3 ms·

There is a 3rd option. I'm going to repost a comment I made a few days ago regarding the labs in Wuhan: The "Wuhan Institute of Virology" is named in a couple

There is a 3rd option. I'm going to repost a comment I made a few days ago regarding the labs in Wuhan: The "Wuhan Institute of Virology" is named in a couple of news articles and scientific publications. However what is rarely discussed is that the Wuhan CDC (武汉市疾病预防控制中心), which also has a virus lab and was also researching coronaviruses is in walking distance from that wet market! I took a screenshot of it, in the top right is the Huanan Seafood Market, in the bottom the CDC, which includes a virus lab: https://i.imgur.com/smODVQe.png https://i.imgur.com/smODVQe.png Unfortunately you won't find it on Google Maps but anyone who is able to read Chinese can check this themselves. All the early cases were centered around this area, including the hospital that treated the first cases. It's absurd that this is almost never talked about anywhere. On the CDC website they had an open position looking for a researcher to study, among others, exactly the kind of bat CoV that's been identified as most closely related to SARS-CoV-2. This has since been deleted but it could still be accessed during the early days of the outbreak.

smallnamespace 5y ago
> It's absurd that this is almost never talked about anywhere FYI, this really doesn't match my experience. I got curious and Googled about the lab's location myself about a year ago, not long after the outbreak, and found the hypothesis tantalizing, even in the absence of hard evidence. I've seen ongoing discussion about this since then on various blogs and on Twitter. As a more meta-comment, we're all in tiny, personalized information silos nowadays based on the sites and communities we frequent. Even a pseudo-public forum like Twitter is not really public - you only see the slice that you follow. IMO 'nobody is talking about it' is more about how you've curated your own info-stream, rather than about the world at large.
- divbzero 5y ago
  To add one more data point, for the past year I’ve been following this story passively — reading articles I’ve come across but never searching actively — and this is the first I’ve heard of the coincident location of the Wuhan CDC.
  - sitkack 5y ago
    Replying to you and @smallnamespace, not only are we in extremely small silos, you can realize how small the silo is by 1) taking sporadic notes, but not full urls 2) attempting to follow your same trail again I often find I can't even, with knowledge of what I read/saw find the same sources again, using the same tools and sites without basically taking detailed notes. The idea that information is public and can be connected in the same way is preposterous, but only via experience. If you have an insight, or a linkage between facts and events, please document it in a way that is shareable and findable. I too saw the ad for the virologist post-doc position in the Wuhan lab. I think lab escape of either a wild virus or a slightly modified one is likely. It doesn't mean that it is nefarious. I think a full text and graphical log of the research process would be highly productive.
    - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
      That's important advice. The thought of documenting anything didn't even cross my mind in the early days of the pandemic. It was all so blatantly suspicious that I had no doubt large news outlets would report on it any day, and then there would be international pressure for a proper investigation. But that day never came. Instead they started spreading the bat-eating story after Chinese state media claimed the virus originated in the market, without evidence. People don't even eat bat in Wuhan. And when that got questioned they switched to pangolins. To this day no such link was found. And the Wuhan CDC lab was never investigated. There's so much distraction, hysteria and extremely questionable science reporting. Without having in depth knowledge about Mainland China, I'm not sure if I'd not fallen for some of the misinformation as well. So yes, it's extremely important people document what they see and understand, and share it with other in a way that makes it easily accessible. When many journalists do a bad job at fact checking and questioning their sources, we have to be better than that, else we just contribute to the noise.
    - Anapologetos 5y ago
      @sitkack Check out Hunchly - https://www.hunch.ly/ https://www.hunch.ly/ "Hunchly automatically collects, documents, and annotates every web page you visit."
phyalow 5y ago
If anyone is interested in the Job posting story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU&t=122s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU&t=122s Webarchive links are in the comments.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
CRConrad 5y ago
> However what is rarely discussed [...] It's absurd that this is almost never talked about anywhere. Not all that rarely IME, and certainly not "almost never". It's popped up every now and then for over a year now; here on HN among other places. (OTOH, maybe that was you I saw. :-)

smallnamespace 5y ago

> It's absurd that this is almost never talked about anywhere FYI, this really doesn't match my experience. I got curious and Googled about the lab's location myself about a year ago, not long after the outbreak, and found the hypothesis tantalizing, even in the absence of hard evidence. I've seen ongoing discussion about this since then on various blogs and on Twitter. As a more meta-comment, we're all in tiny, personalized information silos nowadays based on the sites and communities we frequent. Even a pseudo-public forum like Twitter is not really public - you only see the slice that you follow. IMO 'nobody is talking about it' is more about how you've curated your own info-stream, rather than about the world at large.

divbzero 5y ago
To add one more data point, for the past year I’ve been following this story passively — reading articles I’ve come across but never searching actively — and this is the first I’ve heard of the coincident location of the Wuhan CDC.
- sitkack 5y ago
  Replying to you and @smallnamespace, not only are we in extremely small silos, you can realize how small the silo is by 1) taking sporadic notes, but not full urls 2) attempting to follow your same trail again I often find I can't even, with knowledge of what I read/saw find the same sources again, using the same tools and sites without basically taking detailed notes. The idea that information is public and can be connected in the same way is preposterous, but only via experience. If you have an insight, or a linkage between facts and events, please document it in a way that is shareable and findable. I too saw the ad for the virologist post-doc position in the Wuhan lab. I think lab escape of either a wild virus or a slightly modified one is likely. It doesn't mean that it is nefarious. I think a full text and graphical log of the research process would be highly productive.
  - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
    That's important advice. The thought of documenting anything didn't even cross my mind in the early days of the pandemic. It was all so blatantly suspicious that I had no doubt large news outlets would report on it any day, and then there would be international pressure for a proper investigation. But that day never came. Instead they started spreading the bat-eating story after Chinese state media claimed the virus originated in the market, without evidence. People don't even eat bat in Wuhan. And when that got questioned they switched to pangolins. To this day no such link was found. And the Wuhan CDC lab was never investigated. There's so much distraction, hysteria and extremely questionable science reporting. Without having in depth knowledge about Mainland China, I'm not sure if I'd not fallen for some of the misinformation as well. So yes, it's extremely important people document what they see and understand, and share it with other in a way that makes it easily accessible. When many journalists do a bad job at fact checking and questioning their sources, we have to be better than that, else we just contribute to the noise.
  - Anapologetos 5y ago
    @sitkack Check out Hunchly - https://www.hunch.ly/ https://www.hunch.ly/ "Hunchly automatically collects, documents, and annotates every web page you visit."

phyalow 5y ago

If anyone is interested in the Job posting story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU&t=122s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU&t=122s Webarchive links are in the comments.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

CRConrad 5y ago

> However what is rarely discussed [...] It's absurd that this is almost never talked about anywhere. Not all that rarely IME, and certainly not "almost never". It's popped up every now and then for over a year now; here on HN among other places. (OTOH, maybe that was you I saw. :-)