Wuhan Lab Researcher Fully Sequences Genomes of Coronavirus Samples From 2004 to 2021, Finds No Close Relatives to SARS-CoV-2 (nature.com) 234
60-year-old Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli led the Wuhan Institute of Virology's group studying bat coronaviruses (prompting Science magazine to call her "Bat Woman"). In June of 2020 Scientific American described Zhengli as "distressed because stories from the Internet and major media have repeated a tenuous suggestion that SARS-CoV-2 accidentally leaked from her lab — despite the fact that its genetic sequence does not match any her lab had previously studied."
More than four years later, Nature writes Friday that Zhengli "reported that none of the viruses stored in her freezers are the most recent ancestors of the virus SARS-CoV-2," presenting data at a conference in Japan "on dozens of new coronaviruses collected from bats in southern China." Shi has consistently said that SARS-CoV-2 was never seen or studied in her lab. But some commentators have continued to ask whether one of the many bat coronaviruses her team collected in southern China over decades was closely related to it. Shi promised to sequence the genomes of the coronaviruses and release the data. The latest analysis, which has not been peer reviewed, includes data from the whole genomes of 56 new betacoronaviruses, the broad group to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs, as well as some partial sequences. All the viruses were collected between 2004 and 2021.
"We didn't find any new sequences which are more closely related to SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2," said Shi, in a pre-recorded presentation at the conference... The results support her assertion that the WIV lab did not have any bat-derived sequences from viruses that were more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 than were any already described in scientific papers, says Jonathan Pekar, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK. "This just validates what she was saying: that she did not have anything extremely closely related, as we've seen in the years since," he says.
"Earlier this year, Shi moved from the WIV to the Guangzhou Laboratory, a newly established national research institute for infectious diseases."
More than four years later, Nature writes Friday that Zhengli "reported that none of the viruses stored in her freezers are the most recent ancestors of the virus SARS-CoV-2," presenting data at a conference in Japan "on dozens of new coronaviruses collected from bats in southern China." Shi has consistently said that SARS-CoV-2 was never seen or studied in her lab. But some commentators have continued to ask whether one of the many bat coronaviruses her team collected in southern China over decades was closely related to it. Shi promised to sequence the genomes of the coronaviruses and release the data. The latest analysis, which has not been peer reviewed, includes data from the whole genomes of 56 new betacoronaviruses, the broad group to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs, as well as some partial sequences. All the viruses were collected between 2004 and 2021.
"We didn't find any new sequences which are more closely related to SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2," said Shi, in a pre-recorded presentation at the conference... The results support her assertion that the WIV lab did not have any bat-derived sequences from viruses that were more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 than were any already described in scientific papers, says Jonathan Pekar, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK. "This just validates what she was saying: that she did not have anything extremely closely related, as we've seen in the years since," he says.
"Earlier this year, Shi moved from the WIV to the Guangzhou Laboratory, a newly established national research institute for infectious diseases."
Makes no difference sadly (Score:2, Insightful)
They believe it because it lets them pretend that they've "one-upped" the big scary universe that they can't understand or control because they have "special knowledge."
Re:Makes no difference sadly (Score:4, Insightful)
"Researcher analyzes her own work and comes to the conclusion she was not at fault."
Yeah.. No conflict of interest there!
Re: Makes no difference sadly (Score:3, Insightful)
Add to that how the lab was funded by American grants through the American scientist who was one of the first and most vocal one to proclaim a leak was impossible (without revealing that conflict of interest).
And add also that the lab was built with the help of the French.
So you've also got the Europeans and the American involved who don't have much interest either in the lab leak hypothesis being confirmed.
Until hard evidence that the natural hypothesis is the good one (like finding the animal host it jump
Re: Makes no difference sadly (Score:5, Insightful)
We had worse virus jumping from animals to humans in not so far history. Or do you claim the pig farmer from Kansas, from where the Spanish Flu originated, which was even worse than CoViD-19, had a lab as neighbor, where people researched stuff, and it leaked?
People will cling to the lab leak theory, because they need the evil-scientists-in-league-with-big-government to feel good and cope with the problems CoViD-19 caused. And they won't be convinced otherwise, and they will always find some correlation, which they blow up to a causation. In Wuhan, where Patient Zero probably was infected, is a laboratory working on SARS virus? Ha! Causation! While in fact, it's a correlation at best.
Somehow, the information went lost, that the special spike glycoproteins responsible for SARS-CoV-2's viral entry were not known from any previous sequencing or any scientific articles. SARS-CoV, the one that caused the 2002-2004 SARS epidemic, has a different spike glycoprotein. This was one of the first things scientists looked at to determine if SARS-CoV-2 might be a lab grown descendant of SARS-CoV or MERS-CoV, and it is completely different with no trace in the scientific literature. A new corona virus infecting a human is a quite common occurrence, see for instance this press release from 2012 [nationalarchives.gov.uk]. Normally, information like this is drown out by the noise. SARS-CoV-19 was just more news.
As I said, this won't convince you, because you will always find a reason to believe in the lab leak. Because you feel better that way. And that's something no one can successfully argue against.
Re: Makes no difference sadly (Score:4)
"That couldn't have been a grease fire! Look at these links to fires that were clearly started by electrical faults!"
You're really stupid, aren't you?
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, you're really stupid.
Re: Makes no difference sadly (Score:2)
Blind belief is never a good quality and it's odd that you willfully dodge the point to such a degree in order to engage in it.
Her data is suspect due to the source.
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Makes no difference sadly (Score:5, Insightful)
I've come to the conclusion that there's no cure for stupidity. I've given up, frankly. I'll do my best to look after my family, and the human race will inevitably kill itself off because we're too fucking selfish, moronic and ignorant to persist for much longer.
Good riddance to a vile planet-destroy moron electing species. Fuck us all.
Re: Makes no difference sadly (Score:3)
"Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim canâ(TM)t help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime: the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity." â"Robert A. Heinlein
Shame works. (Score:2)
But shame works. Shaming the stupid works.
It doesn't change their minds but that's not the goal of shame. The goal of shame is to change behavior. Shame shuts stupid people the fuck up.
Somewhere along the line we stopped shaming stupid people for being stupid. I think that's because we saw a bunch of articles about how it doesn't change their minds
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Now if only we could agree on which set of people are stupid :)
As it is, it seems like we already live in a world where both sides relentlessly try to shame the other, and work hard to deflect all shame coming their way.
Re: (Score:2)
The first amphibian that crawled up on land probably couldn't walk (or even crawl) all that well. The first bird that flew probably couldn't fly all that well. We're the first species to come up with this thing we call civilization. How good do you think we are at it? How good should you expect us to be at it?
Maybe we could evolve and perfect ourselves, but I don't know if the planet is big enough to allow us room for that. Darwinian Evolution, as I understand it, is actually pretty messy, with a lot
Re:Makes no difference sadly (Score:5, Insightful)
The covid denialist morons, including the "it was a Chinese lab leak hoax" subtype, don't believe any of this horseshit because of evidence.
What we know for sure is China lied, covered up data and intentionally undermined international efforts of domain experts to determine the origins of the virus.
Someone belatedly saying look not under this rock makes no difference at this point. What would make a difference is locating the animal reservoir the virus came from assuming zoonotic spillover theory.
They believe it because it lets them pretend that they've "one-upped" the big scary universe that they can't understand or control because they have "special knowledge."
There is no direct affirmative evidence for either lab leak or zoonotic spillover. The only evidence that exists to date is purely inductive in nature. Anyone who thinks they know for sure what happened is only fooling themselves..
So yeah we know it came from wild animals (Score:2)
One of
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Anyone who thinks they know for sure what happened is only fooling themselves.
There is at least one person who knows for sure. The rest of us will never know for sure. Anyone who is certain that they know without actually being present at the moment is full of shit regardless of how bullet-proof their logic and proof is.
Re:Makes no difference sadly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Makes no difference sadly (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm going to lead with a disclaimer here, but try to keep it sweet and short, and then plunge in.
Disclaimer follows: "I do not have a personal opinion on whether Covid-19 came from the lab or came from the wet market, and I believe either is possible and don't have an opinion on the exact relative plausibility either."
On to the actual comment I want to write: "A statement from someone who works at the lab was never, ever going to move the needle on plausibility."
Speaking as someone who absolutely does not believe that he has any special knowledge on the facts or the subject, my suspicion was raised predominantly by China's reluctance to allow timely and effective third party investigation. The fact that this is SOP for China absolutely is a reason why I am biased against believing their statements. As evidence for this not being an example of unreason, I offer you my statement that I feel this way about my own government as well on a number of issues. I don't trust anything without educated, independent oversight. I also don't comprehend how anyone can think it makes sense to simultaneously be a lab leak theory proponent and a denialist. If they deny that it exists, how can they think it could have existed to leak from a lab? Conversely, if they think it's a bioweapon, why don't they want to be inoculated against it? Either way it's just total bananas.
I don't really honestly care much whether it was a lab leak or due to something's fluids leaking onto something else at a literally wet market because their cages were stacked, or someone fucked a bat in their soup or whatever. I take for granted that there is bioweapons research occurring and would be stunned if it was never being tested on anyone, or released intentionally, so while discovering that this was an example of such would be a good citation in the future it wouldn't be any big "Aha!" moment. Instead my objection is to bad arguments, because they only confuse issues and detract from thinking about things which are or could actually be happening. I am therefore irritated sufficiently to comment by arguments which require that I trust governments which have put out a lot of bullshit statements before, or that I trust exactly the same people who I would suspect in a scenario.
This new statement we're ostensibly discussing doesn't move the needle in any direction for me. One would deny the accusation whether it was true or false, but only early multinational investigation with free and open access to all persons and facilities involved could have prevented reasoning people from having a lack of trust in the inevitable public statements.
I tend to agree with all this, would add also... (Score:2)
It seem to me that rational people would be willing to admit that their pet theory may be wrong, i.e., "I think there's evidence showing zoonotic origin (and here it is), but can't completely rule out a lab leak" or "I believe the lab leak theory is most likely (and here's why), but can't deny that zoonotic origin is still a possibility."
On top of China's bad behavior, we had politicians, health, and media figures in the US who so incredibly vehemently attacked any mention of a lab leak theory--without any
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I think that's partially because it seemed most of the people pushing the lab leak theory were also pushing anti-vax/mask/lockdown views which ruined their credibility.
Even if Xi Jinping personally synthesized a new virus and injected it into someone in Wuhan, the response wouldn't have changed. It was still a deadly virus that spread quickly
Re: Makes no difference sadly (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it could have been sorted out more quickly if there'd been an open discussion, instead of a politically fueled attempt (even within the CDC) to silence anyone daring to ask questions?
Almost like such behaviour spurs conspiracy theories, huh?
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You're not wrong.
You're also not actually replying to the point I raised.
Flat Earthers will always exist. A free society marginalizes them by showing the truth and an abundance of obvious evidence and letting people see how dumb their viewpoint is, not censoring them, arresting them, attacking them and trying to control the truth by dictat from on-high.
I get it, just being a dictator is so much easier ESPECIALLY when you're filled with self-righteousness and are never wrong.
Re: Makes no difference sadly (Score:2, Insightful)
Please explain what a Covid "Denialist" is - do they deny it happened, that the virus existed, or that it was created when a pangolin gots its freak on in the jungles of China then was brought to a wet market in Wuhan?
I know no one that "Denies" COVID-19, I know many that are critical of the "it's a complete mystery where this virus came from" position experts are taking.
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Please explain what a Covid "Denialist" is
They had a variety of beliefs which in some cases did include the idea that there was literally no such thing as Covid-19. Classic Dunning-Krueger action:
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Re:Makes no difference sadly (Score:5, Informative)
It is clear the virus was not naturally occurring.
This is not at all clear. Viruses mutate and jump from animal hosts to humans all the time. This is the most common way that pandemics start. It is so common that this would be the first thing to suspect.
I assume you will reject unread any sites that postdate the COVID-19 outbreak as "that's cover up!", but here's a article on it from 2008: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/a... [nih.gov]
Humans are pretty good at reasoning and pattern recognition. SARS-COV-2 was novel,
All new viruses are novel. That's the meaning of the word.
had sequences which are markers of genetic engineering by us,
Nope. This was suggested, but quickly debunked.
and spread from a place on Earth where they just happen to co-incidentally also research modifications of corona viruses.
Very good the evidence shows that the initial cases was had one thing in common: the live-food market. This is a 40-minute drive from the Wuhan virlogy lab, so you'd have to explain first how the virus happened to get there, without cases showing up first in the lab workers.
Coronavirus had a Furin cleavage site, which we know to be unusual in coronaviruses,
Turns out not uncommon.
https://www.thelancet.com/jour... [thelancet.com]
https://journals.asm.org/doi/1... [asm.org]
Americans really really want to have somebody to blame, and the China-phobia makes them an ideal target. But there simply isn't evidence that it was a lab virus.
Re: Makes no difference sadly (Score:2)
Bingo... China is to be blamed but not because of a conspiracy lab leak... fyi, i live in China
Re: Makes no difference sadly (Score:2, Insightful)
You do know that some research in the WIV was funded by the US? The NIH funded gain of function research on viruses at Wuhan through ecohealth.
And fun fact, the president of ecohealth is peter daszak, one of the scientist who signed the lancet article of February 2020 asserting that a lab leak was impossible. Without mentioning his ties to the WIV of course.
If the lab leak is true, the US wouldn't want it to be proven true that much either.
Re:Makes no difference sadly (Score:5, Interesting)
What appears to have happened with both SARS-COV-1 and 2 is that there was a "pre version" that infected patient zero and then lifted this FURIN sequence from the human's RNA (during recombination) and then people who were infected from patient zero only got patient zero's version which is HOW SPIECIES TO SPIECES VIRAL TRANSFERS WORK.
If you got SARS from me, you'd get it made from MY RNA and it will likely have some viral RNA strands that contain pieces of my RNA that are different from the RNA sequence of the person I got it from. It does not show any evidence of genetic manipulation, none at all. It shows that the earliest patient zero sample we can find already had human RNA sequences. Nothing about that requires a lab, nothing about that means squat, it just means that the guy who got his tea sneezed on by a pangolin likely turned the world crazy with nonsense.
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It is clear the virus was not naturally occurring.
Why is this clear? How does it differ from other novel viruses that arise from the wild?
Re:Makes no difference sadly (Score:5, Informative)
we've never found any viruses in bats. Certainly not bats in the wild. FFS saloomy how stupid can you get?
Pardon my French, but are you that fucking stupid? Bats host a multitude [wikipedia.org] of viruses [clinicalmi...ection.com], not the least of which is rabies [mayoclinic.org].
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I guess even a blind squirrel gets a nut once in a while.
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You discount the possibility of her being innocent. Why shouldn't someone try to prove his/her innocence? No one else is, that's for sure.
She probably is innocent. That doesn't necessarily mean the lab wasn't in any way responsible, though. The reason people are so suspicious is because the lab (probably under the direction from their government) failed to do the right thing until long after the fact, leaving months or even years for anyone with access to their databases to delete the offending sequence and cover their tracks.
The moment that COVID-19 happened, there should have been U.N. and/or W.H.O. people making a clone of their database
Re: Makes no difference sadly (Score:2)
No, he mistrusts her "i didn't do it, trust me bro."
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At this point the researchers will never be able to prove their
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At this point the researchers will never be able to prove their innocence to all audiences.
It would help if they said what they were working on in the lab, instead of explaining what they weren't working on.
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I.e. they engineered corona viruses to infect human cells. This new virus did not exist in nature...
However as you mentioned earlier in your citation, they found SARS-like coronaviruses in 2005 that came from bats. That predates your "favorite part of the Wikipedia entry" by a full decade. Indeed if you read the Wikipedia entry for SARS you'll find that the first SARS coronavirus that made the news was actually causing problems in 2003.
In other words, infectious coronaviruses did already exist in nature. We had already seen them, and they had already killed people. That is why they were researchi
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In other words, infectious coronaviruses did already exist in nature. We had already seen them, and they had already killed people. That is why they were researching them, to find ways to better treat, control, and prevent them.
Then why not study one of the already existing ones?
I already stated why they were studying coronaviruses. They were studying existing ones, but they were also working on new and novel ones. Part of the way to do that is by introducing mutations to existing ones.
Why the need to create a brand new one?
It's not a brand new one. It's a mutation on an existing one. They did not create their new strain out of nothing, they made a few directed mutations to understand how the virus can evolve over time. As I said before that is important to understanding the impact that virus could have.
One c
Re: Makes no difference sadly (Score:2)
And how do we know she published all the data.
I'm personally in the wet market camp; but realistically this release doesn't change a damn thing. She could have dropped any data that didnt support her claims of innocence; show me where she structured it all to prevent that.,, I'll wait. Forever. Because she has an inherent conflict of interest and easily could have shuffled a vial out of analysis k owing what it was.
I want to beleive her, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... considering the politics (read: national government) involved, I have a hard time accepting the source as credible.
Re:I want to beleive her, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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that's only because you have a child's understanding about what's involved.
No its only because I remember the complaints of international scientists that they were being denied access to the lab in the early days of covid.
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yes a child's understanding
LOL. Your argument is you don't like the nation. My argument is that international scientists were denied access, the question was never resolved. You should rethink who has the childish perspective. Then again, all you have is ad hominem, so you work with what little you have.
Two things (Score:5, Insightful)
One: I believe the non-Chinese researchers who say the local wet market is the most likely point of origin for COVID.
Two: Due to Chinese politics, I don't trust any claim made by someone subject to CCP when there is the smallest chance the CCP would care about the claim.
So no, COVID didn't come from that lab, but I don't believe that is most likely true on the word of a Chinese scientist.
Re:Two things (Score:5, Informative)
One: I believe the non-Chinese researchers who say the local wet market is the most likely point of origin for COVID.
Sample analysis and medical records confirm the wet market was the most likely origin [technologyreview.com] of the outbreak [cnn.com].
From the patchy, fragmented information he could get, Worobey traced how the first 20 covid-19 patients in three hospitals in Wuhan were diagnosed (a total of 27 cases were deemed suspicious by December 30). He found that the clinicians identified cases based on the disease’s clinical manifestation, especially features of their CT scans of the lungs, regardless of their prior exposure at Huanan. It turned out that nine of them were workers at the market, while one patient who had no market exposure had friends who worked there and had visited his home.
Almost one-third of the first 174 people who got Covid-19 had a connection to the market, and many others without a direct connection lived around the market, within a city of 12 million people.
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and the answer is that, no it's not at all close
It's close enough that you could go to the wet market to get subjects for study. This would be inappropriate because it would be unsafe, but this lab has had safety issues before so that would be unsurprising.
If that was happening, it would also be unsurprising if the wet market were still the origin, so even if that's where it came from the origin still wouldn't be the lab, and it would be basically irrelevant to the whole story. And if China had just provided access to the lab and records early on, then w
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It's not about where the public breakout occurred, it's about where patient zero was affected. The wet market public outbreak does not answer the patient zero question.
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No it isn't, you're still posting the same lies as always dr no brains
It's a 15 mile drive on major roads. An employee visiting the market is entirely plausible. Even likely as some will live in that direction..
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and the answer is that, no it's not at all close hence why you'd have to be a gullible fool to still believe it
About 15 miles, major highways connecting them. A short drive for dinner ingredients.
genuine curiosity (Score:2)
On the one hand, we have the Wuhan lab which had a history of previous leaks and was a lab that was specifically studying bat viruses and how to make them infect people, and in a communist country where high ranking military officers have a 20+ year long history of publicly stating that their country is going to make a bio weapon that will kill anybody who is not Chinese (i.e. a clear plan to be doing research into making a killer illness as policy of the CCP).
On the other hand, we have a wet market in that
Re: Two things (Score:5, Interesting)
Any nation where there is no freedom of the press, documented mass censorship, and house arrest and persecution of individuals who speak out against the government, should rightfully have the credibility of any statements and claims questioned. How can one logically conclude otherwise?
China has no independent journalism. All news media is state-owned. Journalists are not permitted to publish or broadcast any statements that criticize the CCP.
China has had numerous documented incidents of mass censorship: the Tienanmen student protests and massacre is still censored. Internet communications in the country are monitored for "controversial" or "anti-party" content.
Many Chinese nationals, famous or otherwise, have been sanctioned, exiled, imprisoned, fined, executed, or subjected to house arrest for speaking out against government corruption, oppression, or censorship. The CCP casts these individuals as destabilizing, anti-social criminals, when we know with certainty that they are not. Their only "crime" was to dare to speak out against injustices perpetrated by party members.
All of these are facts. It has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. Much of the same kind of behavior can be said of Russia, Iran, North Korea, among others.
And that's the problem with anything scientists working in China say or publish. It is not automatically discredited, but at the same time, it would be extremely foolish to assume it is truthful and unbiased. Hell, academic and scientific misconduct is a problem WORLDWIDE. There have been numerous cases of falsified or fabricated data. The issue of the lack of political freedom must weigh in any assessments of scientific credibility. To say otherwise is naive; to claim that it is "racist and bigoted" is clearly manipulative and suspicious in itself.
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In other words, you're illiterate. The average idiot could read my very short post and understand I wasn't making a judgement based on the person's ethnicity, or even their nationality.
Is it really that difficult to understand that I don't trust someone who is in an environment with significant pressure to say what they're told to by an intolerant political authority? I mean... I guess it is for you. But hey, given you didn't understand my previous post, you probably didn't get through the first sentence
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But they did their own research! (Score:4, Insightful)
What? Are you telling me that the Internet rumor mill populated by really smart keyboardists who got a B- in high school biology and desperately crave social media adulation didn't get it right? Unpossible!
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What? Are you telling me that the Internet rumor mill populated by really smart keyboardists who got a B- in high school biology and desperately crave social media adulation didn't get it right? Unpossible!
B-? Aren't you giving them a lot of credit?
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but the wetmarket isn't a nearby place...
About 15 miles. Major roads connecting them. A short drive for dinner ingredients.
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Dumb Repiblican No Briains
LOL. Not a republican. But I understand, you have no rational counterargument so you have nothing but ad hominem.
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the wetmarket is across the street
the wetmarket is down the street
the wetmarket is a short walk away
the wetmarket is only a mile away
the wetmarket is only 3 miles away
the wetmarket is 15 miles away
the wetmarket is in the same city
LOL, you have to invent stuff to respond.
Why did they need to go to a wetmarket to infect other people anyway?
Straw man, no one is saying it was intentional.
Why not any of the other millions of places in the city?
If a person at the lab is infected and leaves the lab, someplace well traveled by people is going to be the first hotspot. The wet marked just happened to be that place.
you're a conspiracy nutter
Nope, more and more scientists are now considering the lab leak a valid hypothesis. The "conspiracy theory" notion was promoted by US government officials trying to hide their involvement with the lab's gain of function research.
LOL. You are peddling o
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LOL, you have to invent stuff to respond.
None of that was invented. It's what you conspiracy theorists have been saying all along.
Other that "near" and "15 miles", none of that was said by be. So yes, you invented false information in your desperation.
Straw man, no one is saying it was intentional.
Why are you bringing a "wetmarket" into it?
That is the identified first hot spot. They could have infected anyone at any shop they went to on the way home. Or infected their families. But you're claiming this wetmarket is somehow important.
Yes, it could have been many places. But it had to be somewhere and the wet market is the place identified as the first hot spot.
If a person at the lab is infected and leaves the lab, someplace well traveled by people is going to be the first hotspot.
Yes, and that person could have gone to anywhere. Caught a bus, visited friends, gone home and infected their family. But your conspiracy hinges on them going straight to a wetmarket and infecting people there.
Wrong, it does not hinge on the wet market. The opposite is tru
Evidence supports natural origin ... (Score:5, Informative)
The body of evidence supports a natural emergence of the virus that caused the pandemic.
There are no data to support the alternate hypotheses (lab leak or whatever).
First ...
Think about it a bit ... we had THREE outbreaks from the beta coronaviruses sub family in less than two decades.
Two of them were pandemics, but with varying scale:
- SARS in 2003, from civet cats
- MERS in 2012, from camels
- SARS-COV-2 in 2019, from raccoon dogs (or other species)
There are 4 other coronaviruses that infect humans with common cold like (about 16% of annual cases).
The most parsimonious explanation that accounts for all the scientifically rigorous evidence is that the jump from bats to a farmed animal (most likely raccoon dog) in southern China. Those infected animals were trucked to Wuhan's market. Either in the farm, or along the route, or in the market, two humans got infected, one with lineage A and another with lineage B. One of these lineages died out, and the other continued to spread around the world, mutating, as viruses do, and still going on ...
But, please don't take my words for any of that though ...
You have 3 virologists, all with Ph.Ds in the field.
Two of them are retired virology professors at respected universities.
One wrote the textbook, literally, on virology (Vincent Racaniello)
TWIV 1155 [youtube.com]: Listen from 00:02:20 to 01:10:00
They discuss two papers, one briefly (they term that a "snippet"), and the other in more depth.
The in depth one (starting at ~ 00:30:00) is one of many that support the natural zoonotic origin, with 2 separate spillover events from animal to humans in the Huanan wet market in Wuhan.
The paper is: Genetic tracing of market wildlife and viruses at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic [cell.com].
Also, a genetic analysis of animals in the Wuhan wet market [phys.org] is zeroing in on a short list of animals that possibly helped spread it to people.
And it is not only the beta coronaviruses: influenza does that all the time.
The current strain of H5N1 jumps to mammals regularly.
For example, dozens of tigers died in Vietnam [apnews.com], and before that seals in Patagonia [apnews.com].
And now dairy cows in the USA have been infected [jhu.edu], and there are human cases too, but it is not clear how they contracted the diseases so far (water foul, some mammal such as pet dogs who ate dead infected birds, ...).
But you say: intelligence agencies have said the lab leak theory cannot be ruled out.
Those are intelligence agencies and by definition they don't publish the data backing up their postulates. We have to take their word for it without any scrutiny.
Moreover, experts are overwhelmingly for the natural origin.
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+1
Okay sure you can link to scientific journals (Score:3)
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Think about it a bit ... we had THREE outbreaks from the beta coronaviruses sub family in less than two decades.
Two of them were pandemics, but with varying scale:
- SARS in 2003, from civet cats
- MERS in 2012, from camels
- SARS-COV-2 in 2019, from raccoon dogs (or other species)
It's worth to note that you are only listing the strains that posed a threat the last 20 years. Considering the very large amount of different strains floating around in animals, a crossover event producing a variant like SARS-COV-2 was only a matter of time and it will happen again.
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I fully agree.
And the same applies to influenza.
It is only a matter of time before H5N1 (bird flu) mutates enough to infect humans.
In early 2020, I asked my family doctor: were you expecting a pandemic?
His answer: yes, but we [the medical community] thought it would be a flu variant.
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It origin is undetermined because the Chinese government acted fast, and those actions resulted in an information blackout.
They destroyed the animals in the market, took swabs, and then disinfected everything.
Their actions could have been driven by: a) public health concerns (limiting the spread), or b) avoiding blame for yet another pandemic because of exotic species being consumed (SARS, then SARS CoV 2), or c) an active cover-up, or d) something else entirely. Which one is it? That is up for debate.
The g
Re:Evidence supports natural origin ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Like decision makers informed by above mentioned intelligence agencies learned that the virus is potentially gene-modded and could have unmatched consequences
I suppose it could have been some super secret spy stuff as you suggested.
On the other hand it's much more likely it was all the people dying from it that made it a virus we should pay attention to.
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All other outbreaks before it made people die in astronomical numbers too, so just mentioning dying people means nothing when the question was why this outbreak in particular?
Because all the outbreaks where people don't die we don't hear/care about.
Survivorship bias, or in this case I guess anti-survivorship bias. Why care about the new viruses that nobody notices or aren't very serious?
Are we going completely crazy over the latest bird flu? Nope, we're definitely keeping an eye on it. If lots of people were dying from it, do you think we would be treating it differently or not?
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If a "Spanish flu" happened tomorrow... we'd just do nothing?
We monitor flu outbreaks every year and vaccinate in anticipation of them. The fact we mostly only monitor and react to the worst is the point. We don't really react until we know it's a bad one. Like we did for Covid, SARS, MERS. But not for every strain of flu or coronavirus.
it alone makes lab leak scenario more favorable.
answered
why this outbreak in particular?
answered.
I'll not bother following you off into the weeds any further.
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>"The initial reports had people dying at up to 5% of all cases. So it was worth doing lockdowns to stop that, or at least until we had better treatment options."
Right, that was the "Two weeks to stop the spread", which actually was somewhat understandable at the time. But somehow that mutated into something quite completely insane for years.
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COVID, and with that I mean: the deadly pandemic - not the random colds people get - is not over yet.
The deadly pandemic was due primarily to near total absence of acquired immunity in the population. There is virtually nobody left on earth without some form of vaccine and or infection induced polyclonal immunity and so risks have mostly passed into the background and at present are slightly higher than risks associated with flu infection. For vast majority of people COVID infection is now entirely asymptomatic or cold like symptoms.
Three daughters of a friend of mine had COVID: in August - bold because August is pretty warm here.
There is no substantive evidence for seasonal variation as is the case f
systematic over reporting of covid-19 death (Score:2)
The average over-reporting factor is about 2.5 to 3 for all ages. We also observe that for ages 15 to 54 the over-reporting factor ranged from 2 to 3.5 between 2020 and 2022, which is higher than for younger and older individuals. For older individuals, the over-reporting factor ranged from 1.9 to 3, while for younger individuals the over-reporting factor ranged from 1.1 to 2.8. The over-reporting factors we compute only account for the relative over-reporting of COVID-19 as the underlying cause of disease as opposed to as a contributing cause, when compared with influenza and pneumonia. This work therefore contributes to the ongoing discussion of death "with" COVID-19 versus "from" COVID-19. http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.... [doi.org]
Add in the mass hysteria presented by the media and govt figures, and we have to ask, is sars-cov-2 any worse than a number of other seasonal viruses? Were deaths caused by the self feeding fear and subsequent stress? The early reporting in January-March of 2020 sounded like something out of a hollywood drama movie. Maybe the Event 201 attendees watched Contagion and got scared like how 3 mile island was magnified by The China Syndrome?
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I suppose the only thing I want to say is that if it were engineered to kill stupid people, they didn't make it deadly enough
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Obviously the lab was build in this region because it was close to common sources of these viruses that they wanted to study. So in that sense, no it was not a coincidence. Other strains of viruses originated in this area, so it's not completely unexpected that this same area turned out to be a source of human infections in 2020.
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See my answer on gain of function [slashdot.org] in my other comment.
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Moreover, experts are overwhelmingly for the natural origin.
And one reason why is that if covid were to be proven as a lab leak, all that juicy gain-of-function research or anything even remotely resembling it would go away faster than you can say "I told you so."
More like would have to be done more safely and/or secretly at even high pay grades.
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Gain of function is not a bad thing.
It is basically how virology research is done.
It got a bad rap, and is a bad term for sure, but there is nothing nefarious about it.
(Source: virology professor at Columbia, and virology professor in Texas)
Would she have been able to say if there were (Score:2)
And also: "trust me to exhonerate myself" doesn't fly for speeding tickets. Why should it fly for this?
Attempting to prove a negative (Score:2)
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Coronavirus variants have been with us for millions of years
They have always enjoyed a highly variable rate of infection and mortality.
Mutation has ensured they are still around despite our wonderfully adaptive defenses. This is a feedback loop that sees this family of nasties continually evolving solutions around said defenses. Claiming this to be intentional weaponisation is just yet more anthropomorphism nonsense.
Quit manufacturing bogeymen out of thin air.
If you want to wake up in cold sweats and get
Maybe this would have been easier to believe... (Score:3, Insightful)
...if they hadn't deleted the evidence in the first place.
All of these sequences existed *before* the rona, but were mysteriously deleted. Even if this person is 100% telling the truth, it can't get past the distrust such an action would engender.
The sad fact is, there never will be a smoking gun, or a complete exoneration - we live in a world where we can't trust the data, or the conclusions, or the reporting on either the data or the conclusions.
The mind-fuck is "how much of the rest of my historical understanding of the world needs to be re-evaluated given this"?
Where did The Wuhan Lab source its bats (Score:2)
Jinning Cave: Near Jinning district in Kunming, Yunnan province
Tongguan Mine: Location: Near Tongguan village in Mojiang County.
Nothing to see here... (Score:2)
Re:needs outside confirmation (Score:5, Insightful)
all the samples that still exist anyway
Yeah. It doesn't help China make their case when they say there's nothing to see while they're destroying samples [newsweek.com] and documentation [telegraph.co.uk].
It's just good old capitalism (Score:2, Interesting)
So China would like very much for the rest of the world to think the problem was just one single lab leaking a virus or something man-made rather than the inevitable result of dangerous systemic issues. The last thing they w
Re:just a bit of counterpoint (Score:5, Insightful)
By rebuttal, do you mean all the real scientists who went to China and took samples, who analyzed other samples taken during the outbreak, who reviewed hospitalization records, and whose speciality is in viral diseases who have come to the conclusion the wet market was the most likely location for the outbreak and not a lab? You mean the people who have decades of experience in their area of expertise and consult with others in the same field and elsewhere so their reports are peer reviewed? You mean people who aren't spreading debunked conspiracy theories?
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because the Chinese are like you know are so open and sharing about all things in China? You have to be pretty stupid* for that to surprise you.
Not surprised. Just debunking the notion there was an open international investigation.
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just posting your conspiracy theories again
LOL. So it's a conspiracy theory that the Wuhan virology lab doing coronavirus gain of function research is 15 miles from the wet market. You've heard of maps?
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This is intentional misuse of the moderation system of this site. In the future please read the FAQ before moderating. There is no mod for being wrong, an idiot or crackpot. The moderation system intentionally does NOT provide the equivalent of social media "dislike".
Someone who is a covid conspiracy propaganda troll, most certainly fits: "Flamebait - Comments whose sole purpose is to insult and enrage. " or: "Troll - A Troll is similar to Flamebait, but slightly more refined. This is a prank comment intended to provoke indignant (or just confused) responses. "
He wasn't insulting, nor trying to outrage. He gave citations. You are saying he should be moderated -1 simply because you disagree with the conclusions of the sites he asked for criticism about.
I disagree with the conclusions as well, but "I disagree" is not "-1 troll".
I disagree because cross-species transmission is completely commonplace, and you need very good evidence for rejecting the hypothesis that something completely unexceptional happened, and the links cited don't give that. The argument in th
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And /. has no "scientifically proven wrong, you are misinformed" modding.
Accurate.
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Sure looks like you're the troll, not him.
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Someone who is a covid conspiracy propaganda troll, most certainly fits: "Flamebait - Comments whose sole purpose is to insult and enrage. " or:
"Troll - A Troll is similar to Flamebait, but slightly more refined. This is a prank comment intended to provoke indignant (or just confused) responses. "
Personally being enraged or insulted by commentary of others is not the same as the poster saying those things with the sole purpose of enraging or insulting you. It may merely be the case they are expressing a radically different opinion or value judgements from yourself.
There are certainly cases where disambiguation can be difficult. It is possible for two people to express the same sentiments where one honestly believes in what they are saying while the other knows better and is merely trolling. Such
Re: Definitely this is the case. (Score:2)
Bla.
She could easily have just kept quiet. No one's interested in this anymore.
It's been 5 years. A nice anniversary number. Long enough for some people to not quite remember, for some to remember the bits they liked and long enough for Facebook to suggest "memory" posts from back then.
I've been finding troublesome posts and comments people share such memories and photos of social distancing in large supermarkets, etc.
There are many reactions and comments along the lines of "I will not comply with this sort of social distancing again". Some have a long winded conspiracy reasoning behi
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Right. Here's how that goes down: PRC soldier has a gun to her head. "Post it, Comrade", he says.
We can only speculate as to why this statement was released. Was it the researcher's own decision? I suspect this is unlikely since the statement would have had to have been cleared before release, but let's consider it possible. Was she instructed to do this work in an effort to discredit the lab leak theory? You would have to believe that the apparatus which did so was completely incompetent, because this statement will not convince anyone much of anything. Was she instructed to do it just to keep the lab