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The idea of this being an engineered virus wittingly unleashed on the world by some malevolent Party conspirators strains credulity--the notion is preposterous,

The idea of this being an engineered virus wittingly unleashed on the world by some malevolent Party conspirators strains credulity--the notion is preposterous, especially from a country as obsessed with internal stability as China. However, the Wuhan pathogen research laboratory is still a worthy source to consider relating to this virus. Accidents DO happen, and China has a history of making mistakes leading to dangerous pathogens escaping their labs. In 2004, SARS escaped a BS-3 lab in Beijing, infecting several and killing at least one: " In April 2004, China reported a case of SARS in a nurse who had cared for a researcher at the Chinese National Institute of Virology. While ill, the researcher had traveled twice by train from Beijing to Anhui province, where she was nursed by her mother, a physician, who fell ill and died. The nurse in turn infected five third-generation cases, causing no deaths. Subsequent investigation uncovered three unrelated laboratory infections in different researchers at the NIV. At least of two primary patients had never worked with live SARS virus. Many shortcomings in biosecurity were found at the NIV, and the specific cause of the outbreak was traced to an inadequately inactivated preparation of SARS virus that was used in general (that is, not biosecure) laboratory areas, including one where the primary cases worked. It had not been tested to confirm its safety after inactivation, as it should have been." https://slate.com/technology/2014/04/how-dangerous-viruses-could-escape-from-laboratories.html https://slate.com/technology/2014/04/how-dangerous-viruses-c... Were a lab accident the source of this outbreak, you can bet your last dollar that the CCP would go to extreme lengths to hide that fact.

sjwalter 7y ago
For more recent, though more vague, evidence that China may not share the same views on handling extremely dangerous pathogens as the rest of the world, we have this story from July 2019, wherein a Chinese researcher working in one of Canada's BS-4 labs, along with her husband who was a SARS researcher, as well as several students she brought over from China to work with her, were all given the boot over unspecified "administrative matters". The University later severed all ties with her and her crew. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-escorted-from-infectious-disease-lab-amid-rcmp-investigation-1.5211567 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-e... The article speculates that this was related to IP theft of some kind, which seems strange considering the lab's work was all in the public domain--what's to steal? This happened about six months ago, and four months before the Coronavirus broke. Is this at all related? Maybe, maybe not.
- diyseguy 7y ago
  https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/questions-surround-canadian-shipment-of-deadly-viruses-to-china-66254 https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/questions-surroun...
  - diyseguy 7y ago
    https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debate-over-risky-research-1.18787#/b1 https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debat... https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to-study-world-s-most-dangerous-pathogens-1.21487 https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to...
- dirtyid 7y ago
  >For more recent, though more vague, evidence that China may not share the same views on handling extremely dangerous pathogens as the rest of the world, we have this story from July 2019, wherein a Chinese researcher working in one of Canada's BS-4 labs, along with her husband who was a SARS researcher, as well as several students she brought over from China to work with her, were all given the boot over unspecified "administrative matters". She (and her husband) are both Canadian researchers who happens to be Chinese. She shipped Ebola and henipavirus samples with "all appropriate precautions" as part of "routine" sharing program according to National Microbiology Laboratory. They suspended her non-salaried appointments during current investigation, her students, some of whom were Chinese nationals, were reassigned. The IP concern was a Chinese Mabworks company was developing the experimental and patented ebola drug ZMapp which she worked on without authorization.
deleted 7y ago
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mrscottson 7y ago
Looking at the recent history of the US, UK, and South Africa engineering biological weapons and assassinating the head of the UN, this seems plausible. https://youtu.be/N7ZZCDCD1-E https://youtu.be/N7ZZCDCD1-E
ci5er 7y ago
Given the rapidity with which the Harvard chemical-biologist was arrested after we received a sample and sequenced it (~36 hours), I think it is possible (possible! not likely!) that we engineered it, and they paid a researcher to give them a copy. * Some pretty heavy researchers in the US say that it (the virus) was not human-engineered. I find their reasoning spurious, but they know more than I do.
- austhrow743 7y ago
  Who is we and they in this comment?
  - ci5er 7y ago
    Oh. Sorry. I was too embedded in the context of the Chinese-funding of US University/Academic research story. In this context here: - "We" == "US Research Programs, funded by the Chinese, but not disclosed according to requirements given to them by the university or the federal grant authorities (whoever they might be for any given program)" - "They" == "Whichever Chinese organizations, governmental or otherwise, that fund US researchers, and encourage them to 'under-the-table' provide results/data/samples" EDIT: For whatever it's worth. I have no problem with US and Chinese researchers collaborating and funding each other. But I do like a bit of disclosure from time-to-time. EDIT: User pavelrub made a very reasonable comment on this thread that he was amazed at American's ability to conspiracy-monger (my words, not his, but he has since deleted his comment. I hope I am not taking too many liberties with his statement), but he's right. I have no basis (as I said up-thread) to believe any of this. Right now, I am hypothesis-hunting, and probably shouldn't share that mental-process in public, given that 99.9% of them (the broken hypotheses) will turn out to be trash.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - prashnts 7y ago
      This is a good lesson for me in a very different context. I could relate to what you said about it’s a mental-process with maybe 99% trash, but there’s still 1% not trash in there and I can only know it isn’t trash by not getting carried away without verifying the hypothesis in first place. Lesson learned: sure, go ahead with hypothesis hunting, but also spend time to verify them first. Edit: more simply, be careful about confirmation bias.
1_over_n 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22130806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22130806 Discussed in another thread last wek
coldtea 7y ago
>The idea of this being an engineered virus wittingly unleashed on the world by some malevolent Party conspirators strains credulity--the notion is preposterous, especially from a country as obsessed with internal stability as China. How about the idea that this is an engineered virus unwittingly unleashed on the world by some accident/incompetence? If one reads the history of nuclear weapons/reactors, and how all kinds of BS, negligence, incompetence, has only by miracle spared us from major catastrophe at various times, one would consider what might happen with all those military virus labs...
- _-___________-_ 7y ago
  If one would engineer a virus, surely one would make it more dangerous than this?
  - joshbaptiste 7y ago
    I thought of that too, than my tinfoil hat went further on thinking that maybe this is just a QA test, a mild version of the pathogen released to see how far it spreads to fine tune the "production" version.
    - manicdee 7y ago
      Or to stress test various nations’ biological controls with a “safe” virus that shouldn’t backfire and destroy the creator.
  - hnarn 7y ago
    That's assuming, for the sake of argument, of course that a biolab creating these types of viruses for "offensive" purposes would only focus on one, extremely lethal virus and nothing else. It's easy to imagine that less lethal viruses are also created to study the effects of different modifications, and these viruses may be kept under less strict supervision than the worst ones (increasing the risk of it spreading). Anyway, there's no evidence so far to support any of these theories, but considering China's record I guess it wouldn't surprise me. For now I still think the easiest explanation is the most likely.

sjwalter 7y ago

For more recent, though more vague, evidence that China may not share the same views on handling extremely dangerous pathogens as the rest of the world, we have this story from July 2019, wherein a Chinese researcher working in one of Canada's BS-4 labs, along with her husband who was a SARS researcher, as well as several students she brought over from China to work with her, were all given the boot over unspecified "administrative matters". The University later severed all ties with her and her crew. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-escorted-from-infectious-disease-lab-amid-rcmp-investigation-1.5211567 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-e... The article speculates that this was related to IP theft of some kind, which seems strange considering the lab's work was all in the public domain--what's to steal? This happened about six months ago, and four months before the Coronavirus broke. Is this at all related? Maybe, maybe not.

diyseguy 7y ago
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/questions-surround-canadian-shipment-of-deadly-viruses-to-china-66254 https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/questions-surroun...
- diyseguy 7y ago
  https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debate-over-risky-research-1.18787#/b1 https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debat... https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to-study-world-s-most-dangerous-pathogens-1.21487 https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to...
dirtyid 7y ago
>For more recent, though more vague, evidence that China may not share the same views on handling extremely dangerous pathogens as the rest of the world, we have this story from July 2019, wherein a Chinese researcher working in one of Canada's BS-4 labs, along with her husband who was a SARS researcher, as well as several students she brought over from China to work with her, were all given the boot over unspecified "administrative matters". She (and her husband) are both Canadian researchers who happens to be Chinese. She shipped Ebola and henipavirus samples with "all appropriate precautions" as part of "routine" sharing program according to National Microbiology Laboratory. They suspended her non-salaried appointments during current investigation, her students, some of whom were Chinese nationals, were reassigned. The IP concern was a Chinese Mabworks company was developing the experimental and patented ebola drug ZMapp which she worked on without authorization.

deleted 7y ago

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deleted 7y ago

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mrscottson 7y ago

Looking at the recent history of the US, UK, and South Africa engineering biological weapons and assassinating the head of the UN, this seems plausible. https://youtu.be/N7ZZCDCD1-E https://youtu.be/N7ZZCDCD1-E

ci5er 7y ago

Given the rapidity with which the Harvard chemical-biologist was arrested after we received a sample and sequenced it (~36 hours), I think it is possible (possible! not likely!) that we engineered it, and they paid a researcher to give them a copy. * Some pretty heavy researchers in the US say that it (the virus) was not human-engineered. I find their reasoning spurious, but they know more than I do.

austhrow743 7y ago
Who is we and they in this comment?
- ci5er 7y ago
  Oh. Sorry. I was too embedded in the context of the Chinese-funding of US University/Academic research story. In this context here: - "We" == "US Research Programs, funded by the Chinese, but not disclosed according to requirements given to them by the university or the federal grant authorities (whoever they might be for any given program)" - "They" == "Whichever Chinese organizations, governmental or otherwise, that fund US researchers, and encourage them to 'under-the-table' provide results/data/samples" EDIT: For whatever it's worth. I have no problem with US and Chinese researchers collaborating and funding each other. But I do like a bit of disclosure from time-to-time. EDIT: User pavelrub made a very reasonable comment on this thread that he was amazed at American's ability to conspiracy-monger (my words, not his, but he has since deleted his comment. I hope I am not taking too many liberties with his statement), but he's right. I have no basis (as I said up-thread) to believe any of this. Right now, I am hypothesis-hunting, and probably shouldn't share that mental-process in public, given that 99.9% of them (the broken hypotheses) will turn out to be trash.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - prashnts 7y ago
    This is a good lesson for me in a very different context. I could relate to what you said about it’s a mental-process with maybe 99% trash, but there’s still 1% not trash in there and I can only know it isn’t trash by not getting carried away without verifying the hypothesis in first place. Lesson learned: sure, go ahead with hypothesis hunting, but also spend time to verify them first. Edit: more simply, be careful about confirmation bias.

1_over_n 7y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22130806 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22130806 Discussed in another thread last wek

coldtea 7y ago

>The idea of this being an engineered virus wittingly unleashed on the world by some malevolent Party conspirators strains credulity--the notion is preposterous, especially from a country as obsessed with internal stability as China. How about the idea that this is an engineered virus unwittingly unleashed on the world by some accident/incompetence? If one reads the history of nuclear weapons/reactors, and how all kinds of BS, negligence, incompetence, has only by miracle spared us from major catastrophe at various times, one would consider what might happen with all those military virus labs...

_-___________-_ 7y ago
If one would engineer a virus, surely one would make it more dangerous than this?
- joshbaptiste 7y ago
  I thought of that too, than my tinfoil hat went further on thinking that maybe this is just a QA test, a mild version of the pathogen released to see how far it spreads to fine tune the "production" version.
  - manicdee 7y ago
    Or to stress test various nations’ biological controls with a “safe” virus that shouldn’t backfire and destroy the creator.
- hnarn 7y ago
  That's assuming, for the sake of argument, of course that a biolab creating these types of viruses for "offensive" purposes would only focus on one, extremely lethal virus and nothing else. It's easy to imagine that less lethal viruses are also created to study the effects of different modifications, and these viruses may be kept under less strict supervision than the worst ones (increasing the risk of it spreading). Anyway, there's no evidence so far to support any of these theories, but considering China's record I guess it wouldn't surprise me. For now I still think the easiest explanation is the most likely.