12 ms·

This has honestly been my unbiased opinion since essentially day 1. I believe that the release was almost certainly a complete accident, but there's just no rea

by crx07 6y ago

This has honestly been my unbiased opinion since essentially day 1. I believe that the release was almost certainly a complete accident, but there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus. The denialists, including the WHO and CDC and everyone else, need to get real and own up to what happened and figure out how to stop it from happening again. This has nothing to do with the PRC or anyone or anywhere else, it could have happened at any biological facility in the world and will eventually happen again somewhere unless scientific honesty and cooler heads prevail.

Ancapistani 6y ago
> there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus. I think that it is at least somewhat likely that it was the result of the lab's activities, but your assertion here has a huge dose of selection bias. If the virology labs studying coronaviruses were placed randomly around the world, you'd be correct - but they're not. They're placed near locations where novel coronaviruses have crossed the species barrier in the past, and where they are likely to do so in the future. It would be equivalent to say that lighthouses cause ships to run aground, because many teams when ships run aground it's near a lighthouse.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  > They're placed near locations where novel coronaviruses have crossed the species barrier in the past, and where they are likely to do so in the future. Are they? I'm not aware of this trend, or of any other major species barrier crossings in Hubei. (If you're thinking of the original SARS, that started in Guangdong, two provinces to the south.)
- is-ought 6y ago
  Can you link to something that proves this is the criteria used for lab placement?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  were placed randomly around the world, you'd be correct - but they're not. They're placed near locations The world’s foremost institute for tropical medicine is in London, England. So that debunks that idea.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    I mean, that's a practical side effect of the fact that England owned much of the tropics for a few centuries. It's further evidence that these things get sited sensibly, not randomly.
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      Sensibly, yes, but not their location isn't based on geographic proximity but rather what is a sensible location for the group building and staffing the lab.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- garmaine 6y ago
  Wuhan is around thousand kilometers away from where this virus supposedly originated from. But the Wuhan lab did receive samples in 2019 from miners who died in 2012 from an infection of a novel coronavirus that resulted in symptoms very similar to COVID-19. https://nypost.com/2020/08/15/covid-19-first-appeared-in-chinese-miners-in-2012-scientists/ https://nypost.com/2020/08/15/covid-19-first-appeared-in-chi... That’s a complete coincidence though and you’re bigoted for thinking there could possibly be a connection! /s
- angio 6y ago
  Another selection bias is that we can't say if the virus originated there, but only that it was first detected there. Even if it originated in the countryside hundreds of miles away it makes sense it was detected only after it spread to a city with the labs to discover the virus.
  - ginko 6y ago
    The virus was first sequenced by a lab in Shanghai. The WIV wasn't involved in the discovery of the virus.
    - angio 6y ago
      What I mean is that a small countryside hospital won't be able to notice there is a new type of pneumonia, while bigger cities have teams to detect that. It's the same reason why we probably had the virus circulating in europe in january but we only noticed after we started looking for it.
- autokad 6y ago
  china has 100 cities with over a million people in them. Only one has a lab specializing in corona virus research.
- goatcode 6y ago
  > It would be equivalent to say that lighthouses cause ships to run aground, because many teams when ships run aground it's near a lighthouse. But if a lighthouse manufactured coral reefs, and the coral reefs on which ships were running aground displayed features of those that a given lighthouse manufactured, it might be more accurate.
  - 8note 6y ago
    Coral reefs do like to form on sunken ships, so that's still not far off
    - goatcode 6y ago
      We may need to look into this further!
- esja 6y ago
  Wuhan is nowhere near the caves where these bat viruses have been found. It's over 1800 kilometres to Southwest Yunnan, for example.
- gregwebs 6y ago
  China is a big country. Wuhan is 900km away from the bat caves that are believed to be the breeding ground for these viruses.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    ...but Wuhan is also 0km away from the wet markets that sell meat sourced x00km away near and around the bat caves.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - a9h74j 6y ago
      I have seen estimates of thousands of wet markets in China and perhaps 10000 in all of Asia. Why the one wet market closest to a lab doing GOF research, and previously questioned on its containment rigor.
      - koheripbal 6y ago
        Because it is the largest city near the bat habitat - with the largest wet market. Wuhan is like Chicago in China. It's not some random small town. If an outbreak occurred in some rural area (which it might have previously), it's possible that it just fizzled out. Wuhan is a great place for a virus to spread.
        tripletao 6y ago
        Take a look at this on a map. Mojiang (where RaTG13, the closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2, was reportedly sampled) is closer to Chongqing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, or HK than to Wuhan. Pu'er is roughly Chicago-sized, and it's 150 km away. Kunming is more people than two Chicagos, and it's 200 km away. It makes sense that this first emerged in a city, but Wuhan is far from the obvious geographic choice.
        6y ago
- tripletao 6y ago
  People keep saying this, but it's not true; SARS-like viruses haven't been found in nature near Wuhan. In the words of Dr. Shi herself: > We have done bat virus surveillance in Hubei Province for many years, but have not found that bats in Wuhan or even the wider Hubei Province carry any coronaviruses that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2. I don't think the spillover from bats to humans occurred in Wuhan or in Hubei Province. https://www.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/Shi%20Zhengli%20Q%26A.pdf https://www.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/Shi%20Zhengli...
  - SiempreViernes 6y ago
    You've said elsewhere that you think it's reasonable to to suppose they have unpublished samples that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2, indeed that's your central claim. So why do you trust this statement about their sampling results but not the one about not having anything closer than RaTG13 [18.5, p6]?
    - tripletao 6y ago
      Honestly, I don't fully. From a standpoint of a lab accident, evidence of natural zoonosis near Wuhan would be exculpatory and they'd have no reason to conceal it. But the CCP also seems to be pushing to exclude any origin whatsoever within China, like with their frozen food theory (which is thoroughly rejected by almost all scientists physically outside China, but which the WHO team nonetheless seems to be considering). So I think it's entirely possible e.g. that China has confidently determined the non-lab origin of SARS-CoV-2, but that it's from an agricultural practice so reckless that they've decided it's better for their reputation to leave everything shrouded in doubt. It's much more obvious to me that China is concealing something than what they're concealing. (Of course, that's usually how concealing stuff works.) That said, I still think zoonosis near Wuhan is unlikely. In a pre-pandemic publication with no incentive to lie, the WIV studied antibodies to SARS-like viruses in the blood of people living near bats in Yunnan province. They used blood from people living in Wuhan as a negative control: > As a control, we also collected 240 serum samples from random blood donors in 2015 in Wuhan, Hubei Province more than 1000 km away from Jinning (Fig. 1A) and where inhabitants have a much lower likelihood of contact with bats due to its urban setting. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6178078/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6178078/ So while it's possible that natural zoonosis did occur in Wuhan, I believe that would require the WIV staff to be genuinely mistaken.
ch4s3 6y ago
I don't really have a stake in this, and no real idea how plausible the lab accident theory is. That said, don't you think that the location of a lab like that would be highly correlated with the location of dangerous natural viral reservoir? Or put another way, if you wanted to study zoonotic viruses, wouldn't you put your lab in a place like that?
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  Not really. The lab is in a major city, and imported samples from all over China (and the rest of the world). The hypothesized bat in question, if it was really a wet-market outbreak, was imported from hundreds of miles away.
  - vergessenmir 6y ago
    It's also been reported that it wasn't the season for the bat species. Those in favour of the lab leak hypothesis point out that the virus showed up on the scene with all the evolutionary capability to spread amongst humans i.e with batteries included. With previous Sars viruses my understanding is that each zoonotic jump was traceable with examples of previous forms in prior animal hosts to corroborate the lineage. What makes Covid-19 interesting is that these zoonotic jumps or the gain of functions can be accelerated in the lab with the purpose of preparing us ahead of time for a dangerous forms of Sars style viruses. It looks like covid-19 may be that type of strain, not man made, but given the lab conditions for it to gain the capability. It may have escaped. It's worth exploring the lab leak hypothesis but I would say that it's not politically expedient for any of the scientists or parties involved. We will never really know the truth and that is something we need to grow comfortable with.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Pyramus 6y ago
      You are mixing two theories here: A) A lab leak B) Gain of function research. My understanding is that A) is very much possible because it has happened before (SARS), but we have no evidence yet (and might never acquire). For B) however, from my limited understanding, there is no strong evidence. We only know about a fraction of existing coronaviruses out there and given we observe one, that has caused a pandemic, the (conditional!) probability that it is well adapted is extremely high (survivorship bias). If you have a credible source that claims B) please share it.
totalZero 6y ago
Sometimes diplomacy means you smile when you don't want to smile. WHO has to play politics until we get this virus under control (ie, vaccines distributed worldwide). If WHO blames China now, in the thick of things, it would damage the world's ability to further study the origins of the virus and the results of Chinese research. Chinese vaccines are being used and studied in many countries worldwide and that is a good thing. Apart from the obvious benefits of those vaccines, better access to data gives us an inactivated vaccine counterfactual with which to evaluate the mRNA and protein subunit vaccines. CDC and other US government officials, on the other hand, must ratchet up their criticism of China as well as WHO. I agree with you there. It's alarming that there are so few PR ramifications for China. From the looks of it, either their unsanitary bushmeat consumption got the world sick, or their irresponsible laboratory containment procedures did. Both are a reflection of China's culture, and were only exacerbated by authoritarian crackdown upon the early warnings issued by Chinese medical professionals. The US government shouldn't defend bad practices and systemic problems in the name of multilateral cooperation. That variety of ethical blindness forgives bad faith from our counterparts and damages our hegemony.
- echelon 6y ago
  > CDC and other US government officials, on the other hand, must ratchet up their criticism of China as well as WHO. I agree with you there. It's alarming that there are so few PR ramifications for China. The US relies on Chinese manufacturing. If trade ends, the West will suffer. Consumer and industrial goods can't be built, which could incredibly damage the economy. Manufacturing is shifting to other countries - Vietnam, India, etc. It's been driven by rising costs in China, but we're seeing an acceleration to de-risk the supply chain. TSM is being asked to build fabs in the US. Slowly, the most strategic pieces are being maneuvered. China is building up its navy to protect itself. If they lose the South China Sea, they could be blockaded and starved of energy, resources, and food. They're building to reach parity with the US Navy or even outgun it, and they're trying to stall long enough that they can win should there be an encounter. The US and its allies are ramping up criticism of China, and you can see it in diplomatic activity, news, and social media. The rhetoric will grow until they're ready to shift from soft negotiations to taking a hard line. The game is being played right now.
goatinaboat 6y ago
there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus If it came from somewhere else, why wasn’t the outbreak noticed there first, is the million dollar question. It requires some serious mental gymnastics at this point to believe it didn’t originate in that lab. The only real question is if it was released deliberately.
- roywiggins 6y ago
  Because winter is flu season, and most of the time the symptoms are impossible to distinguish, even when you're looking? Sure, China has way more public health capacity than it used to, but we know that COVID can spread silently in a community for a month without anyone noticing, even when we are looking. It happened in California and Seattle in January 2020. Why wouldn't that have happened in, say, rural China in October?
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    There were apparently already people with COVID symptoms in Italy back in December 2019. That said, China was already aware of the virus in late 2019. It's all well known.
    - roywiggins 6y ago
      Well, that's what I mean. Nobody knew COVID was circulating in Italy at the time either. It's easy to miss a new respiratory virus. For it to originate one place and by chance end up exploding in a different metropolitan area doesn't seem unlikely at all.
      - Pyramus 6y ago
        In fact, simply from a modelling perspective, this is very likely scenario. If you take an unknown diseases with an R of 2-3, what you will see is a number of smaller clusters, some dying off, before you get the one cluster that becomes the pandemic.
Aunche 6y ago
> there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus Why not? Wuhan is the 43rd largest city in the world. Meanwhile, the earliest cases of CoVid were all connected to the same wet market. Doesn't that have a higher probability being the origin?
- x3n0ph3n3 6y ago
  Evidence points to it _not_ being from the wet markets in China: https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-did-not-start-at-wuhan-wet-market.html https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-did-not-start-at-wuhan-...
  - Aunche 6y ago
    Your source cites the WSJ, which itself cites the Wuhan Virology Institute, which is trying to imply that China may not be the origin of CoVid at all, so I don't believe it.
    - jdc 6y ago
      Try this one: Lab Leak: A Scientific Debate Mired in Politics — and Unresolved [March 22, 2021] https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/947620 https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/947620 https://www.outline.com/XCTFJJ https://www.outline.com/XCTFJJ (registration-wall bypass)
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    Perhaps it would have burned itself out if it hadn't spread to the market.
- lixtra 6y ago
  > the earliest cases of Covid were all connected to the same wet market. This claim has less weight if China does not share the raw data. [1] https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/who-experts-want-more-data-from-china-on-possible-early-covid-cases-2370084 https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/who-experts-want-more-data-f...
tossaway12321 6y ago
This is as well my strongly held belief, and the most likely cause. And people making the really odd responses below. They're, not saying it, but insinuating that the lab would be where there is lots of bat coronavirus? The lab is in the city of Wuhan. A city with a population of 11 million people. This isn't some rural town. There was a lab that studied this type of coronavirus, had published papers on it. And in a country the size of the USA had an outbreak within just a few miles from that lab. Then the govt came and refused to let anyone outside investigate. To me that leads pretty strongly that it was an accidental lab leak. And they weren't able to control the spread. My hopeful opinion is that this leads to more stringent worldwide rules for reporting leaks, and checking of safety practices to avoid this happening again
- echelon 6y ago
  > My hopeful opinion is that this leads to more stringent worldwide rules for reporting leaks, and checking of safety practices to avoid this happening again A leak that results in 2.7 million worldwide deaths will not result in "more stringent worldwide rules for reporting leaks". It would result in economic reparations and possibly war. Leak or not, it's in China's interest to prevent the blame from falling on them. The narrative here is an incredibly powerful geopolitical tool.
  - 8note 6y ago
    It's even more in China's interest to not have more such leaks, or to have other countries have similar leaks. Their manufacturing economy does not benefit from being locked down on a regular basis
asdff 6y ago
I'm not sure that this virus even behaves in this way where a BSL-4 worker could become infected. What we know now is that you need a concentration of virus particles over time in order to come down with the disease (in other words, you are most likely to catch it drinking in your friends living room for 4 hours with an infected person, than in a grocery store where an infected person might cough on you in line but there is no long term exposure). I can't imagine where there is a situation in a lab environment where you would have the equivalent of an infected person drinking beer with you for hours in terms of exposure. Even a rip in your PPE wouldn't expose you to very much particulate compared with an infected person spitting in your face conversationally for hours.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pmiller2 6y ago
  That's a good point. I have a hard time as well believing anyone who was even coming close to following BSL-4 protocols would get infected with this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#Biosafety_level_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#Biosafety_leve...
Zenst 6y ago
I've done security audits and related consulting work upon research labs in my past and the biggest issue they had was - extremist animal activists. Now I was aware of some reports (nothing official or confirmed) that the Wuham lab was broken into in the summer of 2019. Interestingly enough their was a lot of political tension at that time involving Hong Kong. I'm also mindful how China has been rather good at sweeping things under carpets. So I could speculate how things played out in a way that fits events, but without any smoking gun - it would be just speculation and joining dots that may or may not of been there. Though even if it was something along the lines of what I'm thinking happened (animal activists with HK connections being politically motivated/manipulated and possibly no idea what type of lab it was beyond they may be hurting animals), the lab was researching virus's from the wild - seeing how they mutate and progress in an effort to see what lays ahead. So lab event or no lab event - this virus was already in existence in some form and was not a case of if, but when. One thing I do know, it sure did shine a spotlight upon how connected the World is and also how fragile many supply lines are.
- kmeisthax 6y ago
  Molecular dating studies place a hard limit on index cases at October 2019. Anything earlier and the virus should have mutated more than it has. Someone who broke into a Wuhan coronavirus research lab in summer 2019 and broke containment of our hypothetical SARS-CoV-2 precursor virus samples would have been infected too early for our timeline.
  - Zenst 6y ago
    Might find that October 2019 hard limit may change. https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-timing-idUSKBN27W1J2 https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-tim...
colllectorof 6y ago
Look, dude, leading experts have looked at this claim and said there is nearly zero chance this has was a lab leak: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/841729646/virus-researchers-cast-doubt-on-theory-of-coronavirus-lab-accident https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/8417296... I mean, yeah, five out of 6 cited experts have ties to EcoHealth Alliance, which in turn has funding ties to one of the two virology labs in Wuhan, but that's, like, just a coincidence. If it wasn't, I'm sure NPR would mention it. And then Peter Daszak himself went to Wuhan with WHO team to investigate and didn't find anything conclusive. Peter fucking Daszak. You're not going to tell me that someone who was interviewed and cited on this subject by NPR, CNN, CBS, Slate, Democracy Now, Washing Post and The Guardian could be full of shit, right? /s
- AzzieElbab 6y ago
  The WHO and Peter Daszak also said they weren’t given enough access to develop any deliberate conclusions.
  - esja 6y ago
    A proper investigation would not include Peter Daszak at all, due to his immense conflicts of interest on this topic, and his behaviour since the outbreak occurred.
    - AzzieElbab 6y ago
      The whole thing is a bureaucratic cya masterpiece. We deny the wuhan lab leak but, just in case, we also deny we had any means to actually investigate it
      - esja 6y ago
        It certainly looks that way.
- xdavidliu 6y ago
  I have no strong opinions on this matter, but I'm having difficulty understanding the sarcasm here. Can someone translate for me? Is the un-sarcastic version of parent's argument that most of the claims against this being a leak were put forth by a single organization, EcoHealth Alliance, which has an agenda for convincing people that this is not a leak?
boringg 6y ago
I subscribe to this theory. I didn't subscribe to it originally because it seemed to dystopian. However on reading the recent politico article (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/08/josh-rogin-chaos-under-heaven-wuhan-lab-book-excerpt-474322 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/08/josh-rogin...) really changed my opinion about it. To be clear I think it would have been an accident at a Chinese government lab that was underfunded and overworked. Seems to me like the likeliest candidate. I don't think the current US administration wants to point the finger at the Chinese government since it will cause a lot public anger. That and the Chinese government most certainly covered all their tracks by now.
- esja 6y ago
  I'd also assign a small but non-zero probability to the US not wanting to point the finger because they prefer the scenario where the general population comes to believe that the lab accident was responsible, but no hard evidence is ever produced. Why? Because it seems like US institutions and people (right up to Fauci) were involved in this research and may not want the domestic blowback. Conveniently the CCP don't want a paper trail either. I'd be pretty sure the various scenarios have already been gamed out in both countries. Edit: Not sure why this is being downvoted, but just in case it’s a reflex because I mentioned Fauci: yes, he was head of NIAID, and yes, the NIH did fund this type of research at the WIV. The grants are public information.
  - boringg 6y ago
    Please supply links on the research grants.
    - esja 6y ago
      Sure. Part 1, from 2014-2019, for 3.7M: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8674931 https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8674931 Part 2, from 2019 until it was cancelled in April 2020: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9819304 https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9819304 Both led by Peter Daszak who is now also the lead WHO investigator. The same person who decided the WHO didn’t need to see the deleted virus databases, and the same person who co-ordinated the Lancet statement which minimised the lab leak theory early on (and let to it being considered a conspiracy theory). Here he is on This Week In Virology, describing this sort of work. It’s worth watching the whole thing, but gets most interesting from minute 27 onward: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IdYDL_RK--w https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IdYDL_RK--w For example he confirms it’s easy to modify these viruses in the lab, and mentions collaborating with Ralph Baric at UNC. Baric invented Remdesivir (with Gilead) - the “cure” that turned out not to work very well. His lab was doing gain of function experiments before the ban. Shi Zhengli (“bat woman” from Wuhan) worked very closely with Baric and Daszak.
soperj 6y ago
I'm confused, do you think SARS was also escaped from the lab, or just COVID?
- wnoise 6y ago
  Covid is the COrona VIrus Disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is somewhat, but not extremely closely related to the SARS-CoV-1 virus, which caused the original SARS disease.
autokad 6y ago
The other thing to note is this virus hops to new species super fast. its already in pretty much every mammal we interact with now. You going to tell me this super fast spreading - super species hoping virus was waiting in a cave somewhere and never spread? not buying it.
drran 6y ago
You may want to read this article: https://jglobalbiosecurity.com/articles/10.31646/gbio.41/ https://jglobalbiosecurity.com/articles/10.31646/gbio.41/
codezero 6y ago
My favorite conspiracy theory bend on this is that it’s the best place to intentionally release it too, especially if WIV is absolutely not studying anything like COVID-19 because it looks so appealing to dig into the bio safety level four lab, but there’s probably nothing there so it will be eventually dismissed. All that said I think it is really unlikely and a pointless effort as government bureaucracies wouldn’t be able to even formulate a reaction to an intentional or even accidental release so I think we will not try too hard to imply that for political reasons.
jariel 6y ago
The WHO will never look where they don't want the answer to be found and will actively work against it. The chair of the WHO (Tedros Adhanom) [1] was a communist rebel (Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front) fighter in north africa and his career has been sponsored and guided by China for this reason. They won't suppress findings made internally because it would be too hard to cover up - but they will 'do the least' with respect to finding answers. Only the US has enough power and wherewithal to even try to do something, but they'll be kept out direct, so it boils down to how sophisticated the US clandestine efforts are in China. My completely speculative guess is that US operating ability in China is 'really bad' and that they've already barked up that tree and found nothing conclusive. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tedros_Adhanom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tedros_Adhanom
throwawaysea 6y ago
I'm also waiting for people to admit that the dubious ban of Zero Hedge from Twitter (later reinstated) for bringing up this theory and "doxxing" the lab head was all made in bad faith (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/01/twitter-zero-hedge-coronavirus/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/01/twitter...). It's crazy how words like "doxxing" can lose all coherent meaning and be used to describe this blog post, where they simply posted the publicly listed information of the public face of the lab, fully visible from the Wuhan lab's own website. This authoritarian act of censorship and the biased news media coverage that followed led to further censorship, where discussions exploring the possibility of accidental lab leaks were banned on places like Medium or other social media. This is why free speech matters as a fundamental principle and this is why we must hold all tech platforms accountable to protect free speech.
nl 6y ago
> but there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus. What better place to put a lab studying bat viruses than near a place where they originate? That's a pretty frequent occurrence.

by crx07 6y ago

Ancapistani 6y ago

> there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus. I think that it is at least somewhat likely that it was the result of the lab's activities, but your assertion here has a huge dose of selection bias. If the virology labs studying coronaviruses were placed randomly around the world, you'd be correct - but they're not. They're placed near locations where novel coronaviruses have crossed the species barrier in the past, and where they are likely to do so in the future. It would be equivalent to say that lighthouses cause ships to run aground, because many teams when ships run aground it's near a lighthouse.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
> They're placed near locations where novel coronaviruses have crossed the species barrier in the past, and where they are likely to do so in the future. Are they? I'm not aware of this trend, or of any other major species barrier crossings in Hubei. (If you're thinking of the original SARS, that started in Guangdong, two provinces to the south.)
is-ought 6y ago
Can you link to something that proves this is the criteria used for lab placement?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
goatinaboat 6y ago
were placed randomly around the world, you'd be correct - but they're not. They're placed near locations The world’s foremost institute for tropical medicine is in London, England. So that debunks that idea.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  I mean, that's a practical side effect of the fact that England owned much of the tropics for a few centuries. It's further evidence that these things get sited sensibly, not randomly.
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    Sensibly, yes, but not their location isn't based on geographic proximity but rather what is a sensible location for the group building and staffing the lab.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
garmaine 6y ago
Wuhan is around thousand kilometers away from where this virus supposedly originated from. But the Wuhan lab did receive samples in 2019 from miners who died in 2012 from an infection of a novel coronavirus that resulted in symptoms very similar to COVID-19. https://nypost.com/2020/08/15/covid-19-first-appeared-in-chinese-miners-in-2012-scientists/ https://nypost.com/2020/08/15/covid-19-first-appeared-in-chi... That’s a complete coincidence though and you’re bigoted for thinking there could possibly be a connection! /s
angio 6y ago
Another selection bias is that we can't say if the virus originated there, but only that it was first detected there. Even if it originated in the countryside hundreds of miles away it makes sense it was detected only after it spread to a city with the labs to discover the virus.
- ginko 6y ago
  The virus was first sequenced by a lab in Shanghai. The WIV wasn't involved in the discovery of the virus.
  - angio 6y ago
    What I mean is that a small countryside hospital won't be able to notice there is a new type of pneumonia, while bigger cities have teams to detect that. It's the same reason why we probably had the virus circulating in europe in january but we only noticed after we started looking for it.
autokad 6y ago
china has 100 cities with over a million people in them. Only one has a lab specializing in corona virus research.
goatcode 6y ago
> It would be equivalent to say that lighthouses cause ships to run aground, because many teams when ships run aground it's near a lighthouse. But if a lighthouse manufactured coral reefs, and the coral reefs on which ships were running aground displayed features of those that a given lighthouse manufactured, it might be more accurate.
- 8note 6y ago
  Coral reefs do like to form on sunken ships, so that's still not far off
  - goatcode 6y ago
    We may need to look into this further!
esja 6y ago
Wuhan is nowhere near the caves where these bat viruses have been found. It's over 1800 kilometres to Southwest Yunnan, for example.
gregwebs 6y ago
China is a big country. Wuhan is 900km away from the bat caves that are believed to be the breeding ground for these viruses.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  ...but Wuhan is also 0km away from the wet markets that sell meat sourced x00km away near and around the bat caves.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - a9h74j 6y ago
    I have seen estimates of thousands of wet markets in China and perhaps 10000 in all of Asia. Why the one wet market closest to a lab doing GOF research, and previously questioned on its containment rigor.
    - koheripbal 6y ago
      Because it is the largest city near the bat habitat - with the largest wet market. Wuhan is like Chicago in China. It's not some random small town. If an outbreak occurred in some rural area (which it might have previously), it's possible that it just fizzled out. Wuhan is a great place for a virus to spread.
      - tripletao 6y ago
        Take a look at this on a map. Mojiang (where RaTG13, the closest known relative to SARS-CoV-2, was reportedly sampled) is closer to Chongqing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, or HK than to Wuhan. Pu'er is roughly Chicago-sized, and it's 150 km away. Kunming is more people than two Chicagos, and it's 200 km away. It makes sense that this first emerged in a city, but Wuhan is far from the obvious geographic choice.
        6y ago
tripletao 6y ago
People keep saying this, but it's not true; SARS-like viruses haven't been found in nature near Wuhan. In the words of Dr. Shi herself: > We have done bat virus surveillance in Hubei Province for many years, but have not found that bats in Wuhan or even the wider Hubei Province carry any coronaviruses that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2. I don't think the spillover from bats to humans occurred in Wuhan or in Hubei Province. https://www.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/Shi%20Zhengli%20Q%26A.pdf https://www.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/Shi%20Zhengli...
- SiempreViernes 6y ago
  You've said elsewhere that you think it's reasonable to to suppose they have unpublished samples that are closely related to SARS-CoV-2, indeed that's your central claim. So why do you trust this statement about their sampling results but not the one about not having anything closer than RaTG13 [18.5, p6]?
  - tripletao 6y ago
    Honestly, I don't fully. From a standpoint of a lab accident, evidence of natural zoonosis near Wuhan would be exculpatory and they'd have no reason to conceal it. But the CCP also seems to be pushing to exclude any origin whatsoever within China, like with their frozen food theory (which is thoroughly rejected by almost all scientists physically outside China, but which the WHO team nonetheless seems to be considering). So I think it's entirely possible e.g. that China has confidently determined the non-lab origin of SARS-CoV-2, but that it's from an agricultural practice so reckless that they've decided it's better for their reputation to leave everything shrouded in doubt. It's much more obvious to me that China is concealing something than what they're concealing. (Of course, that's usually how concealing stuff works.) That said, I still think zoonosis near Wuhan is unlikely. In a pre-pandemic publication with no incentive to lie, the WIV studied antibodies to SARS-like viruses in the blood of people living near bats in Yunnan province. They used blood from people living in Wuhan as a negative control: > As a control, we also collected 240 serum samples from random blood donors in 2015 in Wuhan, Hubei Province more than 1000 km away from Jinning (Fig. 1A) and where inhabitants have a much lower likelihood of contact with bats due to its urban setting. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6178078/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6178078/ So while it's possible that natural zoonosis did occur in Wuhan, I believe that would require the WIV staff to be genuinely mistaken.

ch4s3 6y ago

I don't really have a stake in this, and no real idea how plausible the lab accident theory is. That said, don't you think that the location of a lab like that would be highly correlated with the location of dangerous natural viral reservoir? Or put another way, if you wanted to study zoonotic viruses, wouldn't you put your lab in a place like that?

bpodgursky 6y ago
Not really. The lab is in a major city, and imported samples from all over China (and the rest of the world). The hypothesized bat in question, if it was really a wet-market outbreak, was imported from hundreds of miles away.
- vergessenmir 6y ago
  It's also been reported that it wasn't the season for the bat species. Those in favour of the lab leak hypothesis point out that the virus showed up on the scene with all the evolutionary capability to spread amongst humans i.e with batteries included. With previous Sars viruses my understanding is that each zoonotic jump was traceable with examples of previous forms in prior animal hosts to corroborate the lineage. What makes Covid-19 interesting is that these zoonotic jumps or the gain of functions can be accelerated in the lab with the purpose of preparing us ahead of time for a dangerous forms of Sars style viruses. It looks like covid-19 may be that type of strain, not man made, but given the lab conditions for it to gain the capability. It may have escaped. It's worth exploring the lab leak hypothesis but I would say that it's not politically expedient for any of the scientists or parties involved. We will never really know the truth and that is something we need to grow comfortable with.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Pyramus 6y ago
    You are mixing two theories here: A) A lab leak B) Gain of function research. My understanding is that A) is very much possible because it has happened before (SARS), but we have no evidence yet (and might never acquire). For B) however, from my limited understanding, there is no strong evidence. We only know about a fraction of existing coronaviruses out there and given we observe one, that has caused a pandemic, the (conditional!) probability that it is well adapted is extremely high (survivorship bias). If you have a credible source that claims B) please share it.

totalZero 6y ago

Sometimes diplomacy means you smile when you don't want to smile. WHO has to play politics until we get this virus under control (ie, vaccines distributed worldwide). If WHO blames China now, in the thick of things, it would damage the world's ability to further study the origins of the virus and the results of Chinese research. Chinese vaccines are being used and studied in many countries worldwide and that is a good thing. Apart from the obvious benefits of those vaccines, better access to data gives us an inactivated vaccine counterfactual with which to evaluate the mRNA and protein subunit vaccines. CDC and other US government officials, on the other hand, must ratchet up their criticism of China as well as WHO. I agree with you there. It's alarming that there are so few PR ramifications for China. From the looks of it, either their unsanitary bushmeat consumption got the world sick, or their irresponsible laboratory containment procedures did. Both are a reflection of China's culture, and were only exacerbated by authoritarian crackdown upon the early warnings issued by Chinese medical professionals. The US government shouldn't defend bad practices and systemic problems in the name of multilateral cooperation. That variety of ethical blindness forgives bad faith from our counterparts and damages our hegemony.

echelon 6y ago
> CDC and other US government officials, on the other hand, must ratchet up their criticism of China as well as WHO. I agree with you there. It's alarming that there are so few PR ramifications for China. The US relies on Chinese manufacturing. If trade ends, the West will suffer. Consumer and industrial goods can't be built, which could incredibly damage the economy. Manufacturing is shifting to other countries - Vietnam, India, etc. It's been driven by rising costs in China, but we're seeing an acceleration to de-risk the supply chain. TSM is being asked to build fabs in the US. Slowly, the most strategic pieces are being maneuvered. China is building up its navy to protect itself. If they lose the South China Sea, they could be blockaded and starved of energy, resources, and food. They're building to reach parity with the US Navy or even outgun it, and they're trying to stall long enough that they can win should there be an encounter. The US and its allies are ramping up criticism of China, and you can see it in diplomatic activity, news, and social media. The rhetoric will grow until they're ready to shift from soft negotiations to taking a hard line. The game is being played right now.

goatinaboat 6y ago

there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus If it came from somewhere else, why wasn’t the outbreak noticed there first, is the million dollar question. It requires some serious mental gymnastics at this point to believe it didn’t originate in that lab. The only real question is if it was released deliberately.

roywiggins 6y ago
Because winter is flu season, and most of the time the symptoms are impossible to distinguish, even when you're looking? Sure, China has way more public health capacity than it used to, but we know that COVID can spread silently in a community for a month without anyone noticing, even when we are looking. It happened in California and Seattle in January 2020. Why wouldn't that have happened in, say, rural China in October?
- ekianjo 6y ago
  There were apparently already people with COVID symptoms in Italy back in December 2019. That said, China was already aware of the virus in late 2019. It's all well known.
  - roywiggins 6y ago
    Well, that's what I mean. Nobody knew COVID was circulating in Italy at the time either. It's easy to miss a new respiratory virus. For it to originate one place and by chance end up exploding in a different metropolitan area doesn't seem unlikely at all.
    - Pyramus 6y ago
      In fact, simply from a modelling perspective, this is very likely scenario. If you take an unknown diseases with an R of 2-3, what you will see is a number of smaller clusters, some dying off, before you get the one cluster that becomes the pandemic.

Aunche 6y ago

> there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus Why not? Wuhan is the 43rd largest city in the world. Meanwhile, the earliest cases of CoVid were all connected to the same wet market. Doesn't that have a higher probability being the origin?

x3n0ph3n3 6y ago
Evidence points to it _not_ being from the wet markets in China: https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-did-not-start-at-wuhan-wet-market.html https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-did-not-start-at-wuhan-...
- Aunche 6y ago
  Your source cites the WSJ, which itself cites the Wuhan Virology Institute, which is trying to imply that China may not be the origin of CoVid at all, so I don't believe it.
  - jdc 6y ago
    Try this one: Lab Leak: A Scientific Debate Mired in Politics — and Unresolved [March 22, 2021] https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/947620 https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/947620 https://www.outline.com/XCTFJJ https://www.outline.com/XCTFJJ (registration-wall bypass)
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  Perhaps it would have burned itself out if it hadn't spread to the market.
lixtra 6y ago
> the earliest cases of Covid were all connected to the same wet market. This claim has less weight if China does not share the raw data. [1] https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/who-experts-want-more-data-from-china-on-possible-early-covid-cases-2370084 https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/who-experts-want-more-data-f...

tossaway12321 6y ago

This is as well my strongly held belief, and the most likely cause. And people making the really odd responses below. They're, not saying it, but insinuating that the lab would be where there is lots of bat coronavirus? The lab is in the city of Wuhan. A city with a population of 11 million people. This isn't some rural town. There was a lab that studied this type of coronavirus, had published papers on it. And in a country the size of the USA had an outbreak within just a few miles from that lab. Then the govt came and refused to let anyone outside investigate. To me that leads pretty strongly that it was an accidental lab leak. And they weren't able to control the spread. My hopeful opinion is that this leads to more stringent worldwide rules for reporting leaks, and checking of safety practices to avoid this happening again

echelon 6y ago
> My hopeful opinion is that this leads to more stringent worldwide rules for reporting leaks, and checking of safety practices to avoid this happening again A leak that results in 2.7 million worldwide deaths will not result in "more stringent worldwide rules for reporting leaks". It would result in economic reparations and possibly war. Leak or not, it's in China's interest to prevent the blame from falling on them. The narrative here is an incredibly powerful geopolitical tool.
- 8note 6y ago
  It's even more in China's interest to not have more such leaks, or to have other countries have similar leaks. Their manufacturing economy does not benefit from being locked down on a regular basis

asdff 6y ago

I'm not sure that this virus even behaves in this way where a BSL-4 worker could become infected. What we know now is that you need a concentration of virus particles over time in order to come down with the disease (in other words, you are most likely to catch it drinking in your friends living room for 4 hours with an infected person, than in a grocery store where an infected person might cough on you in line but there is no long term exposure). I can't imagine where there is a situation in a lab environment where you would have the equivalent of an infected person drinking beer with you for hours in terms of exposure. Even a rip in your PPE wouldn't expose you to very much particulate compared with an infected person spitting in your face conversationally for hours.

deleted 6y ago
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pmiller2 6y ago
That's a good point. I have a hard time as well believing anyone who was even coming close to following BSL-4 protocols would get infected with this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#Biosafety_level_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#Biosafety_leve...

Zenst 6y ago

I've done security audits and related consulting work upon research labs in my past and the biggest issue they had was - extremist animal activists. Now I was aware of some reports (nothing official or confirmed) that the Wuham lab was broken into in the summer of 2019. Interestingly enough their was a lot of political tension at that time involving Hong Kong. I'm also mindful how China has been rather good at sweeping things under carpets. So I could speculate how things played out in a way that fits events, but without any smoking gun - it would be just speculation and joining dots that may or may not of been there. Though even if it was something along the lines of what I'm thinking happened (animal activists with HK connections being politically motivated/manipulated and possibly no idea what type of lab it was beyond they may be hurting animals), the lab was researching virus's from the wild - seeing how they mutate and progress in an effort to see what lays ahead. So lab event or no lab event - this virus was already in existence in some form and was not a case of if, but when. One thing I do know, it sure did shine a spotlight upon how connected the World is and also how fragile many supply lines are.

kmeisthax 6y ago
Molecular dating studies place a hard limit on index cases at October 2019. Anything earlier and the virus should have mutated more than it has. Someone who broke into a Wuhan coronavirus research lab in summer 2019 and broke containment of our hypothetical SARS-CoV-2 precursor virus samples would have been infected too early for our timeline.
- Zenst 6y ago
  Might find that October 2019 hard limit may change. https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-timing-idUSKBN27W1J2 https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-italy-tim...

colllectorof 6y ago

Look, dude, leading experts have looked at this claim and said there is nearly zero chance this has was a lab leak: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/841729646/virus-researchers-cast-doubt-on-theory-of-coronavirus-lab-accident https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/8417296... I mean, yeah, five out of 6 cited experts have ties to EcoHealth Alliance, which in turn has funding ties to one of the two virology labs in Wuhan, but that's, like, just a coincidence. If it wasn't, I'm sure NPR would mention it. And then Peter Daszak himself went to Wuhan with WHO team to investigate and didn't find anything conclusive. Peter fucking Daszak. You're not going to tell me that someone who was interviewed and cited on this subject by NPR, CNN, CBS, Slate, Democracy Now, Washing Post and The Guardian could be full of shit, right? /s

AzzieElbab 6y ago
The WHO and Peter Daszak also said they weren’t given enough access to develop any deliberate conclusions.
- esja 6y ago
  A proper investigation would not include Peter Daszak at all, due to his immense conflicts of interest on this topic, and his behaviour since the outbreak occurred.
  - AzzieElbab 6y ago
    The whole thing is a bureaucratic cya masterpiece. We deny the wuhan lab leak but, just in case, we also deny we had any means to actually investigate it
    - esja 6y ago
      It certainly looks that way.
xdavidliu 6y ago
I have no strong opinions on this matter, but I'm having difficulty understanding the sarcasm here. Can someone translate for me? Is the un-sarcastic version of parent's argument that most of the claims against this being a leak were put forth by a single organization, EcoHealth Alliance, which has an agenda for convincing people that this is not a leak?

boringg 6y ago

I subscribe to this theory. I didn't subscribe to it originally because it seemed to dystopian. However on reading the recent politico article (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/08/josh-rogin-chaos-under-heaven-wuhan-lab-book-excerpt-474322 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/08/josh-rogin...) really changed my opinion about it. To be clear I think it would have been an accident at a Chinese government lab that was underfunded and overworked. Seems to me like the likeliest candidate. I don't think the current US administration wants to point the finger at the Chinese government since it will cause a lot public anger. That and the Chinese government most certainly covered all their tracks by now.

esja 6y ago
I'd also assign a small but non-zero probability to the US not wanting to point the finger because they prefer the scenario where the general population comes to believe that the lab accident was responsible, but no hard evidence is ever produced. Why? Because it seems like US institutions and people (right up to Fauci) were involved in this research and may not want the domestic blowback. Conveniently the CCP don't want a paper trail either. I'd be pretty sure the various scenarios have already been gamed out in both countries. Edit: Not sure why this is being downvoted, but just in case it’s a reflex because I mentioned Fauci: yes, he was head of NIAID, and yes, the NIH did fund this type of research at the WIV. The grants are public information.
- boringg 6y ago
  Please supply links on the research grants.
  - esja 6y ago
    Sure. Part 1, from 2014-2019, for 3.7M: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8674931 https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8674931 Part 2, from 2019 until it was cancelled in April 2020: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9819304 https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9819304 Both led by Peter Daszak who is now also the lead WHO investigator. The same person who decided the WHO didn’t need to see the deleted virus databases, and the same person who co-ordinated the Lancet statement which minimised the lab leak theory early on (and let to it being considered a conspiracy theory). Here he is on This Week In Virology, describing this sort of work. It’s worth watching the whole thing, but gets most interesting from minute 27 onward: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IdYDL_RK--w https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IdYDL_RK--w For example he confirms it’s easy to modify these viruses in the lab, and mentions collaborating with Ralph Baric at UNC. Baric invented Remdesivir (with Gilead) - the “cure” that turned out not to work very well. His lab was doing gain of function experiments before the ban. Shi Zhengli (“bat woman” from Wuhan) worked very closely with Baric and Daszak.

soperj 6y ago

I'm confused, do you think SARS was also escaped from the lab, or just COVID?

wnoise 6y ago
Covid is the COrona VIrus Disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is somewhat, but not extremely closely related to the SARS-CoV-1 virus, which caused the original SARS disease.

autokad 6y ago

The other thing to note is this virus hops to new species super fast. its already in pretty much every mammal we interact with now. You going to tell me this super fast spreading - super species hoping virus was waiting in a cave somewhere and never spread? not buying it.

drran 6y ago

You may want to read this article: https://jglobalbiosecurity.com/articles/10.31646/gbio.41/ https://jglobalbiosecurity.com/articles/10.31646/gbio.41/

codezero 6y ago

My favorite conspiracy theory bend on this is that it’s the best place to intentionally release it too, especially if WIV is absolutely not studying anything like COVID-19 because it looks so appealing to dig into the bio safety level four lab, but there’s probably nothing there so it will be eventually dismissed. All that said I think it is really unlikely and a pointless effort as government bureaucracies wouldn’t be able to even formulate a reaction to an intentional or even accidental release so I think we will not try too hard to imply that for political reasons.

jariel 6y ago

The WHO will never look where they don't want the answer to be found and will actively work against it. The chair of the WHO (Tedros Adhanom) [1] was a communist rebel (Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front) fighter in north africa and his career has been sponsored and guided by China for this reason. They won't suppress findings made internally because it would be too hard to cover up - but they will 'do the least' with respect to finding answers. Only the US has enough power and wherewithal to even try to do something, but they'll be kept out direct, so it boils down to how sophisticated the US clandestine efforts are in China. My completely speculative guess is that US operating ability in China is 'really bad' and that they've already barked up that tree and found nothing conclusive. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tedros_Adhanom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tedros_Adhanom

throwawaysea 6y ago

I'm also waiting for people to admit that the dubious ban of Zero Hedge from Twitter (later reinstated) for bringing up this theory and "doxxing" the lab head was all made in bad faith (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/01/twitter-zero-hedge-coronavirus/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/01/twitter...). It's crazy how words like "doxxing" can lose all coherent meaning and be used to describe this blog post, where they simply posted the publicly listed information of the public face of the lab, fully visible from the Wuhan lab's own website. This authoritarian act of censorship and the biased news media coverage that followed led to further censorship, where discussions exploring the possibility of accidental lab leaks were banned on places like Medium or other social media. This is why free speech matters as a fundamental principle and this is why we must hold all tech platforms accountable to protect free speech.

nl 6y ago

> but there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus. What better place to put a lab studying bat viruses than near a place where they originate? That's a pretty frequent occurrence.