25 ms·

This is a great article explaining why a lab leak should always be a suspect. The alternative theory is that a virus traveled on its own (via bats or other anim

This is a great article explaining why a lab leak should always be a suspect. The alternative theory is that a virus traveled on its own (via bats or other animals) from bat caves 900km away to Wuhan where there are 2 labs researching bats. One of the labs is lesser known but is right next to the seafood market and the hospital where the outbreak was first known. [1] This article points out that a lab outbreak could have happened in the United States and many places in the world. We need to avoid demonizing China over this if we want to ever find out the truth and learn how to prevent another pandemic outbreak. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200214144447/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339070128_The_possible_origins_of_2019-nCoV_coronavirus https://web.archive.org/web/20200214144447/https://www.resea...

kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago
>We need to avoid demonizing China over this if we want to ever find out the truth and learn how to prevent another pandemic outbreak. But China knew about the virus in 2019 and kept it quiet. They silenced scientists. China is complicit in this pandemic and should pay reparations.
- plibither8 6y ago
  Exactly. Frankly, I'm tired of this tip-toed attitude - there hasn't been any sort of consequences suffered or imposed on the Chinese government for how they surreptitiously dealt with the virus, initially. I'm not condoning or advocating conspiracy theories, but where they are wrong, they should be penalised.
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    The Chinese government also started limiting domestic flights in January 2020 but allowed foreign flights out until late March 2020 (https://english.alarabiya.net/features/2020/04/09/Coronavirus-Critics-ask-why-China-allowed-flights-out-of-Hubei-during-outbreak https://english.alarabiya.net/features/2020/04/09/Coronaviru...). That seems like they were containing damage that affected them but were happy to risk the rest of the world. I’m not sure if this was an economic decision or something more malicious but it doesn’t matter - how are they not held accountable for this obvious export of the virus? Meanwhile in the US, hysterical partisans attacked Trump for correctly naming the virus along with its origin. This resulted in a societal unwillingness to direct blame at the Chinese government for all their numerous missteps, starting with suppression of early reports of a new pneumonia like illness in late 2019. How many deaths could have been avoided with just the most basic level of transparency and responsibility?
    - smcl 6y ago
      > Meanwhile in the US, hysterical partisans attacked Trump for correctly naming the virus along with its origin He spent months doing nothing in preparation, and denying there was an issue then when it turned out there was an actual problem decided it was all China's fault ... even though they had it largely under control by that point. That's why people were "hysterical" - he saw it coming, did nothing and refused to take any responsibility, but blamed someone else. He wasn't trying to accurately identify the source of the virus, he was trying to save his own skin. Sure it's frustrating that we only found out in (I think) December that it was spreading human-to-human, and it'd be good to see some actual investigation from China. But Trump's finger-pointing was all just desperate attempt to save face and deflect from his own poor management and nothing more. Your question should be rephrased "How many deaths could have been avoided with just the most basic level of competency?" and directed at Donald Trump and his administration.
      - Mat342 6y ago
        CCCP party li(n)e
        smcl 6y ago
        Could you elaborate? I don’t really know what you’re suggesting so I can’t provide a response.
  - josefresco 6y ago
    Based on your logic, should US political leaders face repercussions or be penalized for their mishandling of the virus?
    - cameldrv 6y ago
      Trump was not reelected, and COVID was probably the biggest reason for that.
    - kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago
      Yes, absolutely. Leaders who knew about it (many senators, trump, etc) and did nothing are criminally liable for deaths.
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  I feel like only one thing matters. If regular people find out that gain of function research (or something similar) resulted in a lab leak that killed millions of people, then regular people will demand this kind of research stop. None of the people most qualified to speak on this issue want their funding cut or the research to stop.
- ipiz0618 6y ago
  This is the truth. We don't have evidence that the virus came from a lab (how could we when China refused investigation?), but we have evidence that the whistleblowers were arrested. Some are dead and some aren't seen again. Are we not supposed to blame this regime?
- sampo 6y ago
  > But China knew about the virus in 2019 and kept it quiet. I don't think it would have mattered. We had documentaries such as The Lockdown [1] in the end of February 2020, yet still most Western countries spent much of March 2020 still debating whether they should react somehow or not. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU9FVqwO4TM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU9FVqwO4TM
  - Mat342 6y ago
    Wuhan virus won't be on scale of Sars, says Chinese top expert Zhong Nanshan https://archive.is/O5PhV https://archive.is/O5PhV
trhway 6y ago
>a lab outbreak could have happened in the United States and many places in the world. not that outbreak. US stopped doing that GoF research and funded it in those Wuhan labs instead - basically like any other outsourcing of environmentally dangerous manufacturing/etc. to China. My pet conspiracy theory is that as part of that GoF the virus was tested on humans there - say some prisoners happily volunteering for a couple weeks break from hard labor to spend it in a nice hospital with a "flu". And if the virus had totally natural - accidental freak of Nature - origin, why would you give 4 year prison to a journalist who was covering the beginning of the pandemic in Wuhan? https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2021/12/28/china-hands-four-year-prison-sentence-to-journalist-who-covered-covid-19-outbreak-in-wuhan/?sh=3347527764dc https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2021/12/28/china-h... The suppression of any information is totally in-line with some deep f&ck-up and/or government potentially looking very bad if real picture sees the light of day. Even Chernobyl wasn't suppressed to that degree.
- gmanley 6y ago
  > And if the virus had totally natural - accidental freak of Nature - origin, why would you give 4 year prison to a journalist who was covering the beginning of the pandemic in Wuhan? I really wouldn't attach that much meaning to the prison sentence handed out. It is entirely in line with the CCP's behavior in the past. They strongly repress any information or people they perceive as causing them to lose face or look bad.
  - caddemon 6y ago
    Not saying this is a conspiracy, but it does make it easier to forcefully cover up a conspiracy if they always react harshly to even small "infractions".
- bloaf 6y ago
  US lab shut down temporarily due to inadequate waste sterilization. They were infecting monkeys with ebola? https://wjla.com/news/local/cdc-shut-down-army-germ-lab-health-concerns https://wjla.com/news/local/cdc-shut-down-army-germ-lab-heal...
jounker 6y ago
It’s quite possible that it’s a pangolin virus. Guess what trafficked in Chinese wet markets?
- eloff 6y ago
  The earliest cases has no known link to the wet market. That's an old hypothesis.
- wilg 6y ago
  Apparently the Pangolin thing is looking less likely: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4
- tripletao 6y ago
  Pangolins were an early suspect, but Alina Chan discovered that the multiple pangolin papers were all from the same batch of smuggled pangolins. This makes it much more likely that the pangolins were infected by something else, in the same way that housecats get infected by their human owners. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.07.184374v1.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.07.184374v1.... Because of this, Nature has placed an editor's note on their pangolin paper: > 11 November 2020 Editor's Note: Readers are alerted that concerns have been raised about the identity of the pangolin samples reported in this paper and their relationship to previously published pangolin samples. Appropriate editorial action will be taken once this matter is resolved. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2313-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2313-x No one is seriously proposing pangolins anymore, not even Daszak and the Chinese. The proximal host for MERS (camels) was identified in a little over a year, and for the original SARS (palm civets) in a little less. For SARS-CoV-2, despite the much greater effort, we're still waiting.
president 6y ago
> We need to avoid demonizing China over this Not a productive message and this sentiment just distracts from the discussion, which is playing into China's narrative. > if we want to ever find out the truth and learn how to prevent another pandemic outbreak. It's a bit late isn't it? China witheld early information about the virus and prevented WHO scientists from visiting ground zero. Silencing journalists and censoring information from coming out all the while pushing propaganda...what do you think we're going to learn from them that hasn't already been swept under the rug? I find it absolutely flabbergasting the amount of trust people in the US and other countries place on the Chinese government.
- dang 6y ago
  This comment is a noticeable step into nationalistic flamewar. Please don't do that in HN comments. That way lies hell, and we're trying for a different sort of discussion here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - kevbin 6y ago
    The truth hurts. China released a deadly virus into the world. It tried to cover it up. It tried to blackmail Australia. It is extorting Africa. China and the Chinese people must accept their responsibility for this catastrophe. They must let the rest of the world, in the guise of the UN, come in and sort out how much of this crime was intentional and how much incompetence. China must be held accountable. It should pay reparations. It should be forced to suspend any and all biomedical research until it can provably meet western safety standards.
    - dang 6y ago
      Are you aware that you're posting in exactly the flamewar style that we're asking people not to? I realize that this is a high-emotion, high-activation topic, but there are certain principles here that everyone needs to respect. That is what the site guidelines are for. A comment like this one (and worse, "we need to shame China and the Chinese people" – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26548441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26548441 - I can't believe that anyone who has been here over 10 years would post something that horrible to HN) takes us deeper into the hell that we're trying to stay out of. I'm not going to ban you for these, because if I imagine myself into your position, my guess is that simply re-reading what you posted, once you've cooled down, will be punishment enough. But if you would please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
strogonoff 6y ago
An eerily prescient quote from a paper[0] published in 2015, two of the authors of which are with Wuhan Institute of Virology: > Understanding the bat origin of human coronaviruses is helpful for the prediction and prevention of another pandemic emergence in the future. China has clearly contributed valuable research into bat coronaviruses. They had all the motivation to look into these after the first deadly SARS. I think it’s silly to presume CCP engineered a virus as part of some warfare strategy, or even to vilify/sanction them for a lab leak if it indeed was the cause (mistakes happen). However, CCP’s resistance to a proper thorough study of the origins of COVID is IMO not exactly appropriate. Active research was taking place in the vicinity of suspected ground zero. Lab escapes happen—there are well-documented cases of the original SARS virus leaking from a lab in Beijing in 2004 (killing at least one person). Why was this time such a scenario discarded as so ridiculously impossible at first, and is still considered “extremely unlikely”? Is it politics? [0] https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12985-015-0422-1 https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12985-...
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  My naive reasoning on why China didn’t create COVID-19 with the intention of using it is that I suspect (unburdened by education or the thought process) that engineering a virus is as difficult as coming up with a vaccine or treatment. If you are developing some kind of super virus to shut down the world economy and then immunize your own people to take advantage of the situation, wouldn’t you have the cure ready to go? Now, an unintentional leak would be theoretically possible with these initial intentions but then wouldn’t China still have a leg up on developing treatments? If so, wouldn’t we have seen that in their vaccine development? Of course you this is all uneducated speculation. Quite possible that engineering a deadly and very infectious virus is easier than creating a cure or a vaccine by orders of magnitude.
  - DrJaws 6y ago
    an immediate immunization of your population would drive to a raise of suspicion and if someone found china guilty of that, would mean a world war against them.
anthony_romeo 6y ago
I agree. Personally I’ve not dismissed this possibility at all. But as it stands, it’s just a hypothesis with suggestive information, but nothing concrete. There are verified wrongs to criticize them for right now, and can be a starting point for remediation, rather than drum up hate and criticism of mere hypothetical wrongs. (And of course, one such example of a verifiable wrong could be proof of Chinese institutions destroying evidence of the disease’s origin...)
- JPKab 6y ago
  The lack of concrete evidence wasn't an accident. The CCP deliberately prevented it's collection.
- bitreality 6y ago
  The problem is that discussing this hypothesis in any form is often labeled as "offensive" and "racist". The generally accepted theory even in the West is the lab leak was somehow disproved. It's always baffled me, because the only way you could really disprove the lab leak theory would be by finding the original source of the virus. Instead, the media often attempts to disprove the lab leak by pointing out that COVID-19 differs from the viruses that were being worked on in the Wuhan Lab. But that in itself implies that China is being transparent. To the contrary, we know that China would take every measure to obfuscate the lab leak if they believed it was the origin of the virus.
  - coupdejarnac 6y ago
    The lab leak theory originally came from netizens in China, and then it gained traction in the West. There was some sketchy stuff going on at the WIV, personnel disappearing from their website, etc. Regarding the accusations of racism, it's really annoying to be someone somewhat in the know after living in China having my firsthand experience discounted because it doesn't line up with the SJW perspective. I really like China. However, if I say that sanitary conditions there are abhorrent, it seems like pointing that out here gets me in trouble. It's just really frustrating seeing lots of people regurgitate what they've read or seen on tv from shoddy or biased reporting.
  - 6y ago
908B64B197 6y ago
> This article points out that a lab outbreak could have happened in the United States and many places in the world. We need to avoid demonizing China over this if we want to ever find out the truth and learn how to prevent another pandemic outbreak. Then why hide information and prevent world-wide collaboration then?
- emkoemko 6y ago
  imagine if this happened in the USA and they prevented any international investigations or collaboration... and instead just started to blame other countries. Then a long time later allow people in who they choose and basically tell them what happened and call that a investigation.
- jokoon 6y ago
  Because there is no culture of transparency in China.
nickt 6y ago
It’s probably important to point out that a “lab leak” is a result of human-clumsiness or similar, and not the sci-fi movie bad guys engineering a virus. A lot of the non-HN crowd don’t get the difference.
- dillondoyle 6y ago
  I get what you're saying, but it seems slightly more nuanced. From my understanding WIV did do gain of function research. e.g. purposefully make virus' more deadly or infectious to study them. Definitely not a super villain at least I hope/highly doubt the intention was a weapon (you could surely create a better weapon?). I'm not judging the value of that research, it does sound valuable but maybe not more so than the (small?) risk of an accident. There is also reporting WIV was doing top secret research for CCP military. So bad guys depends on your worldview. https://www.newsweek.com/controversial-wuhan-lab-experiments-that-may-have-started-coronavirus-pandemic-1500503 https://www.newsweek.com/controversial-wuhan-lab-experiments... 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...
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    Every BSL-certified lab should be doing gain of function research. If leaks are a problem, then certifications should be better enforced. Burying our head in the sand and waiting for nature to kill us is a losing move.
    - Fomite 6y ago
      "Should" is a pretty strong statement. GoF studies, like social media-based disease surveillance, are one of those things that has a compelling "Just So" story justifying its existence, but has yet to show that it actually does what it's supposed to do. Also, the alternative is not burying our head in the sand. It's monitoring and studying nature, instead of forcing the issue in a lab, and investing in infrastructure and capacity that work against a broad range of pathogen threats.
nradov 6y ago
An alternative hypothesis is that a human was infected near the bat caves, then traveled to Wuhan and spread it to other humans and animals at the seafood market. There's no specific evidence for that, but we can't rule it out either.
- gscott 6y ago
  The seafood markets sell bats and other wild animals as well. When they butcher the bats, dogs eat the leftovers then someone else eats the dog. Plenty of ways for the virus to mutate. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8163761/Chinese-markets-selling-bats.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8163761/Chinese-mar...
  - ikt 6y ago
    probably wouldn't link to the daily mail tbh, they produce so much garbage it's impossible to just take any story they write at face value
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Roll a dice representing all the locations of possible human bat interactions. How many of those land next to research labs that study this.
  - rssoconnor 6y ago
    That's not the correct calculation because you've selected the research lab hypothesis post-facto. The correct calculation is to roll a dice representing all the locations of possible human bat interactions and see how many of those land next to some landmark that you can form some sort of conspiracy about.
    - bgandrew 6y ago
      And if you add all the sane hypotheses to the equation, how many would that be? 2?
mensetmanusman 6y ago
We will never know the truth to the extent that China would admit this. It’s obvious in hindsight that what you say is likely true, but there is no feasible political route for the CCP to take blame, as their lives would be at stake due to unrest.
- tkinom 6y ago
  WHO should sequence all the Virus DNAs from that lab in 2015-2019 compare that with all the Covid sequences.
  - rhodozelia 6y ago
    I can’t find the link but the virus they took from sick miners to study and what is now called covid-19 were 95-99% the same. A fellow did their masters thesis on it in 2016 or so
    - drocer88 6y ago
      This https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6981198-Analysis-of-Six-Patients-With-Unknown-Viruses.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6981198-Analysis-of-... ?
    - ricksunny 6y ago
      Couple of clarifications. (The fact that the term 'Mojiang' does not show up in the comments yet is telling about where awareness currently is on the topic). 1. RaTG13 came from the copper mine in Mojiang in 2013. (The TG in RaTG13 refers to TongGuan, a township in Mojiang, all per Shi Zhengli's accounting of the sequence's provenance). 2. Prior to which and also in 2013, six miners in this same Mojiang mine came down deftly ill with a respiratory illness. Three of them died from their illness. 3. One report on their cases says they had IgM antibodies to SARS. Another report says they had IgG. 4. There's been no data to support Shi Zhengli's assertion that they died of a fungal infection. (That said, independent of her account, there is a background precedent that there have been examples of people who have had strong fungal infections from exposure to bat guano in certain caves). 5. Shi Zhengli's team returned to the same Mojiang cave again and again to sample for viruses from the mine's bats and rodents. (Goal for this and the broad purpose of her teams' research is to demonstrate for pandemic prevention purposes which viruses are evolutionarily close enough to be able to hop to humans). https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1279755695382986757?s=20 https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1279755695382986757?s=20 (Starting-point source for the above: Broad Institute genomics postdoc Alina Chan) Multiple coronaviruses gathered from this mine remain unpublished, despite a year into the pandemic and an entire WHO-convened study group to Wuhan. https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1372383456081027076?s=20 https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1372383456081027076?s=... (source: Bloom Lab of Fred Hutch Institute) If you're interested in learning more, I would highly recommend following members of the Washington Post-cited DRASTIC team. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/05/coronavirus-origins-mystery-china/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/05/coronavir... The DRASTIC folks, some of them postdocs themselves, have been at this for a year, gathering & archiving evidence like the case reports described above (that unsurprisingly typically become scrubbed from the source after getting brought to light). The twitter hashtag #DRASTIC is a reasonable place to start.
ajross 6y ago
There is no requirement that bats be transported to Wuhan. It's close to a known bat virus, and that's all we know. There are local bats in Wuhan, needless to say. Other species can easily be involved. The truth is that there is nothing particularly surprising about the way this virus evolved. Fundamentally this is a pandemic like any other. They happen in some species or another every year. And that, more than anything else, is why we should be suspicious of "exotic" theories like human intervention. It's an extraordinary claim, and it requires extraordinary proof. You seem to be arguing the opposite, when Occam is clear that we should be betting on natural evolution.
- bgandrew 6y ago
  The fact that they didn't find an intermediate host after more than a year of search should tell you something.
  - ajross 6y ago
    It tells you that that kind of analysis is extraordinarily difficult. How many documented three+ species viral evolution paths can you cite from the literature?
  - freeflight 6y ago
    It took nearly a century to somewhat establish the geographical origin of the Spanish flu and even these results are still a bit controversial to this day [0]. The reality is that epidemiology is not a straight forward nor simple field of research, finding concrete and solid answers is usually way more difficult than most people assume when they want answers to point fingers. [0] https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2019/1/18/5298310 https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2019/1/18/5298310
    - gabaix 6y ago
      Find and concrete answers is especially hard when the investigated actively hides and deflects.
    - bgandrew 6y ago
btilly 6y ago
This article points out that a lab outbreak could have happened in the United States and many places in the world. In general, yes. In this case, no so much. The feart that it could happen here is why the USA restricted gain of function research in 2014. And only reopened it in 2017 with stricter safety controls. If China had made the same policy decisions, would COVID-19 have become much less likely? That's an important question to answer. Whether or not it DID happen that way, as a planet we need a more consistent way to evaluate such risks.
kodah 6y ago
It's really ludicrous that anyone gets conspiratorial about the CCP spreading a bioweapon that originates in their own country. They snuck military scientists into the US to tap into coronavirus research. The most simple litmus test I can think of is if China led the race for a vaccine, but they didn't. People really need to stop and think, because next time that lab could be in your country. With icebergs and permafrost melting, you can bet there's going to be more pandemics in the pipeline. This really isn't a time for people's crass and nihilistic takes on foreign governments, science, or even your own government. When you leave room for people and systems to screw up, then things get better; if you're hypercritical then all you incentivise is the burying of evidence and lies.
- JPKab 6y ago
  Bioweapon is not the same as an accidental lab leak of a virus altered to accelerate research. The latter is highly likely, the former is ludicrous. Regardless, the CCP were clearly hiding something.
- emkoemko 6y ago
  we had a issues with the CCP few years back, they shipped deadly viruses out to the Wuhan lab. "We have a researcher who was removed by the RCMP from the highest security laboratory that Canada has for reasons that government is unwilling to disclose. The intelligence remains secret. But what we know is that before she was removed, she sent one of the deadliest viruses on Earth, and multiple varieties of it to maximize the genetic diversity and maximize what experimenters in China could do with it, to a laboratory in China that does dangerous gain of function experiments. And that has links to the Chinese military." i doubt their narrative because they where not transparent and kept making up conspiracy theories that it came from the US, then it was Italy, frozen fish etc etc all the while preventing any international investigations.. We also know labs do leak and even China had many leaks in the past including SARS and other viruses so its not unbelievable to think it was just a accident and if they where doing gain of function we need to know and we need to figure out a plan and have better systems in place to prevent leaks.
sumedh 6y ago
> We need to avoid demonizing China over this if we want to ever find out the truth Or China can start to be more honest if it does not want to be demonized.
thewileyone 6y ago
July 2019 - USAMRIID Fort Detrick shuts down due to a virus leak. August 2019 - "Vape flu" appears in the US. October 2019 - World Military Games in Wuhan, 300 US military men and women attend. November 2019 - SAR-COV2 appears in Wuhan. Let's not discount this sequence of events as well.
- Izkata 6y ago
  > August 2019 - "Vape flu" appears in the US. Wasn't this discovered to be due to contaminated vape fluid, not anything contagious?
  - SkyPuncher 6y ago
    My recollection is it was caused by Vitamin E being added to increase the potency.
ceilingcorner 6y ago
People are demonizing the CCP because they refuse to allow a thorough investigation.
- Mat342 6y ago
  Also they lied Wuhan virus won't be on scale of Sars, says Chinese top expert Zhong Nanshan https://archive.is/O5PhV#selection-895.0-924.7 https://archive.is/O5PhV#selection-895.0-924.7
manojlds 6y ago
We need to demonize China for all the things they have done to keep it secret in the early days and even upto now, not that the original leak did happen if at all we ever find out about it.
ipiz0618 6y ago
China is demonized not because of an accident (if it was one). Even if it's confirmed that a lab accident was the cause, China holds the blame for hiding the truth, telling the world it's all okay, and arresting people that dared to speak out (even causing their deaths). No matter what was the origin, China is responsible for the outbreak. Btw, I don't think we can ever find out the truth. It's been over a year, and China has all the time to clean up and conceal every piece of evidence. The WHO scientific team's visit to Wuhan is no difference to investigating a murder scene a year after the event, with the murderer living in it all that time. Nothing but a joke.
- bitcharmer 6y ago
  I couldn't agree more. There is so much evidence of China suppressing information I don't understand how so many people dismiss their role in spreading the virus beyond their borders. They had a choice to make: country-wide lockdown and travel ban or lie about it and make it spread worldwide. The former would leave their economy in a disadvantaged state while the latter would level the playing field for the rest of the world and give China opportunity to even earn some dough in the process (PTE sales). Now, this may be a cynical view but so are China's leaders. If you're someone who strongly believes this scenario could not have transpired, you're just naive.
  - ktzar 6y ago
    China did a harder lockdown than any other country has done. Right from the beginning. Took an immense toll to its economy, right from the beginning. A WHO team was there investigating and gathering information on public health from the beginning. I'm sorry, but in this case, China is the country who told the rest of the world what to do and the west, with its superiority mentality over the east, ignored it and got a while year economy down the drain. In my book, conspiracies will always make their way to those who want to believe them.
    - toxik 6y ago
      China pissed and moaned when the WHO was considering recommending banning Chinese air traffic in precaution. Then swiftly banned Western air traffic when the shoe was on the other foot. Many such examples exist. China did not lead by example, at all. What a strange take.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
anigbrowl 6y ago
Indeed. All sorts of accidents happen at biological labs. https://globalbiodefense.com/2019/09/21/explosion-confirmed-at-russian-lab-storing-smallpox-ebola/ https://globalbiodefense.com/2019/09/21/explosion-confirmed-...
29athrowaway 6y ago
No need to demonize China, or better said, the Chinese Communist Party. They already behave in ways that are the envy of actual mythological demons. Social scoring, mass surveillance, the Great Firewall, forced labor, harvesting organs from healthy people, Uyghur genocide, Falun gong murders, Tiananmen square massacre... And actively trying to cover up every crisis, torturing and murdering anyone who speaks up. From environmental disasters to COVID-19 to party corruption.
nednar 6y ago
> The alternative theory is [...] So there are only two alternatives, and we just need to compare which sounds more likely? Or could it be that you exclude about a million other alternatives here, while also ignoring that just a little bit more information about context often makes unlikely scenarios more likely and vice versa? Not arguing any of the theories here, just looking at the approach. The first task might not be to make assumptions, but to understand the situation better.
CorrectHorseBat 6y ago
SARS was also first discovered ~1000 km from those caves, so it's not that far fetched. That said the proximity of the lab is very suspicious. I'm afraid we'll never know the truth though, China would never admit it was a lab leak.
cheph 6y ago
> avoid demonizing China China is actively engaging in genocide and nobody wants to even speak up about it because "cultural differences". I think we should much rather be scared of running even more cover for them, than less cover for them. They already have enough people white knighting for them. Western companies are demonizing the west for profit, and running cover for china for profit, just another example of how capitalism always wins. All of this is sickening and it needs to stop now.
h3cate 6y ago
Moral of the story: governments around the world need to stop fucking around with potentially deadly viruses
dominotw 6y ago
> We need to avoid demonizing China over this if we want to ever find out the truth and learn how to prevent another pandemic outbreak. I think it was western scientists like Peter Daszak who suppressed lab leak theory in fear that their research will be demonized forever. It wasn't CCP who called everyone consipiracy theorists it was Peter Daszak and co [1]. I don't understand how he can be the WHO investigator of his own lab [2]. 1. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/947620 https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/947620 2. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4119101 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4119101
justpassing9 6y ago
Yes, let’s agree not to demonize the country committing genocide against uighurs or they might throw us in camps next.

kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago

>We need to avoid demonizing China over this if we want to ever find out the truth and learn how to prevent another pandemic outbreak. But China knew about the virus in 2019 and kept it quiet. They silenced scientists. China is complicit in this pandemic and should pay reparations.

plibither8 6y ago
Exactly. Frankly, I'm tired of this tip-toed attitude - there hasn't been any sort of consequences suffered or imposed on the Chinese government for how they surreptitiously dealt with the virus, initially. I'm not condoning or advocating conspiracy theories, but where they are wrong, they should be penalised.
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  The Chinese government also started limiting domestic flights in January 2020 but allowed foreign flights out until late March 2020 (https://english.alarabiya.net/features/2020/04/09/Coronavirus-Critics-ask-why-China-allowed-flights-out-of-Hubei-during-outbreak https://english.alarabiya.net/features/2020/04/09/Coronaviru...). That seems like they were containing damage that affected them but were happy to risk the rest of the world. I’m not sure if this was an economic decision or something more malicious but it doesn’t matter - how are they not held accountable for this obvious export of the virus? Meanwhile in the US, hysterical partisans attacked Trump for correctly naming the virus along with its origin. This resulted in a societal unwillingness to direct blame at the Chinese government for all their numerous missteps, starting with suppression of early reports of a new pneumonia like illness in late 2019. How many deaths could have been avoided with just the most basic level of transparency and responsibility?
  - smcl 6y ago
    > Meanwhile in the US, hysterical partisans attacked Trump for correctly naming the virus along with its origin He spent months doing nothing in preparation, and denying there was an issue then when it turned out there was an actual problem decided it was all China's fault ... even though they had it largely under control by that point. That's why people were "hysterical" - he saw it coming, did nothing and refused to take any responsibility, but blamed someone else. He wasn't trying to accurately identify the source of the virus, he was trying to save his own skin. Sure it's frustrating that we only found out in (I think) December that it was spreading human-to-human, and it'd be good to see some actual investigation from China. But Trump's finger-pointing was all just desperate attempt to save face and deflect from his own poor management and nothing more. Your question should be rephrased "How many deaths could have been avoided with just the most basic level of competency?" and directed at Donald Trump and his administration.
    - Mat342 6y ago
      CCCP party li(n)e
      - smcl 6y ago
        Could you elaborate? I don’t really know what you’re suggesting so I can’t provide a response.
- josefresco 6y ago
  Based on your logic, should US political leaders face repercussions or be penalized for their mishandling of the virus?
  - cameldrv 6y ago
    Trump was not reelected, and COVID was probably the biggest reason for that.
  - kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago
    Yes, absolutely. Leaders who knew about it (many senators, trump, etc) and did nothing are criminally liable for deaths.
Consultant32452 6y ago
I feel like only one thing matters. If regular people find out that gain of function research (or something similar) resulted in a lab leak that killed millions of people, then regular people will demand this kind of research stop. None of the people most qualified to speak on this issue want their funding cut or the research to stop.
ipiz0618 6y ago
This is the truth. We don't have evidence that the virus came from a lab (how could we when China refused investigation?), but we have evidence that the whistleblowers were arrested. Some are dead and some aren't seen again. Are we not supposed to blame this regime?
sampo 6y ago
> But China knew about the virus in 2019 and kept it quiet. I don't think it would have mattered. We had documentaries such as The Lockdown [1] in the end of February 2020, yet still most Western countries spent much of March 2020 still debating whether they should react somehow or not. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU9FVqwO4TM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU9FVqwO4TM
- Mat342 6y ago
  Wuhan virus won't be on scale of Sars, says Chinese top expert Zhong Nanshan https://archive.is/O5PhV https://archive.is/O5PhV

trhway 6y ago

>a lab outbreak could have happened in the United States and many places in the world. not that outbreak. US stopped doing that GoF research and funded it in those Wuhan labs instead - basically like any other outsourcing of environmentally dangerous manufacturing/etc. to China. My pet conspiracy theory is that as part of that GoF the virus was tested on humans there - say some prisoners happily volunteering for a couple weeks break from hard labor to spend it in a nice hospital with a "flu". And if the virus had totally natural - accidental freak of Nature - origin, why would you give 4 year prison to a journalist who was covering the beginning of the pandemic in Wuhan? https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2021/12/28/china-hands-four-year-prison-sentence-to-journalist-who-covered-covid-19-outbreak-in-wuhan/?sh=3347527764dc https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2021/12/28/china-h... The suppression of any information is totally in-line with some deep f&ck-up and/or government potentially looking very bad if real picture sees the light of day. Even Chernobyl wasn't suppressed to that degree.

gmanley 6y ago
> And if the virus had totally natural - accidental freak of Nature - origin, why would you give 4 year prison to a journalist who was covering the beginning of the pandemic in Wuhan? I really wouldn't attach that much meaning to the prison sentence handed out. It is entirely in line with the CCP's behavior in the past. They strongly repress any information or people they perceive as causing them to lose face or look bad.
- caddemon 6y ago
  Not saying this is a conspiracy, but it does make it easier to forcefully cover up a conspiracy if they always react harshly to even small "infractions".
bloaf 6y ago
US lab shut down temporarily due to inadequate waste sterilization. They were infecting monkeys with ebola? https://wjla.com/news/local/cdc-shut-down-army-germ-lab-health-concerns https://wjla.com/news/local/cdc-shut-down-army-germ-lab-heal...

jounker 6y ago

It’s quite possible that it’s a pangolin virus. Guess what trafficked in Chinese wet markets?

eloff 6y ago
The earliest cases has no known link to the wet market. That's an old hypothesis.
wilg 6y ago
Apparently the Pangolin thing is looking less likely: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4
tripletao 6y ago
Pangolins were an early suspect, but Alina Chan discovered that the multiple pangolin papers were all from the same batch of smuggled pangolins. This makes it much more likely that the pangolins were infected by something else, in the same way that housecats get infected by their human owners. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.07.184374v1.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.07.184374v1.... Because of this, Nature has placed an editor's note on their pangolin paper: > 11 November 2020 Editor's Note: Readers are alerted that concerns have been raised about the identity of the pangolin samples reported in this paper and their relationship to previously published pangolin samples. Appropriate editorial action will be taken once this matter is resolved. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2313-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2313-x No one is seriously proposing pangolins anymore, not even Daszak and the Chinese. The proximal host for MERS (camels) was identified in a little over a year, and for the original SARS (palm civets) in a little less. For SARS-CoV-2, despite the much greater effort, we're still waiting.

president 6y ago

> We need to avoid demonizing China over this Not a productive message and this sentiment just distracts from the discussion, which is playing into China's narrative. > if we want to ever find out the truth and learn how to prevent another pandemic outbreak. It's a bit late isn't it? China witheld early information about the virus and prevented WHO scientists from visiting ground zero. Silencing journalists and censoring information from coming out all the while pushing propaganda...what do you think we're going to learn from them that hasn't already been swept under the rug? I find it absolutely flabbergasting the amount of trust people in the US and other countries place on the Chinese government.

dang 6y ago
This comment is a noticeable step into nationalistic flamewar. Please don't do that in HN comments. That way lies hell, and we're trying for a different sort of discussion here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- kevbin 6y ago
  The truth hurts. China released a deadly virus into the world. It tried to cover it up. It tried to blackmail Australia. It is extorting Africa. China and the Chinese people must accept their responsibility for this catastrophe. They must let the rest of the world, in the guise of the UN, come in and sort out how much of this crime was intentional and how much incompetence. China must be held accountable. It should pay reparations. It should be forced to suspend any and all biomedical research until it can provably meet western safety standards.
  - dang 6y ago
    Are you aware that you're posting in exactly the flamewar style that we're asking people not to? I realize that this is a high-emotion, high-activation topic, but there are certain principles here that everyone needs to respect. That is what the site guidelines are for. A comment like this one (and worse, "we need to shame China and the Chinese people" – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26548441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26548441 - I can't believe that anyone who has been here over 10 years would post something that horrible to HN) takes us deeper into the hell that we're trying to stay out of. I'm not going to ban you for these, because if I imagine myself into your position, my guess is that simply re-reading what you posted, once you've cooled down, will be punishment enough. But if you would please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

strogonoff 6y ago

An eerily prescient quote from a paper[0] published in 2015, two of the authors of which are with Wuhan Institute of Virology: > Understanding the bat origin of human coronaviruses is helpful for the prediction and prevention of another pandemic emergence in the future. China has clearly contributed valuable research into bat coronaviruses. They had all the motivation to look into these after the first deadly SARS. I think it’s silly to presume CCP engineered a virus as part of some warfare strategy, or even to vilify/sanction them for a lab leak if it indeed was the cause (mistakes happen). However, CCP’s resistance to a proper thorough study of the origins of COVID is IMO not exactly appropriate. Active research was taking place in the vicinity of suspected ground zero. Lab escapes happen—there are well-documented cases of the original SARS virus leaking from a lab in Beijing in 2004 (killing at least one person). Why was this time such a scenario discarded as so ridiculously impossible at first, and is still considered “extremely unlikely”? Is it politics? [0] https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12985-015-0422-1 https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12985-...

IgorPartola 6y ago
My naive reasoning on why China didn’t create COVID-19 with the intention of using it is that I suspect (unburdened by education or the thought process) that engineering a virus is as difficult as coming up with a vaccine or treatment. If you are developing some kind of super virus to shut down the world economy and then immunize your own people to take advantage of the situation, wouldn’t you have the cure ready to go? Now, an unintentional leak would be theoretically possible with these initial intentions but then wouldn’t China still have a leg up on developing treatments? If so, wouldn’t we have seen that in their vaccine development? Of course you this is all uneducated speculation. Quite possible that engineering a deadly and very infectious virus is easier than creating a cure or a vaccine by orders of magnitude.
- DrJaws 6y ago
  an immediate immunization of your population would drive to a raise of suspicion and if someone found china guilty of that, would mean a world war against them.

anthony_romeo 6y ago

I agree. Personally I’ve not dismissed this possibility at all. But as it stands, it’s just a hypothesis with suggestive information, but nothing concrete. There are verified wrongs to criticize them for right now, and can be a starting point for remediation, rather than drum up hate and criticism of mere hypothetical wrongs. (And of course, one such example of a verifiable wrong could be proof of Chinese institutions destroying evidence of the disease’s origin...)

JPKab 6y ago
The lack of concrete evidence wasn't an accident. The CCP deliberately prevented it's collection.
bitreality 6y ago
The problem is that discussing this hypothesis in any form is often labeled as "offensive" and "racist". The generally accepted theory even in the West is the lab leak was somehow disproved. It's always baffled me, because the only way you could really disprove the lab leak theory would be by finding the original source of the virus. Instead, the media often attempts to disprove the lab leak by pointing out that COVID-19 differs from the viruses that were being worked on in the Wuhan Lab. But that in itself implies that China is being transparent. To the contrary, we know that China would take every measure to obfuscate the lab leak if they believed it was the origin of the virus.
- coupdejarnac 6y ago
  The lab leak theory originally came from netizens in China, and then it gained traction in the West. There was some sketchy stuff going on at the WIV, personnel disappearing from their website, etc. Regarding the accusations of racism, it's really annoying to be someone somewhat in the know after living in China having my firsthand experience discounted because it doesn't line up with the SJW perspective. I really like China. However, if I say that sanitary conditions there are abhorrent, it seems like pointing that out here gets me in trouble. It's just really frustrating seeing lots of people regurgitate what they've read or seen on tv from shoddy or biased reporting.
- 6y ago

908B64B197 6y ago

> This article points out that a lab outbreak could have happened in the United States and many places in the world. We need to avoid demonizing China over this if we want to ever find out the truth and learn how to prevent another pandemic outbreak. Then why hide information and prevent world-wide collaboration then?

emkoemko 6y ago
imagine if this happened in the USA and they prevented any international investigations or collaboration... and instead just started to blame other countries. Then a long time later allow people in who they choose and basically tell them what happened and call that a investigation.
jokoon 6y ago
Because there is no culture of transparency in China.

nickt 6y ago

It’s probably important to point out that a “lab leak” is a result of human-clumsiness or similar, and not the sci-fi movie bad guys engineering a virus. A lot of the non-HN crowd don’t get the difference.

dillondoyle 6y ago
I get what you're saying, but it seems slightly more nuanced. From my understanding WIV did do gain of function research. e.g. purposefully make virus' more deadly or infectious to study them. Definitely not a super villain at least I hope/highly doubt the intention was a weapon (you could surely create a better weapon?). I'm not judging the value of that research, it does sound valuable but maybe not more so than the (small?) risk of an accident. There is also reporting WIV was doing top secret research for CCP military. So bad guys depends on your worldview. https://www.newsweek.com/controversial-wuhan-lab-experiments-that-may-have-started-coronavirus-pandemic-1500503 https://www.newsweek.com/controversial-wuhan-lab-experiments... 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...
- ethbr0 6y ago
  Every BSL-certified lab should be doing gain of function research. If leaks are a problem, then certifications should be better enforced. Burying our head in the sand and waiting for nature to kill us is a losing move.
  - Fomite 6y ago
    "Should" is a pretty strong statement. GoF studies, like social media-based disease surveillance, are one of those things that has a compelling "Just So" story justifying its existence, but has yet to show that it actually does what it's supposed to do. Also, the alternative is not burying our head in the sand. It's monitoring and studying nature, instead of forcing the issue in a lab, and investing in infrastructure and capacity that work against a broad range of pathogen threats.

nradov 6y ago

An alternative hypothesis is that a human was infected near the bat caves, then traveled to Wuhan and spread it to other humans and animals at the seafood market. There's no specific evidence for that, but we can't rule it out either.

gscott 6y ago
The seafood markets sell bats and other wild animals as well. When they butcher the bats, dogs eat the leftovers then someone else eats the dog. Plenty of ways for the virus to mutate. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8163761/Chinese-markets-selling-bats.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8163761/Chinese-mar...
- ikt 6y ago
  probably wouldn't link to the daily mail tbh, they produce so much garbage it's impossible to just take any story they write at face value
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Roll a dice representing all the locations of possible human bat interactions. How many of those land next to research labs that study this.
- rssoconnor 6y ago
  That's not the correct calculation because you've selected the research lab hypothesis post-facto. The correct calculation is to roll a dice representing all the locations of possible human bat interactions and see how many of those land next to some landmark that you can form some sort of conspiracy about.
  - bgandrew 6y ago
    And if you add all the sane hypotheses to the equation, how many would that be? 2?

mensetmanusman 6y ago

We will never know the truth to the extent that China would admit this. It’s obvious in hindsight that what you say is likely true, but there is no feasible political route for the CCP to take blame, as their lives would be at stake due to unrest.

tkinom 6y ago
WHO should sequence all the Virus DNAs from that lab in 2015-2019 compare that with all the Covid sequences.
- rhodozelia 6y ago
  I can’t find the link but the virus they took from sick miners to study and what is now called covid-19 were 95-99% the same. A fellow did their masters thesis on it in 2016 or so
  - drocer88 6y ago
    This https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6981198-Analysis-of-Six-Patients-With-Unknown-Viruses.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6981198-Analysis-of-... ?
  - ricksunny 6y ago
    Couple of clarifications. (The fact that the term 'Mojiang' does not show up in the comments yet is telling about where awareness currently is on the topic). 1. RaTG13 came from the copper mine in Mojiang in 2013. (The TG in RaTG13 refers to TongGuan, a township in Mojiang, all per Shi Zhengli's accounting of the sequence's provenance). 2. Prior to which and also in 2013, six miners in this same Mojiang mine came down deftly ill with a respiratory illness. Three of them died from their illness. 3. One report on their cases says they had IgM antibodies to SARS. Another report says they had IgG. 4. There's been no data to support Shi Zhengli's assertion that they died of a fungal infection. (That said, independent of her account, there is a background precedent that there have been examples of people who have had strong fungal infections from exposure to bat guano in certain caves). 5. Shi Zhengli's team returned to the same Mojiang cave again and again to sample for viruses from the mine's bats and rodents. (Goal for this and the broad purpose of her teams' research is to demonstrate for pandemic prevention purposes which viruses are evolutionarily close enough to be able to hop to humans). https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1279755695382986757?s=20 https://twitter.com/Ayjchan/status/1279755695382986757?s=20 (Starting-point source for the above: Broad Institute genomics postdoc Alina Chan) Multiple coronaviruses gathered from this mine remain unpublished, despite a year into the pandemic and an entire WHO-convened study group to Wuhan. https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1372383456081027076?s=20 https://twitter.com/jbloom_lab/status/1372383456081027076?s=... (source: Bloom Lab of Fred Hutch Institute) If you're interested in learning more, I would highly recommend following members of the Washington Post-cited DRASTIC team. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/05/coronavirus-origins-mystery-china/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/05/coronavir... The DRASTIC folks, some of them postdocs themselves, have been at this for a year, gathering & archiving evidence like the case reports described above (that unsurprisingly typically become scrubbed from the source after getting brought to light). The twitter hashtag #DRASTIC is a reasonable place to start.

ajross 6y ago

There is no requirement that bats be transported to Wuhan. It's close to a known bat virus, and that's all we know. There are local bats in Wuhan, needless to say. Other species can easily be involved. The truth is that there is nothing particularly surprising about the way this virus evolved. Fundamentally this is a pandemic like any other. They happen in some species or another every year. And that, more than anything else, is why we should be suspicious of "exotic" theories like human intervention. It's an extraordinary claim, and it requires extraordinary proof. You seem to be arguing the opposite, when Occam is clear that we should be betting on natural evolution.

bgandrew 6y ago
The fact that they didn't find an intermediate host after more than a year of search should tell you something.
- ajross 6y ago
  It tells you that that kind of analysis is extraordinarily difficult. How many documented three+ species viral evolution paths can you cite from the literature?
- freeflight 6y ago
  It took nearly a century to somewhat establish the geographical origin of the Spanish flu and even these results are still a bit controversial to this day [0]. The reality is that epidemiology is not a straight forward nor simple field of research, finding concrete and solid answers is usually way more difficult than most people assume when they want answers to point fingers. [0] https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2019/1/18/5298310 https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2019/1/18/5298310
  - gabaix 6y ago
    Find and concrete answers is especially hard when the investigated actively hides and deflects.
  - bgandrew 6y ago

btilly 6y ago

This article points out that a lab outbreak could have happened in the United States and many places in the world. In general, yes. In this case, no so much. The feart that it could happen here is why the USA restricted gain of function research in 2014. And only reopened it in 2017 with stricter safety controls. If China had made the same policy decisions, would COVID-19 have become much less likely? That's an important question to answer. Whether or not it DID happen that way, as a planet we need a more consistent way to evaluate such risks.

kodah 6y ago

It's really ludicrous that anyone gets conspiratorial about the CCP spreading a bioweapon that originates in their own country. They snuck military scientists into the US to tap into coronavirus research. The most simple litmus test I can think of is if China led the race for a vaccine, but they didn't. People really need to stop and think, because next time that lab could be in your country. With icebergs and permafrost melting, you can bet there's going to be more pandemics in the pipeline. This really isn't a time for people's crass and nihilistic takes on foreign governments, science, or even your own government. When you leave room for people and systems to screw up, then things get better; if you're hypercritical then all you incentivise is the burying of evidence and lies.

JPKab 6y ago
Bioweapon is not the same as an accidental lab leak of a virus altered to accelerate research. The latter is highly likely, the former is ludicrous. Regardless, the CCP were clearly hiding something.
emkoemko 6y ago
we had a issues with the CCP few years back, they shipped deadly viruses out to the Wuhan lab. "We have a researcher who was removed by the RCMP from the highest security laboratory that Canada has for reasons that government is unwilling to disclose. The intelligence remains secret. But what we know is that before she was removed, she sent one of the deadliest viruses on Earth, and multiple varieties of it to maximize the genetic diversity and maximize what experimenters in China could do with it, to a laboratory in China that does dangerous gain of function experiments. And that has links to the Chinese military." i doubt their narrative because they where not transparent and kept making up conspiracy theories that it came from the US, then it was Italy, frozen fish etc etc all the while preventing any international investigations.. We also know labs do leak and even China had many leaks in the past including SARS and other viruses so its not unbelievable to think it was just a accident and if they where doing gain of function we need to know and we need to figure out a plan and have better systems in place to prevent leaks.

sumedh 6y ago

> We need to avoid demonizing China over this if we want to ever find out the truth Or China can start to be more honest if it does not want to be demonized.

thewileyone 6y ago

July 2019 - USAMRIID Fort Detrick shuts down due to a virus leak. August 2019 - "Vape flu" appears in the US. October 2019 - World Military Games in Wuhan, 300 US military men and women attend. November 2019 - SAR-COV2 appears in Wuhan. Let's not discount this sequence of events as well.

Izkata 6y ago
> August 2019 - "Vape flu" appears in the US. Wasn't this discovered to be due to contaminated vape fluid, not anything contagious?
- SkyPuncher 6y ago
  My recollection is it was caused by Vitamin E being added to increase the potency.

ceilingcorner 6y ago

People are demonizing the CCP because they refuse to allow a thorough investigation.

Mat342 6y ago
Also they lied Wuhan virus won't be on scale of Sars, says Chinese top expert Zhong Nanshan https://archive.is/O5PhV#selection-895.0-924.7 https://archive.is/O5PhV#selection-895.0-924.7

manojlds 6y ago

We need to demonize China for all the things they have done to keep it secret in the early days and even upto now, not that the original leak did happen if at all we ever find out about it.

ipiz0618 6y ago

China is demonized not because of an accident (if it was one). Even if it's confirmed that a lab accident was the cause, China holds the blame for hiding the truth, telling the world it's all okay, and arresting people that dared to speak out (even causing their deaths). No matter what was the origin, China is responsible for the outbreak. Btw, I don't think we can ever find out the truth. It's been over a year, and China has all the time to clean up and conceal every piece of evidence. The WHO scientific team's visit to Wuhan is no difference to investigating a murder scene a year after the event, with the murderer living in it all that time. Nothing but a joke.

bitcharmer 6y ago
I couldn't agree more. There is so much evidence of China suppressing information I don't understand how so many people dismiss their role in spreading the virus beyond their borders. They had a choice to make: country-wide lockdown and travel ban or lie about it and make it spread worldwide. The former would leave their economy in a disadvantaged state while the latter would level the playing field for the rest of the world and give China opportunity to even earn some dough in the process (PTE sales). Now, this may be a cynical view but so are China's leaders. If you're someone who strongly believes this scenario could not have transpired, you're just naive.
- ktzar 6y ago
  China did a harder lockdown than any other country has done. Right from the beginning. Took an immense toll to its economy, right from the beginning. A WHO team was there investigating and gathering information on public health from the beginning. I'm sorry, but in this case, China is the country who told the rest of the world what to do and the west, with its superiority mentality over the east, ignored it and got a while year economy down the drain. In my book, conspiracies will always make their way to those who want to believe them.
  - toxik 6y ago
    China pissed and moaned when the WHO was considering recommending banning Chinese air traffic in precaution. Then swiftly banned Western air traffic when the shoe was on the other foot. Many such examples exist. China did not lead by example, at all. What a strange take.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

anigbrowl 6y ago

Indeed. All sorts of accidents happen at biological labs. https://globalbiodefense.com/2019/09/21/explosion-confirmed-at-russian-lab-storing-smallpox-ebola/ https://globalbiodefense.com/2019/09/21/explosion-confirmed-...

29athrowaway 6y ago

No need to demonize China, or better said, the Chinese Communist Party. They already behave in ways that are the envy of actual mythological demons. Social scoring, mass surveillance, the Great Firewall, forced labor, harvesting organs from healthy people, Uyghur genocide, Falun gong murders, Tiananmen square massacre... And actively trying to cover up every crisis, torturing and murdering anyone who speaks up. From environmental disasters to COVID-19 to party corruption.

nednar 6y ago

> The alternative theory is [...] So there are only two alternatives, and we just need to compare which sounds more likely? Or could it be that you exclude about a million other alternatives here, while also ignoring that just a little bit more information about context often makes unlikely scenarios more likely and vice versa? Not arguing any of the theories here, just looking at the approach. The first task might not be to make assumptions, but to understand the situation better.

CorrectHorseBat 6y ago

SARS was also first discovered ~1000 km from those caves, so it's not that far fetched. That said the proximity of the lab is very suspicious. I'm afraid we'll never know the truth though, China would never admit it was a lab leak.

cheph 6y ago

> avoid demonizing China China is actively engaging in genocide and nobody wants to even speak up about it because "cultural differences". I think we should much rather be scared of running even more cover for them, than less cover for them. They already have enough people white knighting for them. Western companies are demonizing the west for profit, and running cover for china for profit, just another example of how capitalism always wins. All of this is sickening and it needs to stop now.

h3cate 6y ago

Moral of the story: governments around the world need to stop fucking around with potentially deadly viruses

dominotw 6y ago

> We need to avoid demonizing China over this if we want to ever find out the truth and learn how to prevent another pandemic outbreak. I think it was western scientists like Peter Daszak who suppressed lab leak theory in fear that their research will be demonized forever. It wasn't CCP who called everyone consipiracy theorists it was Peter Daszak and co [1]. I don't understand how he can be the WHO investigator of his own lab [2]. 1. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/947620 https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/947620 2. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4119101 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4119101

justpassing9 6y ago

Yes, let’s agree not to demonize the country committing genocide against uighurs or they might throw us in camps next.