Its possible one person could have contracted the virus, then traveled to the wet-market, which is about 20 miles away, then spent some time there shopping there and passed it on to others.
Then again, it could have come from the wet market and it could be a coincidence.
I don't want to make this into a left-wing vs right-wing thing.
I've banned this account until we get some indication that you want to use HN as intended. That would include not using a trollish username. You're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com if you don't want to be banned.
Appeal to authority does not get you points in an debate on facts. Especially when said facts would be rather inconvenient to have internationally recognized.
Furthermore, I'm sorry but I don't give a damn how many Ph.D's you've got. Congratulations. You've mastered thriving in the politics heavy realm that is academia.
There is no way in hell you're going to convince me that a plague coming out of a geographical area containing a BSL-4 and BSL-2 lab had absolutely no bearing on the matter. Heck, the argument can even be turned around just as readily. What are the odds against this happening anywhere else but the nearest Wet Market to two major virology labs engaging in research with regards to host species jumping of bat coronaviruses?
When you have the original purported host animal only present in any great numbers at the WIV or WHCDC, and research being conducted at both places with regards to how transgenic host jump takes place. Where you've got precedent for highly virulent pathogen containment breach. At this point the "conspiracy theory" label itself is doing more heavy lifting than the actually impressive number of "circumstantial" pieces of evidence in that there is not one single convincing argument for why the host jump didn't take place anywhere but in relatively close proximity to areas actively engaged in this type of research.
It is not a conspiracy theory to follow smoke to a fire. Therefore when faced with a novel plague, popping up in close proximity to institutions in which virological research happens should not be treated any differently.
To suggest otherwise is to bury your head in the sand. Read some of these research papers for heaven sake. Or look at what's at risk one way or another. If it's the labs, China has another black eye and chances being held internationally responsible depending on what's provable. The international histological community will be in for increased scrutiny/hardship/onerous regulation in the future, so on, ethical debates to be settled, and so on.
On the other hand, gee whiz, if we just blame the wet market, we can keep doing everything we're doing and it's just a fluke! Maybe pass some token hygiene regulations or something, then egg need not settle on anyone's face!
Furthermore, epidemiology is at it's core a data centric practice, and is thus very steerable due to GIGO. If there is data that has been hidden, it completely changes the outcome, and we know that China is not best friends with the concept of transparency.
There's Hanlon's Razor, and then there's turning off any semblance of critical thinking because someone credentialed told you to. It doesn't even change anything except the politics/optics of the entire, which should be your first hint an effort at perception management is underway.
You believe what you want. I've read up on https://project-evidence.github.io/ and their absolutely abhorrent original name aside, I was directly aware of at least half of the evidence papers they've referenced through HN, and the conclusions that just the coincidences in that lead to should give anyone reasonable pause. The world is small, and this level of "coincidental" locality may not make it easy on policy makers, but it should not be dismissed out of hand. Those who do not fight to get the whole truth will spend their lives being driven by those who must keep it from being known. It's more important for you to have all the info and make a decision on it, than to have some authority figure tell you what they want you to believe.
At best, I buy that it was not a byproduct of direct intended human engineering. I do not accept that a lab had nothing to do with it. Especially given the knock on effects of what would be at stake if it were proven to be the case. The investigation needs to ha...
> There is no way in hell you're going to convince me that a plague coming out of a geographical area containing a BSL-4 and BSL-2 lab had absolutely no bearing on the matter.
Do you have the causality backwards. The laboratory is in that region because there are local disease caring populations of animals. That’s what they study.
I do not. See section 8.7 in the link. Most of the bats are endemic to a cave over 1000 miles away. The bats weren't common in Wuhan. If they were, it was most likely as a part of some active research project rather than because bat sounded like a great idea to add to the menu. I'm not a local, so I'll admit to not having primary experience of the area. But the pile of circumstantial evidence is non-bloody trivial and bares being given the courtesy of a looking into in parallel with the Market theory.
1. The theory has always been that it jumped from bats to another animal -- like the kind sold at the market.
2. "It does not appear that the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention — the one close to the market — had published any research on the topic prior to the pandemic."
I really hate how the media keeps conflating the theories that the virus was engineered and that the virus escaped from a lab. Even the title of this article has been editorialized to conflate the two.
I mostly trust what people have said about the virus lacking signs of being engineered or otherwise modified.
That the virus escaped from a lab is totally plausible and has precedent. It is a shame it gets lumped in with the other theory. SARS escaped Chinese research labs twice and there are many other instances worldwide of pathogens escaping research labs.
Fundamentally, you are not going to find any direct evidence that the virus came from a lab unless the virus has signs of being engineered (which seems to not be the case).
Only in the last week or so major news organizations have started covering the theory of lab escape of an unmodified pathogen. You can find tons or articles arguing either way.
Given the fact that almost every city in China is going to have wet markets, but Wuhan is one of the few (only?) cities to have labs researching these types of viruses it would be irresponsible to not consider the possibility. Given that the CCP is going to do the utmost to cover up any negative stories you are never going to find any smoking gun level evidence.
"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 Adam Lauring, an associate professor at the University of Michigan Medical School and an expert in the evolution of viruses.
Again, there are many articles that argue either side of this. You can pick and choose quotes however you like.
That being said, you don't believe that a lab that studies novel coronaviruses could be studying a novel coronavirus? There is a history of pathogens escaping labs and there are many more wet markets in other cities in China than labs doing related research. As the simplest approximation just try applying bayes rule.
Additionally, the CCP is an authoritarian regime with a strong motive to cover things up. A refusal to even consider the possibility of a lab escape is willful ignorance.
Dr. Luc Montagnier, 2008 Nobel prize winner and discoverer of HIV has analyzed the Covid 19 genome with a colleague and determined it to be a man made virus (most likely in a lab).
18 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 70.3 ms ] threadLets look at the facts:
1. The virus came from horseshoe bats, and this kind of bat was not sold at the Wuhan market.
2. The lab was working on Corona viruses.
Maybe the virus was not bio-engineered, but there is a very very very real possibility it came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Then again, it could have come from the wet market and it could be a coincidence.
I don't want to make this into a left-wing vs right-wing thing.
Shit happens, somebody doesn't follow protocol and a virus escapes, how unbelievable does that sound?
For the record, Dr. Fauci is not an epidemiologist, he's just a basic bitch Dr.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Furthermore, I'm sorry but I don't give a damn how many Ph.D's you've got. Congratulations. You've mastered thriving in the politics heavy realm that is academia.
There is no way in hell you're going to convince me that a plague coming out of a geographical area containing a BSL-4 and BSL-2 lab had absolutely no bearing on the matter. Heck, the argument can even be turned around just as readily. What are the odds against this happening anywhere else but the nearest Wet Market to two major virology labs engaging in research with regards to host species jumping of bat coronaviruses?
When you have the original purported host animal only present in any great numbers at the WIV or WHCDC, and research being conducted at both places with regards to how transgenic host jump takes place. Where you've got precedent for highly virulent pathogen containment breach. At this point the "conspiracy theory" label itself is doing more heavy lifting than the actually impressive number of "circumstantial" pieces of evidence in that there is not one single convincing argument for why the host jump didn't take place anywhere but in relatively close proximity to areas actively engaged in this type of research.
It is not a conspiracy theory to follow smoke to a fire. Therefore when faced with a novel plague, popping up in close proximity to institutions in which virological research happens should not be treated any differently.
To suggest otherwise is to bury your head in the sand. Read some of these research papers for heaven sake. Or look at what's at risk one way or another. If it's the labs, China has another black eye and chances being held internationally responsible depending on what's provable. The international histological community will be in for increased scrutiny/hardship/onerous regulation in the future, so on, ethical debates to be settled, and so on.
On the other hand, gee whiz, if we just blame the wet market, we can keep doing everything we're doing and it's just a fluke! Maybe pass some token hygiene regulations or something, then egg need not settle on anyone's face!
Furthermore, epidemiology is at it's core a data centric practice, and is thus very steerable due to GIGO. If there is data that has been hidden, it completely changes the outcome, and we know that China is not best friends with the concept of transparency.
There's Hanlon's Razor, and then there's turning off any semblance of critical thinking because someone credentialed told you to. It doesn't even change anything except the politics/optics of the entire, which should be your first hint an effort at perception management is underway.
You believe what you want. I've read up on https://project-evidence.github.io/ and their absolutely abhorrent original name aside, I was directly aware of at least half of the evidence papers they've referenced through HN, and the conclusions that just the coincidences in that lead to should give anyone reasonable pause. The world is small, and this level of "coincidental" locality may not make it easy on policy makers, but it should not be dismissed out of hand. Those who do not fight to get the whole truth will spend their lives being driven by those who must keep it from being known. It's more important for you to have all the info and make a decision on it, than to have some authority figure tell you what they want you to believe.
At best, I buy that it was not a byproduct of direct intended human engineering. I do not accept that a lab had nothing to do with it. Especially given the knock on effects of what would be at stake if it were proven to be the case. The investigation needs to ha...
Do you have the causality backwards. The laboratory is in that region because there are local disease caring populations of animals. That’s what they study.
It is a city of 11 million people. You will find lots of things in such a large city.
2. "It does not appear that the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention — the one close to the market — had published any research on the topic prior to the pandemic."
https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/01/covid-19-bioweapon/
You're probably thinking of the Biosafety 4 lab that was seven miles away from the Wuhan Market.
I mostly trust what people have said about the virus lacking signs of being engineered or otherwise modified.
That the virus escaped from a lab is totally plausible and has precedent. It is a shame it gets lumped in with the other theory. SARS escaped Chinese research labs twice and there are many other instances worldwide of pathogens escaping research labs.
'Claim That Covid-19 Came From Lab In China Completely Unfounded Scientists Say'
https://www.newsweek.com/claim-that-coronavirus-came-lab-chi...
Only in the last week or so major news organizations have started covering the theory of lab escape of an unmodified pathogen. You can find tons or articles arguing either way.
Given the fact that almost every city in China is going to have wet markets, but Wuhan is one of the few (only?) cities to have labs researching these types of viruses it would be irresponsible to not consider the possibility. Given that the CCP is going to do the utmost to cover up any negative stories you are never going to find any smoking gun level evidence.
"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 Adam Lauring, an associate professor at the University of Michigan Medical School and an expert in the evolution of viruses.
That being said, you don't believe that a lab that studies novel coronaviruses could be studying a novel coronavirus? There is a history of pathogens escaping labs and there are many more wet markets in other cities in China than labs doing related research. As the simplest approximation just try applying bayes rule.
Additionally, the CCP is an authoritarian regime with a strong motive to cover things up. A refusal to even consider the possibility of a lab escape is willful ignorance.