus, I find it unlikely it was lab made.
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Reminds me of the Hillary Email Server "evidence" that conclusively "proved" it was hacked by the Russians:
A) We have a known set of things we look for to determine Russian hackers (certain code, comments in code in Russian, IP address ranges, etc.)
B) We found evidence of the above that would support that the machine was attacked by Russian hackers.
C) We are absolutely positive that no other, non-Russian hacker could or would ever plant evidence along the lines of those noted above to throw off investigator
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Wrong, it has no evidence. All they've said is there is no evidence and ask you to show it. You haven't because there isn't any.
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BTW: Trump is up to over 18,000 falsehoods since taking office....MAGA!!
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Jesus H Fucking Christ on a cracker.
Ohhhh, kinky!
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where nearly 100 people a day die in industrial accidents [clb.org.hk], usually involving machinery
And have you compared to the industrial death rate in the US [osha.gov]? Oh, it says only 14 death per day in the US; that's far lower than 100 per day. However China has 5x the population and almost 7x the number of workers [statista.com] than the USA [nsc.org] in 2018. In addition Chine produces most of the manufactured goods and are building most of the new infrastructures in the world now, while the American industry has sunk and concentrated in only high end products like semiconductors which should have much less industrial accidents. So all in all, the American industrial safety level is not better.
Calm down. Always check sources. LynnwoodRooster is infamous for posting links claiming it says something it does not. The source says "about 81 deaths from work-related accidents each day on average in 2019" industrial accidents being a subset of that, how large depends on how you define "industrial".
Re:How much is China paying you, EditorDavid? (Score:5, Informative)
Nice strawman, but the claim wasn't that it was a bioweapon. The claim was that the virus may have been accidentally released from the lab, where it was being studied.