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I abhor the low-information manipulating, cognitive-bias exploiting, self-serving, anti-scientific YouTube conspiracy charlatans as much as the next rational, r

I abhor the low-information manipulating, cognitive-bias exploiting, self-serving, anti-scientific YouTube conspiracy charlatans as much as the next rational, reasonable person. That said - if you believe that there's no chance the Wuhan Institute of Virology had anything to do with this, then you'll believe anything. It's the largest virus bank in Asia and we know it was doing Coronavirus research. This is not tin foil. The Chinese government is not remotely accountable to the truth as Western governments are and should not be trusted an inch. Plenty of educated people are very concerned.

martin_a 6y ago
There's a chance for everything. Nevertheless I find it much more likely that we really see a case of zoonosis here, given the fact that Chinese food culture has "little respect" for anything. Also: If this came from an institute for virology, that must be the WORST of its kind of all times. That is making mistakes on the Resident Evil level.
- sampo 6y ago
  > If this came from an institute for virology, that must be the WORST of its kind of all times. Not really. SARS escaped from laboratories (at least) 3 times. Once in Singapore, twice in Beijing. SARS doesn't have the long asymptomatic but still contagious period that SARS-CoV-2 has, so the lab escapes were much easier to contain before they spread widely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome#Laboratory_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  It's not even necessarily linked to "Chinese food culture" (which seems to be a somewhat racist trope more often than not). Bats interact with cattle, from drinking points to barns. It is believed that MERS jumped from bats to camels to humans, yet we hardly read any criticism of the Middle Eastern "food culture", do we?
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    When camels were implicated as a MERS reservoir, one indeed did see offensive comments on social media about traditional Middle Eastern culture or the warped stereotypes based thereupon. If we didn’t hear more of that talk, and it eventually died out, that is only because MERS never managed to spread beyond a limited part of the Middle East, unlike COVID.
    - mytailorisrich 6y ago
      The point stands that this is really thinly veiled (or not veiled at all) racism more than anything, be it against Chinese or Arabs. And apparently it's not even OK to point this out judging by the reactions to this comment and my previous one. But I also think that the targeting of China is something that is let to happen because it fits some agendas.
fogihujy 6y ago
There's definitely a non-zero chance of the Wuhan Institute of Virology being involved somehow, but unless there's actual evidence to support the claim, it's just speculation. That being said, there's plenty of reasons to keep looking; if nothing else, it would be very nice to have solid evidence of the origin of the virus, regardless if it was from a wild bat or not.
- reuben_scratton 6y ago
  There is no direct evidence of zoonotic origin either. An entire year on and we don't even know the intermediate species, let alone where crossover occurred. With the original SARS this was worked out in a couple of weeks. Also I've yet to see any slightly convincing explanation as to why SARS-Cov-2 emerged from the wild spectacularly well-adapted to human ACE2.
  - BurningFrog 6y ago
    Is this lack of information in itself unusual enough to imply the origin is being covered up?
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    It took 15 years to find the origin of the original SARS, but indeed it took a few months to pinpoint the intermediary species (civets). Now I don't know about SARS but many people infected with SARS-Cov-2 have no symptoms or mild symptoms, which means the virus might circulate for a while before it hits a major population centre and blows up, which would make finding the source more difficult. They have already found virii in bats in Yunnan that are 96% similar to SARS-Cov-2 so it seems probable that the origin will be similar to the origin of SARS. Certainly the consensus is that the virus is natural despite you and others implying that it might not, which is nothing but FUD at this point. SARS origin: "Around late 2017, Chinese scientists traced the virus through the intermediary of Asian palm civets to cave-dwelling horseshoe bats in Xiyang Yi Ethnic Township, Yunnan" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...
- throwawaysea 6y ago

martin_a 6y ago

There's a chance for everything. Nevertheless I find it much more likely that we really see a case of zoonosis here, given the fact that Chinese food culture has "little respect" for anything. Also: If this came from an institute for virology, that must be the WORST of its kind of all times. That is making mistakes on the Resident Evil level.

sampo 6y ago
> If this came from an institute for virology, that must be the WORST of its kind of all times. Not really. SARS escaped from laboratories (at least) 3 times. Once in Singapore, twice in Beijing. SARS doesn't have the long asymptomatic but still contagious period that SARS-CoV-2 has, so the lab escapes were much easier to contain before they spread widely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome#Laboratory_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...
mytailorisrich 6y ago
It's not even necessarily linked to "Chinese food culture" (which seems to be a somewhat racist trope more often than not). Bats interact with cattle, from drinking points to barns. It is believed that MERS jumped from bats to camels to humans, yet we hardly read any criticism of the Middle Eastern "food culture", do we?
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  When camels were implicated as a MERS reservoir, one indeed did see offensive comments on social media about traditional Middle Eastern culture or the warped stereotypes based thereupon. If we didn’t hear more of that talk, and it eventually died out, that is only because MERS never managed to spread beyond a limited part of the Middle East, unlike COVID.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    The point stands that this is really thinly veiled (or not veiled at all) racism more than anything, be it against Chinese or Arabs. And apparently it's not even OK to point this out judging by the reactions to this comment and my previous one. But I also think that the targeting of China is something that is let to happen because it fits some agendas.

fogihujy 6y ago

There's definitely a non-zero chance of the Wuhan Institute of Virology being involved somehow, but unless there's actual evidence to support the claim, it's just speculation. That being said, there's plenty of reasons to keep looking; if nothing else, it would be very nice to have solid evidence of the origin of the virus, regardless if it was from a wild bat or not.

reuben_scratton 6y ago
There is no direct evidence of zoonotic origin either. An entire year on and we don't even know the intermediate species, let alone where crossover occurred. With the original SARS this was worked out in a couple of weeks. Also I've yet to see any slightly convincing explanation as to why SARS-Cov-2 emerged from the wild spectacularly well-adapted to human ACE2.
- BurningFrog 6y ago
  Is this lack of information in itself unusual enough to imply the origin is being covered up?
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  It took 15 years to find the origin of the original SARS, but indeed it took a few months to pinpoint the intermediary species (civets). Now I don't know about SARS but many people infected with SARS-Cov-2 have no symptoms or mild symptoms, which means the virus might circulate for a while before it hits a major population centre and blows up, which would make finding the source more difficult. They have already found virii in bats in Yunnan that are 96% similar to SARS-Cov-2 so it seems probable that the origin will be similar to the origin of SARS. Certainly the consensus is that the virus is natural despite you and others implying that it might not, which is nothing but FUD at this point. SARS origin: "Around late 2017, Chinese scientists traced the virus through the intermediary of Asian palm civets to cave-dwelling horseshoe bats in Xiyang Yi Ethnic Township, Yunnan" [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...
throwawaysea 6y ago