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The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

125 points by nnx 6y ago

tomohawk 6y ago
Hint: it looks like Winnie the Pooh
pluc 6y ago
We'll never find out since the answer is behind a paywall
- tim333 6y ago
  Delete cookies?
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
  Just disable JS.
  - pluc 6y ago
    they don't want me to read their article, why would I
- Method-X 6y ago
  https://outline.com/jDKGUn https://outline.com/jDKGUn
- dang 6y ago
  If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the thread. This is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html and there's more explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=paywalls%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989
Gelob 6y ago
Pretty sure it was randy marsh
incrudible 6y ago
It's interesting to see that with Donald Trump out of office, the "lab escape" hypothesis is not roundly dismissed as a right-wing conspiracy theory anymore.
- tyingq 6y ago
  Accidental lab escape, or premeditated lab escape? Edit: Because the former doesn't sound like much of a conspiracy, aside from a cover-up afterwards.
  - incrudible 6y ago
    I'm gonna invoke Hanlon's razor on that one.
  - whiddershins 6y ago
    What’s odd is how infrequent it is for people to point out this distinction can never be known for sure. From there, the only safe bet is to act as if it were intentional. This is a controversial concept, but it is the rational choice. Never assume that someone who harms you is doing it accidentally. Even though it is more often than not the case, you still have to protect yourself with the possibility of malice in mind.
    - incrudible 6y ago
      Taken to the extreme, there's a pathology for that line of reasoning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecutory_delusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecutory_delusion
    - jmull 6y ago
      How is that rational? For one, if we assume it was released from a lab and that was intentional, the what was the intent? If it was to do what happened — kill millions and devastate the global economy — then the right reaction is a very severe cold war or possibly outright war. We literally could not allow it to happen again. But if it was released from a lab unintentionally, the right reaction is to spare no expense, regulation and treaty to secure such labs from this ever happening again. This would go for all labs like this, not just Chinese ones. These are entirely different reactions with entirely different costs and long-term ramifications for peace and stability for our world. Not to mention, the intentional release scenario doesn’t really make sense. E.g., China couldn’t damage our economy without damaging their own. And if you’re going to choose where to start the pandemic, why start it in your own country near a bio-research lab? If it was started intentionally, it makes more sense that China was framed. (Still doesn’t make a lot of sense though because what’s the rational motivation?)
sto_hristo 6y ago
Yeah, sure go look for it more than a year later. That's how it works best. China and WHO spit in the face of the world. And world smiled back and greeted them.
- simonh 6y ago
  The WHO is a horrible cobbled together mess of political interference and compromises. The WHO is also a vital resource for developing nations which lack the technical infrastructure and know-how to do their own research or develop their own policies, and depend on support from the WHO to advise and provide resources to deal with medical crises. It's out there saving lives across the developing world every day. Both of these things are true, but the reason the WHO is a political football is because the nation states it depends on for funding and resources keep kicking it about for their own political purposes. The WHO is the organisation our countries have built, organised the way we structured it, vulnerable to nation state interference so that our nations can interfere with them when we want to. The only way to get the job the WHO are tasked with done properly is to stop kicking them about and actually support them in their efforts. Insist they be freed from nation state interference, stop blaming them for being kicked about, and go after the nation states interfering with and undermining them. That also means reforming the WHO itself and better resourcing it. We need to stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution.
- Touche 6y ago
  How exactly did the world "smile back and greet them"?
  - sto_hristo 6y ago
    By not doing anything to counteract China's self-interest influence over the whole organization. China turned them in a personal PR agency that went as far as having WHO's head renaming the virus to something that doesn't mention its origins and everyone happily ate it without question. It's infuriating. The only entity of significant influence that offered some resistance was Trump, but his leadership was compromised and had little to none net support to make a difference.
tim333 6y ago
The article seems a reasonable summary of the situation so far. I'm not sure the Chinese have been as helpful as they could be in terms of access to patients, blood samples and so forth which makes it tricky to find that much.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >I'm not sure the Chinese have been as helpful as they could be ... Talk about an understatement.
qwerty1234599 6y ago
Obviously not. It's some random wild animal population of an unknown species, living near a bat cave in rural China.
- to1y 6y ago
  So this particularly odd strain came from caves 900km away and settled next to a virology institute which has been studying coronaviruses for the last 15 years? Are you a betting man? If you think about it the alternative(it came from nature) is arguably much more worrying. Does it matter? Not that much. It'd just put an end to the research. This field of study has been criticized forever for this exact reason and the fact that its basically fancy chemical warfare being sold as research for medicine. Did China let it loose on purpose? Of course not, it wouldn't have come from China. Does no one remember SARS escaped twice?
  - dboreham 6y ago
    Sometimes events with a non-1.0 probability do occur.
  - lamontcg 6y ago
    > came from caves 900km away The known RaTG13 sample came from caves 900km away and was 96% similar. That viruses existence does not preclude the existence of a 99% similar sarbecovirus in the bats in Hubei. Sarbecoviruses do exist in Rhinolophus bats in Hubei: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/FJ588692 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/FJ588692
lioeters 6y ago
Possibly that animal was Homo sapiens, whose curiosity led to gathering a particularly virulent sample from the lungs of a dying miner, culturing it further in a lab.
simonh 6y ago
Aliens! Since we're just making crap up.
Method-X 6y ago
To get past the paywall: https://outline.com/jDKGUn https://outline.com/jDKGUn
tzs 6y ago
> “If this is a man-made catastrophe,” says Miles Yu, an analyst with the conservative Hudson Institute, “I think the world should seek reparations.” That would open an interesting can of worms. 1. It is common under many (most?) legal systems for those harmed by another's negligence to have a duty to mitigate damages. For example, if I'm burning something on my property and an ember from my fire sets something on fire on your property, which you see happen, and you could put the fire out before it causes much damage easily with your garden hose but instead just watch it burn, I'm probably only going to by liable for that portion of the damage that would have happened had you used the hose. A few governments could make a case for full reparations, such as South Korea, Vietnam, and a few others. The US, most of Europe, and much of South America, on the other hand, would have a hard time arguing that most of their harm, especially after the first wave, was not due to their own poor handling of the pandemic. 2. If the release was accidental but not negligent, the "Act of God" principle may apply. That principle is that some failures are just expected in the course of some activity that is commonly done, and if the failure is not caused by negligence it is written off as an act of God, and it is up the victim to deal with. For example, my neighbor has several 100 ft (30 m) tall trees that when I look at them from my back door I have to look up at a 60 degree angle to see their tops, which means that they are much closer than 100 ft (30 m) from my house.. If one of those trees fell over in my direction the damage to my house (and me depending on where I was at the time) would be extensive. Whether my neighbor would pay for that damage or I would depends on the health of the tree. If the tree was dying or dead then the neighbor would be liable. They are supposed to watch for those things and have such trees safely removed. If the tree was healthy and just caught a bad break with the wind then I have to deal with it. An act of God brought it down and it is my problem. Several countries operate labs working with potential pandemic causing viruses. Accidents have happened before, and will happen again, but they all continue operating those labs. They know at the time they build these labs that these accidents happen even in the best run labs, they calculate about how often they will happen, and decide that the benefits (often military benefits) are worth it in the long run. I could see a country that has one of those accidents argue that at least in relation to other countries that also run such labs that their release was one of those "normal" accidents, not a negligent accident, and so each country that itself runs such labs is responsible for handling its own damages. 3. Some of the countries that would most like to receive reparations also do or have done things that have caused widespread harm outside their countries, which one might argue should lead to reparations. It may be hard to find a way to set the boundary on what should or should not require reparations that has COVID on the "yes" side and the things that they have done on the "no" side. They may decide it is better to keep the lid firmly on that Pandora's box.
underseacables 6y ago
Possibly because it leaked from a lab?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
boldpandabear 6y ago
Despite all the contradicting evidence and all the holes in the narrative, mankind continues to stick with the germ theory and viral theory paradigms. When will smart people start to get curious and start to wonder if virus particles were ever the cause of illness to begin with.
djrogers 6y ago
> One problem with the lab leak theory is that it presumes the Chinese are lying or hiding facts, a position incompatible with a joint scientific effort. LOLOLOLOL Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor. Doesn’t the default assumption about an authoritarian government have to be that it is lying and hiding facts that would harm it?
- lordnacho 6y ago
  This is not even limited to authoritarian governments.
  - williamdclt 6y ago
    I think it mostly is, we're just not always happy about which countries actually are in the "authoritarian" bucket
    - flavius29663 6y ago
      most modern governments did similar stuff in the past few decades. I 'm having trouble thinking of one that didn't. You can call them all authoritarian, but then the word loses all meaning, you would just say "any strong modern government is authoritarian"
      - mkolodny 6y ago
        Switzerland's government isn't authoritarian. The Swiss government is the whole adult population. Every Swiss citizen over 18 can propose and vote on laws. No subset of Swiss people can force other Swiss people to do anything without approval from Swiss voters.
        flavius29663 6y ago
        The Swiss government is pretty democratic as far as governments go, I didn't think of it. But now that you mentioned it I can tell a couple of things that are pretty reprehensible, without even searching on Google: - taking away kids from "bad" families and sending them in foster care just to be used as slaves by the foster homes. Apparently the slavery part was pretty widespread in the 70s. Granted, this is not happening anymore - a colleague of mine did prison time because he refused to enroll in the army based on personal beliefs. Now you can do community service instead, but that prison time was not that long ago. Just because you have approval from the majority of Swiss, it doesn't make it right to do either of those 2 things. It's the kind of stuff authoritarians do. I am pretty sure I can find much more dirt if I use Google, I just used what I know first or second hand.
jkingsbery 6y ago
So, to summarize-the-summary: there are four possible theories: 1. Direct-jump from bat population 2. Started in bats, came to humans through intermediate animal 3. Came from frozen food outside of China 4. Lab accident. I used to think the lab accident theory was crazy, because it sounds like a science fiction movie. Not an impossible theory, just a crazy one. But according to this article, despite a year of investigation, (1) is unlikely because we haven't found anyone that interacted with the nearest bat population hundred of miles away that didn't work in the virus lab in Wuhan and that caught the virus, (2) is unlikely because we would have found the intermediate animal by now, (3) is unlikely because the first case found was in China (and not somewhere else... if frozen food had the virus, the food would have had it before it was frozen, and someone else would have had it), and (4) is unlikely because a government famous for blocking information and is paranoid about how it is perceived domestically and internationally says "No, trust us on this one." At some point, crazy theories become the most likely. Hopefully I'm wrong though, and they find an explanation that isn't "lab accident." It seems like we should be studying viruses and sharing that information with each other, and accidents like this will make it more likely that such research doesn't happen.
- jsz0 6y ago
  It wouldn't even be the first time Chinese labs have leaked dangerous pathogens so it's entirely plausible. People who reject the theory outright are just not living in a reality based world. It has happened before and it'll probably happen again.
  - sampo 6y ago
    Here are some escape cases, from both West and East: https://armscontrolcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Escaped-Viruses-final-2-17-14-copy.pdf https://armscontrolcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Esc...
- neuronic 6y ago
  The lab accident isn't crazy. Happens in the West too, it's just something that will be politically weaponized against China if it were to admit it, although we just got lucky in the US and Europe before. Typical Western hypocrisy would be at play and China has no motivation whatsoever to subject itself to that. Also, SARS-1 escaped twice, in Singapore and Beijing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_laboratory_biosecurity#2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...
cletus 6y ago
So I also don't favour the lab leak theory but this is the first time I'd read this (emphasis added): > Nor have the labs been entirely forthcoming about what viruses they do know about. The Wuhan Institute of Virology possesses gene information about similar viruses that it has not released publicly. Other information disappeared from view when the institute took a database offline in late 2019, just before the outbreak started. That's... one hell of a coincidence (in timing). It continues: > One problem with the lab leak theory is that it presumes the Chinese are lying or hiding facts, a position incompatible with a joint scientific effort. This may have been why the WHO team, for instance, never asked to see the offline database. There are a number of problems here: 1. "... lying or hiding facts". My suspicion is that it's most likely no one knows but, more importantly, no one wants to find out. Think about it: what's the upside of turning over those particular rocks? This sort of thing happens all the time. Here's an example from the Columbia shuttle disaster [1]: > Several people within NASA pushed to get pictures of the breached wing in orbit. The Department of Defense was reportedly prepared to use its orbital spy cameras to get a closer look. However, NASA officials in charge declined the offer, according to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) and "Comm Check," a 2008 book by space journalists Michael Cabbage and William Harwood, about the disaster. The landing proceeded without further inspection. A certain breed of manager will just not want certain questions asked. 2. As for a "joint scientific effort", that means something different in the West vs China. In China, everything from companies to sports to "scientific efforts" is an extension of the state. There simply is no independence to the same degree we'd expect. 3. The WHO team not asking to see the offline database is... mind-blowing. There are a lot of problems with the WHO's response to the coronavirus. In the early days of the pandemic, the WHO went out of their way to accept and spread China's versions of events with little scrutiny [2]. It's one reason this article uses the term "patsy". Again, I'm not claiming the lab theory is accurate or even likely but... due diligence would mean you try to independently verify anything that's told to you no? I imagine it was a political deal for the WHO to not, for example, examine the offline database but... really? The other problematic part of this is how long it took for this investigation to start. It's also interesting (although not necessarily damning) about how China came down hard on Australia for asking for an inquiry [3]. Like.. that's just not a good look. But again it's not necessarily guilt. I imagine China just doesn't want to set the precedent that it's accountable to any outside authority and will punish anyone for trying to make that happen. Still... that doesn't help your case if you're trying to disprove the theory that one of your labs was responsible for the leak. [1]: https://www.space.com/19436-columbia-disaster.html https://www.space.com/19436-columbia-disaster.html [2]: https://www.who.int/news/item/29-06-2020-covidtimeline https://www.who.int/news/item/29-06-2020-covidtimeline [3]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/29/trade-war-with-china-australias-economy-after-covid-19-pandemic.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/29/trade-war-with-china-austral...
dimgl 6y ago
I was called a conspiracy theorist on Reddit last year for saying that this likely came from the lab in Wuhan. Now it's a possibility? It's getting incredibly frustrating to go online and be constantly attacked for having common sense views.
- stephenmcirl77 6y ago
  Did you have any evidence to back up your theory at the time? A broken clock is right twice a day after all. Are you saying we should now listen to every conspiracy theory on the internet on the off chance it might be right?
- williamdclt 6y ago
  It might be because you were saying it was "likely" despite any evidence? Ending up being right isn't a to anybody's credit if the original assumption was groundless. (I'm not attacking you, I don't know what was your exact argument)
  - peytn 6y ago
    The initial outbreak was literally covered up. Conditioning on that fact, common sense would place more belief on “lab leak” and less on “natural origin.” Thus, in the Bayesian sense, one might describe a lab leak as “likely” relatively speaking despite lacking direct evidence such as lab notebooks for or against that hypothesis.
    - gred 6y ago
      Partly agree, but also keep in mind that the CCP is by nature secretive and authoritarian. IMO the cover-up still shifts the probability, but less than it might in another country where cover-ups are less "business as usual".
      - dboreham 6y ago
        Note that the initial outbreak in USA was also covered up.
thowaway959125 6y ago
Note that SARS-CoV-2 contains a unique furin cleavage site, unseen in other coronaviruses. The first to point this out, in February 2020, was the Wuhan Institute of Virology: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12250-020-00212-7.pdf https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12250-020-002... This strange furin cleave site allows the virus to bind to human ACE2 receptors. An interesting scientific reading on this, which does not rule out genetic manipulation in a lab: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/bies.202000240 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/bies.2020002...
- lamontcg 6y ago
  "Furin cleavage sites naturally occur in coronaviruses" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1873506120304165 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187350612... HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-UK1 both have them and they've likely evolved several times over in parallel evolution (or as the result of multiple infection and recombination maybe?)
  - thowaway959125 6y ago
    Your article specifically states "not one acquired recently via recombination" unless it was an ancient strain. It is almost as if Sarbecovirus acquired portions of the Hipposideros genome. You'll note your article also says this did not come from pangolins or its closest bat relatives, which shoots down another media narrative. > Strains of SARS-CoV-2 (we also added sequences from the GISAID database) have furin cleavage sites at spike S1/S2. Moreover, SARS-CoV-2 is the only virus in subgenus Sarbecovirus having this feature, while even its closest relatives, bat coronavirus RaTG13 (sequence identity 97.7%) and pangolin coronaviruses (92.9%–90.7%), do not have furin site.
    - lamontcg 6y ago
      That article pretty decisively refutes your idea that the furin cleavage site cannot come from evolution and implies a bioweapons research project. You can try to split hairs, but your argument is wrong.
MilnerRoute 6y ago
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-lab-theory-robert-redfield-no-evidence/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-lab-theory-robert-redfiel... CBS News, yesterday: Kristian G. Andersen, director of the infectious disease genomics, translational research institute at Scripps Research, noted that "We know that the first epidemiologically linked cluster of cases came from the Hunan market and we know the virus was found in environmental samples — including animal cages — at the market," he said. "Any 'lab leak' theory would have to account for that scenario — which it simply can't, without invoking a major conspiracy and cover up by Chinese scientists and authorities."
- jdhn 6y ago
  Is it possible that the virus got there due to it floating around in the air, and not because it originated in animals?
  - MilnerRoute 6y ago
    No. The BSL-4 high-security lab was 7 miles away. https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/01/covid-19-bioweapon/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/01/covid-19-bioweapon/
- 2-tpg 6y ago
  We know that patient 0 was not at the market, and that people at the market got infected. So, perfectly valid scenario: 1. Scientists do controversial Gain-of-function research by collecting viruses from miles away and importing them to Wuhan. 2. Lab leak happens 3. First linked clusters pop up a few miles away in a rather unsanitary market, with plenty of reservoirs and infection possibilities. 4. Virus is found in environmental samples, including animal cages and pets and frozen foods, in Hunan market and else. The only thing indirectly invoking a major conspiracy here, is the possibility: lab leak happens. Or you know, you can account for a scenario, where Chinese authorities covered up a major conspiracy (Don't be afraid! It's only reason over authority!). I thought we were already at the point where this is common sense knowledge. Or else we would know what exactly is going on in those Uyghur concentration camps, but all we can do is estimate the extend of this inhumane conspiracy.
MilnerRoute 6y ago
The WHO team has already reported new information about their recent investigation. I'm always surprised that that's entirely left out of these conversations. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/14/health/WHO-covid-daszak-china-virus.html?referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/14/health/WHO-covid-daszak-c... Apparently China's disease-control center had done a great deal of investigating of the Wuhan market, a WHO team member told the New York Times: They'd actually done over 900 swabs in the end, a huge amount of work. They had been through the sewage system. They'd been into the air ventilation shaft to look for bats. They'd caught animals around the market. They'd caught cats, stray cats, rats, they even caught one weasel. They'd sampled snakes. People had live snakes at the market, live turtles, live frogs. Rabbits were there, rabbit carcasses... Animals were coming into that market that could have carried the coronavirus. They could have been infected by bats somewhere else in China and brought it in. So that's clue No. 1... Some of these are coming from places where we know the nearest relatives of the virus are found. So there's the real red flag... There were other markets. And we do know that some of the patients had links to other markets.
- effie 6y ago
  Mr. Daszak has obvious conflict of interest (EcoHealth Alliance financed coronaviruses enhancement in past) and has already been recognized in pushing convenient disinformation narratives for him and his work by his scientist peers. [1] https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/scientists-outraged-peter-daszak-leading-enquiry-into-possible-covid-lab-leak https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/scientists-outraged-pe...
EMM_386 6y ago
Remember that US State Department members were warning of risky coronavirus research at the lab in Wuhan years before this pandemic happened. 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... That isn't proof of anything but all of this makes for interesting reading.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  Josh Rogin has been misrepesenting these diplomatic cables for a year now. If you read the actual cables (which Rogin refused to publish when he wrote his first story - they only came out later due to a FOIA request), they did not warn that the lab was unsafe. The cables stated said that the lab did not yet have enough technicians to run at full capacity. As of the time of writing of the cables, the lab had not yet opened. The cables were simply arguing that the US should continue to fund its training program for the lab's staff (they're trained at the premiere US high-biocontainment laboratory, in Galveston, Texas). The cables did not point to any safety problems with the lab. The people who visited the lab and wrote the cables wouldn't have known how to identify safety problems anyways - they were just diplomats. They simply stated that the US training program was important and to emphasize that, they stated that the not-yet-opened lab did not yet have enough technicians. Rogin has been trying to spin this into some sort of dire warning, but that's simply a willful misreading of the cables.
  - EMM_386 6y ago
    I disagree. You are referring to part (5). Part (6) in the cable specifically warns with regard to WIV scientists studying SARS viruses that interact with human ACE2 receptors. The cable is here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-state-department-cable-that-launched-claims-that-coronavirus-escaped-from-chinese-lab/2b80aef2-f728-4c36-8875-3bf6aae1d272/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-state-depart...
    - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
      Part 6 is about a paper published in PLoS Pathogens. It says nothing about safety concerns.
pw262 6y ago
Early last year I remember reading that the Wuhan lab had a period of several days when no cell phone traffic occurred. This was postulated to be due to an evacuation of the lab. This has not be repeated recently or mentioned as evidence of a breach.
- madars 6y ago
  I think it was https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/report-says-cellphone-data-suggests-october-shutdown-wuhan-lab-experts-n1202716 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/report-sa... where the source document was https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6884792-MACE-E-PAI-COVID-19-ANALYSIS-Redacted.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6884792-MACE-E-PAI-C...
Projectiboga 6y ago
I read an account that a group of guano miners in china caught it, and were quarantined, or something similar back around 2013 and the virus somehow made two evolutionary jumps at once. Maybe an unforeseen effect of an antiviral medication. That doesn't clear the lab or animal source issue but would be a subject to research.
randomopining 6y ago
It’s obvious the CCP unleashed it either purposely or by accident. You can tell from their behavior. Work back from their behavior to uncover the truth. They’re hiding the origins and have destroyed evidence.
- effie 6y ago
  Unfortunately CCP would probably destroy evidence and censor information either way. They are so damn consistent I don't think this behaviour shows what really happened.
rossdavidh 6y ago
So, another problem with the WHO team investigating this, is that if it came from a lab it not only makes China look bad, it also makes scientists look bad. Regardless of whether it should or not (and I am certainly in favor of researching potential threats), it clearly will. If I'm a Dutch, Canadian, Indian, or any other kind of researcher who looks at viruses (or anything else really) that comes from wild animals, I would have a really big emotional block in the way of any suggestion that this came about because of my profession. 1) it wouldn't feel good 2) it wouldn't do good things for my prospects of getting more funding for my lab 3) it would cause a bunch of new onerous regulations to come down on the way I get to work in my lab 4) it would make me wonder if friends and family and neighbors and etc. now regard my profession as the cause of a disaster I don't think we can expect bankers to decide that excess financial complexity was the cause of the 2008 Fiscal Crisis, or intelligence agencies to decide that excessive meddling in other countries fueled terrorism. It is expecting quite a lot to think that scientists will decide that scientific research is what caused this problem.
twobitshifter 6y ago
Does the WHO organization have much credibility left when dealing with China? I remember the embarrassment when a WHO official was asked to talk about about the successful COVID response in Taiwan and he had to awkwardly end the interview. The WHO looked like a puppet of the Chinese government rather than an independent organization. If they can’t talk about Taiwan would they really be expected to uncover anything that puts the Chinese government in a negative light?
- effie 6y ago
  You are right, they are probably controlled by China. Maybe they still have credibility on things like best practices in dealing with COVID. At least in places where local governments push unscientific overly restrictive policies.
jariel 6y ago
The geopolitical consequences of a 'lab accident' are so severe and existential that I'm doubtful that any evidence will come to light as China will do absolutely everything in it's power to suppress this information. "Beijing’s joint research with the WHO “is completely insufficient as far as a credible investigation.” "Instead, Beijing and the WHO agreed last summer to a series of scientific studies that were carried out in China. When the foreign members visited Wuhan in January, it was to help in a joint assessment of the evidence China had found, not to scour the city for new facts. “There was no freedom at all to wander around,” Watson has said." This outcome would literally shape world history - it would change trade alliances, security posture, it might get them punted from the UN security council, it would severely tarnish China's ambitions for decades and the event would ring through history like 9/11 x 1000. It could very well start a war. Can you imagine how the plebes around the world will react when they find out masses of their peers have died due to 'China'? That they've lost their livelihoods? There would be mass riots around the world, blood on the streets in a few places at least. There's way too much at stake, I'm wary if we will ever find the truth. If we do ultimately find out - the means by which is going to be conveyed will be a master class in Public Relations. How do you let a such a shocking bit of information out? I think it might be best to let rumours swirl first, then indicate 'maybe there is evidence' and only allow the final, official, judicial truth to come out once the plausibility has already been widely accepted.
Cyberthal 6y ago
I didn't see the Gnews / Dr Yan theory mentioned: COVID19 is part of a long-running CCP bioweapon unrestricted warfare program with benefits such as damaging open Western societies and providing pretexts for anti-dissident crackdown and social control. Other viruses originating in China have likely also been this kind of bioweapon. COVID19 was a deliberate release intended to infect the US competitors in the Wuhan military games to frame the USA for a biowarfare attack on China. The US contestants were infected in China and then the infection was suppressed via HCQ as part of a "malaria treatment". The intent being they would return to the USA and then spread the virus. However, execution was poor, and as a result Wuhan was hit first, and the CCP was unable to credibly blame the USA. The timing was intended to collaborate with Democrats to prevent the reelection of Trump, to crack down on the HK dissident movement, to deal with economic pressure from Trump's negotiations, etc. Ideally, China would have been seen as an international savior, with a ready vaccine and a model response. CCP leadership were protected via HCQ and suffered minimal casualties.
effie 6y ago
The trio WHO-China-Daszak is the last source we should trust on this. Former CDC chief says "most likely" cause of coronavirus is that it "escaped" from a lab: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-lab-theory-robert-redfield-no-evidence/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-lab-theory-robert-redfiel...

125 points by nnx 6y ago

tomohawk 6y ago

Hint: it looks like Winnie the Pooh

pluc 6y ago

We'll never find out since the answer is behind a paywall

tim333 6y ago
Delete cookies?
dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
Just disable JS.
- pluc 6y ago
  they don't want me to read their article, why would I
Method-X 6y ago
https://outline.com/jDKGUn https://outline.com/jDKGUn
dang 6y ago
If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the thread. This is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html and there's more explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=paywalls%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989

Gelob 6y ago

Pretty sure it was randy marsh

incrudible 6y ago

It's interesting to see that with Donald Trump out of office, the "lab escape" hypothesis is not roundly dismissed as a right-wing conspiracy theory anymore.

tyingq 6y ago
Accidental lab escape, or premeditated lab escape? Edit: Because the former doesn't sound like much of a conspiracy, aside from a cover-up afterwards.
- incrudible 6y ago
  I'm gonna invoke Hanlon's razor on that one.
- whiddershins 6y ago
  What’s odd is how infrequent it is for people to point out this distinction can never be known for sure. From there, the only safe bet is to act as if it were intentional. This is a controversial concept, but it is the rational choice. Never assume that someone who harms you is doing it accidentally. Even though it is more often than not the case, you still have to protect yourself with the possibility of malice in mind.
  - incrudible 6y ago
    Taken to the extreme, there's a pathology for that line of reasoning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecutory_delusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecutory_delusion
  - jmull 6y ago
    How is that rational? For one, if we assume it was released from a lab and that was intentional, the what was the intent? If it was to do what happened — kill millions and devastate the global economy — then the right reaction is a very severe cold war or possibly outright war. We literally could not allow it to happen again. But if it was released from a lab unintentionally, the right reaction is to spare no expense, regulation and treaty to secure such labs from this ever happening again. This would go for all labs like this, not just Chinese ones. These are entirely different reactions with entirely different costs and long-term ramifications for peace and stability for our world. Not to mention, the intentional release scenario doesn’t really make sense. E.g., China couldn’t damage our economy without damaging their own. And if you’re going to choose where to start the pandemic, why start it in your own country near a bio-research lab? If it was started intentionally, it makes more sense that China was framed. (Still doesn’t make a lot of sense though because what’s the rational motivation?)

sto_hristo 6y ago

Yeah, sure go look for it more than a year later. That's how it works best. China and WHO spit in the face of the world. And world smiled back and greeted them.

simonh 6y ago
The WHO is a horrible cobbled together mess of political interference and compromises. The WHO is also a vital resource for developing nations which lack the technical infrastructure and know-how to do their own research or develop their own policies, and depend on support from the WHO to advise and provide resources to deal with medical crises. It's out there saving lives across the developing world every day. Both of these things are true, but the reason the WHO is a political football is because the nation states it depends on for funding and resources keep kicking it about for their own political purposes. The WHO is the organisation our countries have built, organised the way we structured it, vulnerable to nation state interference so that our nations can interfere with them when we want to. The only way to get the job the WHO are tasked with done properly is to stop kicking them about and actually support them in their efforts. Insist they be freed from nation state interference, stop blaming them for being kicked about, and go after the nation states interfering with and undermining them. That also means reforming the WHO itself and better resourcing it. We need to stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution.
Touche 6y ago
How exactly did the world "smile back and greet them"?
- sto_hristo 6y ago
  By not doing anything to counteract China's self-interest influence over the whole organization. China turned them in a personal PR agency that went as far as having WHO's head renaming the virus to something that doesn't mention its origins and everyone happily ate it without question. It's infuriating. The only entity of significant influence that offered some resistance was Trump, but his leadership was compromised and had little to none net support to make a difference.

tim333 6y ago

The article seems a reasonable summary of the situation so far. I'm not sure the Chinese have been as helpful as they could be in terms of access to patients, blood samples and so forth which makes it tricky to find that much.

macspoofing 6y ago
>I'm not sure the Chinese have been as helpful as they could be ... Talk about an understatement.

qwerty1234599 6y ago

Obviously not. It's some random wild animal population of an unknown species, living near a bat cave in rural China.

to1y 6y ago
So this particularly odd strain came from caves 900km away and settled next to a virology institute which has been studying coronaviruses for the last 15 years? Are you a betting man? If you think about it the alternative(it came from nature) is arguably much more worrying. Does it matter? Not that much. It'd just put an end to the research. This field of study has been criticized forever for this exact reason and the fact that its basically fancy chemical warfare being sold as research for medicine. Did China let it loose on purpose? Of course not, it wouldn't have come from China. Does no one remember SARS escaped twice?
- dboreham 6y ago
  Sometimes events with a non-1.0 probability do occur.
- lamontcg 6y ago
  > came from caves 900km away The known RaTG13 sample came from caves 900km away and was 96% similar. That viruses existence does not preclude the existence of a 99% similar sarbecovirus in the bats in Hubei. Sarbecoviruses do exist in Rhinolophus bats in Hubei: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/FJ588692 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/FJ588692

lioeters 6y ago

Possibly that animal was Homo sapiens, whose curiosity led to gathering a particularly virulent sample from the lungs of a dying miner, culturing it further in a lab.

simonh 6y ago

Aliens! Since we're just making crap up.

Method-X 6y ago

To get past the paywall: https://outline.com/jDKGUn https://outline.com/jDKGUn

tzs 6y ago

> “If this is a man-made catastrophe,” says Miles Yu, an analyst with the conservative Hudson Institute, “I think the world should seek reparations.” That would open an interesting can of worms. 1. It is common under many (most?) legal systems for those harmed by another's negligence to have a duty to mitigate damages. For example, if I'm burning something on my property and an ember from my fire sets something on fire on your property, which you see happen, and you could put the fire out before it causes much damage easily with your garden hose but instead just watch it burn, I'm probably only going to by liable for that portion of the damage that would have happened had you used the hose. A few governments could make a case for full reparations, such as South Korea, Vietnam, and a few others. The US, most of Europe, and much of South America, on the other hand, would have a hard time arguing that most of their harm, especially after the first wave, was not due to their own poor handling of the pandemic. 2. If the release was accidental but not negligent, the "Act of God" principle may apply. That principle is that some failures are just expected in the course of some activity that is commonly done, and if the failure is not caused by negligence it is written off as an act of God, and it is up the victim to deal with. For example, my neighbor has several 100 ft (30 m) tall trees that when I look at them from my back door I have to look up at a 60 degree angle to see their tops, which means that they are much closer than 100 ft (30 m) from my house.. If one of those trees fell over in my direction the damage to my house (and me depending on where I was at the time) would be extensive. Whether my neighbor would pay for that damage or I would depends on the health of the tree. If the tree was dying or dead then the neighbor would be liable. They are supposed to watch for those things and have such trees safely removed. If the tree was healthy and just caught a bad break with the wind then I have to deal with it. An act of God brought it down and it is my problem. Several countries operate labs working with potential pandemic causing viruses. Accidents have happened before, and will happen again, but they all continue operating those labs. They know at the time they build these labs that these accidents happen even in the best run labs, they calculate about how often they will happen, and decide that the benefits (often military benefits) are worth it in the long run. I could see a country that has one of those accidents argue that at least in relation to other countries that also run such labs that their release was one of those "normal" accidents, not a negligent accident, and so each country that itself runs such labs is responsible for handling its own damages. 3. Some of the countries that would most like to receive reparations also do or have done things that have caused widespread harm outside their countries, which one might argue should lead to reparations. It may be hard to find a way to set the boundary on what should or should not require reparations that has COVID on the "yes" side and the things that they have done on the "no" side. They may decide it is better to keep the lid firmly on that Pandora's box.

underseacables 6y ago

Possibly because it leaked from a lab?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

boldpandabear 6y ago

Despite all the contradicting evidence and all the holes in the narrative, mankind continues to stick with the germ theory and viral theory paradigms. When will smart people start to get curious and start to wonder if virus particles were ever the cause of illness to begin with.

djrogers 6y ago

> One problem with the lab leak theory is that it presumes the Chinese are lying or hiding facts, a position incompatible with a joint scientific effort. LOLOLOLOL Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor. Doesn’t the default assumption about an authoritarian government have to be that it is lying and hiding facts that would harm it?

lordnacho 6y ago
This is not even limited to authoritarian governments.
- williamdclt 6y ago
  I think it mostly is, we're just not always happy about which countries actually are in the "authoritarian" bucket
  - flavius29663 6y ago
    most modern governments did similar stuff in the past few decades. I 'm having trouble thinking of one that didn't. You can call them all authoritarian, but then the word loses all meaning, you would just say "any strong modern government is authoritarian"
    - mkolodny 6y ago
      Switzerland's government isn't authoritarian. The Swiss government is the whole adult population. Every Swiss citizen over 18 can propose and vote on laws. No subset of Swiss people can force other Swiss people to do anything without approval from Swiss voters.
      - flavius29663 6y ago
        The Swiss government is pretty democratic as far as governments go, I didn't think of it. But now that you mentioned it I can tell a couple of things that are pretty reprehensible, without even searching on Google: - taking away kids from "bad" families and sending them in foster care just to be used as slaves by the foster homes. Apparently the slavery part was pretty widespread in the 70s. Granted, this is not happening anymore - a colleague of mine did prison time because he refused to enroll in the army based on personal beliefs. Now you can do community service instead, but that prison time was not that long ago. Just because you have approval from the majority of Swiss, it doesn't make it right to do either of those 2 things. It's the kind of stuff authoritarians do. I am pretty sure I can find much more dirt if I use Google, I just used what I know first or second hand.

jkingsbery 6y ago

So, to summarize-the-summary: there are four possible theories: 1. Direct-jump from bat population 2. Started in bats, came to humans through intermediate animal 3. Came from frozen food outside of China 4. Lab accident. I used to think the lab accident theory was crazy, because it sounds like a science fiction movie. Not an impossible theory, just a crazy one. But according to this article, despite a year of investigation, (1) is unlikely because we haven't found anyone that interacted with the nearest bat population hundred of miles away that didn't work in the virus lab in Wuhan and that caught the virus, (2) is unlikely because we would have found the intermediate animal by now, (3) is unlikely because the first case found was in China (and not somewhere else... if frozen food had the virus, the food would have had it before it was frozen, and someone else would have had it), and (4) is unlikely because a government famous for blocking information and is paranoid about how it is perceived domestically and internationally says "No, trust us on this one." At some point, crazy theories become the most likely. Hopefully I'm wrong though, and they find an explanation that isn't "lab accident." It seems like we should be studying viruses and sharing that information with each other, and accidents like this will make it more likely that such research doesn't happen.

jsz0 6y ago
It wouldn't even be the first time Chinese labs have leaked dangerous pathogens so it's entirely plausible. People who reject the theory outright are just not living in a reality based world. It has happened before and it'll probably happen again.
- sampo 6y ago
  Here are some escape cases, from both West and East: https://armscontrolcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Escaped-Viruses-final-2-17-14-copy.pdf https://armscontrolcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Esc...
neuronic 6y ago
The lab accident isn't crazy. Happens in the West too, it's just something that will be politically weaponized against China if it were to admit it, although we just got lucky in the US and Europe before. Typical Western hypocrisy would be at play and China has no motivation whatsoever to subject itself to that. Also, SARS-1 escaped twice, in Singapore and Beijing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_laboratory_biosecurity#2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...

cletus 6y ago

So I also don't favour the lab leak theory but this is the first time I'd read this (emphasis added): > Nor have the labs been entirely forthcoming about what viruses they do know about. The Wuhan Institute of Virology possesses gene information about similar viruses that it has not released publicly. Other information disappeared from view when the institute took a database offline in late 2019, just before the outbreak started. That's... one hell of a coincidence (in timing). It continues: > One problem with the lab leak theory is that it presumes the Chinese are lying or hiding facts, a position incompatible with a joint scientific effort. This may have been why the WHO team, for instance, never asked to see the offline database. There are a number of problems here: 1. "... lying or hiding facts". My suspicion is that it's most likely no one knows but, more importantly, no one wants to find out. Think about it: what's the upside of turning over those particular rocks? This sort of thing happens all the time. Here's an example from the Columbia shuttle disaster [1]: > Several people within NASA pushed to get pictures of the breached wing in orbit. The Department of Defense was reportedly prepared to use its orbital spy cameras to get a closer look. However, NASA officials in charge declined the offer, according to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) and "Comm Check," a 2008 book by space journalists Michael Cabbage and William Harwood, about the disaster. The landing proceeded without further inspection. A certain breed of manager will just not want certain questions asked. 2. As for a "joint scientific effort", that means something different in the West vs China. In China, everything from companies to sports to "scientific efforts" is an extension of the state. There simply is no independence to the same degree we'd expect. 3. The WHO team not asking to see the offline database is... mind-blowing. There are a lot of problems with the WHO's response to the coronavirus. In the early days of the pandemic, the WHO went out of their way to accept and spread China's versions of events with little scrutiny [2]. It's one reason this article uses the term "patsy". Again, I'm not claiming the lab theory is accurate or even likely but... due diligence would mean you try to independently verify anything that's told to you no? I imagine it was a political deal for the WHO to not, for example, examine the offline database but... really? The other problematic part of this is how long it took for this investigation to start. It's also interesting (although not necessarily damning) about how China came down hard on Australia for asking for an inquiry [3]. Like.. that's just not a good look. But again it's not necessarily guilt. I imagine China just doesn't want to set the precedent that it's accountable to any outside authority and will punish anyone for trying to make that happen. Still... that doesn't help your case if you're trying to disprove the theory that one of your labs was responsible for the leak. [1]: https://www.space.com/19436-columbia-disaster.html https://www.space.com/19436-columbia-disaster.html [2]: https://www.who.int/news/item/29-06-2020-covidtimeline https://www.who.int/news/item/29-06-2020-covidtimeline [3]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/29/trade-war-with-china-australias-economy-after-covid-19-pandemic.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/29/trade-war-with-china-austral...

dimgl 6y ago

I was called a conspiracy theorist on Reddit last year for saying that this likely came from the lab in Wuhan. Now it's a possibility? It's getting incredibly frustrating to go online and be constantly attacked for having common sense views.

stephenmcirl77 6y ago
Did you have any evidence to back up your theory at the time? A broken clock is right twice a day after all. Are you saying we should now listen to every conspiracy theory on the internet on the off chance it might be right?
williamdclt 6y ago
It might be because you were saying it was "likely" despite any evidence? Ending up being right isn't a to anybody's credit if the original assumption was groundless. (I'm not attacking you, I don't know what was your exact argument)
- peytn 6y ago
  The initial outbreak was literally covered up. Conditioning on that fact, common sense would place more belief on “lab leak” and less on “natural origin.” Thus, in the Bayesian sense, one might describe a lab leak as “likely” relatively speaking despite lacking direct evidence such as lab notebooks for or against that hypothesis.
  - gred 6y ago
    Partly agree, but also keep in mind that the CCP is by nature secretive and authoritarian. IMO the cover-up still shifts the probability, but less than it might in another country where cover-ups are less "business as usual".
    - dboreham 6y ago
      Note that the initial outbreak in USA was also covered up.

thowaway959125 6y ago

Note that SARS-CoV-2 contains a unique furin cleavage site, unseen in other coronaviruses. The first to point this out, in February 2020, was the Wuhan Institute of Virology: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12250-020-00212-7.pdf https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12250-020-002... This strange furin cleave site allows the virus to bind to human ACE2 receptors. An interesting scientific reading on this, which does not rule out genetic manipulation in a lab: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/bies.202000240 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/bies.2020002...

lamontcg 6y ago
"Furin cleavage sites naturally occur in coronaviruses" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1873506120304165 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187350612... HCoV-OC43 and HCoV-UK1 both have them and they've likely evolved several times over in parallel evolution (or as the result of multiple infection and recombination maybe?)
- thowaway959125 6y ago
  Your article specifically states "not one acquired recently via recombination" unless it was an ancient strain. It is almost as if Sarbecovirus acquired portions of the Hipposideros genome. You'll note your article also says this did not come from pangolins or its closest bat relatives, which shoots down another media narrative. > Strains of SARS-CoV-2 (we also added sequences from the GISAID database) have furin cleavage sites at spike S1/S2. Moreover, SARS-CoV-2 is the only virus in subgenus Sarbecovirus having this feature, while even its closest relatives, bat coronavirus RaTG13 (sequence identity 97.7%) and pangolin coronaviruses (92.9%–90.7%), do not have furin site.
  - lamontcg 6y ago
    That article pretty decisively refutes your idea that the furin cleavage site cannot come from evolution and implies a bioweapons research project. You can try to split hairs, but your argument is wrong.

MilnerRoute 6y ago

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-lab-theory-robert-redfield-no-evidence/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-lab-theory-robert-redfiel... CBS News, yesterday: Kristian G. Andersen, director of the infectious disease genomics, translational research institute at Scripps Research, noted that "We know that the first epidemiologically linked cluster of cases came from the Hunan market and we know the virus was found in environmental samples — including animal cages — at the market," he said. "Any 'lab leak' theory would have to account for that scenario — which it simply can't, without invoking a major conspiracy and cover up by Chinese scientists and authorities."

jdhn 6y ago
Is it possible that the virus got there due to it floating around in the air, and not because it originated in animals?
- MilnerRoute 6y ago
  No. The BSL-4 high-security lab was 7 miles away. https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/01/covid-19-bioweapon/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/01/covid-19-bioweapon/
2-tpg 6y ago
We know that patient 0 was not at the market, and that people at the market got infected. So, perfectly valid scenario: 1. Scientists do controversial Gain-of-function research by collecting viruses from miles away and importing them to Wuhan. 2. Lab leak happens 3. First linked clusters pop up a few miles away in a rather unsanitary market, with plenty of reservoirs and infection possibilities. 4. Virus is found in environmental samples, including animal cages and pets and frozen foods, in Hunan market and else. The only thing indirectly invoking a major conspiracy here, is the possibility: lab leak happens. Or you know, you can account for a scenario, where Chinese authorities covered up a major conspiracy (Don't be afraid! It's only reason over authority!). I thought we were already at the point where this is common sense knowledge. Or else we would know what exactly is going on in those Uyghur concentration camps, but all we can do is estimate the extend of this inhumane conspiracy.

MilnerRoute 6y ago

The WHO team has already reported new information about their recent investigation. I'm always surprised that that's entirely left out of these conversations. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/14/health/WHO-covid-daszak-china-virus.html?referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/14/health/WHO-covid-daszak-c... Apparently China's disease-control center had done a great deal of investigating of the Wuhan market, a WHO team member told the New York Times: They'd actually done over 900 swabs in the end, a huge amount of work. They had been through the sewage system. They'd been into the air ventilation shaft to look for bats. They'd caught animals around the market. They'd caught cats, stray cats, rats, they even caught one weasel. They'd sampled snakes. People had live snakes at the market, live turtles, live frogs. Rabbits were there, rabbit carcasses... Animals were coming into that market that could have carried the coronavirus. They could have been infected by bats somewhere else in China and brought it in. So that's clue No. 1... Some of these are coming from places where we know the nearest relatives of the virus are found. So there's the real red flag... There were other markets. And we do know that some of the patients had links to other markets.

effie 6y ago
Mr. Daszak has obvious conflict of interest (EcoHealth Alliance financed coronaviruses enhancement in past) and has already been recognized in pushing convenient disinformation narratives for him and his work by his scientist peers. [1] https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/scientists-outraged-peter-daszak-leading-enquiry-into-possible-covid-lab-leak https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/scientists-outraged-pe...

EMM_386 6y ago

Remember that US State Department members were warning of risky coronavirus research at the lab in Wuhan years before this pandemic happened. 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... That isn't proof of anything but all of this makes for interesting reading.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
Josh Rogin has been misrepesenting these diplomatic cables for a year now. If you read the actual cables (which Rogin refused to publish when he wrote his first story - they only came out later due to a FOIA request), they did not warn that the lab was unsafe. The cables stated said that the lab did not yet have enough technicians to run at full capacity. As of the time of writing of the cables, the lab had not yet opened. The cables were simply arguing that the US should continue to fund its training program for the lab's staff (they're trained at the premiere US high-biocontainment laboratory, in Galveston, Texas). The cables did not point to any safety problems with the lab. The people who visited the lab and wrote the cables wouldn't have known how to identify safety problems anyways - they were just diplomats. They simply stated that the US training program was important and to emphasize that, they stated that the not-yet-opened lab did not yet have enough technicians. Rogin has been trying to spin this into some sort of dire warning, but that's simply a willful misreading of the cables.
- EMM_386 6y ago
  I disagree. You are referring to part (5). Part (6) in the cable specifically warns with regard to WIV scientists studying SARS viruses that interact with human ACE2 receptors. The cable is here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-state-department-cable-that-launched-claims-that-coronavirus-escaped-from-chinese-lab/2b80aef2-f728-4c36-8875-3bf6aae1d272/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-state-depart...
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    Part 6 is about a paper published in PLoS Pathogens. It says nothing about safety concerns.

pw262 6y ago

Early last year I remember reading that the Wuhan lab had a period of several days when no cell phone traffic occurred. This was postulated to be due to an evacuation of the lab. This has not be repeated recently or mentioned as evidence of a breach.

madars 6y ago
I think it was https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/report-says-cellphone-data-suggests-october-shutdown-wuhan-lab-experts-n1202716 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/report-sa... where the source document was https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6884792-MACE-E-PAI-COVID-19-ANALYSIS-Redacted.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6884792-MACE-E-PAI-C...

Projectiboga 6y ago

I read an account that a group of guano miners in china caught it, and were quarantined, or something similar back around 2013 and the virus somehow made two evolutionary jumps at once. Maybe an unforeseen effect of an antiviral medication. That doesn't clear the lab or animal source issue but would be a subject to research.

randomopining 6y ago

It’s obvious the CCP unleashed it either purposely or by accident. You can tell from their behavior. Work back from their behavior to uncover the truth. They’re hiding the origins and have destroyed evidence.

effie 6y ago
Unfortunately CCP would probably destroy evidence and censor information either way. They are so damn consistent I don't think this behaviour shows what really happened.

rossdavidh 6y ago

So, another problem with the WHO team investigating this, is that if it came from a lab it not only makes China look bad, it also makes scientists look bad. Regardless of whether it should or not (and I am certainly in favor of researching potential threats), it clearly will. If I'm a Dutch, Canadian, Indian, or any other kind of researcher who looks at viruses (or anything else really) that comes from wild animals, I would have a really big emotional block in the way of any suggestion that this came about because of my profession. 1) it wouldn't feel good 2) it wouldn't do good things for my prospects of getting more funding for my lab 3) it would cause a bunch of new onerous regulations to come down on the way I get to work in my lab 4) it would make me wonder if friends and family and neighbors and etc. now regard my profession as the cause of a disaster I don't think we can expect bankers to decide that excess financial complexity was the cause of the 2008 Fiscal Crisis, or intelligence agencies to decide that excessive meddling in other countries fueled terrorism. It is expecting quite a lot to think that scientists will decide that scientific research is what caused this problem.

twobitshifter 6y ago

Does the WHO organization have much credibility left when dealing with China? I remember the embarrassment when a WHO official was asked to talk about about the successful COVID response in Taiwan and he had to awkwardly end the interview. The WHO looked like a puppet of the Chinese government rather than an independent organization. If they can’t talk about Taiwan would they really be expected to uncover anything that puts the Chinese government in a negative light?

effie 6y ago
You are right, they are probably controlled by China. Maybe they still have credibility on things like best practices in dealing with COVID. At least in places where local governments push unscientific overly restrictive policies.

jariel 6y ago

The geopolitical consequences of a 'lab accident' are so severe and existential that I'm doubtful that any evidence will come to light as China will do absolutely everything in it's power to suppress this information. "Beijing’s joint research with the WHO “is completely insufficient as far as a credible investigation.” "Instead, Beijing and the WHO agreed last summer to a series of scientific studies that were carried out in China. When the foreign members visited Wuhan in January, it was to help in a joint assessment of the evidence China had found, not to scour the city for new facts. “There was no freedom at all to wander around,” Watson has said." This outcome would literally shape world history - it would change trade alliances, security posture, it might get them punted from the UN security council, it would severely tarnish China's ambitions for decades and the event would ring through history like 9/11 x 1000. It could very well start a war. Can you imagine how the plebes around the world will react when they find out masses of their peers have died due to 'China'? That they've lost their livelihoods? There would be mass riots around the world, blood on the streets in a few places at least. There's way too much at stake, I'm wary if we will ever find the truth. If we do ultimately find out - the means by which is going to be conveyed will be a master class in Public Relations. How do you let a such a shocking bit of information out? I think it might be best to let rumours swirl first, then indicate 'maybe there is evidence' and only allow the final, official, judicial truth to come out once the plausibility has already been widely accepted.

Cyberthal 6y ago

I didn't see the Gnews / Dr Yan theory mentioned: COVID19 is part of a long-running CCP bioweapon unrestricted warfare program with benefits such as damaging open Western societies and providing pretexts for anti-dissident crackdown and social control. Other viruses originating in China have likely also been this kind of bioweapon. COVID19 was a deliberate release intended to infect the US competitors in the Wuhan military games to frame the USA for a biowarfare attack on China. The US contestants were infected in China and then the infection was suppressed via HCQ as part of a "malaria treatment". The intent being they would return to the USA and then spread the virus. However, execution was poor, and as a result Wuhan was hit first, and the CCP was unable to credibly blame the USA. The timing was intended to collaborate with Democrats to prevent the reelection of Trump, to crack down on the HK dissident movement, to deal with economic pressure from Trump's negotiations, etc. Ideally, China would have been seen as an international savior, with a ready vaccine and a model response. CCP leadership were protected via HCQ and suffered minimal casualties.

effie 6y ago

The trio WHO-China-Daszak is the last source we should trust on this. Former CDC chief says "most likely" cause of coronavirus is that it "escaped" from a lab: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-lab-theory-robert-redfield-no-evidence/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-lab-theory-robert-redfiel...