5 ms·

Wuhan lab leak 'now the most likely origin of Covid'

50 points by m1 5y ago

HamburgerEmoji 5y ago
It's not just the most likely origin, it's virtually certain. If you want to read about it in depth, I recommend "COVID-19 and the Global Predators".
drpgq 5y ago
https://archive.fo/jqWtT https://archive.fo/jqWtT
ericmay 5y ago
Thought this was an interesting comment: > Lord Ridley told MPs: “I also think it’s more likely than not because we have to face the fact after two months we knew the origins of Sars, and after a couple of months we knew Mers was though through camels, but after two years we still haven't found a single infected animal that could be the progenitor, and that’s incredibly surprising. There have been tons of threads about this so we are just rehashing the same info mostly but this was an interesting point I hadn’t heard of on previously considered.
- nradov 5y ago
  The closest viral relative found so far was in Laotian bats. But it's not an exact match and doesn't settle the issue one way or another. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02596-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02596-2
  - yucky 5y ago
    Well, we know the virus existed in the lab in Wuhan. If we don't have any evidence of it existing elsewhere, maybe the simplest explanation is the correct one. The bigger issue people have is that discussion has been so heavily censored in areas like the US where censorship is not the norm, or at least not desired. This throws fuel on the fire of censorship debate.
1cvmask 5y ago
It was an amusing period when all the mainstream media outlets attacked such discussions as racist and xenophobic and censorship platforms like YouTube banned it. And then somehow noted scientists like Jon Stewart allowed for the discussion to be allowed. This dilly dallying on the origins of Covid only shows the importance of free speech and the dangers of the mainstream media, Big Tech and their lies. Whether the real source is the Wuhan Lab is no longer relevant. Trying to force the discussion genie into the censorship bottle is the real story. Unfortunately now they are pushing the Wuhan lab leak theory for different and nefarious purposes instead of the furtherment of medical research. https://nypost.com/2021/09/16/jon-stewart-surprised-at-covid-lab-leak-theory-backlash/ https://nypost.com/2021/09/16/jon-stewart-surprised-at-covid...
- FridayoLeary 5y ago
  This just reinforces my lack of faith in the "experts", and my belief that they are playing politicians. "We don't have a clue what's flying but listen to me because i'm a doctor" doesn't make sense to me.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    Like https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2021/12/15/matt-ridleys-steady-descent-into-dangerous-british-loonhood/ https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2021/12/15/matt-ridl...?
    - FridayoLeary 5y ago
      Not at all.
      - user-the-name 5y ago
        Not bothered by that at all?
- _djo_ 5y ago
  In our experience the weird lab origin controversy was broadly limited to the US and to a lesser extent the UK, and probably caused by your rather idiosyncratic politics at the moment. For most of the rest of the world it was never that big an issue, with expert opinion broadly saying that it was plausible but on balance of probabilities the virus's origin was probably zoonotic as with SARS-1. It really didn't matter that much, beyond the discussion that if proven we should be improving lab security, but that sort of improvement should be happening anyway. I suspect in the US & UK it was inflamed by two things: 1. A political desire from certain groups to blame China for the pandemic. 2. Some confusion and conflation early on between the lab leak hypothesis and the fringe conspiracy theory of COVID-19 as being a Chinese 'bioweapon'. Whatever the cause, it wasn't a universal controversy.
gus_massa 5y ago
Note that this only the opinion of one doctor (or two), not some official conclusion by the WHO or other big organization.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  One doctor who has held this opinion this whole time, and has a book out arguing for it. Whether or not she is right is one question, but the phrasing here is implying that there has been a change in opinion, which is not true.
- defaultprimate 5y ago
  The conclusion of the WHO, which essentially took China's word for it with no independent oversight or real investigation into the lab, and big organizations that proselytized the results of the "investigation" to justify accusations of conspiracy theory thinking, are irrelevant. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj0016 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj0016
- FridayoLeary 5y ago
  The WHO has displayed in stunning detail, how they are incapable of independent thought and how they are utterly unwilling to challenge any of the Chinese government various blatant lies. I think at this stage they are just lackeys to China. I think Trump was right to cut their funding.
  - redconfetti 5y ago
    Yes. That seemed pretty objective to me, not a political decision. "The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain and share information in a timely and transparent fashion."..."The WHO failed to investigate credible reports from sources in Wuhan that conflicted directly with the Chinese government’s official accounts," https://news.yahoo.com/trump-eyes-withholding-us-funding-for-who-013542798.html https://news.yahoo.com/trump-eyes-withholding-us-funding-for...
  - _djo_ 5y ago
    Why do people think the WHO is the world police, able to hold negligent countries to account? It isn't, and it can't. It's an international health agency that is entirely dependent on and beholden to UN member states, as it was designed from the start to be an avenue for voluntary co-operation and the setting of norms. It has no enforcement authority and no legal right to intervene in or investigate countries. It has no independent control over either its leadership or its budget, both of which are determined to an extremely granular level by UN member states. The US cutting the WHO's funding was petulant and performative, because it just hurt people on the receiving end of valuable WHO assistance programmes and reduced the US's influence in global health debates. As a tactic, that sort of thing only works if you can induce the organisation you're withholding funds from to reform itself, but all of these controversial aspects of the WHO are external to it and come from its nature as an agency run by the world's countries in all their dysfunction. So no, it's not the WHO's job to 'prove' that China isn't telling the truth, nor does it have any such powers. That sort of evidence would need to be obtained by other countries and used to build cases that allow them to use other mechanisms for a punitive response. As a contrast, look at the IAEA, which is given broad investigative power through the UN Security Council. The upside though is that the co-operative nature of the WHO means that overall when it does provide information, norms, or similar, they're usually reliable and have broad support. We'd be worse off without it. But we really need to improve civic education and people's understanding of what role international institutions can and can't play.
Proven 5y ago
For some who listened to their government or the WHO it now is. For the rest of us it was since mid 2020 when real news sites presented compelling evidence.
user-the-name 5y ago
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2021/12/15/matt-ridleys-steady-descent-into-dangerous-british-loonhood/ https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2021/12/15/matt-ridl...
Markoff 5y ago
"We know this virus has a unique feature, called the furin cleavage site, and without this feature there is no way this would be causing this pandemic." "A proposal was leaked showing that EcoHealth and the Wuhan Institute of Virology were developing a pipeline for inserting novel furin cleavage sites. So, you find these scientists who said in early 2018 ‘I’m going to put horns on horses’ and at the end of 2019 a unicorn turns up in Wuhan city."
footlose_3815 5y ago
[dead]
djkivi 5y ago
Early on it was debunked, but now maybe not so much... https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1396769717805780994 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1396769717805780994

50 points by m1 5y ago

It's not just the most likely origin, it's virtually certain. If you want to read about it in depth, I recommend "COVID-19 and the Global Predators".

drpgq 5y ago

https://archive.fo/jqWtT https://archive.fo/jqWtT

ericmay 5y ago

Thought this was an interesting comment: > Lord Ridley told MPs: “I also think it’s more likely than not because we have to face the fact after two months we knew the origins of Sars, and after a couple of months we knew Mers was though through camels, but after two years we still haven't found a single infected animal that could be the progenitor, and that’s incredibly surprising. There have been tons of threads about this so we are just rehashing the same info mostly but this was an interesting point I hadn’t heard of on previously considered.

nradov 5y ago
The closest viral relative found so far was in Laotian bats. But it's not an exact match and doesn't settle the issue one way or another. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02596-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02596-2
- yucky 5y ago
  Well, we know the virus existed in the lab in Wuhan. If we don't have any evidence of it existing elsewhere, maybe the simplest explanation is the correct one. The bigger issue people have is that discussion has been so heavily censored in areas like the US where censorship is not the norm, or at least not desired. This throws fuel on the fire of censorship debate.

1cvmask 5y ago

It was an amusing period when all the mainstream media outlets attacked such discussions as racist and xenophobic and censorship platforms like YouTube banned it. And then somehow noted scientists like Jon Stewart allowed for the discussion to be allowed. This dilly dallying on the origins of Covid only shows the importance of free speech and the dangers of the mainstream media, Big Tech and their lies. Whether the real source is the Wuhan Lab is no longer relevant. Trying to force the discussion genie into the censorship bottle is the real story. Unfortunately now they are pushing the Wuhan lab leak theory for different and nefarious purposes instead of the furtherment of medical research. https://nypost.com/2021/09/16/jon-stewart-surprised-at-covid-lab-leak-theory-backlash/ https://nypost.com/2021/09/16/jon-stewart-surprised-at-covid...

FridayoLeary 5y ago
This just reinforces my lack of faith in the "experts", and my belief that they are playing politicians. "We don't have a clue what's flying but listen to me because i'm a doctor" doesn't make sense to me.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  Like https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2021/12/15/matt-ridleys-steady-descent-into-dangerous-british-loonhood/ https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2021/12/15/matt-ridl...?
  - FridayoLeary 5y ago
    Not at all.
    - user-the-name 5y ago
      Not bothered by that at all?
_djo_ 5y ago
In our experience the weird lab origin controversy was broadly limited to the US and to a lesser extent the UK, and probably caused by your rather idiosyncratic politics at the moment. For most of the rest of the world it was never that big an issue, with expert opinion broadly saying that it was plausible but on balance of probabilities the virus's origin was probably zoonotic as with SARS-1. It really didn't matter that much, beyond the discussion that if proven we should be improving lab security, but that sort of improvement should be happening anyway. I suspect in the US & UK it was inflamed by two things: 1. A political desire from certain groups to blame China for the pandemic. 2. Some confusion and conflation early on between the lab leak hypothesis and the fringe conspiracy theory of COVID-19 as being a Chinese 'bioweapon'. Whatever the cause, it wasn't a universal controversy.

gus_massa 5y ago

Note that this only the opinion of one doctor (or two), not some official conclusion by the WHO or other big organization.

user-the-name 5y ago
One doctor who has held this opinion this whole time, and has a book out arguing for it. Whether or not she is right is one question, but the phrasing here is implying that there has been a change in opinion, which is not true.
defaultprimate 5y ago
The conclusion of the WHO, which essentially took China's word for it with no independent oversight or real investigation into the lab, and big organizations that proselytized the results of the "investigation" to justify accusations of conspiracy theory thinking, are irrelevant. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj0016 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj0016
FridayoLeary 5y ago
The WHO has displayed in stunning detail, how they are incapable of independent thought and how they are utterly unwilling to challenge any of the Chinese government various blatant lies. I think at this stage they are just lackeys to China. I think Trump was right to cut their funding.
- redconfetti 5y ago
  Yes. That seemed pretty objective to me, not a political decision. "The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain and share information in a timely and transparent fashion."..."The WHO failed to investigate credible reports from sources in Wuhan that conflicted directly with the Chinese government’s official accounts," https://news.yahoo.com/trump-eyes-withholding-us-funding-for-who-013542798.html https://news.yahoo.com/trump-eyes-withholding-us-funding-for...
- _djo_ 5y ago
  Why do people think the WHO is the world police, able to hold negligent countries to account? It isn't, and it can't. It's an international health agency that is entirely dependent on and beholden to UN member states, as it was designed from the start to be an avenue for voluntary co-operation and the setting of norms. It has no enforcement authority and no legal right to intervene in or investigate countries. It has no independent control over either its leadership or its budget, both of which are determined to an extremely granular level by UN member states. The US cutting the WHO's funding was petulant and performative, because it just hurt people on the receiving end of valuable WHO assistance programmes and reduced the US's influence in global health debates. As a tactic, that sort of thing only works if you can induce the organisation you're withholding funds from to reform itself, but all of these controversial aspects of the WHO are external to it and come from its nature as an agency run by the world's countries in all their dysfunction. So no, it's not the WHO's job to 'prove' that China isn't telling the truth, nor does it have any such powers. That sort of evidence would need to be obtained by other countries and used to build cases that allow them to use other mechanisms for a punitive response. As a contrast, look at the IAEA, which is given broad investigative power through the UN Security Council. The upside though is that the co-operative nature of the WHO means that overall when it does provide information, norms, or similar, they're usually reliable and have broad support. We'd be worse off without it. But we really need to improve civic education and people's understanding of what role international institutions can and can't play.

Proven 5y ago

For some who listened to their government or the WHO it now is. For the rest of us it was since mid 2020 when real news sites presented compelling evidence.

user-the-name 5y ago

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2021/12/15/matt-ridleys-steady-descent-into-dangerous-british-loonhood/ https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2021/12/15/matt-ridl...

Markoff 5y ago

"We know this virus has a unique feature, called the furin cleavage site, and without this feature there is no way this would be causing this pandemic." "A proposal was leaked showing that EcoHealth and the Wuhan Institute of Virology were developing a pipeline for inserting novel furin cleavage sites. So, you find these scientists who said in early 2018 ‘I’m going to put horns on horses’ and at the end of 2019 a unicorn turns up in Wuhan city."

footlose_3815 5y ago

[dead]

djkivi 5y ago

Early on it was debunked, but now maybe not so much... https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1396769717805780994 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1396769717805780994