10 ms·

Not sure why they're so quick to write off Long Bet #9. It's highly likely we'll reach 1,000,000 worldwide casualties from Covid-19 during a 6-month period befo

Not sure why they're so quick to write off Long Bet #9. It's highly likely we'll reach 1,000,000 worldwide casualties from Covid-19 during a 6-month period before the end of year (defined in the bet's terms as "hospitalizations"). And if the hypothesis turns out to be true that it was an accidental release from one of Wuhan's 2 laboratories doing bat virus research, that's definitely a "bioerror" under the terms of the bet. There's significant circumstantial evidence it could have been a lab accident(early Chinese reporting about the index case, 1 lab location a few blocks away from seafood market, bat species, earlier lab accident, etc), but nothing more at this point. But we may know more by the end of the year. Edit: This is not the wild conspiracy theory about a bioengineered virus in a weapons lab. This is a hypothesis about accidental bat pee on a lab worker conducting routine research, or some similar accident (such accidental releases are confirmed to have happened twice with SARS-Cov-1 virus in a Beijing lab). Laboratory-acquired infections do happen, sometimes with deadly consequences. In my mind, it's the most feasible scenario at this point, given no one has provided proof that bats were even sold at the seafood market that was blamed. And we know that many officials were eager to cover this all up.

Trasmatta 6y ago
Do you think we'll ever conclusively know either way? If that is the truth, China will obviously continue to do everything it can to cover it up. And circumstantial evidence doesn't seem like enough. I'm not taking a stance either way, I really am curious on whether we'll be able to come to a pretty firm conclusion on it.
- icelancer 6y ago
  If we can compare the virus from the lab from what actually broke out in the wild, I think we could come to some high probability conclusions, yeah.
  - Trasmatta 6y ago
    But wouldn't China actively work to prevent that from happening?
    - icelancer 6y ago
      Possibly, but it could be leaked in a way to alternative sources to vet and verify. All I'm saying is that I agree, Long Bet #9 should definitely not be dismissed. It's way too early.
  - buckminster 6y ago
    This has been done. Spoiler: the virus is not from the lab. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-woman-hunted-down-viruses-from-sars-to-the-new-coronavirus1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-wo...
    - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
      The problem is that all these articles rely on assumption that China is trustworthy, while it absolutely is not. I do not understand, why so many people immediately deny the whole possibility that the virus came out of the lab, as if was some heretic idea. I mean, a scientist has to be open-minded; taking into account the systemic unreliability of Chinese information, rigidity of their political system, recent orders to not publish information about the origins of the virus there is no way someone should rule out the possibility of accidental release. I saw in some other posts a point that if it was true a war is unavoidable, and therefore it is a "bad, dangerous" hypothesis and in needs to be suppressed. Well science does not work this way.
      - Izkata 6y ago
        > I do not understand, why so many people immediately deny the whole possibility that the virus came out of the lab, as if was some heretic idea. Take some solace in that sentiment is shifting to "it's possible". A month ago when I asked about it here, my comment was not only heavily downvoted, but there was no support in the replies and my comment was flagged. Now at least there seem to be enough people questioning it that the possibility is at least being taken seriously.
- jnbiche 6y ago
  I'm not sure. If this was a lab accident(big if), it's possible that a whistleblower could succeed in defecting. I'm guessing Western intelligence agencies also are hard at work at this issue, using assets and technologies we probably aren't aware of. Regardless, it shouldn't be our primary focus at this time. But sooner rather than later, we need to determine exactly how this happened so we can avoid it in the future. If it was a wet market, then by God China needs to shut them down permanently (wet markets are opening back up now, which is another reason I suspect it was a lab). If it was an accidental lab release, we must demand much higher safety standards, and make sure that's enforced. This pandemic could have been so much worse. Next time, it could destroy modern civilization.
  - monkmartinez 6y ago
    It's not over by a long shot. Hard to say if "modern civilization" will ever be the same...
    - Trasmatta 6y ago
      In what ways do you predict it changing?
listenallyall 6y ago
>> if the hypothesis turns out to be true that it was an accidental release But, but, but... Facebook has already "fact-checked" this and determined it to be False. By an American who worked at that Wuhan lab. "Strict control and containment measures." Lol. https://newsradiowrva.radio.com/blogs/jeff-katz/facebook-coronavirus-fact-checker-worked-with-wuhan-lab https://newsradiowrva.radio.com/blogs/jeff-katz/facebook-cor...
- animalCrax0rz 6y ago
  A recent study says that 6 new types of coronavirus were recently found in bats https://www.zmescience.com/science/six-new-types-of-coronavirus-found-in-bats-in-myanmar/ https://www.zmescience.com/science/six-new-types-of-coronavi...
- jnbiche 6y ago
  I actually believe him that there were strict control and containment measures were in place in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which runs the BL4 laboratory. No one is going to fool around carelessly with BL4 pathogens. That said, an accident still could have happened (they've happened in US BL4 labs, despite very strict controls). More to the point, evidence points more towards a release from the Wuhan Center of Disease Control laboratory, which was also doing live bat research on infectious organisms, but under much less strict controls, not the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Significantly, the Wuhan CDC building is only blocks away from the seafood market.
  - listenallyall 6y ago
    >> an accident still could have happened That's the whole point. "Strict control and containment measures" don't 100% guarantee avoidance of an accident. As well, it's possible when the Americans weren't around, adherence may have slacked off a bit. Existence of strong controls wouldn't be sufficient evidence to designate the claim as False even had it come from an independent evaluator. But it's much worse that Facebook is employing biased "fact-checkers" to decide what's true or false.
    - 6y ago
salmo 6y ago
Ok, “evidence” aside. Let’s talk about biological weapons. The ideal scenario for a weapon would be very different from an ideal evolutionarily for a virus. Something like Ebola is a great weapon. It is incredibly fatal, and targeted. It takes out the targeted population and burns itself out quickly. It’s contained and destructive. However something like a Coronavirus spreads too easily. It’s hard to keep from striking back at home. It’s also not deadly enough to be useful militarily. It targets the old and sick (as we’ve observed). I’m tired of this conspiracy theory. It assumes people who are smart enough to engineer viruses aren’t smart enough to understand weapons. It’s just another Frankenstein tale. The dumb can be appalled by the intellectuals and sleep at night knowing they are righteous.
- jnbiche 6y ago
  I'm assuming you didn't bother reading my comment. No one here is discussing biological weapons except for you. I'm talking about a lab accident in a normal lab involving bat pee or bat blood. There were two accidental releases in a Beijing lab involving SARS-Cov-1 in 2004 (admitted by Chinese authorities), resulting in accidental human infections and death. And it's unclear if that was at case here. It may well turn out not to have involved an lab. But it's also very much up in the air right now. Next time, try reading before going off on a self-righteous rant.
  - JetSpiegel 6y ago
    > resulting in accidental human infections and death. 4 deaths. It was not an outbreak. https://www.who.int/csr/don/2004_04_23/en/ https://www.who.int/csr/don/2004_04_23/en/
roenxi 6y ago
Interestingly, if the Chinese reported numbers turn out to be even a little accurate, then I'm changing my mind from natural to lab accident. I'd love to see some reasonable estimates on how bad the outbreak in China really was. How exactly does a country with no warning of what is about to happen get away with case numbers that aren't in the 10s of millions? Such a reponse isn't impossible - maybe they were on high alert after SARS - but given what is happening in Europe and the States there are a lot of questions about what exactly happened/is happening in China and what the timeline was. It is difficult to organise against an unexpected exponential process in the time they claim they did.
- kaesar14 6y ago
  Especially as the outbreak was happening during the New Year.
- yomly 6y ago
  Well my anecdotal observation was that the population themselves knew the drill. The second they heard "SARS" they didn't need government permission to social distance or wear masks. My in-laws stayed put and didn't see relatives over CNY. That is madness, imagine trying to cancel Christmas in Europe. There were rule breakers and people who found lockdown difficult and in those instances the CCP tool kit was more adapted to crushing those types of responses: Roads leaving Wuhan were literally dug up, the govt had a surveillance network already operational, and non Wuhan people were encouraged/happy to snitch on people who left Wuhan during the lockdown and its run up and get them sent back. Meanwhile outside of Wuhan, everyone also knew the drill. Before there were even double digit case numbers (detected) in other places, everyone knew to stay in. In policy setting, I'm told a single man is effectively calling the shots wrt the epidemiological response: Zhong Nanshan who is accepted in Asia as being the granddaddy of SARS This is markedly different from my observations of how it progressed in the "Western" world. It has been surreal to see Italy, France, Spain, UK, US and now possibly NZ + AUS follow similar progressions one by one after each other. In the UK, most people have been waiting for authority to tell them what to do, but the government themselves are indecisive and keep trying to place their faith in "evidence based" science - common sense be damned. Having watched this all play out being right but late is almost useless and this debate over mask usage is ridiculous. Meanwhile the NHS is covered in so much red tape that PPE and testing can't reach the frontline staff even when companies are trying to put them in their hands.
wodenokoto 6y ago
Also related to bet #9, it doesn’t really come to term by the end of 2020, but rather 6 months into 2021, as an event on December 31st of 2020, has 6 month to accumulate casualties within the terms of the bet.
dlgeek 6y ago
See https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 which concludes that it was a naturally evolved virus based on DNA sequencing.
- jnbiche 6y ago
  Yes, and that would be entirely consistent with the scenario discussed in my comment. Did you read it? You seem to be responding to some other comment about an engineered virus, which no one here is even discussing. I get the feeling people just skim a few words, and then respond based on their...feelings? intuition? politics?
- holopol 6y ago
  While the analyses above suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may bind human ACE2 with high affinity, computational analyses predict that the interaction is not ideal7 and that the RBD sequence is different from those shown in SARS-CoV to be optimal for receptor binding. Thus, the high-affinity binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human ACE2 is most likely the result of natural selection on a human or human-like ACE2 that permits another optimal binding solution to arise. This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 concludes that since maybe (because computational analysis) it isn't as efficient for the receptor binding it wasn't purposefully manipulated. Maybe making the most efficient virus was not the goal, maybe there were many trials and many attempts to get a virus with certain qualities and this one was a failure that got mishandled. --- Anyway, collecting viruses is had work, as shown in this video from December 10, 2019 by the Shanghai Media Group (SMG, one of China's largest state-owned media): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovnUyTRMERI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovnUyTRMERI The road is bumpy but we must learn to stick to our initial choice when we feel confused and lost. In the past 10 years we have visited every corner of Hubei Province. We explored dozens of undeveloped caves and studied more than 300 types of virus vectors. But I do hope these virus samples will only be preserved for scientific research and will never be used in real life. Because humans need not only the vaccines but also the protection from their nature.
spats1990 6y ago
the main thing about the accidental release theory to me is it neglects the intermediary animal aspect most scientists seem to agree on. An accidental transmission from bats to humans in the lab: yes I could believe that. An accidental lab transmission from bats to pangolins to humans (currently thought likely) is much harder to believe. It doesn't follow the rule of simple explanations. The lab-transmission theory is also dangerous because it's currently baseless in terms of hard evidence, yet is immensely satisfying for millions of people who are scared, bored, sick, pissed off, etc due to the virus. Like more traditional conspiracy theories, the lab transmission theory uses circumstantial evidence to provide a simple explanation in the face of chaos, the unknown, the void, the reality that the virus can really mess with us all this badly. "It's from a chinese lab accident" is not the pseudo explanation we all need right now, with so many different types of tension nearing breaking point. Yes, it could be true, but I hope you'll join me in really hoping it isn't and in pushing back on it til we see proper hard evidence. Because I unironically think that if it turns out to be true it could cause a war.
- jnbiche 6y ago
  > An accidental lab transmission from bats to pangolins to humans (currently thought likely) is much harder to believe. The pangolin hypothesis has been proposed by one research group, as far as I can tell. A whole-genome comparison found that the pangolin and human coronaviruses share 90.3% of their DNA. Civets, the source of SARS virus (SARS-Cov-1) shared 99%+ of its DNA with human SARS. So far, the closest match to the human coronavirus has been found in a bat in China’s Yunnan province, which is where the research bats at both the Institute of Virology and Wuhan Centers of Disease Control were from. > The lab-transmission theory is also dangerous because it's currently baseless in terms of hard evidence Hard evidence will be extremely hard to come by in a situation like this. But based on circumstantial evidence, it's a leading theory. There's a reason why multiple Western intelligence agencies are reported to be considering it (including many that dislike Trump). > It doesn't follow the rule of simple explanations. Not true. In fact, it's one of the most straight forward explanation so far. A Beijing lab studying SARS in animal models experience 2 fatal accidental spillover events in 2004, infecting multiple humans with SARS. If it was caused by a wet market, why have Chinese authorities started allowing them to operate again? That seems really risky, no? > Yes, it could be true, but I hope you'll join me in really hoping it isn't I agree. I hope it isn't, but it's imperative to nail down what caused this. Civilization may well depend upon it. Covid-19 has been an amazingly benign illness compared to what it might have been. We have to figure out if it was a wet market. If it was, it's incredibly foolish to allow them to continue to operate. If it was an accidental lab release, the world community needs to pressure the Chinese authorities to better regulate their labs. > "It's from a chinese lab accident" is not the pseudo explanation we all need right now, It's far, far less of a "pseudo-explanation" than the bat soup, which was taken as gospel for a while. > Because I unironically think that if it turns out to be true it could cause a war. It's possible, but I'm very skeptical we'd go to war for a variety of reasons. First, this is an accident we're discussing about, of ordinary scientific research. Not a bioweapons program, or an intentional release. That's very significant, obviously. Second, but Trump wants to avoid getting into war at almost any cost. His isolationism is part of his appeal to his base, and the one thing that I believe would cause them to desert him once the body bags started piling up and the initial patriotic fervor wore off. He knows this. I'm personally more concerned about another deadly pandemic coming out of China than I am about a major war. Emerging diseases like SARS, H7N9, and now Covid-19 have all come from China in the past 20 years. We really need to get a handle on this, ASAP.
deleted 6y ago
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nickysielicki 6y ago
I mean the most likely explanation is that it came from the market, no? * Most of the first cases had a direct tie to the market * it happened before with SARS-1 * Why would they cover it up by blaming it on the markets? They had already come under scrutiny for reopening them after what happened with SARS-1. A lab accident is maybe the Chinese government doing a bad job, a dirty market that should never have reopened in the first place is definitely the Chinese government being inept. I just don’t see it.
- jnbiche 6y ago
  > * Most of the first cases had a direct tie to the market False. Few of the initial cases had any tie to the market. Multiple outlets have reported this from the beginning, even before the lab theory started circulating here in the US: "However, a study, by Chinese researchers published in the Lancet medical journal, claimed the first person to be diagnosed with Covid-19, was on 1 December 2019 (a lot of earlier) and that person had "no contact" with the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. [...] She also said that three other people developed symptoms in the following days – two of whom had no exposure to Huanan either." [https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200221-coronavirus-the-harmful-hunt-for-covid-19s-patient-zero https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200221-coronavirus-the-...] > * it happened before with SARS-1 You know what else happened before with SARS-1? https://www.who.int/csr/don/2004_04_23/en/ https://www.who.int/csr/don/2004_04_23/en/ https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/02/content_344755.htm https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/02/content... and then, recently: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-dep... > * Why would they cover it up by blaming it on the markets? Who knows? They certainly have a record of covering up such stuff. It may have been released by a lab (the Wuhan CDC, who was conducting live bat research on bat coronaviruses with 96% match SARS-Cov-2) that is under control of the provincial authorities, the same ones who we know tried to cover up the initial outbreak. Possibly, Xi Jingping and/or national leadership felt it would just be too much to reveal to the world that not only was there a cover-up, but it was a cover-up of a lab accident under the direct control of the provincial government. After they had been warned by multiple countries about safety issues involving coronavirus research in the nearby BL4 lab. I agree it's possible that the spillover somehow was linked to the market. That said, the spillover likely involved a person who was in close contact with lots of live bats. At this point, it seems most likely this would have occurred at one of the labs studying bat coronaviruses. But it's far from proven.
kelnos 6y ago
> Not sure why they're so quick to write off Long Bet #9. Note that this was written on Feb 24, before the West realized how bad this could be.
nacc 6y ago
I guess different people have different definition for "significant circumstantial evidence". We have two hypotheses: 1. virus come from seafood market, 2. virus come from lab. Let's see the likelihood for each with each piece of data. Data 1: Index case. There is no evidence that the "index case" is ever found. The earliest patient backtracked to Nov 2019 [1], but there is no report that patient is related to the lab / market. Data 2: close lab location to seafood market. This alone does not favor one hypothesis to other, since distance is communicative. The virus can start from either location to the other. Data 3: Bat species. Not sure what aspect of the bat species is related, but one thing to note is the virus sample found in bat is only 96% similar to the virus sample. At 30k genome and an mutation rate of 1bp per two weeks, these samples have at least 20 years worth of evolution time. Unlikely to relate to either lab / seafood market. Some researchers believe there might be intermediate hosts, but there doesn't seem to be evidence what that intermediate host might be. Data 4. Earlier lab accident. I think the lab accident data is actually not favoring the lab hypothesis. If you think in a Bayesian way, earlier lab leaks are quickly identified and controlled. Given that this time it is not, your belief for lab leak should decrease a bit. Anyway, for the lab data what's important is the likelihood of (the lab, without genetic engineering, get a hold of this virus, and leaked) vs. (an intermediate host). Having worked in Biohazard level 2/3 labs, I think a leak from level 4 lab will be more unlikely compared to intermediate host, but we don't have any good estimate of the two likelihood yet. So I think people can have strong beliefs about where the virus come from (since everyone's prior is different), but from the data the likelihood really doesn't strongly favor any of the two hypotheses. [1] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coro...
- jnbiche 6y ago
  > but from the data the likelihood really doesn't strongly favor any of the two hypotheses. I mostly agree with this. I personally think the totality of the evidence favors the lab hypothesis, for a variety of reasons (note the the other lab conducting and publishing about live bat research in Wuhan - the Wuhan Centers for Disease Control - was BL2, I agree it's unlikely to be the BL4 Institute of Virology). But I also agree there's also a decent probability it was the market. I'd say 3:1, if I had to put a number to it. However, folks on the other side seem to want to categorically rule out an accidental lab release, seemingly for some social or political reason. That seems very wrong-headed. Edit: btw, regarding your point 4, a Bayesian approach would seem to provide more support for the accidental lab release, given the posterior. That's actually the approach I'm using here, I even meant to mention it in one of my comments. That said, I hadn't thought of your interpretation. I'll think about that, but I think that what may be different here is that one of the labs in question here isn't under national control, unlike the previous ones that have had accidental releases. And we all know the problems provincial governments have had with corruption and coverup. But I'll think about what you said.

Trasmatta 6y ago

Do you think we'll ever conclusively know either way? If that is the truth, China will obviously continue to do everything it can to cover it up. And circumstantial evidence doesn't seem like enough. I'm not taking a stance either way, I really am curious on whether we'll be able to come to a pretty firm conclusion on it.

icelancer 6y ago
If we can compare the virus from the lab from what actually broke out in the wild, I think we could come to some high probability conclusions, yeah.
- Trasmatta 6y ago
  But wouldn't China actively work to prevent that from happening?
  - icelancer 6y ago
    Possibly, but it could be leaked in a way to alternative sources to vet and verify. All I'm saying is that I agree, Long Bet #9 should definitely not be dismissed. It's way too early.
- buckminster 6y ago
  This has been done. Spoiler: the virus is not from the lab. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-woman-hunted-down-viruses-from-sars-to-the-new-coronavirus1/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-wo...
  - SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
    The problem is that all these articles rely on assumption that China is trustworthy, while it absolutely is not. I do not understand, why so many people immediately deny the whole possibility that the virus came out of the lab, as if was some heretic idea. I mean, a scientist has to be open-minded; taking into account the systemic unreliability of Chinese information, rigidity of their political system, recent orders to not publish information about the origins of the virus there is no way someone should rule out the possibility of accidental release. I saw in some other posts a point that if it was true a war is unavoidable, and therefore it is a "bad, dangerous" hypothesis and in needs to be suppressed. Well science does not work this way.
    - Izkata 6y ago
      > I do not understand, why so many people immediately deny the whole possibility that the virus came out of the lab, as if was some heretic idea. Take some solace in that sentiment is shifting to "it's possible". A month ago when I asked about it here, my comment was not only heavily downvoted, but there was no support in the replies and my comment was flagged. Now at least there seem to be enough people questioning it that the possibility is at least being taken seriously.
jnbiche 6y ago
I'm not sure. If this was a lab accident(big if), it's possible that a whistleblower could succeed in defecting. I'm guessing Western intelligence agencies also are hard at work at this issue, using assets and technologies we probably aren't aware of. Regardless, it shouldn't be our primary focus at this time. But sooner rather than later, we need to determine exactly how this happened so we can avoid it in the future. If it was a wet market, then by God China needs to shut them down permanently (wet markets are opening back up now, which is another reason I suspect it was a lab). If it was an accidental lab release, we must demand much higher safety standards, and make sure that's enforced. This pandemic could have been so much worse. Next time, it could destroy modern civilization.
- monkmartinez 6y ago
  It's not over by a long shot. Hard to say if "modern civilization" will ever be the same...
  - Trasmatta 6y ago
    In what ways do you predict it changing?

listenallyall 6y ago

>> if the hypothesis turns out to be true that it was an accidental release But, but, but... Facebook has already "fact-checked" this and determined it to be False. By an American who worked at that Wuhan lab. "Strict control and containment measures." Lol. https://newsradiowrva.radio.com/blogs/jeff-katz/facebook-coronavirus-fact-checker-worked-with-wuhan-lab https://newsradiowrva.radio.com/blogs/jeff-katz/facebook-cor...

animalCrax0rz 6y ago
A recent study says that 6 new types of coronavirus were recently found in bats https://www.zmescience.com/science/six-new-types-of-coronavirus-found-in-bats-in-myanmar/ https://www.zmescience.com/science/six-new-types-of-coronavi...
jnbiche 6y ago
I actually believe him that there were strict control and containment measures were in place in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which runs the BL4 laboratory. No one is going to fool around carelessly with BL4 pathogens. That said, an accident still could have happened (they've happened in US BL4 labs, despite very strict controls). More to the point, evidence points more towards a release from the Wuhan Center of Disease Control laboratory, which was also doing live bat research on infectious organisms, but under much less strict controls, not the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Significantly, the Wuhan CDC building is only blocks away from the seafood market.
- listenallyall 6y ago
  >> an accident still could have happened That's the whole point. "Strict control and containment measures" don't 100% guarantee avoidance of an accident. As well, it's possible when the Americans weren't around, adherence may have slacked off a bit. Existence of strong controls wouldn't be sufficient evidence to designate the claim as False even had it come from an independent evaluator. But it's much worse that Facebook is employing biased "fact-checkers" to decide what's true or false.
  - 6y ago

salmo 6y ago

Ok, “evidence” aside. Let’s talk about biological weapons. The ideal scenario for a weapon would be very different from an ideal evolutionarily for a virus. Something like Ebola is a great weapon. It is incredibly fatal, and targeted. It takes out the targeted population and burns itself out quickly. It’s contained and destructive. However something like a Coronavirus spreads too easily. It’s hard to keep from striking back at home. It’s also not deadly enough to be useful militarily. It targets the old and sick (as we’ve observed). I’m tired of this conspiracy theory. It assumes people who are smart enough to engineer viruses aren’t smart enough to understand weapons. It’s just another Frankenstein tale. The dumb can be appalled by the intellectuals and sleep at night knowing they are righteous.

jnbiche 6y ago
I'm assuming you didn't bother reading my comment. No one here is discussing biological weapons except for you. I'm talking about a lab accident in a normal lab involving bat pee or bat blood. There were two accidental releases in a Beijing lab involving SARS-Cov-1 in 2004 (admitted by Chinese authorities), resulting in accidental human infections and death. And it's unclear if that was at case here. It may well turn out not to have involved an lab. But it's also very much up in the air right now. Next time, try reading before going off on a self-righteous rant.
- JetSpiegel 6y ago
  > resulting in accidental human infections and death. 4 deaths. It was not an outbreak. https://www.who.int/csr/don/2004_04_23/en/ https://www.who.int/csr/don/2004_04_23/en/

roenxi 6y ago

Interestingly, if the Chinese reported numbers turn out to be even a little accurate, then I'm changing my mind from natural to lab accident. I'd love to see some reasonable estimates on how bad the outbreak in China really was. How exactly does a country with no warning of what is about to happen get away with case numbers that aren't in the 10s of millions? Such a reponse isn't impossible - maybe they were on high alert after SARS - but given what is happening in Europe and the States there are a lot of questions about what exactly happened/is happening in China and what the timeline was. It is difficult to organise against an unexpected exponential process in the time they claim they did.

kaesar14 6y ago
Especially as the outbreak was happening during the New Year.
yomly 6y ago
Well my anecdotal observation was that the population themselves knew the drill. The second they heard "SARS" they didn't need government permission to social distance or wear masks. My in-laws stayed put and didn't see relatives over CNY. That is madness, imagine trying to cancel Christmas in Europe. There were rule breakers and people who found lockdown difficult and in those instances the CCP tool kit was more adapted to crushing those types of responses: Roads leaving Wuhan were literally dug up, the govt had a surveillance network already operational, and non Wuhan people were encouraged/happy to snitch on people who left Wuhan during the lockdown and its run up and get them sent back. Meanwhile outside of Wuhan, everyone also knew the drill. Before there were even double digit case numbers (detected) in other places, everyone knew to stay in. In policy setting, I'm told a single man is effectively calling the shots wrt the epidemiological response: Zhong Nanshan who is accepted in Asia as being the granddaddy of SARS This is markedly different from my observations of how it progressed in the "Western" world. It has been surreal to see Italy, France, Spain, UK, US and now possibly NZ + AUS follow similar progressions one by one after each other. In the UK, most people have been waiting for authority to tell them what to do, but the government themselves are indecisive and keep trying to place their faith in "evidence based" science - common sense be damned. Having watched this all play out being right but late is almost useless and this debate over mask usage is ridiculous. Meanwhile the NHS is covered in so much red tape that PPE and testing can't reach the frontline staff even when companies are trying to put them in their hands.

wodenokoto 6y ago

Also related to bet #9, it doesn’t really come to term by the end of 2020, but rather 6 months into 2021, as an event on December 31st of 2020, has 6 month to accumulate casualties within the terms of the bet.

dlgeek 6y ago

See https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 which concludes that it was a naturally evolved virus based on DNA sequencing.

jnbiche 6y ago
Yes, and that would be entirely consistent with the scenario discussed in my comment. Did you read it? You seem to be responding to some other comment about an engineered virus, which no one here is even discussing. I get the feeling people just skim a few words, and then respond based on their...feelings? intuition? politics?
holopol 6y ago
While the analyses above suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may bind human ACE2 with high affinity, computational analyses predict that the interaction is not ideal7 and that the RBD sequence is different from those shown in SARS-CoV to be optimal for receptor binding. Thus, the high-affinity binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human ACE2 is most likely the result of natural selection on a human or human-like ACE2 that permits another optimal binding solution to arise. This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 concludes that since maybe (because computational analysis) it isn't as efficient for the receptor binding it wasn't purposefully manipulated. Maybe making the most efficient virus was not the goal, maybe there were many trials and many attempts to get a virus with certain qualities and this one was a failure that got mishandled. --- Anyway, collecting viruses is had work, as shown in this video from December 10, 2019 by the Shanghai Media Group (SMG, one of China's largest state-owned media): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovnUyTRMERI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovnUyTRMERI The road is bumpy but we must learn to stick to our initial choice when we feel confused and lost. In the past 10 years we have visited every corner of Hubei Province. We explored dozens of undeveloped caves and studied more than 300 types of virus vectors. But I do hope these virus samples will only be preserved for scientific research and will never be used in real life. Because humans need not only the vaccines but also the protection from their nature.

spats1990 6y ago

the main thing about the accidental release theory to me is it neglects the intermediary animal aspect most scientists seem to agree on. An accidental transmission from bats to humans in the lab: yes I could believe that. An accidental lab transmission from bats to pangolins to humans (currently thought likely) is much harder to believe. It doesn't follow the rule of simple explanations. The lab-transmission theory is also dangerous because it's currently baseless in terms of hard evidence, yet is immensely satisfying for millions of people who are scared, bored, sick, pissed off, etc due to the virus. Like more traditional conspiracy theories, the lab transmission theory uses circumstantial evidence to provide a simple explanation in the face of chaos, the unknown, the void, the reality that the virus can really mess with us all this badly. "It's from a chinese lab accident" is not the pseudo explanation we all need right now, with so many different types of tension nearing breaking point. Yes, it could be true, but I hope you'll join me in really hoping it isn't and in pushing back on it til we see proper hard evidence. Because I unironically think that if it turns out to be true it could cause a war.

jnbiche 6y ago
> An accidental lab transmission from bats to pangolins to humans (currently thought likely) is much harder to believe. The pangolin hypothesis has been proposed by one research group, as far as I can tell. A whole-genome comparison found that the pangolin and human coronaviruses share 90.3% of their DNA. Civets, the source of SARS virus (SARS-Cov-1) shared 99%+ of its DNA with human SARS. So far, the closest match to the human coronavirus has been found in a bat in China’s Yunnan province, which is where the research bats at both the Institute of Virology and Wuhan Centers of Disease Control were from. > The lab-transmission theory is also dangerous because it's currently baseless in terms of hard evidence Hard evidence will be extremely hard to come by in a situation like this. But based on circumstantial evidence, it's a leading theory. There's a reason why multiple Western intelligence agencies are reported to be considering it (including many that dislike Trump). > It doesn't follow the rule of simple explanations. Not true. In fact, it's one of the most straight forward explanation so far. A Beijing lab studying SARS in animal models experience 2 fatal accidental spillover events in 2004, infecting multiple humans with SARS. If it was caused by a wet market, why have Chinese authorities started allowing them to operate again? That seems really risky, no? > Yes, it could be true, but I hope you'll join me in really hoping it isn't I agree. I hope it isn't, but it's imperative to nail down what caused this. Civilization may well depend upon it. Covid-19 has been an amazingly benign illness compared to what it might have been. We have to figure out if it was a wet market. If it was, it's incredibly foolish to allow them to continue to operate. If it was an accidental lab release, the world community needs to pressure the Chinese authorities to better regulate their labs. > "It's from a chinese lab accident" is not the pseudo explanation we all need right now, It's far, far less of a "pseudo-explanation" than the bat soup, which was taken as gospel for a while. > Because I unironically think that if it turns out to be true it could cause a war. It's possible, but I'm very skeptical we'd go to war for a variety of reasons. First, this is an accident we're discussing about, of ordinary scientific research. Not a bioweapons program, or an intentional release. That's very significant, obviously. Second, but Trump wants to avoid getting into war at almost any cost. His isolationism is part of his appeal to his base, and the one thing that I believe would cause them to desert him once the body bags started piling up and the initial patriotic fervor wore off. He knows this. I'm personally more concerned about another deadly pandemic coming out of China than I am about a major war. Emerging diseases like SARS, H7N9, and now Covid-19 have all come from China in the past 20 years. We really need to get a handle on this, ASAP.

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nickysielicki 6y ago

I mean the most likely explanation is that it came from the market, no? * Most of the first cases had a direct tie to the market * it happened before with SARS-1 * Why would they cover it up by blaming it on the markets? They had already come under scrutiny for reopening them after what happened with SARS-1. A lab accident is maybe the Chinese government doing a bad job, a dirty market that should never have reopened in the first place is definitely the Chinese government being inept. I just don’t see it.

jnbiche 6y ago
> * Most of the first cases had a direct tie to the market False. Few of the initial cases had any tie to the market. Multiple outlets have reported this from the beginning, even before the lab theory started circulating here in the US: "However, a study, by Chinese researchers published in the Lancet medical journal, claimed the first person to be diagnosed with Covid-19, was on 1 December 2019 (a lot of earlier) and that person had "no contact" with the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. [...] She also said that three other people developed symptoms in the following days – two of whom had no exposure to Huanan either." [https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200221-coronavirus-the-harmful-hunt-for-covid-19s-patient-zero https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200221-coronavirus-the-...] > * it happened before with SARS-1 You know what else happened before with SARS-1? https://www.who.int/csr/don/2004_04_23/en/ https://www.who.int/csr/don/2004_04_23/en/ https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/02/content_344755.htm https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-07/02/content... and then, recently: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-dep... > * Why would they cover it up by blaming it on the markets? Who knows? They certainly have a record of covering up such stuff. It may have been released by a lab (the Wuhan CDC, who was conducting live bat research on bat coronaviruses with 96% match SARS-Cov-2) that is under control of the provincial authorities, the same ones who we know tried to cover up the initial outbreak. Possibly, Xi Jingping and/or national leadership felt it would just be too much to reveal to the world that not only was there a cover-up, but it was a cover-up of a lab accident under the direct control of the provincial government. After they had been warned by multiple countries about safety issues involving coronavirus research in the nearby BL4 lab. I agree it's possible that the spillover somehow was linked to the market. That said, the spillover likely involved a person who was in close contact with lots of live bats. At this point, it seems most likely this would have occurred at one of the labs studying bat coronaviruses. But it's far from proven.

kelnos 6y ago

> Not sure why they're so quick to write off Long Bet #9. Note that this was written on Feb 24, before the West realized how bad this could be.

nacc 6y ago

I guess different people have different definition for "significant circumstantial evidence". We have two hypotheses: 1. virus come from seafood market, 2. virus come from lab. Let's see the likelihood for each with each piece of data. Data 1: Index case. There is no evidence that the "index case" is ever found. The earliest patient backtracked to Nov 2019 [1], but there is no report that patient is related to the lab / market. Data 2: close lab location to seafood market. This alone does not favor one hypothesis to other, since distance is communicative. The virus can start from either location to the other. Data 3: Bat species. Not sure what aspect of the bat species is related, but one thing to note is the virus sample found in bat is only 96% similar to the virus sample. At 30k genome and an mutation rate of 1bp per two weeks, these samples have at least 20 years worth of evolution time. Unlikely to relate to either lab / seafood market. Some researchers believe there might be intermediate hosts, but there doesn't seem to be evidence what that intermediate host might be. Data 4. Earlier lab accident. I think the lab accident data is actually not favoring the lab hypothesis. If you think in a Bayesian way, earlier lab leaks are quickly identified and controlled. Given that this time it is not, your belief for lab leak should decrease a bit. Anyway, for the lab data what's important is the likelihood of (the lab, without genetic engineering, get a hold of this virus, and leaked) vs. (an intermediate host). Having worked in Biohazard level 2/3 labs, I think a leak from level 4 lab will be more unlikely compared to intermediate host, but we don't have any good estimate of the two likelihood yet. So I think people can have strong beliefs about where the virus come from (since everyone's prior is different), but from the data the likelihood really doesn't strongly favor any of the two hypotheses. [1] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coro...

jnbiche 6y ago
> but from the data the likelihood really doesn't strongly favor any of the two hypotheses. I mostly agree with this. I personally think the totality of the evidence favors the lab hypothesis, for a variety of reasons (note the the other lab conducting and publishing about live bat research in Wuhan - the Wuhan Centers for Disease Control - was BL2, I agree it's unlikely to be the BL4 Institute of Virology). But I also agree there's also a decent probability it was the market. I'd say 3:1, if I had to put a number to it. However, folks on the other side seem to want to categorically rule out an accidental lab release, seemingly for some social or political reason. That seems very wrong-headed. Edit: btw, regarding your point 4, a Bayesian approach would seem to provide more support for the accidental lab release, given the posterior. That's actually the approach I'm using here, I even meant to mention it in one of my comments. That said, I hadn't thought of your interpretation. I'll think about that, but I think that what may be different here is that one of the labs in question here isn't under national control, unlike the previous ones that have had accidental releases. And we all know the problems provincial governments have had with corruption and coverup. But I'll think about what you said.