6 ms·

The “Lab Leak”: It’s Not Enough to Say Accidents Happen

43 points by dnetesn 5y ago

germinalphrase 5y ago
The results of any inquiry are most likely to be inconclusive. What (if anything) is really at stake here?
- Natsu 5y ago
  Future regulation of such research, mostly.
  - patrickmclaren 5y ago
    Agree. In this regard, think about how procedures changed following Chernobyl, or consider how the various "Broken Arrow" events (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_nuclear_incident_terminology#Broken_Arrow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_nuclear...) have influence nuclear policy.
    - throwawaysea 5y ago
      Another incident to consider is the previous "biological Chernobyl" from 1979, which involved a (drum roll) lab leak of Anthrax (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak). Incidentally, all investigation was blocked in that incident, and the government denied culpability until Boris Yeltsin came into power and admitted that it was caused by military development (of biological weapons). The lack of accountability and transparency with the international community in that incident is part of why Russia was able to get away with continued work on anthrax-based biological weapons even after this incident. It's also why we need to bring greater scrutiny to what happened here with SARS-CoV-2, instead of pushing it under the rug - these leaks are more damaging than nuclear weapons and need the same kinds of controls.
  - akvadrako 5y ago
    Except it doesn't really matter if it actually came from a lab. It clearly could have so it's a possibility for future research too. It isn't even more likely to happen if this was a lab leak.
- allears 5y ago
  Which just points out that the issue is more political than scientific.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    100% this ^. Scientific results are very commonly misapplied in political arguments. Politicians often find scary numbers to push whatever policy they already believe is best. I often hear them throw out numbers or scientific results and think "is that number connected to the policy, or are they jumping to conclusions, or did the completely misapply the data".
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - sklearncowboy 5y ago
    How can wanting to know the origins of this pandemic not be scientific? The idea of not wanting to know is just bizarre to me. I feel like people are so wrapped up in the political sport/game that it is almost like people who lean Democrat don't want to investigate this further because they don't want the Republicans who questioned this at the start to look good if it did happen to come from a lab. As if you can only lose from further investigation. As someone who doesn't really care for either party, that is a completely insane. To say it will be inconclusive so why bother, again, a bizarre line of thinking to me.
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      I also don't care for either party, but also don't really care where the virus originated. Both possibilities seem plausible, and rather than waste time figuring out which one was responsible we should try to limit the possibility of either happening in the future.
      - tengbretson 5y ago
        You don't think there's anything we could possibly learn that would help inform us on how to operate labs and what sort of things are safe to study going forward? I don't believe that.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  We are left in an inconclusive grey area because of non cooperation. I think part of the challenge is holding the Chinese government accountable for suppressing reporting, delaying a site visit, deleting information, and interfering with a transparent independent process by requiring review/approval of the WHO report. I am frankly in favor of assuming a lab leak in the absence of explicit evidence just because my estimation of likelihood points in that direction, and even more so given the obstruction of transparency so far. The WHO and NIH also deserve scrutiny. And the press and social media companies for censoring discussions that could have pushed for transparency and investigations sooner. Accountability will help us handle future situations better, and will help us get back to valuing civil discourse and freedom of expression. Beyond that, what’s at stake is safety from dangerous research. Maybe that means a ban on gain of function work, or updated protocols, or independent audits of BSL labs by an international team like we have for nuclear controls. Just a week ago Nate Silver of 538 wrote (https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1398678561599508480 https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1398678561599508480), "it seems very warped that a bunch of prominent scientists are saying we shouldn't investigate the claims for reasons that have little to do with science and lots to do with politics". This author it seems, is one of those pushing this warped position.
- totetsu 5y ago
  I think what is at stake if the future of consensus on truth. Its easy to accept that in this case we will never know for sure what happened.. but how damaging is it to peoples sense of trust in society, that even with an issue that has such existential risk as a pandemic, will never be openly investigated to the point that there could be a consensus about it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- infamouscow 5y ago
  Everyone on Earth has had their lives upended over this virus. I think we're obligated to understand everything we can about it's origins (regardless of source) so as to help prevent it from happening again.
  - aliasEli 5y ago
    By far the most likely cause for the next pandemic is transmission from animals. By just focusing on labs you do not do anything substantial to prevent that pandemic.
Natsu 5y ago
There's not much there in this piece, it's a very longwinded story that doesn't seem discuss any of the recent evidence, including recent reports that other research from prior to this that surveyed the Wuhan wet market and showed that neither bats nor pangolins were sold there after a comprehensive sampling of the market. There is a coherent theory of how this might've happened. It rests on the lab's own papers. That's not proof, but there's plenty of investigation going on here and so far we're not finding wild animal reservoirs. If that happened, it might change things.
- hammock 5y ago
  >recent reports that other research from prior to this that surveyed the Wuhan wet market and showed that neither bats nor pangolins were sold there after a comprehensive sampling of the market. That news came out early last year[1] but was mostly ignored by mainstream media (and the general public). China themselves disavowed the wet market theory rather quickly.[2] That disavowal was also mostly ignored. [1]March 2020 "But no one has yet found evidence that pangolins were at the Wuhan market, or even that venders there trafficked pangolin" https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/from-bats-to-human-lungs-the-evolution-of-a-coronavirus https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/from-bats-to-huma... [2]May 2020 "The coronavirus didn't really start at that Wuhan 'wet market'" https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-did-not-start-at-wuhan-wet-market.html https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-did-not-start-at-wuhan-...
  - Natsu 5y ago
    I've been following this relatively closely and I wasn't aware of that one... which kinda underscores your point that a lot of this information wasn't really getting out.
    - hammock 5y ago
      Tip of the iceberg
- masswerk 5y ago
  However, there must be more evidence than three lab workers seeking medical help with symptoms of a cold (about what may be statistically expected for a complex of that size in the cold season) and no apparent trail of possible infections in that (social) vicinity. This is simply not a sufficient argument for a hypothesis of such gravity. Moreover, I have a hard time seeing how this could have happened, provided the requirement of some considerable exposure (viral load) over a considerable time. (A COVID-19 infection is not a matter of a short contact for a few seconds or even minutes.) Personally, I'd say, there is no coherent theory, just politics.
andrewflnr 5y ago
This is an unreasonable demand. By the nature of the situation, we will likely never get the data needed to put together such a specific hypothesis for how the virus escaped. Besides the political situation, containment failures are most likely a result of people not following the official written procedures in unpredictable ways that are themselves never written down. None of this makes the underlying idea less likely, so not being able to satisfy this piece's standard is a red herring, not evidence. Another perspective: try applying the same standard to the zoonotic hypothesis, and (last I heard anyway) you will find the same void of specific data. This is again of no use for discriminating between our hypotheses.
- masswerk 5y ago
  By the same standards, you would have to include the commonly dismissed military sports festival hypothesis: geographical and temporal vicinity, some symptoms of cold — you find as much in this as in the lab leak theory. There is no sense in picking a favorite hypothesis, besides maybe politics. As long as there is no evidence to the contrary, we'll have to treat it as a case of force majeure. Even, if it may offend our (quite illusionary) sense of total control over nature.
  - loopz 5y ago
    Acts of God is an ancient concept. The rest is up to diplomacy and level-headed introspection.
hammock 5y ago
In arguing that BSL-4 labs are so safe, and suggesting the reader focus on different, lower-level labs, this article ignores the history of lab leaks, including at such well-protected labs. Here is a list of a whole bunch: https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/the-long-history-of-accidental-laboratory-releases-of-potential-pandemic-pathogens/ https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/the-long-histo...
- gscott 5y ago
  Plus that facility has Level 2 and 3 labs and no one really knows what lab they used.
throwawaysea 5y ago
> This is a question of mechanism: How a breach could have occurred in a way that could produce widespread infection. I’m not sure why knowing the exact mechanism of the leak is relevant. Lab leaks happen and it is enough to say so. SARS (the first one) leaked from well-run labs multiple times. The leak from the Beijing lab even led to deaths. Given WIV has papers (example https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/JVI.02582-15 https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/JVI.02582-15) claiming they developed infectious clones of SARS like viruses (AKA gain of function) in the last few years, it doesn’t seem outlandish at all that a new leak would happen. WIV also has not just BSL4 labs but lesser controlled labs too. But even leaving that aside, consider the diplomatic cables indicting a lack of trained staff at Wuhan to operate such a lab at an appropriate safety level (https://www.ibtimes.sg/shocking-diplomatic-cables-reveal-safety-compromise-wuhan-lab-us-intelligence-probing-coronavirus-43094 https://www.ibtimes.sg/shocking-diplomatic-cables-reveal-saf...). To put it another way, this is a game of probabilities. There are numerous factors that make the case for a lab leak more likely. This is also why Nate Silver updated his priors (https://twitter.com/natesilver538/status/1396550770368172033 https://twitter.com/natesilver538/status/1396550770368172033) in response to the recent WSJ exclusive on WIV researchers falling ill. This article seems to completely ignore the brazen contempt from the political left in 2020 for any legitimate hypothesis about origins. The vicious attacks against the lab leak hypothesis, the lack of coverage from news media, and censorship from tech companies were all in service of keeping a negative focus on Trump. This happened because it was an election year where the Democrats were expected to lose, and this pandemic was the only available political opportunity at the time. This artificial interference with free discourse allowed the CCP and WHO to avoid transparency. We COULD have potentially had harder evidence, except that these actions delayed discussion of lab leaks and now we are some 18 months past when an independent international site visit should have taken place. So forgive me if I find the sneering demand for “extraordinary evidence” to be just completely tone deaf and absurd.
- arthurcolle 5y ago
  Completely agree - it was literally done to keep that negative spin on Trump at all odds. The extremely rapid publication of the "no lab leak" paper was super sus as well!
- 5y ago
amluto 5y ago
> But to argue for a human error producing global tragedy out of this environment, a responsible reporter needs to be able to show how would this one hypothesized accident have played out: How did this pathogen make its way from a freezer to sealed work area to a moon-suited person and then to the streets of the city? I am not a biologist, but AIUI the gain-of-function research (allegedly?) being done involved intentionally infecting various animals. Those animals would have been alive, not in a freezer. It’s not that hard to imagine an error that would allow a lab worker to catch an airborne virus from, say, a humanized mouse.
- masswerk 5y ago
  Could a humanized mouse contaminate its environment with sufficient viral load? (The burden of proof is on the hypothesis.) Edit: I'm rather critical of gain-of-function experiments myself, but such concerns shouldn't provide any reason for any further assumptions. The discussion of a particular, empirical case is entirely different from any concerns based in principles.
  - amluto 5y ago
    That’s quite the burden of proof. Is someone supposed to collect a bunch (how big a bunch, exactly) of infected humanized mice in a room and introduce COVID-naive volunteers with various mask types or no masks into the room for varying times to see who gets sick? It seems to me that a better approach would be for the lab to sequence all the virus samples they surely kept and see how similar they are to SARS-nCoV-2.
    - masswerk 5y ago
      Or just do some good old inferring: if there was a lab accident with 3 workers showing symptoms of a common cold seeking medical assistance (and them spreading infections along the metro line of their commute to the hospital), this must have been the superspreader event of the century. How comes, the general rate of cold symptoms within lab workers conforms to what is statistically expected? Why is there no spreading in their social vicinity? How and why were they apparently infectious only on their individual rides to the hospital? You really have to come up with a theory that may explain this very selective and peculiar pattern of spreading. Otherwise you may turn your interest towards an entirely different theory of origin.
jacknews 5y ago
Then how, exactly, in steps, did the virus jump from bats to humans naturally? I don't think we're going to get conclusive proof either way without the research records being released, and even then, maybe not. But I don't see how any of this is anything to do with Trump, or that the theory was primarily used to deflect attention from Trump's scandalous mismanagement. Is he saying that US media was/is so anti Trump that they buried this whole argument out of spite or to paint Trump as a ludicrous conspiracicst (they probably didn't need to try so hard)?
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
I find this article incredibly frustrating because it basically proves my feeling that it is nearly impossible to have an opinion on this issue without taking a political side. I agree with a substantial part of this article, but just like I roll my eyes when I read articles in favor of the lab leak hypothesis that are clearly trying hoist blame onto "liberals" for ignoring this last spring/summer, I had to roll my eyes when I read this: "If true, it would mean the 600,000 Americans who have died, mostly on Trump’s and the GOP’s watch, were victims of actions taken by a handful of researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology." I have PLENTY of problems with how Trump and the GOP handled Covid, but trying to blame them for the deaths at this point is just plain stupid. I haven't seen any reasonable hypotheses how this could have been prevented, furthermore there are many many other states that have fared much worse, and hardly any that have similar demographics that have fared better that are not islands. Honestly, even on HN which I find the place where flamewars are tapped down better than any other forum on the Internet, I find it impossible to have a discussion about this without the underlying motivation of "I'm trying to blame the other side" shining through.
seasily 5y ago
Terrible article. Of course the virus most likely came from the lab, and had been engineered to be particularly effective against human cells. The burden of proof is one anyone else to show how it possibly evolved a furin cleavage site and many other odd sequences not seen in naturally occurring coronaviruses. And don't forget to explain why the outbreak started right next to the only lab doing gain of function research on coronaviruses, rather than near the bats thousands of miles away. The dark truth is the "public health establishment" is happy there was an outbreak, anything to pretend they're the least bit important (they're not, and they got every single decision wrong during the pandemic).

43 points by dnetesn 5y ago

germinalphrase 5y ago

The results of any inquiry are most likely to be inconclusive. What (if anything) is really at stake here?

Natsu 5y ago
Future regulation of such research, mostly.
- patrickmclaren 5y ago
  Agree. In this regard, think about how procedures changed following Chernobyl, or consider how the various "Broken Arrow" events (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_nuclear_incident_terminology#Broken_Arrow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_nuclear...) have influence nuclear policy.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    Another incident to consider is the previous "biological Chernobyl" from 1979, which involved a (drum roll) lab leak of Anthrax (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak). Incidentally, all investigation was blocked in that incident, and the government denied culpability until Boris Yeltsin came into power and admitted that it was caused by military development (of biological weapons). The lack of accountability and transparency with the international community in that incident is part of why Russia was able to get away with continued work on anthrax-based biological weapons even after this incident. It's also why we need to bring greater scrutiny to what happened here with SARS-CoV-2, instead of pushing it under the rug - these leaks are more damaging than nuclear weapons and need the same kinds of controls.
- akvadrako 5y ago
  Except it doesn't really matter if it actually came from a lab. It clearly could have so it's a possibility for future research too. It isn't even more likely to happen if this was a lab leak.
allears 5y ago
Which just points out that the issue is more political than scientific.
- giantg2 5y ago
  100% this ^. Scientific results are very commonly misapplied in political arguments. Politicians often find scary numbers to push whatever policy they already believe is best. I often hear them throw out numbers or scientific results and think "is that number connected to the policy, or are they jumping to conclusions, or did the completely misapply the data".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- sklearncowboy 5y ago
  How can wanting to know the origins of this pandemic not be scientific? The idea of not wanting to know is just bizarre to me. I feel like people are so wrapped up in the political sport/game that it is almost like people who lean Democrat don't want to investigate this further because they don't want the Republicans who questioned this at the start to look good if it did happen to come from a lab. As if you can only lose from further investigation. As someone who doesn't really care for either party, that is a completely insane. To say it will be inconclusive so why bother, again, a bizarre line of thinking to me.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    I also don't care for either party, but also don't really care where the virus originated. Both possibilities seem plausible, and rather than waste time figuring out which one was responsible we should try to limit the possibility of either happening in the future.
    - tengbretson 5y ago
      You don't think there's anything we could possibly learn that would help inform us on how to operate labs and what sort of things are safe to study going forward? I don't believe that.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
throwawaysea 5y ago
We are left in an inconclusive grey area because of non cooperation. I think part of the challenge is holding the Chinese government accountable for suppressing reporting, delaying a site visit, deleting information, and interfering with a transparent independent process by requiring review/approval of the WHO report. I am frankly in favor of assuming a lab leak in the absence of explicit evidence just because my estimation of likelihood points in that direction, and even more so given the obstruction of transparency so far. The WHO and NIH also deserve scrutiny. And the press and social media companies for censoring discussions that could have pushed for transparency and investigations sooner. Accountability will help us handle future situations better, and will help us get back to valuing civil discourse and freedom of expression. Beyond that, what’s at stake is safety from dangerous research. Maybe that means a ban on gain of function work, or updated protocols, or independent audits of BSL labs by an international team like we have for nuclear controls. Just a week ago Nate Silver of 538 wrote (https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1398678561599508480 https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1398678561599508480), "it seems very warped that a bunch of prominent scientists are saying we shouldn't investigate the claims for reasons that have little to do with science and lots to do with politics". This author it seems, is one of those pushing this warped position.
totetsu 5y ago
I think what is at stake if the future of consensus on truth. Its easy to accept that in this case we will never know for sure what happened.. but how damaging is it to peoples sense of trust in society, that even with an issue that has such existential risk as a pandemic, will never be openly investigated to the point that there could be a consensus about it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
infamouscow 5y ago
Everyone on Earth has had their lives upended over this virus. I think we're obligated to understand everything we can about it's origins (regardless of source) so as to help prevent it from happening again.
- aliasEli 5y ago
  By far the most likely cause for the next pandemic is transmission from animals. By just focusing on labs you do not do anything substantial to prevent that pandemic.

Natsu 5y ago

There's not much there in this piece, it's a very longwinded story that doesn't seem discuss any of the recent evidence, including recent reports that other research from prior to this that surveyed the Wuhan wet market and showed that neither bats nor pangolins were sold there after a comprehensive sampling of the market. There is a coherent theory of how this might've happened. It rests on the lab's own papers. That's not proof, but there's plenty of investigation going on here and so far we're not finding wild animal reservoirs. If that happened, it might change things.

hammock 5y ago
>recent reports that other research from prior to this that surveyed the Wuhan wet market and showed that neither bats nor pangolins were sold there after a comprehensive sampling of the market. That news came out early last year[1] but was mostly ignored by mainstream media (and the general public). China themselves disavowed the wet market theory rather quickly.[2] That disavowal was also mostly ignored. [1]March 2020 "But no one has yet found evidence that pangolins were at the Wuhan market, or even that venders there trafficked pangolin" https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/from-bats-to-human-lungs-the-evolution-of-a-coronavirus https://www.newyorker.com/science/elements/from-bats-to-huma... [2]May 2020 "The coronavirus didn't really start at that Wuhan 'wet market'" https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-did-not-start-at-wuhan-wet-market.html https://www.livescience.com/covid-19-did-not-start-at-wuhan-...
- Natsu 5y ago
  I've been following this relatively closely and I wasn't aware of that one... which kinda underscores your point that a lot of this information wasn't really getting out.
  - hammock 5y ago
    Tip of the iceberg
masswerk 5y ago
However, there must be more evidence than three lab workers seeking medical help with symptoms of a cold (about what may be statistically expected for a complex of that size in the cold season) and no apparent trail of possible infections in that (social) vicinity. This is simply not a sufficient argument for a hypothesis of such gravity. Moreover, I have a hard time seeing how this could have happened, provided the requirement of some considerable exposure (viral load) over a considerable time. (A COVID-19 infection is not a matter of a short contact for a few seconds or even minutes.) Personally, I'd say, there is no coherent theory, just politics.

andrewflnr 5y ago

This is an unreasonable demand. By the nature of the situation, we will likely never get the data needed to put together such a specific hypothesis for how the virus escaped. Besides the political situation, containment failures are most likely a result of people not following the official written procedures in unpredictable ways that are themselves never written down. None of this makes the underlying idea less likely, so not being able to satisfy this piece's standard is a red herring, not evidence. Another perspective: try applying the same standard to the zoonotic hypothesis, and (last I heard anyway) you will find the same void of specific data. This is again of no use for discriminating between our hypotheses.

masswerk 5y ago
By the same standards, you would have to include the commonly dismissed military sports festival hypothesis: geographical and temporal vicinity, some symptoms of cold — you find as much in this as in the lab leak theory. There is no sense in picking a favorite hypothesis, besides maybe politics. As long as there is no evidence to the contrary, we'll have to treat it as a case of force majeure. Even, if it may offend our (quite illusionary) sense of total control over nature.
- loopz 5y ago
  Acts of God is an ancient concept. The rest is up to diplomacy and level-headed introspection.

hammock 5y ago

In arguing that BSL-4 labs are so safe, and suggesting the reader focus on different, lower-level labs, this article ignores the history of lab leaks, including at such well-protected labs. Here is a list of a whole bunch: https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/the-long-history-of-accidental-laboratory-releases-of-potential-pandemic-pathogens/ https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/the-long-histo...

gscott 5y ago
Plus that facility has Level 2 and 3 labs and no one really knows what lab they used.

throwawaysea 5y ago

> This is a question of mechanism: How a breach could have occurred in a way that could produce widespread infection. I’m not sure why knowing the exact mechanism of the leak is relevant. Lab leaks happen and it is enough to say so. SARS (the first one) leaked from well-run labs multiple times. The leak from the Beijing lab even led to deaths. Given WIV has papers (example https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/JVI.02582-15 https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/JVI.02582-15) claiming they developed infectious clones of SARS like viruses (AKA gain of function) in the last few years, it doesn’t seem outlandish at all that a new leak would happen. WIV also has not just BSL4 labs but lesser controlled labs too. But even leaving that aside, consider the diplomatic cables indicting a lack of trained staff at Wuhan to operate such a lab at an appropriate safety level (https://www.ibtimes.sg/shocking-diplomatic-cables-reveal-safety-compromise-wuhan-lab-us-intelligence-probing-coronavirus-43094 https://www.ibtimes.sg/shocking-diplomatic-cables-reveal-saf...). To put it another way, this is a game of probabilities. There are numerous factors that make the case for a lab leak more likely. This is also why Nate Silver updated his priors (https://twitter.com/natesilver538/status/1396550770368172033 https://twitter.com/natesilver538/status/1396550770368172033) in response to the recent WSJ exclusive on WIV researchers falling ill. This article seems to completely ignore the brazen contempt from the political left in 2020 for any legitimate hypothesis about origins. The vicious attacks against the lab leak hypothesis, the lack of coverage from news media, and censorship from tech companies were all in service of keeping a negative focus on Trump. This happened because it was an election year where the Democrats were expected to lose, and this pandemic was the only available political opportunity at the time. This artificial interference with free discourse allowed the CCP and WHO to avoid transparency. We COULD have potentially had harder evidence, except that these actions delayed discussion of lab leaks and now we are some 18 months past when an independent international site visit should have taken place. So forgive me if I find the sneering demand for “extraordinary evidence” to be just completely tone deaf and absurd.

arthurcolle 5y ago
Completely agree - it was literally done to keep that negative spin on Trump at all odds. The extremely rapid publication of the "no lab leak" paper was super sus as well!
5y ago

amluto 5y ago

> But to argue for a human error producing global tragedy out of this environment, a responsible reporter needs to be able to show how would this one hypothesized accident have played out: How did this pathogen make its way from a freezer to sealed work area to a moon-suited person and then to the streets of the city? I am not a biologist, but AIUI the gain-of-function research (allegedly?) being done involved intentionally infecting various animals. Those animals would have been alive, not in a freezer. It’s not that hard to imagine an error that would allow a lab worker to catch an airborne virus from, say, a humanized mouse.

masswerk 5y ago
Could a humanized mouse contaminate its environment with sufficient viral load? (The burden of proof is on the hypothesis.) Edit: I'm rather critical of gain-of-function experiments myself, but such concerns shouldn't provide any reason for any further assumptions. The discussion of a particular, empirical case is entirely different from any concerns based in principles.
- amluto 5y ago
  That’s quite the burden of proof. Is someone supposed to collect a bunch (how big a bunch, exactly) of infected humanized mice in a room and introduce COVID-naive volunteers with various mask types or no masks into the room for varying times to see who gets sick? It seems to me that a better approach would be for the lab to sequence all the virus samples they surely kept and see how similar they are to SARS-nCoV-2.
  - masswerk 5y ago
    Or just do some good old inferring: if there was a lab accident with 3 workers showing symptoms of a common cold seeking medical assistance (and them spreading infections along the metro line of their commute to the hospital), this must have been the superspreader event of the century. How comes, the general rate of cold symptoms within lab workers conforms to what is statistically expected? Why is there no spreading in their social vicinity? How and why were they apparently infectious only on their individual rides to the hospital? You really have to come up with a theory that may explain this very selective and peculiar pattern of spreading. Otherwise you may turn your interest towards an entirely different theory of origin.

jacknews 5y ago

Then how, exactly, in steps, did the virus jump from bats to humans naturally? I don't think we're going to get conclusive proof either way without the research records being released, and even then, maybe not. But I don't see how any of this is anything to do with Trump, or that the theory was primarily used to deflect attention from Trump's scandalous mismanagement. Is he saying that US media was/is so anti Trump that they buried this whole argument out of spite or to paint Trump as a ludicrous conspiracicst (they probably didn't need to try so hard)?

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

I find this article incredibly frustrating because it basically proves my feeling that it is nearly impossible to have an opinion on this issue without taking a political side. I agree with a substantial part of this article, but just like I roll my eyes when I read articles in favor of the lab leak hypothesis that are clearly trying hoist blame onto "liberals" for ignoring this last spring/summer, I had to roll my eyes when I read this: "If true, it would mean the 600,000 Americans who have died, mostly on Trump’s and the GOP’s watch, were victims of actions taken by a handful of researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology." I have PLENTY of problems with how Trump and the GOP handled Covid, but trying to blame them for the deaths at this point is just plain stupid. I haven't seen any reasonable hypotheses how this could have been prevented, furthermore there are many many other states that have fared much worse, and hardly any that have similar demographics that have fared better that are not islands. Honestly, even on HN which I find the place where flamewars are tapped down better than any other forum on the Internet, I find it impossible to have a discussion about this without the underlying motivation of "I'm trying to blame the other side" shining through.

seasily 5y ago

Terrible article. Of course the virus most likely came from the lab, and had been engineered to be particularly effective against human cells. The burden of proof is one anyone else to show how it possibly evolved a furin cleavage site and many other odd sequences not seen in naturally occurring coronaviruses. And don't forget to explain why the outbreak started right next to the only lab doing gain of function research on coronaviruses, rather than near the bats thousands of miles away. The dark truth is the "public health establishment" is happy there was an outbreak, anything to pretend they're the least bit important (they're not, and they got every single decision wrong during the pandemic).