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Option 4: lab leak. Now, I don't know if there's any evidence for/against this. Most people don't understand how these things work. But, if you're going to wri

Option 4: lab leak. Now, I don't know if there's any evidence for/against this. Most people don't understand how these things work. But, if you're going to write an article stating all hypotheses... You best state them all and then procede to arguing for/against each one. Not even acknowledging that omicron could be artificial is poor practice. We've already been through this once yelling "bats!". I understand people needed comfort at that time, and I agree that talking about a lab leak at the start of the pandemic could cause people to point fingers instead of working together to solve the issue. But, we're not there anymore. We need to list all theories and rigurously reject each incorrect one.

jjeaff 5y ago
My understanding from listening to virologists (this week in virology podcast) is that bats or similar animals are still the most likely culprit. Not that lab leak is impossible, but just that animal spillover still seems most likely.
- puffoflogic 5y ago
  I wonder if there's a group of people who are uniquely motivated to prove, or convince, that COVID is not a lab leak... It's been pointed out that a couple decades ago, we had this notion "conflict of interest": that someone too close to an issue is a poor choice to report on that issue, because everyone is influenced by their own self-interest. But now we have turned that idea completely on its head! We demand to hear only the opinions of "the experts"; who are in fact the same people who we used to describe as having a conflict of interest!
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    Virology is far too complicated for non-experts to have any chance of finding a valid answer. We simply need to watch for and be careful of conflicts of interest. Any good expert, especially academic, knows the importance of disclosing conflicts and for bias, well, we can only hope that there are enough diverse experts that they will catch that.
  - derbOac 5y ago
    I don't know why you're being downvoted. This issue is at the center of this controversy and many others that have nothing to do with COVID. You don't even have to accept the lab origin hypothesis to recognize the problems.
- burner556 5y ago
  It is absolutely not most likely. What is likely is that they want to hold safe opinions. Spend even a little bit of time looking into lab leak theory and you’ll see.
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    Are you a virologist? Because I was relaying information from virologists.
- laserbeam 5y ago
  We'll probably never know for sure. But my point was not: "HEY, this was a lab leak!". My point is that it's no longer the time to skip over various theories for fear of impact. Just drop it in there and debunk it as it should be debunked if it's wrong. Skimming over the option without mention suggests the article is cherry picking.
- eklitzke 5y ago
  The main problem with the bat hypothesis is that with SARS and MERS, wild animal populations that very closely matched those coronaviruses were quickly found. For example, with SARS it was very quickly identified that there were SARS infected civets in the animal markets SARS spread from, and then scientists went to the places in the wild were these civets were caught and also found SARS infected civets in the wild. The SARS they found in civets in the wild had a 99.8% sequence similarity with human SARS. If someone was to find coronavirus infected bats with a similarly high sequence similarity to COVID-19 it would take a lot of wind out of the sails of the lab leak hypothesis. But it's been two years now, and that hasn't happened. This doesn't prove or disprove the wild animal hypothesis, but the longer we go without a high sequence similarity match to animals in the wild the less plausible that hypothesis seems.
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    This report seems to indicate that it took years before the origin of SARS was discovered and that it was still being debated even 10 years later. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3747529/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3747529/

jjeaff 5y ago

My understanding from listening to virologists (this week in virology podcast) is that bats or similar animals are still the most likely culprit. Not that lab leak is impossible, but just that animal spillover still seems most likely.

puffoflogic 5y ago
I wonder if there's a group of people who are uniquely motivated to prove, or convince, that COVID is not a lab leak... It's been pointed out that a couple decades ago, we had this notion "conflict of interest": that someone too close to an issue is a poor choice to report on that issue, because everyone is influenced by their own self-interest. But now we have turned that idea completely on its head! We demand to hear only the opinions of "the experts"; who are in fact the same people who we used to describe as having a conflict of interest!
- jjeaff 5y ago
  Virology is far too complicated for non-experts to have any chance of finding a valid answer. We simply need to watch for and be careful of conflicts of interest. Any good expert, especially academic, knows the importance of disclosing conflicts and for bias, well, we can only hope that there are enough diverse experts that they will catch that.
- derbOac 5y ago
  I don't know why you're being downvoted. This issue is at the center of this controversy and many others that have nothing to do with COVID. You don't even have to accept the lab origin hypothesis to recognize the problems.
burner556 5y ago
It is absolutely not most likely. What is likely is that they want to hold safe opinions. Spend even a little bit of time looking into lab leak theory and you’ll see.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  Are you a virologist? Because I was relaying information from virologists.
laserbeam 5y ago
We'll probably never know for sure. But my point was not: "HEY, this was a lab leak!". My point is that it's no longer the time to skip over various theories for fear of impact. Just drop it in there and debunk it as it should be debunked if it's wrong. Skimming over the option without mention suggests the article is cherry picking.
eklitzke 5y ago
The main problem with the bat hypothesis is that with SARS and MERS, wild animal populations that very closely matched those coronaviruses were quickly found. For example, with SARS it was very quickly identified that there were SARS infected civets in the animal markets SARS spread from, and then scientists went to the places in the wild were these civets were caught and also found SARS infected civets in the wild. The SARS they found in civets in the wild had a 99.8% sequence similarity with human SARS. If someone was to find coronavirus infected bats with a similarly high sequence similarity to COVID-19 it would take a lot of wind out of the sails of the lab leak hypothesis. But it's been two years now, and that hasn't happened. This doesn't prove or disprove the wild animal hypothesis, but the longer we go without a high sequence similarity match to animals in the wild the less plausible that hypothesis seems.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  This report seems to indicate that it took years before the origin of SARS was discovered and that it was still being debated even 10 years later. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3747529/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3747529/