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The trouble with that piece, is that it is contradicted by this: https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/es21aq/wuhan_pneumonia_survivor_my_22_day_battle_a

by neffy 5y ago

The trouble with that piece, is that it is contradicted by this: https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/es21aq/wuhan_pneumonia_survivor_my_22_day_battle_against/ https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/comments/es21aq/wuhan_pne... (Chinese original has been deleted, but I remember seeing it at the time and running it through google, scroll down for English translation in the comments) which reports a case with symptoms starting 24th December, and reports of the hospitals in Wuhan already having multiple cases. Patient didn't visit the market, but did work near. With what we now know of disease progression, and infectiousness, this pushes the initial date back at least a month, probably two or more.

alevskaya 5y ago
...but that report doesn't contradict anything. The current earliest known case is a Huanan market seafood vendor who contracted the disease on Dec -11-. Dec 24 is way late in the existing epidemiological timeline. (And no one is saying the above is the provable first case, just the first recorded case.)
- timr 5y ago
  No, you're wrong. The earliest cases were at least in November, and quite probably earlier. The earliest case identified in the market was on December 11. There's simply no way that was the first actual case. https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1462173243247407111 https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/14621732432474071...
rjzzleep 5y ago
If you want to argue like that there's also this publication from Italy claiming that the first antibodies were detected in September 2019. The comment above says I would just do X, and bringing up RaTG13 and BANAL-52 as an argument as if it's all trivial. They share 96.2% and 96.9% similarity with sars-cov-2. There are seemingly unrelated animals sharing that much. The linked study also doesn't mention any of that. I'm not going to argue one way or the other, but I'm starting to get really annoyed at people posting random studies they half understand to argue one way or the other. Covid-19 discussions hackernews(or reddit for that matter) are like the Joe Rogan of nerds. It's ridiculous, people here should know or act better. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33176598/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33176598/
- timr 5y ago
  One strain of BANAL (52) has a high DNA sequence similarity to SARS-CoV2. Nonetheless, RaTG13 is closer overall (as you can see in the phylogenetic analysis in the paper I posted), and there are enough differences that you have to make complex assumptions about how multiple viruses crossed over evolutionary time. Possible? Yes. Parsimonious? Not necessarily. Also, nobody reasonable is arguing that BANAL-52 is not evolutionarily related to SARS-CoV2. Of course it is. But that could be true even if it were a precursor of some virus that was later engineered in a lab. To fully convince me of a natural origin hypothesis, you'd have to find a virus in an animal reservoir that had a highly similar RBD with a furin cleavage site -- or something within a few point mutations of a furin cleavage site. Also, a high degree of homology across the remainder of the genome.
- neffy 5y ago
  I'm fine with people posting random studies that I can read and form my own opinion on. This isn't ridiculous. This is the process of science.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
    I’m actually not fine with people posting random studies and then also making random claims from undereducated interpretation. That’s not the process of science, mostly because in the process of science you’re expected to be educated first before you can enter a discussion, otherwise you’re not discussing heavily niche subjects with peers you’re just introducing noise and that drowns out the actually useful educated niche. As a layman that is trying to find what the actual, educated in virus research and virus forensics folks are discussing and saying, this sort of undereducated claim is more noise for me to try and sift. It’s very annoying and a waste of my time.
thedudeabides5 5y ago
"Chinese original has been deleted" Wait that never happens...

by neffy 5y ago

alevskaya 5y ago

...but that report doesn't contradict anything. The current earliest known case is a Huanan market seafood vendor who contracted the disease on Dec -11-. Dec 24 is way late in the existing epidemiological timeline. (And no one is saying the above is the provable first case, just the first recorded case.)

timr 5y ago
No, you're wrong. The earliest cases were at least in November, and quite probably earlier. The earliest case identified in the market was on December 11. There's simply no way that was the first actual case. https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1462173243247407111 https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/14621732432474071...

rjzzleep 5y ago

If you want to argue like that there's also this publication from Italy claiming that the first antibodies were detected in September 2019. The comment above says I would just do X, and bringing up RaTG13 and BANAL-52 as an argument as if it's all trivial. They share 96.2% and 96.9% similarity with sars-cov-2. There are seemingly unrelated animals sharing that much. The linked study also doesn't mention any of that. I'm not going to argue one way or the other, but I'm starting to get really annoyed at people posting random studies they half understand to argue one way or the other. Covid-19 discussions hackernews(or reddit for that matter) are like the Joe Rogan of nerds. It's ridiculous, people here should know or act better. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33176598/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33176598/

timr 5y ago
One strain of BANAL (52) has a high DNA sequence similarity to SARS-CoV2. Nonetheless, RaTG13 is closer overall (as you can see in the phylogenetic analysis in the paper I posted), and there are enough differences that you have to make complex assumptions about how multiple viruses crossed over evolutionary time. Possible? Yes. Parsimonious? Not necessarily. Also, nobody reasonable is arguing that BANAL-52 is not evolutionarily related to SARS-CoV2. Of course it is. But that could be true even if it were a precursor of some virus that was later engineered in a lab. To fully convince me of a natural origin hypothesis, you'd have to find a virus in an animal reservoir that had a highly similar RBD with a furin cleavage site -- or something within a few point mutations of a furin cleavage site. Also, a high degree of homology across the remainder of the genome.
neffy 5y ago
I'm fine with people posting random studies that I can read and form my own opinion on. This isn't ridiculous. This is the process of science.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  I’m actually not fine with people posting random studies and then also making random claims from undereducated interpretation. That’s not the process of science, mostly because in the process of science you’re expected to be educated first before you can enter a discussion, otherwise you’re not discussing heavily niche subjects with peers you’re just introducing noise and that drowns out the actually useful educated niche. As a layman that is trying to find what the actual, educated in virus research and virus forensics folks are discussing and saying, this sort of undereducated claim is more noise for me to try and sift. It’s very annoying and a waste of my time.

thedudeabides5 5y ago

"Chinese original has been deleted" Wait that never happens...