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One of the researchers at that lab was also effectively dissapeared. I don't believe the conspiracy crowd saying this was some kind of weapon, but there's reaso

One of the researchers at that lab was also effectively dissapeared. I don't believe the conspiracy crowd saying this was some kind of weapon, but there's reasonable evidence to suggest that this is a case of embarrassing government incompetence (which the CCP loaths) followed by attempts to cover up said incompetence while a solution was persued.

ausjke 6y ago
a few weeks ago CCP issued a new law to manage virology labs, and yes historically virus escaped its labs multiple times.
- ausjke 6y ago
  I simply stated a fact which is easily verifiable by checking news from its government, so why the downvotes, I hope it's not that we have CCP watchers here at HN.
  - StandardFuture 6y ago
    We are getting a small influx of CCP troll commenters in these comments now, so I would not be surprised if a few CCP (or CCP sympathetic) accounts have enough karma to downvote.
StandardFuture 6y ago
This is very valid clarification on what I will just name "lab theories". There is a huge differentiation in: 'purposely bio-engineered and intentionally-released' theories, vs. 'someone collected bats in the wild for research, brought them to the Wuhan lab, and there was an accidental pathogen escape during the research.' The former is entirely dramatic, while the latter is neither dramatic, unreasonable, illogical, or "conspiracy".
- jonny_eh 6y ago
  It's a shame that China's covering something up, which will only fuel the most outlandish theories.
  - JamesG124 6y ago
    There's little evidence to support the cover-up charge https://old.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/fnvvh8/some_thoughts_on_chinas_initial_handling_of/ https://old.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/fnvvh8/some_th...
    - bart_spoon 6y ago
      Since that post was made, there has been widespread reporting that US intelligence agencies are quite sure that China's numbers regarding the infection have been fabricated and underreported by quite a large amount. [0] Keep in mind that the Chinese government doesn't have to be pursuing a centralized disinformation campaign for it to occur. It would appear that at least a decent amount of the misinformation is occurring because local officials are covering up the extent of the damage from the party for fear of retaliation. In this case, its entirely plausible for large-scale cover-up to be occuring in China, without the national CCP driving it or even being aware of the extent that its occuring. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavirus-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavir...
      - JamesG124 6y ago
        1. I'm well aware of that. Is that the only new evidence that's come to light since the piece I linked to though? Would have expected something more solid than unnamed sources from inside national security (see: big hack) 2. I'll grant that that's possibility in the exact same sense in which I grant the centralized cover-up theory to be a possibility, and in which I grant both the lab creation and the lab accident origin theories to be possibilities. But I'm not interested in possibilities. What I'm interested in is positive evidence supportive of this or that theory.
        6y ago
- burfog 6y ago
  Neither extreme seems likely. We know that the lab was adding functionality to bat coronaviruses, making them able to infect human cells. This can be done without gene editing technology. We've been doing that in the opposite direction for decades, passing viruses through non-human cells in order to make weakened ones for live-virus vaccines. To make a virus worse for humans, simply pass it through human cells. This is what the lab was doing. It's extremely hazardous research. The USA banned it. If you do that and then you have a lab accident, your level of culpability is at neither extreme. You didn't gene-edit the virus and release it on purpose. You didn't just get infected while studying bats.
  - jml7c5 6y ago
    >We know that the lab was adding functionality to bat coronaviruses, making them able to infect human cells. Source?
    - burfog 6y ago
      Here, because somebody else asked the same thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22875438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22875438
    - abandonliberty 6y ago
      I reviewed Burfog's claims. While it's true that Chinese scientists were investigating SARS, the above assertion is not supported by the evidence provided. My best guess of where the confusion came from was the insertion of a temporary mammalian plasmid into HeLa cells in order to produce bat ACE2 for study. While this could potentially be viewed as adding functionality to human cells in order to make them susceptible to bat coronaviruses, the above assertion doesn't follow. (and unfortunately we have no ability to genome-edit humans)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rumanator 6y ago
> One of the researchers at that lab was also effectively dissapeared. Source?
- knzhou 6y ago
  There are no sources. I've personally looked into tens of claims about people being "disappeared" in China over the past few years, and literally every time the only evidence has been "they haven't tweeted for 12 hours". The person reappears soon after, but by that point the lie's damage is done, and nobody ever hears the correction.
  - BryanBigs 6y ago
    Source?
- Izkata 6y ago
  A lot of their information was scrubbed, but user laowhy86 on Youtube found their identity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU He believes this scientist was the first person infected, who it spread from.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

ausjke 6y ago

a few weeks ago CCP issued a new law to manage virology labs, and yes historically virus escaped its labs multiple times.

ausjke 6y ago
I simply stated a fact which is easily verifiable by checking news from its government, so why the downvotes, I hope it's not that we have CCP watchers here at HN.
- StandardFuture 6y ago
  We are getting a small influx of CCP troll commenters in these comments now, so I would not be surprised if a few CCP (or CCP sympathetic) accounts have enough karma to downvote.

StandardFuture 6y ago

This is very valid clarification on what I will just name "lab theories". There is a huge differentiation in: 'purposely bio-engineered and intentionally-released' theories, vs. 'someone collected bats in the wild for research, brought them to the Wuhan lab, and there was an accidental pathogen escape during the research.' The former is entirely dramatic, while the latter is neither dramatic, unreasonable, illogical, or "conspiracy".

jonny_eh 6y ago
It's a shame that China's covering something up, which will only fuel the most outlandish theories.
- JamesG124 6y ago
  There's little evidence to support the cover-up charge https://old.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/fnvvh8/some_thoughts_on_chinas_initial_handling_of/ https://old.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/fnvvh8/some_th...
  - bart_spoon 6y ago
    Since that post was made, there has been widespread reporting that US intelligence agencies are quite sure that China's numbers regarding the infection have been fabricated and underreported by quite a large amount. [0] Keep in mind that the Chinese government doesn't have to be pursuing a centralized disinformation campaign for it to occur. It would appear that at least a decent amount of the misinformation is occurring because local officials are covering up the extent of the damage from the party for fear of retaliation. In this case, its entirely plausible for large-scale cover-up to be occuring in China, without the national CCP driving it or even being aware of the extent that its occuring. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavirus-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavir...
    - JamesG124 6y ago
      1. I'm well aware of that. Is that the only new evidence that's come to light since the piece I linked to though? Would have expected something more solid than unnamed sources from inside national security (see: big hack) 2. I'll grant that that's possibility in the exact same sense in which I grant the centralized cover-up theory to be a possibility, and in which I grant both the lab creation and the lab accident origin theories to be possibilities. But I'm not interested in possibilities. What I'm interested in is positive evidence supportive of this or that theory.
      - 6y ago
burfog 6y ago
Neither extreme seems likely. We know that the lab was adding functionality to bat coronaviruses, making them able to infect human cells. This can be done without gene editing technology. We've been doing that in the opposite direction for decades, passing viruses through non-human cells in order to make weakened ones for live-virus vaccines. To make a virus worse for humans, simply pass it through human cells. This is what the lab was doing. It's extremely hazardous research. The USA banned it. If you do that and then you have a lab accident, your level of culpability is at neither extreme. You didn't gene-edit the virus and release it on purpose. You didn't just get infected while studying bats.
- jml7c5 6y ago
  >We know that the lab was adding functionality to bat coronaviruses, making them able to infect human cells. Source?
  - burfog 6y ago
    Here, because somebody else asked the same thing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22875438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22875438
  - abandonliberty 6y ago
    I reviewed Burfog's claims. While it's true that Chinese scientists were investigating SARS, the above assertion is not supported by the evidence provided. My best guess of where the confusion came from was the insertion of a temporary mammalian plasmid into HeLa cells in order to produce bat ACE2 for study. While this could potentially be viewed as adding functionality to human cells in order to make them susceptible to bat coronaviruses, the above assertion doesn't follow. (and unfortunately we have no ability to genome-edit humans)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rumanator 6y ago

> One of the researchers at that lab was also effectively dissapeared. Source?

knzhou 6y ago
There are no sources. I've personally looked into tens of claims about people being "disappeared" in China over the past few years, and literally every time the only evidence has been "they haven't tweeted for 12 hours". The person reappears soon after, but by that point the lie's damage is done, and nobody ever hears the correction.
- BryanBigs 6y ago
  Source?
Izkata 6y ago
A lot of their information was scrubbed, but user laowhy86 on Youtube found their identity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU He believes this scientist was the first person infected, who it spread from.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]