7 ms·

It could be the result of having the lab in the same city that they could detect it so quickly. Not because the original sample (or any samples) would be teste

by giarc 7y ago

It could be the result of having the lab in the same city that they could detect it so quickly. Not because the original sample (or any samples) would be tested in the BSL4, but simply because having that lab would attract talent, funding and equipment to reference labs in the same city. The index patient would likely have had a nasopharyngeal swab taken and run against the regular panel of respiratory viruses (influenza, parainfluenza, enterovirus, rhinovirus, metapneumovirus, and coronaviruses). I suspect there would have been a light signal on the coronavirus (perhaps some cross reactivity) and they would have done more investigation to determine what is was.

Fomite 7y ago
This is sort of my reaction. It's a little like being astonished that a microbe could be identified so quickly in Boston or Atlanta.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  My reaction is that the lab should be suspected. They've been doing research on SARS-like viruses from bats for years now. What are the odds that it would break out in the same city, of all the cities in the world? Is the seafood market a scapegoat?
  - Fomite 7y ago
    Tons of people have been doing work on SARS-like viruses from bats for years now. That's what happens when you go from "No one gets infected by cornaviruses" to...SARS. Accidental releases almost always involve people with direct links to the lab in question first. That's a really obvious epidemiological link. "A coronavirus emerged in China and got detected quickly because of solid medical infrastructure" is a way more parsimonious explanation than "Accidental release from a BSL-4 lab."
    - ColanR 7y ago
      > solid medical infrastructure From what I've read, "solid medical infrastructure" doesn't exist in Wuhan.
      - Fomite 7y ago
        Where "solid" = not Liberia or the Congo. For emerging infectious diseases, Wuhan is perfectly functional, and the Chinese have the necessary resources. Motorbikes with samples aren't getting stuck as roads turn into mud during the rainy season.
        1_over_n 7y ago
        How many people commenting on here have actually worked in a lab doing this kind of research? or any lab for that matter? From experience, i will say that researchers are humans too and make mistakes. Things get dropped, spilled, mislablled all the time. Mistakes may be compounded by people collaborating - i.e. researcher A makes mistake at earlier stage in the protocol and researcher B does everything correct but is building on top of that error. Also, people share work spaces where some people are more careful than others.
        Fomite 7y ago
        My first advisor in graduate school was someone working on SARS. I'm currently an Assistant Professor of Computational Epidemiology, and my research is on healthcare-associated infections and emerging pathogens.
        1_over_n 7y ago
        My comment was not a personal attack or even directed at you per se (sorry if it appeared that way). I do still feel that your level of exertise is in the minority of people browsing HN and it is also a valued contribution. I have experience working in labs like this too. I would also say from experience sometimes peoples professors never step a foot in the lab and only direct people from afar and are disconnected from what the troops on the ground are doing. Like any organisation leadership can be disconnected from the day to day or even encourage peverse incentives.
  - neiman 7y ago
    >My reaction is that the lab should be suspected.... What are the odds that it would break out in the same city, of all the cities in the world? I dunno what are the odds, but do you know what are the odds? If you don't, then you have no base for suspicious.
    - mensetmanusman 7y ago
      If patient zero really came from Wuhan, the law of large numbers would put you at odds around 6/100 (60 million people in Wuhan in the 1 billion people region)
      - onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
        That seems higher than the odds of it being a lab outbreak. Doesn't every major city the world have some lab testing some kind of virus nearby?
        mensetmanusman 7y ago
        There is only one of these level-4 labs in China and it is in Wuhan...
        Fomite 7y ago
        You also don't need a level 4 lab to work on coronaviruses.
        onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
        And the outbreak could have, hypothetically, been anything.
    - 7952 7y ago
      In this kind of argument odds are just a way of making intuition sound objective. Based on one person's experience it may be obvious that accidental release from labs can happen. To another person this will seem more far fetched. So which side of the argument should provide evidence? Why is the parents suspicion any less valid than your lack of suspicion? These kind of questions are particularly difficult when secretive government institutions are involved.
- lobster45 7y ago
  Atlanta has the US center for disease control. But your point of just about every other city in the US is accurate
  - Fomite 7y ago
    That was the point of picking Atlanta - there's a very high concentration of infectious disease experts with close connections to the major public health agency. Both Atlanta and Boston have BSL-4 labs.
  - wjn0 7y ago
    That's exactly the point.
wschfdkbrmcdf 7y ago
I'd be surprised if geographical proximity to a BLS4 made much a of a difference to what would otherwise be a rudimentary swab & routine inspection (if that was even done at all). As Kristian Andersen notes, the background noise of flu season would surely drown out the weak signal of an unknown novel virus. Then to not only notice the weak signal but act on it so quickly to do primary research and characterise it as a novel virus within such a short timeframe? Seems far less likely than simply the effect of poor operational standards.
threeseed 7y ago
Maybe it's different in China but in most countries the labs that handle common blood tests are generic, commercial entities that follow a standard process for things to test. They aren't doing infectious disease research and they definitely aren't checking for anything exotic.
- endogui 7y ago
  In Korea (not China), but here it is common to get PCR assays for infections when the cause is unknown. People are also tested to determine the type (type A influenza) when showing flu-like symptoms. So if someone comes in with severe flu-like systems but is not a match for flu, that may trigger further assays.
segfaultbuserr 7y ago
No, the BSL-4 lab in Wuhan contributed absolutely nothing to help during the outbreak of the disease. The analysis on the samples and the gene sequencing were all performed in Shanghai, by various institutions such as Institut Pasteur of Shanghai, or the Chinese Academy of Science (e.g. see the list of authors in paper [0]), not in Wuhan at all - Which was an already huge surprise to everyone following the news in China, considering the fact that it has one of the best labs. Although the exact reason is unknown, it is already known that the Wuhan government has successfully implemented the maximum level of incompetence during its early response. There is no much reporting in English yet, but a now-deleted government report in Chinese [1] said the first victims of the viral infection were already been hospitalized on as early as December 8th, 2019. In other words, they were given a time of three weeks to get useful things done. Yet, the Wuhan government took no actions whatsoever other than covering up the outbreak. It had been going on like that, until the last week in December, when the news about a new type of unknown pneumonia started to leak out. At this time, someone at a higher position probably realized a serious investigation was warranted. On December 26th, researchers from Shanghai arrived, collected samples, and brought the samples to Shanghai for analysis [4]. Meanwhile, on December 30th, the case was escalated and put under increased supervision of the national government. And On December 31th, a Wuhan government official was interviewed [2]. He was asked for whether a laboratory analysis will be started, and the reply was, > With regarding to the pathogen determination of the unknown pneumonia, currently, the BSL-4 Lab was not activated, we are still following conventional procedures to verify the cases of infection. We are always prepared to active the Lab accordingly when it is necessary. > So far, it is not in our considerations. So Wuhan, still, wasn't doing any analysis at this point. Well, they have other things to do. On January 1st, Wuhan police arrested 8 citizens for spreading the "false rumor" of outbreak of a mysterious pneumonia in Wuhan to the social media online. Later on January 7th, 2020, the first laboratory observation [3] of the virus sample under the electron microscope came out from Shanghai. And the gene sequencing was only completed in the second week of the month. [0] I guess the Shanghai labs were probably working on a 24x7 basis. Meanwhile, Wuhan ordered a partial travel ban, only at this point - without any preparation work, Wuhan suddenly suspended the public transport for everyone, including medical workers, creating a massive chaos. The popular belief is: The fact the analysis was performed in Shanghai is another indicator of the Beijing government's effort to bypass the provincial government to obtain real information. According to what Wuhan has done, it's possible that the Wuhan government was intentionally withholding medical samples and hampering the BSL-4 lab to do any useful work, and that Beijing didn't even receive prompt information until the last moment. What is the lesson to learn as a citizen? Never overestimate the effectiveness of an authoritarian government, and never underestimate its incompetence. In an authoritarian government, the best interests of the ruler at a higher level is not always served by the ruler at the lower level. Sometimes, it's Nineteen Eighty-Four, other times, it's Brazil. [0] http://engine.scichina.com/publisher/scp/journal/SCLS/doi/10.1007/s11427-020-1637-5?slug=abstract http://engine.scichina.com/publisher/scp/journal/SCLS/doi/10... [1] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Cq9-K5kC8GMJ:wjw.hubei.gov.cn/fbjd/dtyw/202001/t20200113_1911033.shtml https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Cq9-K5... [2] https://m.yicai.com/news/100452355.html https://m.yicai.com/news/100452355.html [3] https://news.sina.cn/gn/2020-01-09/detail-iihnzhha1262297.d.html https://news.sina.cn/gn/2020-01-09/detail-iihnzhha1262297.d.... [4] https://cfcnews.com/277356/%E8%AF%95%E5%89%82%E7%9B%92%E4%BE%9B%E4%B8%8D%E5%BA%94%E6%B1%82%EF%BC%8C%E6%AD%A6%E6%B1%89%E6%96%B0%E5%9E%8B%E5%86%A0%E7%8A%B6%E7%97%85%E6%AF%92%E8%82%BA%E7%82%8E%E7%A1%AE%E8%AF%8A%E4%B9%8B%E9%9A%BE/ https://cfcnews.com/277356/%E8%AF%95%E5%89%82%E7%9B%92%E4%BE...

by giarc 7y ago

Fomite 7y ago

This is sort of my reaction. It's a little like being astonished that a microbe could be identified so quickly in Boston or Atlanta.

chrisco255 7y ago
My reaction is that the lab should be suspected. They've been doing research on SARS-like viruses from bats for years now. What are the odds that it would break out in the same city, of all the cities in the world? Is the seafood market a scapegoat?
- Fomite 7y ago
  Tons of people have been doing work on SARS-like viruses from bats for years now. That's what happens when you go from "No one gets infected by cornaviruses" to...SARS. Accidental releases almost always involve people with direct links to the lab in question first. That's a really obvious epidemiological link. "A coronavirus emerged in China and got detected quickly because of solid medical infrastructure" is a way more parsimonious explanation than "Accidental release from a BSL-4 lab."
  - ColanR 7y ago
    > solid medical infrastructure From what I've read, "solid medical infrastructure" doesn't exist in Wuhan.
    - Fomite 7y ago
      Where "solid" = not Liberia or the Congo. For emerging infectious diseases, Wuhan is perfectly functional, and the Chinese have the necessary resources. Motorbikes with samples aren't getting stuck as roads turn into mud during the rainy season.
      - 1_over_n 7y ago
        How many people commenting on here have actually worked in a lab doing this kind of research? or any lab for that matter? From experience, i will say that researchers are humans too and make mistakes. Things get dropped, spilled, mislablled all the time. Mistakes may be compounded by people collaborating - i.e. researcher A makes mistake at earlier stage in the protocol and researcher B does everything correct but is building on top of that error. Also, people share work spaces where some people are more careful than others.
        Fomite 7y ago
        My first advisor in graduate school was someone working on SARS. I'm currently an Assistant Professor of Computational Epidemiology, and my research is on healthcare-associated infections and emerging pathogens.
        1_over_n 7y ago
        My comment was not a personal attack or even directed at you per se (sorry if it appeared that way). I do still feel that your level of exertise is in the minority of people browsing HN and it is also a valued contribution. I have experience working in labs like this too. I would also say from experience sometimes peoples professors never step a foot in the lab and only direct people from afar and are disconnected from what the troops on the ground are doing. Like any organisation leadership can be disconnected from the day to day or even encourage peverse incentives.
- neiman 7y ago
  >My reaction is that the lab should be suspected.... What are the odds that it would break out in the same city, of all the cities in the world? I dunno what are the odds, but do you know what are the odds? If you don't, then you have no base for suspicious.
  - mensetmanusman 7y ago
    If patient zero really came from Wuhan, the law of large numbers would put you at odds around 6/100 (60 million people in Wuhan in the 1 billion people region)
    - onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
      That seems higher than the odds of it being a lab outbreak. Doesn't every major city the world have some lab testing some kind of virus nearby?
      - mensetmanusman 7y ago
        There is only one of these level-4 labs in China and it is in Wuhan...
        Fomite 7y ago
        You also don't need a level 4 lab to work on coronaviruses.
        onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
        And the outbreak could have, hypothetically, been anything.
  - 7952 7y ago
    In this kind of argument odds are just a way of making intuition sound objective. Based on one person's experience it may be obvious that accidental release from labs can happen. To another person this will seem more far fetched. So which side of the argument should provide evidence? Why is the parents suspicion any less valid than your lack of suspicion? These kind of questions are particularly difficult when secretive government institutions are involved.
lobster45 7y ago
Atlanta has the US center for disease control. But your point of just about every other city in the US is accurate
- Fomite 7y ago
  That was the point of picking Atlanta - there's a very high concentration of infectious disease experts with close connections to the major public health agency. Both Atlanta and Boston have BSL-4 labs.
- wjn0 7y ago
  That's exactly the point.

wschfdkbrmcdf 7y ago

I'd be surprised if geographical proximity to a BLS4 made much a of a difference to what would otherwise be a rudimentary swab & routine inspection (if that was even done at all). As Kristian Andersen notes, the background noise of flu season would surely drown out the weak signal of an unknown novel virus. Then to not only notice the weak signal but act on it so quickly to do primary research and characterise it as a novel virus within such a short timeframe? Seems far less likely than simply the effect of poor operational standards.

threeseed 7y ago

Maybe it's different in China but in most countries the labs that handle common blood tests are generic, commercial entities that follow a standard process for things to test. They aren't doing infectious disease research and they definitely aren't checking for anything exotic.

endogui 7y ago
In Korea (not China), but here it is common to get PCR assays for infections when the cause is unknown. People are also tested to determine the type (type A influenza) when showing flu-like symptoms. So if someone comes in with severe flu-like systems but is not a match for flu, that may trigger further assays.

segfaultbuserr 7y ago

No, the BSL-4 lab in Wuhan contributed absolutely nothing to help during the outbreak of the disease. The analysis on the samples and the gene sequencing were all performed in Shanghai, by various institutions such as Institut Pasteur of Shanghai, or the Chinese Academy of Science (e.g. see the list of authors in paper [0]), not in Wuhan at all - Which was an already huge surprise to everyone following the news in China, considering the fact that it has one of the best labs. Although the exact reason is unknown, it is already known that the Wuhan government has successfully implemented the maximum level of incompetence during its early response. There is no much reporting in English yet, but a now-deleted government report in Chinese [1] said the first victims of the viral infection were already been hospitalized on as early as December 8th, 2019. In other words, they were given a time of three weeks to get useful things done. Yet, the Wuhan government took no actions whatsoever other than covering up the outbreak. It had been going on like that, until the last week in December, when the news about a new type of unknown pneumonia started to leak out. At this time, someone at a higher position probably realized a serious investigation was warranted. On December 26th, researchers from Shanghai arrived, collected samples, and brought the samples to Shanghai for analysis [4]. Meanwhile, on December 30th, the case was escalated and put under increased supervision of the national government. And On December 31th, a Wuhan government official was interviewed [2]. He was asked for whether a laboratory analysis will be started, and the reply was, > With regarding to the pathogen determination of the unknown pneumonia, currently, the BSL-4 Lab was not activated, we are still following conventional procedures to verify the cases of infection. We are always prepared to active the Lab accordingly when it is necessary. > So far, it is not in our considerations. So Wuhan, still, wasn't doing any analysis at this point. Well, they have other things to do. On January 1st, Wuhan police arrested 8 citizens for spreading the "false rumor" of outbreak of a mysterious pneumonia in Wuhan to the social media online. Later on January 7th, 2020, the first laboratory observation [3] of the virus sample under the electron microscope came out from Shanghai. And the gene sequencing was only completed in the second week of the month. [0] I guess the Shanghai labs were probably working on a 24x7 basis. Meanwhile, Wuhan ordered a partial travel ban, only at this point - without any preparation work, Wuhan suddenly suspended the public transport for everyone, including medical workers, creating a massive chaos. The popular belief is: The fact the analysis was performed in Shanghai is another indicator of the Beijing government's effort to bypass the provincial government to obtain real information. According to what Wuhan has done, it's possible that the Wuhan government was intentionally withholding medical samples and hampering the BSL-4 lab to do any useful work, and that Beijing didn't even receive prompt information until the last moment. What is the lesson to learn as a citizen? Never overestimate the effectiveness of an authoritarian government, and never underestimate its incompetence. In an authoritarian government, the best interests of the ruler at a higher level is not always served by the ruler at the lower level. Sometimes, it's Nineteen Eighty-Four, other times, it's Brazil. [0] http://engine.scichina.com/publisher/scp/journal/SCLS/doi/10.1007/s11427-020-1637-5?slug=abstract http://engine.scichina.com/publisher/scp/journal/SCLS/doi/10... [1] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Cq9-K5kC8GMJ:wjw.hubei.gov.cn/fbjd/dtyw/202001/t20200113_1911033.shtml https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Cq9-K5... [2] https://m.yicai.com/news/100452355.html https://m.yicai.com/news/100452355.html [3] https://news.sina.cn/gn/2020-01-09/detail-iihnzhha1262297.d.html https://news.sina.cn/gn/2020-01-09/detail-iihnzhha1262297.d.... [4] https://cfcnews.com/277356/%E8%AF%95%E5%89%82%E7%9B%92%E4%BE%9B%E4%B8%8D%E5%BA%94%E6%B1%82%EF%BC%8C%E6%AD%A6%E6%B1%89%E6%96%B0%E5%9E%8B%E5%86%A0%E7%8A%B6%E7%97%85%E6%AF%92%E8%82%BA%E7%82%8E%E7%A1%AE%E8%AF%8A%E4%B9%8B%E9%9A%BE/ https://cfcnews.com/277356/%E8%AF%95%E5%89%82%E7%9B%92%E4%BE...