3 ms·

with the recent revelation that there was a grant proposal for a "Furan site gain of function experiment" (in the recent past just before Covid-19), and the ext

with the recent revelation that there was a grant proposal for a "Furan site gain of function experiment" (in the recent past just before Covid-19), and the extreme lengths experts went to stop consideration of the lab leak hypothesis, here's where I stand: they could find actual Covid-19 in a population of bats, and I'm going to ask for proof that they didn't plant it there, since its first appearance was outside the Wuhan lab.

photochemsyn 5y ago
What you would expect to find in a natural zoonotic origin is a series of close ancestor relatives of the pandemic version, some capable of causing mild disease in humans (as with MERS and SARS for example). See this 2013 description for example: "We hypothesize that the direct progenitor of SARS-CoV was produced by recombination within bats and then transmitted to farmed civets or another mammal, which then transmitted the virus to civets by faecal–oral transmission. When the virus-infected civets were transported to Guangdong market, the virus spread in market civets and acquired further mutations before spillover to humans." For someone to fabricate a plausible natural origin story, they'd have to create a similar series of genetic variants based on ancestral bat strains, intermediates on the way to Sars-CoV-2. So, it'd be very difficult if even possible.
- fsckboy 5y ago
  first of all, you're agreeing with me, I said I'd want to see proof, and you're saying what the proof would need to consist of. However, you are not addressing that there has been zero natural origin evidence, but they've all along been saying it's the likeliest, despite the Wuhan lab, and they've not been considering gain of function even though the US has been funding it in China at that lab.
  - photochemsyn 5y ago
    The fact that the virus just popped out of nowhere more or less without the normal pedigree is strong evidence against a natural origin theory. It's pretty clear at this point that it was a lab escape, in my opinion.
    - fsckboy 5y ago
      you mean a gain-of-function research and then lab-leak. There could be a lab-leak of a naturally occurring virus, but you're saying experimentally man-made virus. I agree with you, but I think it's necessary to be precise.
8note 5y ago
And then somebody else will ask you to prove that the trump administration didn't plant the virus in Wuhan to try and make the chinese government look bad. Asking for negative proofs is as silly as it always was
- derbOac 5y ago
  Idk. The parent post shouldn't have been voted down imho. The problem is such a long time has elapsed everything is getting murky. Just to take one example: researchers are finding zoo animals in the US are testing positive for COVID: https://zooatlanta.org/update-on-zoo-atlanta-gorilla-population/ https://zooatlanta.org/update-on-zoo-atlanta-gorilla-populat... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/bears-baboons-tigers-are-getting-covid-vaccines-at-zoos-across-the-us https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/bears-bab... https://nationalzoo.si.edu/news/update-covid-19-positive-great-cats-smithsonians-national-zoo https://nationalzoo.si.edu/news/update-covid-19-positive-gre... In other words, now SARS-CoV-2 is being passed from humans back to other animals. Who's to say what direction things went in at this point? Wouldn't bats be even more susceptible than, say, lions? I assume you could maybe tease some of this out with molecular phylogenetics but who knows at this point.

photochemsyn 5y ago

What you would expect to find in a natural zoonotic origin is a series of close ancestor relatives of the pandemic version, some capable of causing mild disease in humans (as with MERS and SARS for example). See this 2013 description for example: "We hypothesize that the direct progenitor of SARS-CoV was produced by recombination within bats and then transmitted to farmed civets or another mammal, which then transmitted the virus to civets by faecal–oral transmission. When the virus-infected civets were transported to Guangdong market, the virus spread in market civets and acquired further mutations before spillover to humans." For someone to fabricate a plausible natural origin story, they'd have to create a similar series of genetic variants based on ancestral bat strains, intermediates on the way to Sars-CoV-2. So, it'd be very difficult if even possible.

fsckboy 5y ago
first of all, you're agreeing with me, I said I'd want to see proof, and you're saying what the proof would need to consist of. However, you are not addressing that there has been zero natural origin evidence, but they've all along been saying it's the likeliest, despite the Wuhan lab, and they've not been considering gain of function even though the US has been funding it in China at that lab.
- photochemsyn 5y ago
  The fact that the virus just popped out of nowhere more or less without the normal pedigree is strong evidence against a natural origin theory. It's pretty clear at this point that it was a lab escape, in my opinion.
  - fsckboy 5y ago
    you mean a gain-of-function research and then lab-leak. There could be a lab-leak of a naturally occurring virus, but you're saying experimentally man-made virus. I agree with you, but I think it's necessary to be precise.

8note 5y ago

And then somebody else will ask you to prove that the trump administration didn't plant the virus in Wuhan to try and make the chinese government look bad. Asking for negative proofs is as silly as it always was

derbOac 5y ago
Idk. The parent post shouldn't have been voted down imho. The problem is such a long time has elapsed everything is getting murky. Just to take one example: researchers are finding zoo animals in the US are testing positive for COVID: https://zooatlanta.org/update-on-zoo-atlanta-gorilla-population/ https://zooatlanta.org/update-on-zoo-atlanta-gorilla-populat... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/bears-baboons-tigers-are-getting-covid-vaccines-at-zoos-across-the-us https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/bears-bab... https://nationalzoo.si.edu/news/update-covid-19-positive-great-cats-smithsonians-national-zoo https://nationalzoo.si.edu/news/update-covid-19-positive-gre... In other words, now SARS-CoV-2 is being passed from humans back to other animals. Who's to say what direction things went in at this point? Wouldn't bats be even more susceptible than, say, lions? I assume you could maybe tease some of this out with molecular phylogenetics but who knows at this point.