4 ms·

Nothing really changed, it's just that the evidence keeps mounting on one side and hard to explain facts keep coming up for the other. There's a coherent theor

by Natsu 5y ago

Nothing really changed, it's just that the evidence keeps mounting on one side and hard to explain facts keep coming up for the other. There's a coherent theory of how and why this could be a lab leak (published research leaving a trail in this direction, BSL-2 safety precautions, etc.) and a lot of holes in the fully zoonotic explanations. The virus appears to have already been adapted to human hosts, which is hard to explain... unless via humanized mice. The intermediate animal reservoirs have not been located, so there's a decent sized evolutionary jump in the record, the furin cleavage site with the strange codons, etc. Meanwhile objections from the other side, like the lack of markers from CRISPR, can be explained by seamless techniques, gain of function research in humanized mice, etc. Mind you, I never bought the 'bioweapon' conspiracy nonsense, there's just no realistic motive for that. But it was pointed out early on that there were good reasons to study a virus just like this one and scientists have been putting the pieces together into a coherent theory that points towards lab escape.

newacct583 5y ago
> a lot of holes in the fully zoonotic explanations. This part just isn't true. We have a close relative on the same continent. That's almost as good as you ever get. There is nothing difficult to explain about a conventional evolution here, nothing at all.
- Natsu 5y ago
  There's also a related theory where one of the bat researchers got sick from a bat virus and brought it back to Wuhan. Most of this rests on the relative probabilities of events. The "same continent" is 1,000 miles away and far away from the allegedly intermediate pangolins. With it being this widespread, it's weird that we can't find the animal reservoir and it's significantly diverged ... and adapted to humans ... from the bat coronavirus relative. Sure, there's no good reason to stop considering the zoonotic explanation. If we suddenly find the missing links in the evolutionary record and whatnot, then things will change and people will consider that evidence more likely. But right now, the balance of the evidence is tipping away from that. It could tip back, but that'll require new evidence for a zoonotic explanation and there just hasn't been any that I've seen recently, just the same old things we've already accounted for.
galangalalgol 5y ago
Given that china needs a smaller population and Japan and the EU need to maintain a dwindling one, the motivations are there. But china somehow seems to have kept cases insanely low, so that doesn't really hold. People have suggested the Chinese death toll is actually much higher but I've read no real evidence of that. Is it also possible living close enough to the zoonotic origin some level of immunity to similar viruses became common there?
- someperson 5y ago
  China doesn't need a smaller population, it's actively trying to increase birth rates after 35 years of the One Child Policy caused a demographic catastrophe. The population projects are for a declining to below 1 billion people (potentially as low as 700 million by 2100) The evidence of deaths in Wuhan being 10 times officially reported numbers (of 4,000) is very strong, based on analysis of crematoriums. The same is actually true of India too (which fared much worse than China).
  - redis_mlc 5y ago
    > China doesn't need a smaller population China needs much less old people, but more young people. This is not well-understood in the West, but China is a communist country with only a limited social safety net - hospitalization is not free unless you're a CCP member. You can google for "China big sickness" to read about it - cancer treatment or a heart transplant is almost as expensive as in the US (around $200,000 cash in advance each.) You can see videos on Youtube analyzing this - China is screwed because of the previous partial one child policy, doubly so since that became "the new normal" for young parents. Demography — China's Reckoning (Part 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-0DGu7gCq0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-0DGu7gCq0
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  No idea why people keep reporting that corona wasn't serious in China. These items have been reported in the Western press: - The crematoriums in Wuhan had to work around the clock. - The traditional 1-year mourning grave visits in Wuhan had record attendance. - millions of cell phone numbers in China have stopped working (though it's possible families are sharing phones during the lockdown) - NTD media has shown early records of reported case grand totals decreasing week-over-week. (Grand totals can't decrease mathematically.) - nobody who has said "cases were insanely low" has provided any documentation on that aside from CCP state media claims. More than half of the people who studied the origin for the past year felt there was enough circumstantial evidence for a leak from WIV because there's around 20 items pointing at WIV, and none contradicting it.
nraynaud 5y ago
It doesn’t explain why we have cases far from Wuhan before having cases there. The disease seems to have been imported there by a traveler who died later (that’s the contract tracing part, because the Barcelona sewer is even more puzzling)
- AbrahamParangi 5y ago
  I don’t think the provenance or chronology of those cases outside Wuhan is especially robust.

by Natsu 5y ago

newacct583 5y ago

> a lot of holes in the fully zoonotic explanations. This part just isn't true. We have a close relative on the same continent. That's almost as good as you ever get. There is nothing difficult to explain about a conventional evolution here, nothing at all.

Natsu 5y ago
There's also a related theory where one of the bat researchers got sick from a bat virus and brought it back to Wuhan. Most of this rests on the relative probabilities of events. The "same continent" is 1,000 miles away and far away from the allegedly intermediate pangolins. With it being this widespread, it's weird that we can't find the animal reservoir and it's significantly diverged ... and adapted to humans ... from the bat coronavirus relative. Sure, there's no good reason to stop considering the zoonotic explanation. If we suddenly find the missing links in the evolutionary record and whatnot, then things will change and people will consider that evidence more likely. But right now, the balance of the evidence is tipping away from that. It could tip back, but that'll require new evidence for a zoonotic explanation and there just hasn't been any that I've seen recently, just the same old things we've already accounted for.

galangalalgol 5y ago

Given that china needs a smaller population and Japan and the EU need to maintain a dwindling one, the motivations are there. But china somehow seems to have kept cases insanely low, so that doesn't really hold. People have suggested the Chinese death toll is actually much higher but I've read no real evidence of that. Is it also possible living close enough to the zoonotic origin some level of immunity to similar viruses became common there?

someperson 5y ago
China doesn't need a smaller population, it's actively trying to increase birth rates after 35 years of the One Child Policy caused a demographic catastrophe. The population projects are for a declining to below 1 billion people (potentially as low as 700 million by 2100) The evidence of deaths in Wuhan being 10 times officially reported numbers (of 4,000) is very strong, based on analysis of crematoriums. The same is actually true of India too (which fared much worse than China).
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  > China doesn't need a smaller population China needs much less old people, but more young people. This is not well-understood in the West, but China is a communist country with only a limited social safety net - hospitalization is not free unless you're a CCP member. You can google for "China big sickness" to read about it - cancer treatment or a heart transplant is almost as expensive as in the US (around $200,000 cash in advance each.) You can see videos on Youtube analyzing this - China is screwed because of the previous partial one child policy, doubly so since that became "the new normal" for young parents. Demography — China's Reckoning (Part 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-0DGu7gCq0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-0DGu7gCq0
redis_mlc 5y ago
No idea why people keep reporting that corona wasn't serious in China. These items have been reported in the Western press: - The crematoriums in Wuhan had to work around the clock. - The traditional 1-year mourning grave visits in Wuhan had record attendance. - millions of cell phone numbers in China have stopped working (though it's possible families are sharing phones during the lockdown) - NTD media has shown early records of reported case grand totals decreasing week-over-week. (Grand totals can't decrease mathematically.) - nobody who has said "cases were insanely low" has provided any documentation on that aside from CCP state media claims. More than half of the people who studied the origin for the past year felt there was enough circumstantial evidence for a leak from WIV because there's around 20 items pointing at WIV, and none contradicting it.

nraynaud 5y ago

It doesn’t explain why we have cases far from Wuhan before having cases there. The disease seems to have been imported there by a traveler who died later (that’s the contract tracing part, because the Barcelona sewer is even more puzzling)

AbrahamParangi 5y ago
I don’t think the provenance or chronology of those cases outside Wuhan is especially robust.