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Current bottom line: - 1st response to CoVID occurrence was certainly in Wuhan. - The closest wild strain of CoVID happens in bats living thousand kilometres

Current bottom line: - 1st response to CoVID occurrence was certainly in Wuhan. - The closest wild strain of CoVID happens in bats living thousand kilometres from Wuhan - Wuhan had two institutes which, on record, did gain of function experiments on bat coronaviruses - Beijing purposefully destroyed DNA evidence, and obliterated the team who first sequenced the CoVID genome - Chinese authorities were scrambling, and suppressing reporting as early as November, seemingly with a very good idea what they are up to.

bwilli123 5y ago
"The Coronavirus might have been spreading quietly in humans for years, or even decades, without causing a detectable outbreak – Dr Francis Collins, Director, The National Institutes of Health." https://johnmenadue.com/who-had-covid-first/ https://johnmenadue.com/who-had-covid-first/
- Aeolun 5y ago
  I dunno. That would be coincidental. Given that we’ve never had a random outbreak of a new disease similar to this in the past 100 years.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - henearkr 5y ago
    Nopah virus, ebola, these are two examples where we have been very lucky, and the only reason they did not spread too much internationally was that they originated in regions with very strong political regimes.
    - mytailorisrich 5y ago
      Luckily, it's not too difficult to contain Ebola considering the symptoms and how transmission occurs.
  - larsga 5y ago
    SARS was a random outbreak of a very similar disease that was just barely stopped. It was really close to becoming a pandemic.
Aeolun 5y ago
In my opinion it’s like Japanese government announcements. They’re telegraphed by rumors and hearsay for quite a while before they’re actually announced. It’s just a matter of time here. The question is mostly what to do with the information once it’s confirmed.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- rorykoehler 5y ago
  There has to be consequences, not only for the CCP but also for WHO and everyone involved in exporting the virus. I have little faith any of this will come to bear though.
- clusterly 5y ago
  I think you make a really interesting point. The way this story is becoming mainstream feels very orderly to me, as if the public is being prepared for a dramatic turnaround. I know that sounds nutso conspiratorial, but actually I think it's exactly the right thing to do if the story is true or, at minimum, if the authorities genuinely have reason to believe that it's the most likely explanation. You can't just spring the opposite on people overnight, especially when the question, which ought to be a purely factual one, became so entangled in domestic politics. I also agree with you that if this is the outcome we're headed for, then we haven't gotten near any of the big icebergs yet. How's it going to play out and what will the real-world consequences be? I hope that the Biden people will be smart enough to approach this multilaterally and not make it the US vs. China spectacle that you-know-who would have. The fact that they're quietly confirming the facts that have been coming out, but otherwise not yet making a big deal out of it, gives me some hope that they're not idiots. This is all silly-level speculative and it's possible that nothing will come of it, but I'd place a (small) bet otherwise. The way in which, one by one, the dominos are flipping is truly fascinating. Fauci has flipped, Daszak has flipped. Every few days there's another small but notable change.
  - the_optimist 5y ago
    Eyes wide open. Media strategies are a thing. I recall a time where evaluation of this was forbidden, with well-coordinated charges of racism. Talking points are a real thing, intense coordination happens intentionally and not among US media. Orthogonal messages, particularly those viewed as adversarial, are suppressed and discouraged. In China government coordination is explicit and acknowledged. The US and UK simply get the same thing through the corporate-government looking glass.
AzzieElbab 5y ago
Additionally, no animal in the wild had been found to carry the virus
- justinclift 5y ago
  cough How about those several million minks in Denmark? https://www.who.int/csr/don/03-december-2020-mink-associated-sars-cov2-denmark/en/ https://www.who.int/csr/don/03-december-2020-mink-associated...
  - kevinstubbs 5y ago
    Well to be pedantic for fun, those minks aren't "wild". A quote from your reference: >the virus that causes COVID-19, on mink farms in Denmark.
    - monoideism 5y ago
      That's not pedantic. Farm minks aren't wild animals, period. They're domesticated.
      - kevinstubbs 5y ago
        I was wondering about this. Because yeah these minks don't grow up in the wild, but at the same time, domestication is an actual evolutionary process. So can they be considered domesticated just because they were raised in a cage?
        monoideism 5y ago
        > So can they be considered domesticated just because they were raised in a cage? Yes, most definitely. Over many generations. They're the same species as wild minks, but domesticated (just as dogs are same species as wolves, but domesticated). And the scientific community agrees. For example, see this paper: https://bioone.org/journals/wildlife-biology/volume-15/issue-3/08-004/Separating-Wild-from-Domestic-American-Mink-Neovison-vison-Based-on/10.2981/08-004.full https://bioone.org/journals/wildlife-biology/volume-15/issue... It's true that they've not been domesticated as long as dogs, for example, but there are clear morphological differences between the two. Most importantly for our conversation, infectious diseases can behave very differently in wild and domestic populations, for reasons of population density, immune status, etc.
hanklazard 5y ago
Don’t forget this: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/03/new-killer-virus-chi https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/03/new-killer-virus-chi... My understanding is that samples from these patients were studied in Wuhan. https://www.independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/a-proposed-origin-for-sars-cov-2-and-the-covid-19-pandemic/ https://www.independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/a-propos... Edit: reference for cave samples
- jiofih 5y ago
  First link is dead.
- hanklazard 5y ago
  Thanks for pointing out the link problem. Can’t edit but here’s the proper link: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/03/new-killer-virus-china https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/03/new-killer-virus-chi...
foxyv 5y ago
While the lab was correlated to the outbreak, it still may not be the cause of the outbreak. It may just be that those with expertise in bat coronavirus transmission to humans were in Wuhan so that is where it was first detected. Unfortunately, due to their secrecy and loose relationship with the truth, China's officials lack credibility in this so we're stuck wondering.
mytailorisrich 5y ago
> 1st response to CoVID occurrence was certainly in Wuhan > The closest wild strain of CoVID happens in bats living thousand kilometres from Wuhan That's weak evidence to claim that the lab hypothesis is more likely or even just to claim that the virus in humans originates from Wuhan. Wuhan is a transport hub within China. In relation to dates it might be worth taking into account that hundreds of millions of Chinese travel around the country in early October and that the outbreak in Wuhan was detected in November/December. Coincidence? maybe, maybe not. Additionally, we can also look at SARS (i.e. SARS-Cov-1, while Covid-19 is SARS-Cov-2): That epidemic started with an outbreak in Guangdong province in November 2002 (again, note the relative proximity with early October). Since then the origin of the virus has been traced to a colony of bats in Yunnan province [1] (perhaps also worth noting that this took 15 years). If you look at the map that is quite far away (1000+ km) and domestic transport networks have vastly improved since then. Based on this, I don't see why the exact same scenario as the beginning of SARS would not be the more likely explanation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
  "taking into account that hundreds of millions of Chinese travel around" Problem with that assertion is that knowing what we know today about the virus, this should have generated superspreader event situations along the travel path, which would have transported the virus to other locations in china. Instead the opposite happened, and china tried to contain the virus to wuhan.
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    Did that happen with SARS? It's not obvious to me that superspreading events should have happened along the way.
    - rorykoehler 5y ago
      SARS isn’t nearly as contagious.
JeremyNT 5y ago
This story continues to evolve and it's exciting to watch the new reporting come to light and slowly flesh out the details. The "lab escape hypothesis" was disregarded by many (if not most) media outlets as a conspiracy theory early on. This feels so much like the Iraq "weapons of mass destruction" fiasco. Any time news outlets are credulously repeating the words of "government officials," you need to seriously devalue the reporting. Reporting isn't just being a mouthpiece for the state, and these outlets fail us when they express such a high degree of certainty before there's any independent verification of the facts. Of course, everything you describe is still "circumstantial," and it's wise to remain skeptical. However, even if we somehow eventually confirm this was not a lab escape, there's absolutely no excuse for the certainty expressed by the NYT et al in their early reporting (which is true for so much of the other COVID-19 media coverage - the media did a terrible job of expressing uncertainty with very incomplete information throughout the entire affair).
- jasonlaramburu 5y ago
  >The "lab escape hypothesis" was disregarded by many (if not most) media outlets as a conspiracy theory early on. I have seen this claim made recently, but as I remember the 'disregarded' conspiracy theory was actually that the virus was genetically engineered (ie codon sequence edited) in a lab. The virus' genetic code seems to discount engineering, but not serial passaging/hybridization.
  - zpeti 5y ago
    No, this was the sleight of hand by the media. Almost all people dismissed as conspiracy theorists said most likely lab escape doesn’t mean genetically engineered. But straight away that’s how it was reported in the media. Basically twisting words and lying. Shameful.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      Tangentially related, I have another comment from a separate post observing some additional media (NYT specifically) sleight of hand WRT the Damore "memo": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27254877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27254877 >> [Damore] argued that biological differences and not a lack of opportunity explained the shortage of women in upper-tier positions. > This is an unfortunate way of characterizing Damore’s argument. It’s technically true in that Damore IIRC was arguing that there was more variation among men than women (more men at the top and at the bottom but fewer in the middle, but Google hires from the top hence more men). So yeah, technically biological differences, but when the average person hears that they’re going to assume he was arguing that women in general are dumber than men in general or some such. That said, this also represents much more earnest coverage of Damore considering the initial coverage overtly lied on many accounts (calling it an anti diversity screed, claiming he sent it as a memo to the company, etc).
throwawayboise 5y ago
Seeming like this is shaping up to be China's Chernobyl, with a similar inital government response to lie, deny, and (attempt to) cover up.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Chernobyl did not kill three million people.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
> Beijing purposefully destroyed DNA evidence, and obliterated the team who first sequenced the CoVID genome In civil trials there is the principle of “adverse inference”. When the defendant has either destroyed evidence or else has not produced evidence they would have been reasonably expected to have, the jury is instructed to assume they are what the plaintiff characterizes them to be. I think this principle holds in this case. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence for the Wuhan lab leak theory. The Chinese government has destroyed a lot of evidence and host gone to great lengths to keep documents and people away from investigators. Based on all this, I think the preponderance of evidence is in favor of it being a lab leak.
larsga 5y ago
Covid is the disease. The virus, SARS-CoV-2, has never been found in the wild. The closest known relative, RaTG13, was found in Yunnan. But SARS, a very similar disease (caused by SARS-CoV-1) broke out in Guangzhou, which is 1000km from Yunnan. So there doesn't seem to be any obvious reason why SARS-CoV-2 couldn't originate in animals and break out in Wuhan. > Beijing purposefully destroyed DNA evidence, and obliterated the team who first sequenced the CoVID genome You have a reliable source for this, of course. Would you be so kind as to share it?
hi41 5y ago
I hear this term often. What does gain of function mean? I am not able to understand that term.
- norswap 5y ago
  "Gain of function research" is when you stimulate micro-organisms so that they gain new attributes. For viruses these properties could be infectiousness or antibody resistance. One way you can do that is by putting evolutive selection pressure on the micro-organisms. For instance, submit a colony of bacteria to something they are vulnerable to. Stop when 90% of the colony is dead. Cultivate the colony back to a full size, then repeat the protocol until you get bacteria that are fully resistant.
yingbo 5y ago
Interesting points, without references. Not even sure whether these points are correct or not.

bwilli123 5y ago

"The Coronavirus might have been spreading quietly in humans for years, or even decades, without causing a detectable outbreak – Dr Francis Collins, Director, The National Institutes of Health." https://johnmenadue.com/who-had-covid-first/ https://johnmenadue.com/who-had-covid-first/

Aeolun 5y ago
I dunno. That would be coincidental. Given that we’ve never had a random outbreak of a new disease similar to this in the past 100 years.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- henearkr 5y ago
  Nopah virus, ebola, these are two examples where we have been very lucky, and the only reason they did not spread too much internationally was that they originated in regions with very strong political regimes.
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    Luckily, it's not too difficult to contain Ebola considering the symptoms and how transmission occurs.
- larsga 5y ago
  SARS was a random outbreak of a very similar disease that was just barely stopped. It was really close to becoming a pandemic.

Aeolun 5y ago

In my opinion it’s like Japanese government announcements. They’re telegraphed by rumors and hearsay for quite a while before they’re actually announced. It’s just a matter of time here. The question is mostly what to do with the information once it’s confirmed.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rorykoehler 5y ago
There has to be consequences, not only for the CCP but also for WHO and everyone involved in exporting the virus. I have little faith any of this will come to bear though.
clusterly 5y ago
I think you make a really interesting point. The way this story is becoming mainstream feels very orderly to me, as if the public is being prepared for a dramatic turnaround. I know that sounds nutso conspiratorial, but actually I think it's exactly the right thing to do if the story is true or, at minimum, if the authorities genuinely have reason to believe that it's the most likely explanation. You can't just spring the opposite on people overnight, especially when the question, which ought to be a purely factual one, became so entangled in domestic politics. I also agree with you that if this is the outcome we're headed for, then we haven't gotten near any of the big icebergs yet. How's it going to play out and what will the real-world consequences be? I hope that the Biden people will be smart enough to approach this multilaterally and not make it the US vs. China spectacle that you-know-who would have. The fact that they're quietly confirming the facts that have been coming out, but otherwise not yet making a big deal out of it, gives me some hope that they're not idiots. This is all silly-level speculative and it's possible that nothing will come of it, but I'd place a (small) bet otherwise. The way in which, one by one, the dominos are flipping is truly fascinating. Fauci has flipped, Daszak has flipped. Every few days there's another small but notable change.
- the_optimist 5y ago
  Eyes wide open. Media strategies are a thing. I recall a time where evaluation of this was forbidden, with well-coordinated charges of racism. Talking points are a real thing, intense coordination happens intentionally and not among US media. Orthogonal messages, particularly those viewed as adversarial, are suppressed and discouraged. In China government coordination is explicit and acknowledged. The US and UK simply get the same thing through the corporate-government looking glass.

AzzieElbab 5y ago

Additionally, no animal in the wild had been found to carry the virus

justinclift 5y ago
cough How about those several million minks in Denmark? https://www.who.int/csr/don/03-december-2020-mink-associated-sars-cov2-denmark/en/ https://www.who.int/csr/don/03-december-2020-mink-associated...
- kevinstubbs 5y ago
  Well to be pedantic for fun, those minks aren't "wild". A quote from your reference: >the virus that causes COVID-19, on mink farms in Denmark.
  - monoideism 5y ago
    That's not pedantic. Farm minks aren't wild animals, period. They're domesticated.
    - kevinstubbs 5y ago
      I was wondering about this. Because yeah these minks don't grow up in the wild, but at the same time, domestication is an actual evolutionary process. So can they be considered domesticated just because they were raised in a cage?
      - monoideism 5y ago
        > So can they be considered domesticated just because they were raised in a cage? Yes, most definitely. Over many generations. They're the same species as wild minks, but domesticated (just as dogs are same species as wolves, but domesticated). And the scientific community agrees. For example, see this paper: https://bioone.org/journals/wildlife-biology/volume-15/issue-3/08-004/Separating-Wild-from-Domestic-American-Mink-Neovison-vison-Based-on/10.2981/08-004.full https://bioone.org/journals/wildlife-biology/volume-15/issue... It's true that they've not been domesticated as long as dogs, for example, but there are clear morphological differences between the two. Most importantly for our conversation, infectious diseases can behave very differently in wild and domestic populations, for reasons of population density, immune status, etc.

hanklazard 5y ago

Don’t forget this: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/03/new-killer-virus-chi https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/03/new-killer-virus-chi... My understanding is that samples from these patients were studied in Wuhan. https://www.independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/a-proposed-origin-for-sars-cov-2-and-the-covid-19-pandemic/ https://www.independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/a-propos... Edit: reference for cave samples

jiofih 5y ago
First link is dead.
hanklazard 5y ago
Thanks for pointing out the link problem. Can’t edit but here’s the proper link: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/03/new-killer-virus-china https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/03/new-killer-virus-chi...

foxyv 5y ago

While the lab was correlated to the outbreak, it still may not be the cause of the outbreak. It may just be that those with expertise in bat coronavirus transmission to humans were in Wuhan so that is where it was first detected. Unfortunately, due to their secrecy and loose relationship with the truth, China's officials lack credibility in this so we're stuck wondering.

mytailorisrich 5y ago

> 1st response to CoVID occurrence was certainly in Wuhan > The closest wild strain of CoVID happens in bats living thousand kilometres from Wuhan That's weak evidence to claim that the lab hypothesis is more likely or even just to claim that the virus in humans originates from Wuhan. Wuhan is a transport hub within China. In relation to dates it might be worth taking into account that hundreds of millions of Chinese travel around the country in early October and that the outbreak in Wuhan was detected in November/December. Coincidence? maybe, maybe not. Additionally, we can also look at SARS (i.e. SARS-Cov-1, while Covid-19 is SARS-Cov-2): That epidemic started with an outbreak in Guangdong province in November 2002 (again, note the relative proximity with early October). Since then the origin of the virus has been traced to a colony of bats in Yunnan province [1] (perhaps also worth noting that this took 15 years). If you look at the map that is quite far away (1000+ km) and domestic transport networks have vastly improved since then. Based on this, I don't see why the exact same scenario as the beginning of SARS would not be the more likely explanation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...

IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
"taking into account that hundreds of millions of Chinese travel around" Problem with that assertion is that knowing what we know today about the virus, this should have generated superspreader event situations along the travel path, which would have transported the virus to other locations in china. Instead the opposite happened, and china tried to contain the virus to wuhan.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  Did that happen with SARS? It's not obvious to me that superspreading events should have happened along the way.
  - rorykoehler 5y ago
    SARS isn’t nearly as contagious.

JeremyNT 5y ago

This story continues to evolve and it's exciting to watch the new reporting come to light and slowly flesh out the details. The "lab escape hypothesis" was disregarded by many (if not most) media outlets as a conspiracy theory early on. This feels so much like the Iraq "weapons of mass destruction" fiasco. Any time news outlets are credulously repeating the words of "government officials," you need to seriously devalue the reporting. Reporting isn't just being a mouthpiece for the state, and these outlets fail us when they express such a high degree of certainty before there's any independent verification of the facts. Of course, everything you describe is still "circumstantial," and it's wise to remain skeptical. However, even if we somehow eventually confirm this was not a lab escape, there's absolutely no excuse for the certainty expressed by the NYT et al in their early reporting (which is true for so much of the other COVID-19 media coverage - the media did a terrible job of expressing uncertainty with very incomplete information throughout the entire affair).

jasonlaramburu 5y ago
>The "lab escape hypothesis" was disregarded by many (if not most) media outlets as a conspiracy theory early on. I have seen this claim made recently, but as I remember the 'disregarded' conspiracy theory was actually that the virus was genetically engineered (ie codon sequence edited) in a lab. The virus' genetic code seems to discount engineering, but not serial passaging/hybridization.
- zpeti 5y ago
  No, this was the sleight of hand by the media. Almost all people dismissed as conspiracy theorists said most likely lab escape doesn’t mean genetically engineered. But straight away that’s how it was reported in the media. Basically twisting words and lying. Shameful.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    Tangentially related, I have another comment from a separate post observing some additional media (NYT specifically) sleight of hand WRT the Damore "memo": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27254877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27254877 >> [Damore] argued that biological differences and not a lack of opportunity explained the shortage of women in upper-tier positions. > This is an unfortunate way of characterizing Damore’s argument. It’s technically true in that Damore IIRC was arguing that there was more variation among men than women (more men at the top and at the bottom but fewer in the middle, but Google hires from the top hence more men). So yeah, technically biological differences, but when the average person hears that they’re going to assume he was arguing that women in general are dumber than men in general or some such. That said, this also represents much more earnest coverage of Damore considering the initial coverage overtly lied on many accounts (calling it an anti diversity screed, claiming he sent it as a memo to the company, etc).

throwawayboise 5y ago

Seeming like this is shaping up to be China's Chernobyl, with a similar inital government response to lie, deny, and (attempt to) cover up.

jeffbee 5y ago
Chernobyl did not kill three million people.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago

> Beijing purposefully destroyed DNA evidence, and obliterated the team who first sequenced the CoVID genome In civil trials there is the principle of “adverse inference”. When the defendant has either destroyed evidence or else has not produced evidence they would have been reasonably expected to have, the jury is instructed to assume they are what the plaintiff characterizes them to be. I think this principle holds in this case. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence for the Wuhan lab leak theory. The Chinese government has destroyed a lot of evidence and host gone to great lengths to keep documents and people away from investigators. Based on all this, I think the preponderance of evidence is in favor of it being a lab leak.

larsga 5y ago

Covid is the disease. The virus, SARS-CoV-2, has never been found in the wild. The closest known relative, RaTG13, was found in Yunnan. But SARS, a very similar disease (caused by SARS-CoV-1) broke out in Guangzhou, which is 1000km from Yunnan. So there doesn't seem to be any obvious reason why SARS-CoV-2 couldn't originate in animals and break out in Wuhan. > Beijing purposefully destroyed DNA evidence, and obliterated the team who first sequenced the CoVID genome You have a reliable source for this, of course. Would you be so kind as to share it?

hi41 5y ago

I hear this term often. What does gain of function mean? I am not able to understand that term.

norswap 5y ago
"Gain of function research" is when you stimulate micro-organisms so that they gain new attributes. For viruses these properties could be infectiousness or antibody resistance. One way you can do that is by putting evolutive selection pressure on the micro-organisms. For instance, submit a colony of bacteria to something they are vulnerable to. Stop when 90% of the colony is dead. Cultivate the colony back to a full size, then repeat the protocol until you get bacteria that are fully resistant.

yingbo 5y ago

Interesting points, without references. Not even sure whether these points are correct or not.