8 ms·

Wuhan lab staff sought hospital care in November 2019

117 points by misja111 5y ago

greyface- 5y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27259953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27259953
- undersuit 5y ago
  My feelings still stand from that other thread. I don't deny any of this hypothetical lab interference but this new thread hit the top 5 of HN in under 30 minutes with no comments. I don't like that. Why is the view being pushed so hard?
  - wearywanderer 5y ago
    > Why is the view being pushed so hard? Probably because the very self-assure ''debunking'' of lab-origin was pushed so hard in so much of the media for the past year.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - xupybd 5y ago
    It's the thing that once was a conspiracy theory that was getting right wing YouTube channels in trouble, now it's an article from a legitimate news source. To me that makes it very interesting.
    - lawnchair_larry 5y ago
      The more “free thinking” non-right wing people were talking about it too. And being cast out by the NPC left as believing right wing conspiracies. Most of us who paid any attention knew this a year ago. We just weren’t allowed to talk about it in polite company. Just like several other narratives as of late. Some of which have yet to break through. Just wait until the mainstream picks up on the massive ivermectin scandal. That’s going to be a way bigger deal than this “revelation”. Slowly, more and more people are starting to realize how garbage the media has become and how the vast majority of what’s reported is really just activism pushing a narrative, and often not even true. It’s been reduced to ideology and clickbait. I’m glad we can finally say it. Of course it came from the fucking lab. Anyone who believed otherwise should be ashamed of their gullibility and take steps to avoid buying obvious political propaganda in the future. It started right beside the world’s leading facility for bat coronaviruses where they do gain of function research. Where they have live bats. The species of bat it comes from lives like 1000 miles away. They go there and bring them back to the wuhan lab. The bats do not exist there otherwise. And this lab has a history of accidents. And there were no infected animals in the wet market. Yes it’s possible it could be a massive cascade of remarkable coincidences that would and have caused this, and it was a mysterious zoonotic origin that we still can’t explain (after changing explanations twice), but…come on. We ate up this obvious coverup story for over a year just because we hated Trump so much we allowed it to drop our IQ by like 30 points. At this point, it’s conspiracy theorist to claim that it didn’t come from the lab. What else did we get wrong during this hyper partisan blindness?
      - tim333 5y ago
        I posted stuff on the lab leak way back at the beginning (feb 20 or so) but I still think it's unproven. Even so I think people should have been able to discuss it in mainstream forums from the start. Also I think the Chinese owe it to the world to have some openness on the thing.
        lawnchair_larry 5y ago
        It’s definitely unproven, yeah, but so obviously the most likely explanation and should have been explored seriously from the beginning. China’s denials should have never been taken seriously.
      - avs733 5y ago
        > cast out by the NPC left In case anyone is unfamiliar with 'NPC left' (non player character) it is a right wing slur for people they disagree with. [0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/us/politics/npc-twitter-ban.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/us/politics/npc-twitter-b...
        lawnchair_larry 5y ago
        It’s not “right wing” or pro-Trump at all, but this NYT explanation is hilarious. It’s just a joke reference to the simulation theory, and refers to someone who has their opinions “assigned” to them, left or right, and doesn’t imply disagreement. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=NPC&amp=true&defid=13042309 https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=NPC&amp=true...
        avs733 5y ago
        NPC is a meme. Your link to urbandictionary is particularly interesting if you look at the contributors history... NPC left is a term specifically to fuzz anti-progressive animus through 'memeing' language. This type of coded language is a common tactic of white supremacists [0-4]. You may have done it intentionally or not, but it is what it is [0,1,3]. If this is unintentional, you should be aware that that language is created specifically to play with this irony and ambiguity and draw people in while taking a stance that enables everyone involved to claim [4]. [0] https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-white-supremacists-use-soft-power https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-white-supremacists-use-soft-... [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/04/26/990274685/how-extremists-weaponize-irony-to-spread-hate https://www.npr.org/2021/04/26/990274685/how-extremists-weap... [2] https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-alt-right-terminology-20161115-story.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-alt-right-terminolo... [3] https://mashable.com/2017/05/05/alt-right-memes-france-world/ https://mashable.com/2017/05/05/alt-right-memes-france-world... [4] https://journals.openedition.org/angles/369 https://journals.openedition.org/angles/369
  - PicassoCTs 5y ago
    Because we need accountability. This whole disaster of denying a problem, till it was a catastrophe, talking it small, until it was a pandemic, failing institutions and failing systems (face before scientific truth) is a liability that needs to be dismantled.
    - avs733 5y ago
      pushing a view point isn't accountability. it is the opposite of accountability. you say face before scientific truth but the people pushing this theory are not focused on scientific truth anymore than you think China is.
      - Florin_Andrei 5y ago
        You don't get it. They absolutely need accountability produced somehow, even out of thin air if need be.
        avs733 5y ago
        watching these conversations, I see this as the most fundamental comment as to what is going on.
    - captainmuon 5y ago
      The idea of accountability is the thing that is holding back the investigation. Because if China were found "culpable", there is no way they could pay compensation for the trillions of economic damage and all the lifes lost. Not even the geopolitical oppenents of China are willing to go there. What we need is to prevent further such incidents in the future. So if the question of accountability is off the table, lets just think about what the consequence would be if the virus was an accidential lab escape (from any country). We should immediately take measures such that that never happens again. That means increasing the safety measures and transparency, and possibly banning gain-of-function research. Unfortunately, the undercurrent of the whole discussion is "who is to blame", not "how to prevent this again". (Also, I think this is one of the reasons they tried to downplay the outbreak in the beginning.)
  - tick_tock_tick 5y ago
    It's being pushed hard because the push back against it was so weird. Random "experts" with no evidence writing all sorts of absolutes statements that a lab leak was impossible. Then for a while the media was calling people crazy or racist for believing a very reasonable theory that China has done everything in its' power to make un-confirmable.
    - manuelabeledo 5y ago
      That’s not what happened. What happened was that a conspiracy theory was generally dismissed because it was being pushed in the right wing media, with literally zero evidence to support it. There weren’t “experts with no evidence” of the non existence of a lab leak. There were experts claiming that there is no evidence of a lab leak.
    - Florin_Andrei 5y ago
      The "random expects", as you describe them, were saying exactly that: that there is no evidence, so stop the conspiracy theorizing until some evidence is produced.
  - avs733 5y ago
    yeah that seems to be the thing. a report that is highly circumstantial but implies a certain inference from a foreign intelligence agency that says it 'needs further investigation' provided to a historically right wing publication when in contrast the people who do this for a living have consistently had exactly the same line: we need to investigate the cause, the evidence we have suggests one thing, and this theory that keeps getting pushed is scientifically without evidence
    - lawnchair_larry 5y ago
      This is incorrect. You’re behind on this one.
  - tristanj 5y ago
    Because during the pandemic, the major media outlets dismissed it as a conspiracy theory and completely shut down conversation on the topic. The New York Times claimed this theory was "debunked". Fact checkers claimed this was "pants on fire" lying. For months, Twitter suspended accounts sharing the lab-leak theory, because they were "spreading misinformation". The past few weeks, all the above parties did a complete about-face, with no apology. Vox silently edited one of its March 2020 articles "debunking" claims that Covid-19 originated in a lab leak https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1396769717805780994 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1396769717805780994 . The fact that the mainstream media can so effectively censor a theory against the prescribed narrative is extremely harmful to our democracy. It makes you question what other narratives being pushed today are similarly misguided.
    - kokanator 5y ago
      There will be no apology. The evidence is beginning to be stacked against them so they need to run with it so it looks like the broke the story.
  - Florin_Andrei 5y ago
    > Why is the view being pushed so hard? Because it validates a certain worldview. "I need things to be this way, or else the universe is wrong."
  - dang 5y ago
    It's not being "pushed" except in the sense that any sensational topic gets pushed: by the pressure of people's excitement and sensations. This is the cycle of life on the internet. Edit: I wrote more about this here if anyone wants more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27268101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27268101
    - undersuit 5y ago
      While you probably have a higher level view of what "pushing" is on HN, I'm not seeing this topic being posted and quickly upvoted with minimal interaction on just HN... but I'm also just a normal user of other sites like Reddit too. Maybe I'm just overreacting to the reposts.
      - dang 5y ago
        It's just a sensational topic - maybe the most sensational MOT (major ongoing topic) of the moment, no? The same psychology must apply to that everywhere. This story has other advantages (from the point of view of the story). It is intriguing in a way that's perfect for internet detectives, sort of like a board game with a low barrier to entry: you can get up and running with a few links in a few minutes, jump in and play. It's personally relevant to everyone who was affected by the pandemic, i.e. literally everyone. And the stakes are high geopolitically, so it's got all the energy of that drama as well (not great for discussion quality, but fabulous if you're the story and want to spread). I'm just describing the psychology of a story like this. I'm not putting down anyone who's interested in it or who's not interested in it, and I'm certainly not commenting on the story itself—only why it's easy to understand why people would be posting it, upvoting it, and flagging it. Different people, of course. You're not the only person who is reacting to the reposts. Based on past experience, we should all brace ourselves for throngs more of them. Maybe this would be a good place to repeat the principles of MOTs and SNI: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20sni%20mot%20&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=follow-up%20by%3Adang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... I didn't really think that the current story was SNI, given that we've had several other major threads recently, but it's a borderline case and the community seems to have voted otherwise.
  - screye 5y ago
    Outside of the reasons listed: 'Because justice, moral high ground and emotions are important to people, and people elect governments' From a meta "gain of function" POV, China has gained from the pandemic. It has kick started its economy with months of head start, while all of the BRIC and western competition have suffered through the pandemic. China hasn't lost a single opportunity to let it be known that the superiority of their governance methods and ideology has a hand in how well they've handled the pandemic. Their main competition: US (in front) and India (much behind) have particularly suffered and been the subject of ridicule among the Chinese. The winds of change are heralded in by emotion and perception. Being able to associate the grief of millions to a single regime is the kind of weapon that itching to be wielded. (to a lesser degree the democrats already wielded it in ousting Trump) It can permanently damage the credibility of mainstream media organizations and social media giants. It can breed nationalism and anti-PRC sentiment. It can legitimize scepticism towards empirical science and make heterodox/conspiratorial ideas harder to dismiss. It can be used to break the break the stranglehold of elite media/universities as unquestionable source of truth. Whether the outcomes are to our liking is secondary. The answer to the question if the issue is worth pursuing is a resounding YES !
  - avs733 5y ago
    I'll re-iterate how important this comment is, sorry dang, when I see the responses to this comment, some comments of mine, and other 'this is a suspicious pattern' comments. There is nothing insulating HN from being a home for some particular conspiracy theory anymore than other sites. The willingness of some comments in this thread to just absolutely push the 'lab' narrative despite admitting the lack of evidence is deeply troubling.
- dang 5y ago
  Also these previous ones are related: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27184998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27184998 - May 2021 (235 comments) More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27160898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27160898 - May 2021 (341 comments) The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27071432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27071432 - May 2021 (537 comments) Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26750452 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26750452 - April 2021 (618 comments) Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26540458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26540458 - March 2021 (985 comments) The Lab Leak Hypothesis - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25640323 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25640323 - Jan 2021 (229 comments)
travisp 5y ago
Maybe. But this is according to a paraphrase of unverified (possibly not even American) intelligence. Both the document's authority and origin are disputed, and the WSJ can't even say which department or agency wrote this. This does not seem like any sort of official US intelligence report. A reasonable look at this particular claim and the history of similar types of claims: https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/1396577153232379904 https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/13965771532323799...
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  Couldn’t all these same points from that Twitter thread be leveled against the New York Times when they wrote about Trump’s tax returns and financials? It seems to be like an inconsistent bar is being used in terms of transparency and access to the primary source. I’m not saying it’s wrong to be skeptical - in fact I think it’s appropriate - it’s just an interesting observation on how ready we are (or aren’t) to accept allegations based on the story. Ultimately what the lab leak hypothesis deserves is a trustworthy transparent and independent investigation into WIV, but we may be too late in demanding that now, 1.5 years later.
- inciampati 5y ago
  One thing is fantastically hard to ignore. The SARS2 phylogeny is rooted by a most recent common ancestor in October or November. This is as clear as day and no evidence has ever surfaced to nudge the estimate nor to indicate the virus was present previous to those dates, nor that there were existing proto-SARS2 strains. These would continue to circulate and something would have been found had they existed. (n.b. There _has_ been some now discredited science arguing it was in Europe before those dates.) The correspondence between the virus phylogeny, this report, as well as previous indications of a shutdown in the WIV in early to mid October 2019, is just an awful lot to say maybe to. So, what's the explanation on the other side of your "maybe"?
  - travisp 5y ago
    You're asking me to comment on the entire theory, I think. I'm only commenting on the value of an unseen intelligence report of unknown source. None of what you've said increases the validity of this report. Everyone commenting on this post is acting immediately as if this report is 100% true, but the reality is that we know very little about the report.
ceejayoz 5y ago
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/23/politics/us-intelligence-report-wuhan-lab-researchers-coronavirus-origin/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/23/politics/us-intelligence-... > Importantly, the intelligence community still does not know what the researchers were actually sick with... I suspect most organizations of this size see cold/flu cases - i.e. similar symptoms to mild-to-moderate COVID - in winter every year.
- bitshiftfaced 5y ago
  > I suspect most organizations of this size see cold/flu cases -i.e. similar symptoms to mild-to-moderate COVID - in winter every year. And have to be hospitalized?
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    > CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html An organization with a few thousands staffers? Sure. (800k out of 300M Americans would be ~0.3% per year.)
    - xupybd 5y ago
      Normally you have to be really young, really old or really sick to die from the flu. Not everyone but most. I hope the Wuhan lab didn't have multiple employees in any of those categories. Edit: parent comment has changed so much my comment is no longer in context :(
    - bitshiftfaced 5y ago
      > As of 2013, WIV had a staff of 266 http://institute.wuhanvirology.org/About_Us/Brief_Introduction/index.htm http://institute.wuhanvirology.org/About_Us/Brief_Introducti... If their average age was around 50 to 64, then we'd expect around 155.1/1e5*266 ~= 0.4 hospitalizations within the entire flu season, not just within one month. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1127795/influenza-us-hospitalization-rate-by-age-group/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1127795/influenza-us-hos...
OminousWeapons 5y ago
It is strange to me that there is this much concern over whether COVID came from a lab or not because ultimately it is irrelevant outside of highlighting a need for additional safety protocols if proven true. "Virus from a lab" != engineered bioweapon, and regardless of whether infected animals existed in nature, got placed in a lab, and then an infection occurred or whether humans came in contact with infected animals in nature outside of the lab, we still should have employed much better disease management protocols than we did. We (Americans) aren't suddenly absolved of responsibility for our failures to contain this pandemic if it turns out that this was a lab leak, nor will the Chinese be any more responsible for the pandemic than they already are.
- xupybd 5y ago
  If it's a lab leak it gives us people to blame. That's huge as far as a world wide pandemic goes.
  - minikites 5y ago
    Suppose we now know who to blame. How does that help us address the current situation?
    - kokanator 5y ago
      Does nothing for the current situation but helps us to understand future pandemic sources. If the virus escaped or was released from a specific source we can deal with the security of that location and others like it. If it truly passed from a bat/pangolin/chicken, etc we can begin to deal with the sources of that vector. This truly is a serious question that must be resolved.
    - xupybd 5y ago
      Nothing practical, but it fills a human emotional void.
- metalliqaz 5y ago
  its important to some people because they want to be able to blame China, I guess. of course it's actually meaningless. the actual crime was the cover up that occurred after the virus was on the loose, delaying preparations and making containment impossible. we already know that happened
logicslave 5y ago
Pretty obvious this came from a lab. Theres no easy resolution to the problem though. Is the USA going to confront China? Spark a dangerous tension? They are meddling with technology that they dont respect, and we are all suffering the consequences
TechBro8615 5y ago
Is this a story about a lab leak or media incompetence? What evidence has meaningfully changed since a year ago when this was a harmful conspiracy theory? Next you’re gonna tell me that really was Hunter Biden’s laptop... FWIW I made this HN account a year ago to post an article about the lab leak theory. I couldn’t use my main account because it was so obviously wrongthink at the time.
- kokanator 5y ago
  Just as an aside, HB did state it could be his laptop[0]. Fact checked on snopes. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hunter-biden-laptop-could-be-his/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hunter-biden-laptop-could-...
- piva00 5y ago
  And now your new post about this research [1] has been flagged, it's quite strange. [1] https://project-evidence.github.io/ https://project-evidence.github.io/
  - TechBro8615 5y ago
    Yeah, I gave up caring a long time ago. You can’t fight emotion and attachment theory with logic. Let people feel what they will. For example I feel like a tendency for critical thinking is a curse.
    - lawnchair_larry 5y ago
      This was the most depressing realization of the past year for me. Otherwise smart people too. Including a large percentage of this site. They got nearly every story wrong, and only some are just starting to realize it.
- lawnchair_larry 5y ago
  That’s hilarious. I had to self-sensor a lot for wrongthink as well. I still do on some topics. These people don’t listen, they do a quick pattern match of your keywords and dismiss if it sounds tangentially related to a non-left narrative, or contradicts theirs. Even when you explicitly differentiate from whatever narrative they’re associating it with. It’s maddening. I assume you saw Yuri’s paper?
manuelabeledo 5y ago
A few staffers fell ill with a pretty bad case of the flu. There. That may be the whole thing. This is non news.
enterdev 5y ago
I find it unusual that people can think this came from a 'wet market'. Those people will go as far as verbally attacking you if you suggest it originated or leaked from within a lab. Furthermore those people will claim it doesn't matter where it came from. The aggressive response seems agenda driven.
- jhgb 5y ago
  > I find it unusual that people can think this came from a 'wet market'. Why? Ebola, HIV (and others, I'm sure) originate in wild animals used as food. It's a perfectly reasonable explanation.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

117 points by misja111 5y ago

greyface- 5y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27259953 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27259953

undersuit 5y ago
My feelings still stand from that other thread. I don't deny any of this hypothetical lab interference but this new thread hit the top 5 of HN in under 30 minutes with no comments. I don't like that. Why is the view being pushed so hard?
- wearywanderer 5y ago
  > Why is the view being pushed so hard? Probably because the very self-assure ''debunking'' of lab-origin was pushed so hard in so much of the media for the past year.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- xupybd 5y ago
  It's the thing that once was a conspiracy theory that was getting right wing YouTube channels in trouble, now it's an article from a legitimate news source. To me that makes it very interesting.
  - lawnchair_larry 5y ago
    The more “free thinking” non-right wing people were talking about it too. And being cast out by the NPC left as believing right wing conspiracies. Most of us who paid any attention knew this a year ago. We just weren’t allowed to talk about it in polite company. Just like several other narratives as of late. Some of which have yet to break through. Just wait until the mainstream picks up on the massive ivermectin scandal. That’s going to be a way bigger deal than this “revelation”. Slowly, more and more people are starting to realize how garbage the media has become and how the vast majority of what’s reported is really just activism pushing a narrative, and often not even true. It’s been reduced to ideology and clickbait. I’m glad we can finally say it. Of course it came from the fucking lab. Anyone who believed otherwise should be ashamed of their gullibility and take steps to avoid buying obvious political propaganda in the future. It started right beside the world’s leading facility for bat coronaviruses where they do gain of function research. Where they have live bats. The species of bat it comes from lives like 1000 miles away. They go there and bring them back to the wuhan lab. The bats do not exist there otherwise. And this lab has a history of accidents. And there were no infected animals in the wet market. Yes it’s possible it could be a massive cascade of remarkable coincidences that would and have caused this, and it was a mysterious zoonotic origin that we still can’t explain (after changing explanations twice), but…come on. We ate up this obvious coverup story for over a year just because we hated Trump so much we allowed it to drop our IQ by like 30 points. At this point, it’s conspiracy theorist to claim that it didn’t come from the lab. What else did we get wrong during this hyper partisan blindness?
    - tim333 5y ago
      I posted stuff on the lab leak way back at the beginning (feb 20 or so) but I still think it's unproven. Even so I think people should have been able to discuss it in mainstream forums from the start. Also I think the Chinese owe it to the world to have some openness on the thing.
      - lawnchair_larry 5y ago
        It’s definitely unproven, yeah, but so obviously the most likely explanation and should have been explored seriously from the beginning. China’s denials should have never been taken seriously.
    - avs733 5y ago
      > cast out by the NPC left In case anyone is unfamiliar with 'NPC left' (non player character) it is a right wing slur for people they disagree with. [0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/us/politics/npc-twitter-ban.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/us/politics/npc-twitter-b...
      - lawnchair_larry 5y ago
        It’s not “right wing” or pro-Trump at all, but this NYT explanation is hilarious. It’s just a joke reference to the simulation theory, and refers to someone who has their opinions “assigned” to them, left or right, and doesn’t imply disagreement. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=NPC&amp=true&defid=13042309 https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=NPC&amp=true...
        avs733 5y ago
        NPC is a meme. Your link to urbandictionary is particularly interesting if you look at the contributors history... NPC left is a term specifically to fuzz anti-progressive animus through 'memeing' language. This type of coded language is a common tactic of white supremacists [0-4]. You may have done it intentionally or not, but it is what it is [0,1,3]. If this is unintentional, you should be aware that that language is created specifically to play with this irony and ambiguity and draw people in while taking a stance that enables everyone involved to claim [4]. [0] https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-white-supremacists-use-soft-power https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-white-supremacists-use-soft-... [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/04/26/990274685/how-extremists-weaponize-irony-to-spread-hate https://www.npr.org/2021/04/26/990274685/how-extremists-weap... [2] https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-alt-right-terminology-20161115-story.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-alt-right-terminolo... [3] https://mashable.com/2017/05/05/alt-right-memes-france-world/ https://mashable.com/2017/05/05/alt-right-memes-france-world... [4] https://journals.openedition.org/angles/369 https://journals.openedition.org/angles/369
- PicassoCTs 5y ago
  Because we need accountability. This whole disaster of denying a problem, till it was a catastrophe, talking it small, until it was a pandemic, failing institutions and failing systems (face before scientific truth) is a liability that needs to be dismantled.
  - avs733 5y ago
    pushing a view point isn't accountability. it is the opposite of accountability. you say face before scientific truth but the people pushing this theory are not focused on scientific truth anymore than you think China is.
    - Florin_Andrei 5y ago
      You don't get it. They absolutely need accountability produced somehow, even out of thin air if need be.
      - avs733 5y ago
        watching these conversations, I see this as the most fundamental comment as to what is going on.
  - captainmuon 5y ago
    The idea of accountability is the thing that is holding back the investigation. Because if China were found "culpable", there is no way they could pay compensation for the trillions of economic damage and all the lifes lost. Not even the geopolitical oppenents of China are willing to go there. What we need is to prevent further such incidents in the future. So if the question of accountability is off the table, lets just think about what the consequence would be if the virus was an accidential lab escape (from any country). We should immediately take measures such that that never happens again. That means increasing the safety measures and transparency, and possibly banning gain-of-function research. Unfortunately, the undercurrent of the whole discussion is "who is to blame", not "how to prevent this again". (Also, I think this is one of the reasons they tried to downplay the outbreak in the beginning.)
- tick_tock_tick 5y ago
  It's being pushed hard because the push back against it was so weird. Random "experts" with no evidence writing all sorts of absolutes statements that a lab leak was impossible. Then for a while the media was calling people crazy or racist for believing a very reasonable theory that China has done everything in its' power to make un-confirmable.
  - manuelabeledo 5y ago
    That’s not what happened. What happened was that a conspiracy theory was generally dismissed because it was being pushed in the right wing media, with literally zero evidence to support it. There weren’t “experts with no evidence” of the non existence of a lab leak. There were experts claiming that there is no evidence of a lab leak.
  - Florin_Andrei 5y ago
    The "random expects", as you describe them, were saying exactly that: that there is no evidence, so stop the conspiracy theorizing until some evidence is produced.
- avs733 5y ago
  yeah that seems to be the thing. a report that is highly circumstantial but implies a certain inference from a foreign intelligence agency that says it 'needs further investigation' provided to a historically right wing publication when in contrast the people who do this for a living have consistently had exactly the same line: we need to investigate the cause, the evidence we have suggests one thing, and this theory that keeps getting pushed is scientifically without evidence
  - lawnchair_larry 5y ago
    This is incorrect. You’re behind on this one.
- tristanj 5y ago
  Because during the pandemic, the major media outlets dismissed it as a conspiracy theory and completely shut down conversation on the topic. The New York Times claimed this theory was "debunked". Fact checkers claimed this was "pants on fire" lying. For months, Twitter suspended accounts sharing the lab-leak theory, because they were "spreading misinformation". The past few weeks, all the above parties did a complete about-face, with no apology. Vox silently edited one of its March 2020 articles "debunking" claims that Covid-19 originated in a lab leak https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1396769717805780994 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1396769717805780994 . The fact that the mainstream media can so effectively censor a theory against the prescribed narrative is extremely harmful to our democracy. It makes you question what other narratives being pushed today are similarly misguided.
  - kokanator 5y ago
    There will be no apology. The evidence is beginning to be stacked against them so they need to run with it so it looks like the broke the story.
- Florin_Andrei 5y ago
  > Why is the view being pushed so hard? Because it validates a certain worldview. "I need things to be this way, or else the universe is wrong."
- dang 5y ago
  It's not being "pushed" except in the sense that any sensational topic gets pushed: by the pressure of people's excitement and sensations. This is the cycle of life on the internet. Edit: I wrote more about this here if anyone wants more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27268101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27268101
  - undersuit 5y ago
    While you probably have a higher level view of what "pushing" is on HN, I'm not seeing this topic being posted and quickly upvoted with minimal interaction on just HN... but I'm also just a normal user of other sites like Reddit too. Maybe I'm just overreacting to the reposts.
    - dang 5y ago
      It's just a sensational topic - maybe the most sensational MOT (major ongoing topic) of the moment, no? The same psychology must apply to that everywhere. This story has other advantages (from the point of view of the story). It is intriguing in a way that's perfect for internet detectives, sort of like a board game with a low barrier to entry: you can get up and running with a few links in a few minutes, jump in and play. It's personally relevant to everyone who was affected by the pandemic, i.e. literally everyone. And the stakes are high geopolitically, so it's got all the energy of that drama as well (not great for discussion quality, but fabulous if you're the story and want to spread). I'm just describing the psychology of a story like this. I'm not putting down anyone who's interested in it or who's not interested in it, and I'm certainly not commenting on the story itself—only why it's easy to understand why people would be posting it, upvoting it, and flagging it. Different people, of course. You're not the only person who is reacting to the reposts. Based on past experience, we should all brace ourselves for throngs more of them. Maybe this would be a good place to repeat the principles of MOTs and SNI: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20sni%20mot%20&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=follow-up%20by%3Adang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... I didn't really think that the current story was SNI, given that we've had several other major threads recently, but it's a borderline case and the community seems to have voted otherwise.
- screye 5y ago
  Outside of the reasons listed: 'Because justice, moral high ground and emotions are important to people, and people elect governments' From a meta "gain of function" POV, China has gained from the pandemic. It has kick started its economy with months of head start, while all of the BRIC and western competition have suffered through the pandemic. China hasn't lost a single opportunity to let it be known that the superiority of their governance methods and ideology has a hand in how well they've handled the pandemic. Their main competition: US (in front) and India (much behind) have particularly suffered and been the subject of ridicule among the Chinese. The winds of change are heralded in by emotion and perception. Being able to associate the grief of millions to a single regime is the kind of weapon that itching to be wielded. (to a lesser degree the democrats already wielded it in ousting Trump) It can permanently damage the credibility of mainstream media organizations and social media giants. It can breed nationalism and anti-PRC sentiment. It can legitimize scepticism towards empirical science and make heterodox/conspiratorial ideas harder to dismiss. It can be used to break the break the stranglehold of elite media/universities as unquestionable source of truth. Whether the outcomes are to our liking is secondary. The answer to the question if the issue is worth pursuing is a resounding YES !
- avs733 5y ago
  I'll re-iterate how important this comment is, sorry dang, when I see the responses to this comment, some comments of mine, and other 'this is a suspicious pattern' comments. There is nothing insulating HN from being a home for some particular conspiracy theory anymore than other sites. The willingness of some comments in this thread to just absolutely push the 'lab' narrative despite admitting the lack of evidence is deeply troubling.
dang 5y ago
Also these previous ones are related: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27184998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27184998 - May 2021 (235 comments) More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27160898 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27160898 - May 2021 (341 comments) The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27071432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27071432 - May 2021 (537 comments) Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26750452 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26750452 - April 2021 (618 comments) Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26540458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26540458 - March 2021 (985 comments) The Lab Leak Hypothesis - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25640323 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25640323 - Jan 2021 (229 comments)

travisp 5y ago

Maybe. But this is according to a paraphrase of unverified (possibly not even American) intelligence. Both the document's authority and origin are disputed, and the WSJ can't even say which department or agency wrote this. This does not seem like any sort of official US intelligence report. A reasonable look at this particular claim and the history of similar types of claims: https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/1396577153232379904 https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/13965771532323799...

throwawaysea 5y ago
Couldn’t all these same points from that Twitter thread be leveled against the New York Times when they wrote about Trump’s tax returns and financials? It seems to be like an inconsistent bar is being used in terms of transparency and access to the primary source. I’m not saying it’s wrong to be skeptical - in fact I think it’s appropriate - it’s just an interesting observation on how ready we are (or aren’t) to accept allegations based on the story. Ultimately what the lab leak hypothesis deserves is a trustworthy transparent and independent investigation into WIV, but we may be too late in demanding that now, 1.5 years later.
inciampati 5y ago
One thing is fantastically hard to ignore. The SARS2 phylogeny is rooted by a most recent common ancestor in October or November. This is as clear as day and no evidence has ever surfaced to nudge the estimate nor to indicate the virus was present previous to those dates, nor that there were existing proto-SARS2 strains. These would continue to circulate and something would have been found had they existed. (n.b. There _has_ been some now discredited science arguing it was in Europe before those dates.) The correspondence between the virus phylogeny, this report, as well as previous indications of a shutdown in the WIV in early to mid October 2019, is just an awful lot to say maybe to. So, what's the explanation on the other side of your "maybe"?
- travisp 5y ago
  You're asking me to comment on the entire theory, I think. I'm only commenting on the value of an unseen intelligence report of unknown source. None of what you've said increases the validity of this report. Everyone commenting on this post is acting immediately as if this report is 100% true, but the reality is that we know very little about the report.

ceejayoz 5y ago

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/23/politics/us-intelligence-report-wuhan-lab-researchers-coronavirus-origin/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/23/politics/us-intelligence-... > Importantly, the intelligence community still does not know what the researchers were actually sick with... I suspect most organizations of this size see cold/flu cases - i.e. similar symptoms to mild-to-moderate COVID - in winter every year.

bitshiftfaced 5y ago
> I suspect most organizations of this size see cold/flu cases -i.e. similar symptoms to mild-to-moderate COVID - in winter every year. And have to be hospitalized?
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths annually since 2010. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html An organization with a few thousands staffers? Sure. (800k out of 300M Americans would be ~0.3% per year.)
  - xupybd 5y ago
    Normally you have to be really young, really old or really sick to die from the flu. Not everyone but most. I hope the Wuhan lab didn't have multiple employees in any of those categories. Edit: parent comment has changed so much my comment is no longer in context :(
  - bitshiftfaced 5y ago
    > As of 2013, WIV had a staff of 266 http://institute.wuhanvirology.org/About_Us/Brief_Introduction/index.htm http://institute.wuhanvirology.org/About_Us/Brief_Introducti... If their average age was around 50 to 64, then we'd expect around 155.1/1e5*266 ~= 0.4 hospitalizations within the entire flu season, not just within one month. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1127795/influenza-us-hospitalization-rate-by-age-group/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1127795/influenza-us-hos...

OminousWeapons 5y ago

It is strange to me that there is this much concern over whether COVID came from a lab or not because ultimately it is irrelevant outside of highlighting a need for additional safety protocols if proven true. "Virus from a lab" != engineered bioweapon, and regardless of whether infected animals existed in nature, got placed in a lab, and then an infection occurred or whether humans came in contact with infected animals in nature outside of the lab, we still should have employed much better disease management protocols than we did. We (Americans) aren't suddenly absolved of responsibility for our failures to contain this pandemic if it turns out that this was a lab leak, nor will the Chinese be any more responsible for the pandemic than they already are.

xupybd 5y ago
If it's a lab leak it gives us people to blame. That's huge as far as a world wide pandemic goes.
- minikites 5y ago
  Suppose we now know who to blame. How does that help us address the current situation?
  - kokanator 5y ago
    Does nothing for the current situation but helps us to understand future pandemic sources. If the virus escaped or was released from a specific source we can deal with the security of that location and others like it. If it truly passed from a bat/pangolin/chicken, etc we can begin to deal with the sources of that vector. This truly is a serious question that must be resolved.
  - xupybd 5y ago
    Nothing practical, but it fills a human emotional void.
metalliqaz 5y ago
its important to some people because they want to be able to blame China, I guess. of course it's actually meaningless. the actual crime was the cover up that occurred after the virus was on the loose, delaying preparations and making containment impossible. we already know that happened

logicslave 5y ago

Pretty obvious this came from a lab. Theres no easy resolution to the problem though. Is the USA going to confront China? Spark a dangerous tension? They are meddling with technology that they dont respect, and we are all suffering the consequences

TechBro8615 5y ago

Is this a story about a lab leak or media incompetence? What evidence has meaningfully changed since a year ago when this was a harmful conspiracy theory? Next you’re gonna tell me that really was Hunter Biden’s laptop... FWIW I made this HN account a year ago to post an article about the lab leak theory. I couldn’t use my main account because it was so obviously wrongthink at the time.

kokanator 5y ago
Just as an aside, HB did state it could be his laptop[0]. Fact checked on snopes. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hunter-biden-laptop-could-be-his/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hunter-biden-laptop-could-...
piva00 5y ago
And now your new post about this research [1] has been flagged, it's quite strange. [1] https://project-evidence.github.io/ https://project-evidence.github.io/
- TechBro8615 5y ago
  Yeah, I gave up caring a long time ago. You can’t fight emotion and attachment theory with logic. Let people feel what they will. For example I feel like a tendency for critical thinking is a curse.
  - lawnchair_larry 5y ago
    This was the most depressing realization of the past year for me. Otherwise smart people too. Including a large percentage of this site. They got nearly every story wrong, and only some are just starting to realize it.
lawnchair_larry 5y ago
That’s hilarious. I had to self-sensor a lot for wrongthink as well. I still do on some topics. These people don’t listen, they do a quick pattern match of your keywords and dismiss if it sounds tangentially related to a non-left narrative, or contradicts theirs. Even when you explicitly differentiate from whatever narrative they’re associating it with. It’s maddening. I assume you saw Yuri’s paper?

manuelabeledo 5y ago

A few staffers fell ill with a pretty bad case of the flu. There. That may be the whole thing. This is non news.

enterdev 5y ago

I find it unusual that people can think this came from a 'wet market'. Those people will go as far as verbally attacking you if you suggest it originated or leaked from within a lab. Furthermore those people will claim it doesn't matter where it came from. The aggressive response seems agenda driven.

jhgb 5y ago
> I find it unusual that people can think this came from a 'wet market'. Why? Ebola, HIV (and others, I'm sure) originate in wild animals used as food. It's a perfectly reasonable explanation.

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