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There are two labs in Wuhan which performed experiments with bats and bat coronaviruses under unsafe conditions, where animal-to-human transmission could have o

There are two labs in Wuhan which performed experiments with bats and bat coronaviruses under unsafe conditions, where animal-to-human transmission could have occured - one being the Wuhan CDC and the other being the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Those are the kind of bats that most likely evolved COVID-19, which are native to southern China, not Wuhan. That's factual, not a conspiracy theory. The CCP has ordered the destruction of evidence at those places and imposed gag orders on the scientists involved. Again, just facts, not a conspiracy theory. The CCP has furthermore suppressed the spread of information on the initial outbreak and has been uncooperative regarding investigation on the origin of the virus. A large amount of the initial cases had no connection to the Wuhan seafood market. Factual. Note that none of these facts support the conspiracy theory that the virus has been engineered or intentionally released.

birdyrooster 6y ago
> A large amount of the initial cases had no connection to the Wuhan seafood market. Factual. Source?
- gridlockd 6y ago
  https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/wuhan-seafood-market-may-not-be-source-novel-virus-spreading-globally https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/wuhan-seafood-market...
joshuamorton 6y ago
Correct, but note that they don't really support the idea that the virus was accidentally released from the lab either. > A large amount of the initial cases had no connection to the Wuhan seafood market. Factual. But misleading. The article you cite notes the much likelier cause: the long incubation period means that those who did come into contact with the market infected others. > The CCP has ordered the destruction of evidence at those places and imposed gag orders on the scientists involved. Correct, but the Wuhan CDC is also where most of the early analysis of covid was being done after it was discovered. The CCP also silenced doctors in hospitals, they generally tried to cover up covid in general. Keeping the scientists working on it silenced isn't any different than how they treated hospital workers.
- gridlockd 6y ago
  > Correct, but note that they don't really support the idea that the virus was accidentally released from the lab either. Let's suppose we had to decide between two scenarios, which one of these two sounds more probable? A virus endemic to bats from southern China was first transmitted to a researcher working at one of two specialist centers in central China, while performing research on bats and/or bat coronaviruses, under a questionable safety regime. A virus endemic to bats from southern China was first transmitted to a human in the wildlife market in central China where no bats are sold, presumably through an intermediate host such as a pangolin. Which of these two scenarios is preferable to the ruling party of China? Which is feeding the narrative that "human encroachment on nature is dangerous" (bad thing is dangerous), as opposed to "scientific research can be dangerous" (good thing is dangerous)? > The article you cite notes the much likelier cause: the long incubation period means that those who did come into contact with the market infected others. How is that more likely? The finding is that there is no epidemiological link to the seafood market in 13 out 41 patients, including the earliest known patient. Your interpretation is the opposite of what the paragraph regarding the incubation period says: "Lucey says if the new data are accurate, the first human infections must have occurred in November 2019—if not earlier—because there is an incubation time between infection and symptoms surfacing. If so, the virus possibly spread silently between people in Wuhan—and perhaps elsewhere—before the cluster of cases from the city’s now-infamous Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was discovered in late December. “The virus came into that marketplace before it came out of that marketplace,” Lucey asserts."
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    > A virus endemic to bats from southern China was first transmitted to a human in the wildlife market in central China where no bats are sold, presumably through an intermediate host such as a pangolin. How likely is it that a virus endemic to bats in southwestern china was first transmitted to humans in a wildlife market in southeastern china where bats are not sold? Well that's exactly what happened with SARS-1. The disease was passed to humans via civets. And in Wuhan the carrier seems to have been pangolins. Seems completely believable, given that it happened once already.
DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
> There are two labs in Wuhan which performed experiments with bats and bat coronaviruses under unsafe conditions First of all, they conducted experiments with deactivated samples of bat coronaviruses, not with live virus or with bats. Second of all, the Wuhan Institute of Virology is a world-class BSL-4 lab. They do not operate under "unsafe conditions." > native to southern China, not Wuhan A couple of things: 1. It is widely suspected that there was an intermediate host species between bats and humans, just as was the case in the last two major coronavirus outbreaks, SARS and MERS. 2. Nobody knows where, exactly, the virus first spilled over into the human population. Wuhan is just the first place where it was detected. A virus like this can spread for quite a while, particularly in the middle of flu season, before it is detected. There's nothing to say it didn't emerge in some rural village in Yunnan first. > A large amount of the initial cases had no connection to the Wuhan seafood market. Factual. With human-to-human transmission, this is entirely consistent with the first outbreak (or super-spreading event) occurring at the market. > The CCP has ordered the destruction of evidence at those places Did the CCP order that, or did the Chinese government order that? I've noticed a trend in which people who make extremely anti-China posts refer repeatedly to the "CCP." I strongly suspect that these people are just using that terminology for the shock value. Beyond that, the news report (from Caixin) that I believe is the origin of your claim about destruction of evidence says that after the virus was identified, low-security Chinese labs were ordered to either transfer their samples to high-security labs or to destroy them. I recall this being a safety measure, in other words, though you could ascribe other motives if you wanted to.

birdyrooster 6y ago

> A large amount of the initial cases had no connection to the Wuhan seafood market. Factual. Source?

gridlockd 6y ago
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/wuhan-seafood-market-may-not-be-source-novel-virus-spreading-globally https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/wuhan-seafood-market...

joshuamorton 6y ago

Correct, but note that they don't really support the idea that the virus was accidentally released from the lab either. > A large amount of the initial cases had no connection to the Wuhan seafood market. Factual. But misleading. The article you cite notes the much likelier cause: the long incubation period means that those who did come into contact with the market infected others. > The CCP has ordered the destruction of evidence at those places and imposed gag orders on the scientists involved. Correct, but the Wuhan CDC is also where most of the early analysis of covid was being done after it was discovered. The CCP also silenced doctors in hospitals, they generally tried to cover up covid in general. Keeping the scientists working on it silenced isn't any different than how they treated hospital workers.

gridlockd 6y ago
> Correct, but note that they don't really support the idea that the virus was accidentally released from the lab either. Let's suppose we had to decide between two scenarios, which one of these two sounds more probable? A virus endemic to bats from southern China was first transmitted to a researcher working at one of two specialist centers in central China, while performing research on bats and/or bat coronaviruses, under a questionable safety regime. A virus endemic to bats from southern China was first transmitted to a human in the wildlife market in central China where no bats are sold, presumably through an intermediate host such as a pangolin. Which of these two scenarios is preferable to the ruling party of China? Which is feeding the narrative that "human encroachment on nature is dangerous" (bad thing is dangerous), as opposed to "scientific research can be dangerous" (good thing is dangerous)? > The article you cite notes the much likelier cause: the long incubation period means that those who did come into contact with the market infected others. How is that more likely? The finding is that there is no epidemiological link to the seafood market in 13 out 41 patients, including the earliest known patient. Your interpretation is the opposite of what the paragraph regarding the incubation period says: "Lucey says if the new data are accurate, the first human infections must have occurred in November 2019—if not earlier—because there is an incubation time between infection and symptoms surfacing. If so, the virus possibly spread silently between people in Wuhan—and perhaps elsewhere—before the cluster of cases from the city’s now-infamous Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was discovered in late December. “The virus came into that marketplace before it came out of that marketplace,” Lucey asserts."
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  > A virus endemic to bats from southern China was first transmitted to a human in the wildlife market in central China where no bats are sold, presumably through an intermediate host such as a pangolin. How likely is it that a virus endemic to bats in southwestern china was first transmitted to humans in a wildlife market in southeastern china where bats are not sold? Well that's exactly what happened with SARS-1. The disease was passed to humans via civets. And in Wuhan the carrier seems to have been pangolins. Seems completely believable, given that it happened once already.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago

> There are two labs in Wuhan which performed experiments with bats and bat coronaviruses under unsafe conditions First of all, they conducted experiments with deactivated samples of bat coronaviruses, not with live virus or with bats. Second of all, the Wuhan Institute of Virology is a world-class BSL-4 lab. They do not operate under "unsafe conditions." > native to southern China, not Wuhan A couple of things: 1. It is widely suspected that there was an intermediate host species between bats and humans, just as was the case in the last two major coronavirus outbreaks, SARS and MERS. 2. Nobody knows where, exactly, the virus first spilled over into the human population. Wuhan is just the first place where it was detected. A virus like this can spread for quite a while, particularly in the middle of flu season, before it is detected. There's nothing to say it didn't emerge in some rural village in Yunnan first. > A large amount of the initial cases had no connection to the Wuhan seafood market. Factual. With human-to-human transmission, this is entirely consistent with the first outbreak (or super-spreading event) occurring at the market. > The CCP has ordered the destruction of evidence at those places Did the CCP order that, or did the Chinese government order that? I've noticed a trend in which people who make extremely anti-China posts refer repeatedly to the "CCP." I strongly suspect that these people are just using that terminology for the shock value. Beyond that, the news report (from Caixin) that I believe is the origin of your claim about destruction of evidence says that after the virus was identified, low-security Chinese labs were ordered to either transfer their samples to high-security labs or to destroy them. I recall this being a safety measure, in other words, though you could ascribe other motives if you wanted to.