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I don't see good enough evidence to show the zoological origin yet. I don't see good enough evidence of a lab leak origin yet either. I do see good enough evide

I don't see good enough evidence to show the zoological origin yet. I don't see good enough evidence of a lab leak origin yet either. I do see good enough evidence for a Chinese coverup. I can say for 100% certainly the Chinese are not being upfront with their data. What scenario would hiding data benefit? Cui bono?

AdamN 5y ago
They might just want to protect other secrets about the lab and keep everyone at arms length. My bet is that even in China (which is not monolithic) different stakeholders are not so sure and there's major CYA between the scientists, the local managers, the Beijing-based leadership, senior leadership at all levels. Nothing good can come for any of these people if they allow the investigation to proceed smoothly. What if it's discovered that some totally unrelated incident happened years ago or that somebody was embezzling or did shady land deals with Wuhan lab accounts? The truth only helps people who are not involved. Everybody involved is best served by keeping their mouth shut and blocking any investigation.
- plank_time 5y ago
  Sorry but China is about as monolithic as you can get. The CCP had an incredibly tight control over the entire country. It doesn’t allow anything except for a monolithic view.
  - ta2346788 5y ago
    It's funny you should say this because the truth is different, it's a lot less monolithic and centralized than you think. Here is a report titled "Understanding china's political system" https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41007.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41007.pdf
  - simonh 5y ago
    That’s not how China works. Source, my Wife is Chinese and her father is a retired CCP member. Local officials are highly corrupt and also are terrified something they are responsible for will come to the attention of the central leadership in a bad way. Thus they will bodge things for personal gain against the policies of the central leadership, and will try to ensure the central leadership don’t hear about things they very much want to hear about. This is a terribly high risk strategy, but it’s the only one that actually works. That’s the problem with corrupt bureaucracies. Of course once central leadership is aware of a situation they can mobilise vast resources and have absolute power to impose whatever strategy they choose. Anything or anyone in the way gets flattened. This is now happening in Hong Kong.
    - tailspin2019 5y ago
      I'm not sure how this statement from the parent: > The CCP had an incredibly tight control over the entire country. And your comment below really disagree with one another? > Of course once central leadership is aware of a situation they can mobilise vast resources and have absolute power to impose whatever strategy they choose. Anything or anyone in the way gets flattened. I'm totally ignorant on this matter but to my reading there seems to be more in common between your two viewpoints than not.
      - simonh 5y ago
        The point is there are different stakeholders with mutually incompatible interests in China. It’s not monolithic and no one centre of power knows and directs everything all the time. That’s why when the central authorities come across local officials doing stuff that hurts it embarrasses them, they impose such harsh penalties, including death. You don’t have to punish behaviour that doesn’t happen.
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    > It doesn’t allow anything except for a monolithic view. And yet somehow even the most ill-informed Americans hear all about things the CCP doesn't want anyone to hear about. Doesn't sound like very tight control.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    This is just classic American black-and-white national morality thinking. You see the same thing applied all the time to the citizenry of North Korea - "they're all brainwashed and totally absolutely follow the leader" - the unstated subtext being "so when the US military invades and kills a whole lot of them, really we had no choice and this was the right and just thing to do for our defense". Which doesn't really square up with the extensive border smuggling operations into and out of China, the defusion of illegal portable media players and thumbdrives carrying outside news, or the methamphetamine epidemic they're suffering.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  When it's about the biggest event on the planet for at least a year, the highest central powers are surely in complete control.
SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
I read China was the only major country to grow their GDP during Covid. Does that answer your question sufficiently?
- hallway_monitor 5y ago
  It's always an interesting experiment to assume that the outcome was the desired result and look to see who benefits.
  - fieldcny 5y ago
    And who benefited? American Billionaires?
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Among others. Corrupt government officials in all countries, car insurance agencies, certainly Chinese billionaires and billionaires of almost all countries, the US Democratic Party, even.
      - fieldcny 5y ago
        This implies that there was some massive conspiracy involving these parties to do what? manufacture and release this in the wild?
        sudosysgen 5y ago
        No, that's precisely my point, there is no conspiracy and qui bono is not sufficient. I was being unclear perhaps, but I was trying to suscitate your incredulity. Just because someone benefits doesn't mean they intended it.
        fieldcny 5y ago
        Agreed, seems like it’s harder to tell everyday what is considered a serious conspiracy theory and what is beyond the pale. In fact I am not sure any conspiracy theory is now considered beyond the pale, seems like anything one comes up with will eventually generate a set of believers / adherents.
abnry 5y ago
This suggests a Bayesian approach. If there is a lab leak, we'd expect a Chinese cover-up to be a more likely than a Chinese cover-up to a zoological origin. So if your priors are that the zoological and lab-leak origins are equally likely, the evidence of Chinese cover-up weighs in favor of the lab leak hypothesis.
- 8note 5y ago
  My priors disagree. I'd expect similar likelihood of a chinese coverup regardless of culpability. The embarrassment is too high in both situations
- phire 5y ago
  That's only true if you assume China has perfect knowledge of the source of the leak from the very start in both scenarios. In the zoological scenario, they wouldn't have any idea where it came from and might suspect it could be a lab leek simply based on the origin. It's very likely they would engage in cover-up behaviour anyway, just out of caution. And then there are other reasons why they might decide to cover things up. Ironically, a Chinese cover-up is absolutely useless evidence towards a lab leak hypothesis.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  China covered up SARS too and to a much greater extent, and we know that it was zoological. So my prior disagree with yours
cratermoon 5y ago
Occam's Razor. We know viruses jump species because it's happened before and we understand the mechanism. The lab leak theory requires a lot of unlikely things to happen. Don't spread misinformation.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  If it happened anywhere in the world, then yes.... It happening in a city where there is a lab, working with those types of viruses, makes it a very "interesting coincidence".
- tick_tock_tick 5y ago
  Occam's Razor by far leans in the other direction. Species jumps are incredibly rare and lab leaks while not common have also happened before. Add in the fact that it happens to start in a city with a lab researching the same kind of virus.....
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Species jumps are definitely not rare. This virus already jumped to literally a dozen species in a year. It's estimated that dozens of viruses jump to humans every year, it's just unlikely that they survive long enough to mutate to adapt to the human body.
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    Coronavirus species jumps have happened at least twice (three times if you include Covid-19) in my adult memory. Perhaps they’re just not as “incredibly rare” as they once were?
  - XorNot 5y ago
    In the wake of COVID-19, one of the interesting bits of research was the use of a much broader COVID-19 type test to try and find new novel viruses. And pretty much the moment it was developed, a new coronavirus in the midst of jumping species was found in hospitalized patients with pnuemonia-like symptoms [1]. Basically once they went looking, in 2% of the sample group they found people who were infected with a canine coronavirus, but who did not seem to be able to infect other people with it. The likely scenario is that viruses are jumping species all the time, but rarely succeed in causing illness we don't simply write off as "a bout of pneuomonia from a seasonal something" due to lack of severity or lack of ability to spread human to human. [1] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/05/another-new-coronavirus-has-jumped-people https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/05/another-...

AdamN 5y ago

They might just want to protect other secrets about the lab and keep everyone at arms length. My bet is that even in China (which is not monolithic) different stakeholders are not so sure and there's major CYA between the scientists, the local managers, the Beijing-based leadership, senior leadership at all levels. Nothing good can come for any of these people if they allow the investigation to proceed smoothly. What if it's discovered that some totally unrelated incident happened years ago or that somebody was embezzling or did shady land deals with Wuhan lab accounts? The truth only helps people who are not involved. Everybody involved is best served by keeping their mouth shut and blocking any investigation.

plank_time 5y ago
Sorry but China is about as monolithic as you can get. The CCP had an incredibly tight control over the entire country. It doesn’t allow anything except for a monolithic view.
- ta2346788 5y ago
  It's funny you should say this because the truth is different, it's a lot less monolithic and centralized than you think. Here is a report titled "Understanding china's political system" https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41007.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41007.pdf
- simonh 5y ago
  That’s not how China works. Source, my Wife is Chinese and her father is a retired CCP member. Local officials are highly corrupt and also are terrified something they are responsible for will come to the attention of the central leadership in a bad way. Thus they will bodge things for personal gain against the policies of the central leadership, and will try to ensure the central leadership don’t hear about things they very much want to hear about. This is a terribly high risk strategy, but it’s the only one that actually works. That’s the problem with corrupt bureaucracies. Of course once central leadership is aware of a situation they can mobilise vast resources and have absolute power to impose whatever strategy they choose. Anything or anyone in the way gets flattened. This is now happening in Hong Kong.
  - tailspin2019 5y ago
    I'm not sure how this statement from the parent: > The CCP had an incredibly tight control over the entire country. And your comment below really disagree with one another? > Of course once central leadership is aware of a situation they can mobilise vast resources and have absolute power to impose whatever strategy they choose. Anything or anyone in the way gets flattened. I'm totally ignorant on this matter but to my reading there seems to be more in common between your two viewpoints than not.
    - simonh 5y ago
      The point is there are different stakeholders with mutually incompatible interests in China. It’s not monolithic and no one centre of power knows and directs everything all the time. That’s why when the central authorities come across local officials doing stuff that hurts it embarrasses them, they impose such harsh penalties, including death. You don’t have to punish behaviour that doesn’t happen.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  > It doesn’t allow anything except for a monolithic view. And yet somehow even the most ill-informed Americans hear all about things the CCP doesn't want anyone to hear about. Doesn't sound like very tight control.
- XorNot 5y ago
  This is just classic American black-and-white national morality thinking. You see the same thing applied all the time to the citizenry of North Korea - "they're all brainwashed and totally absolutely follow the leader" - the unstated subtext being "so when the US military invades and kills a whole lot of them, really we had no choice and this was the right and just thing to do for our defense". Which doesn't really square up with the extensive border smuggling operations into and out of China, the defusion of illegal portable media players and thumbdrives carrying outside news, or the methamphetamine epidemic they're suffering.
BurningFrog 5y ago
When it's about the biggest event on the planet for at least a year, the highest central powers are surely in complete control.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago

I read China was the only major country to grow their GDP during Covid. Does that answer your question sufficiently?

hallway_monitor 5y ago
It's always an interesting experiment to assume that the outcome was the desired result and look to see who benefits.
- fieldcny 5y ago
  And who benefited? American Billionaires?
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Among others. Corrupt government officials in all countries, car insurance agencies, certainly Chinese billionaires and billionaires of almost all countries, the US Democratic Party, even.
    - fieldcny 5y ago
      This implies that there was some massive conspiracy involving these parties to do what? manufacture and release this in the wild?
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        No, that's precisely my point, there is no conspiracy and qui bono is not sufficient. I was being unclear perhaps, but I was trying to suscitate your incredulity. Just because someone benefits doesn't mean they intended it.
        fieldcny 5y ago
        Agreed, seems like it’s harder to tell everyday what is considered a serious conspiracy theory and what is beyond the pale. In fact I am not sure any conspiracy theory is now considered beyond the pale, seems like anything one comes up with will eventually generate a set of believers / adherents.

abnry 5y ago

This suggests a Bayesian approach. If there is a lab leak, we'd expect a Chinese cover-up to be a more likely than a Chinese cover-up to a zoological origin. So if your priors are that the zoological and lab-leak origins are equally likely, the evidence of Chinese cover-up weighs in favor of the lab leak hypothesis.

8note 5y ago
My priors disagree. I'd expect similar likelihood of a chinese coverup regardless of culpability. The embarrassment is too high in both situations
phire 5y ago
That's only true if you assume China has perfect knowledge of the source of the leak from the very start in both scenarios. In the zoological scenario, they wouldn't have any idea where it came from and might suspect it could be a lab leek simply based on the origin. It's very likely they would engage in cover-up behaviour anyway, just out of caution. And then there are other reasons why they might decide to cover things up. Ironically, a Chinese cover-up is absolutely useless evidence towards a lab leak hypothesis.
sudosysgen 5y ago
China covered up SARS too and to a much greater extent, and we know that it was zoological. So my prior disagree with yours

cratermoon 5y ago

Occam's Razor. We know viruses jump species because it's happened before and we understand the mechanism. The lab leak theory requires a lot of unlikely things to happen. Don't spread misinformation.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
If it happened anywhere in the world, then yes.... It happening in a city where there is a lab, working with those types of viruses, makes it a very "interesting coincidence".
tick_tock_tick 5y ago
Occam's Razor by far leans in the other direction. Species jumps are incredibly rare and lab leaks while not common have also happened before. Add in the fact that it happens to start in a city with a lab researching the same kind of virus.....
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Species jumps are definitely not rare. This virus already jumped to literally a dozen species in a year. It's estimated that dozens of viruses jump to humans every year, it's just unlikely that they survive long enough to mutate to adapt to the human body.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  Coronavirus species jumps have happened at least twice (three times if you include Covid-19) in my adult memory. Perhaps they’re just not as “incredibly rare” as they once were?
- XorNot 5y ago
  In the wake of COVID-19, one of the interesting bits of research was the use of a much broader COVID-19 type test to try and find new novel viruses. And pretty much the moment it was developed, a new coronavirus in the midst of jumping species was found in hospitalized patients with pnuemonia-like symptoms [1]. Basically once they went looking, in 2% of the sample group they found people who were infected with a canine coronavirus, but who did not seem to be able to infect other people with it. The likely scenario is that viruses are jumping species all the time, but rarely succeed in causing illness we don't simply write off as "a bout of pneuomonia from a seasonal something" due to lack of severity or lack of ability to spread human to human. [1] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/05/another-new-coronavirus-has-jumped-people https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/05/another-...