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If you click on the link in the thread, there's an editor's note clarifying that this paper is being used to prop up dodgy claims, for which there's no evidence

If you click on the link in the thread, there's an editor's note clarifying that this paper is being used to prop up dodgy claims, for which there's no evidence. The main issue I have with the 'lab leak' theory is that I haven't seen much evidence one way or another. Hitchens' razor applies- what can be stated without evidence can be as easily dismissed without evidence. I personally don't see any issue with the idea of this escaping from a lab (a friend who used to work at the CDC told me some rather scary stories about working there), but there's no serious evidence it was the case here. On the other hand, many people would like it to be true, because it feeds into a conspiracy narrative. People can't believe things like global, deadly viral pandemics can occur naturally, even though they do.

credit_guy 4y ago
Here's some evidence: if you fart in an elevator, it stinks, but if you fart outdoors, not so much. Viruses, as opposed to farts, don't smell, but otherwise they are similar. If someone coughs outdoors, the aerosols containing the viral particles just spread around and soon their concentration becomes negligible. If someone coughs, or just breathes indoors, the aerosols spread, but if the space is not very large, their concentration will stay elevated, enough to infect other people. With this preamble out of the way, what is the hypothetical scenario where the pandemic starts in the market? Covid does not spread from dead meat, it's an airborne disease. Was there some live bat (or pangolin) that was sneezing in some enclosed space, and some people acquired the virus there? A google search shows links with evidence to the contrary ([1], [2]). Here's and NY Times article [3] that's arguing for the non-lab-leak origin, but you'll notice they are using misdirection (e.g. "dozens of species that can carry pathogens that infect humans" -> ok, this says nothing specific about Covid, but is written to prime the reader to think Covid was among those pathogens). Overall, the simplest explanation is that one lab worker acquired the disease from aerosols in the lab produced by the lab mice infected with the virus. The worker then left the lab and stopped here and there (home too) and left aerosols that some other people inhaled. Whenever it was outdoors, the aerosols did not cause infections, but sometimes when it was indoors, they did. Is it possible that that person went to the market nearby to have lunch or dinner and coughed or sneezed while indoors, and some of the market workers, or co-diners got infected? It does not sound outrageous. You can envision tons of plausible scenarios with an initial lab worker getting infected, but you need to get into contorted scenarios to cook up a theory where some bats from a few thousand kilometers away get transported to Wuhan and fail to infect anyone on their way, then the disease explodes like a bomb in Wohan, and then nobody is able to find evidence of those live bats being sold in that market. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2 [2] https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/wet-market-sources-covid-19-bats-and-pangolins-have-alibi https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/wet-market-sources-co... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/world/wuhan-animal-markets-covid.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/world/wuhan-animal-market... [4]
- igouy 4y ago
  > Overall, the simplest explanation… "New studies say Wuhan market is the only ‘plausible’ source of COVID-19 pandemic" https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2022-07-26/new-studies-say-wuhan-market-was-the-only-plausible-source-of-covid-19-pandemic https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2022-07-26/new-studies... “I was quite convinced of the lab leak myself until we dove into this very carefully and looked at it much closer,” Andersen said. “Actually, the data points to this particular market.”
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    I read your link, and except for words, I see not explanation why the market hypothesis is more likely. Just "I thought that, and now I think this". The rest of the article says that the reports were deemed by the WHO to be "inconclusive". And what else do you expect? Conclusive evidence for the lab-leak hypothesis should be hyper-ultra-uber strong, because its consequences could potentially be requests for trillions of dollars of reparations. Evidence for the market hypothesis doesn't need to be as strong, this alternative would make quite a lot of people quite happy, but for some reason no clear evidence was found. In the article they claim the possibility for contagion via frozen food was deemed "possible". This is total BS. Covid is an airborne disease. We've all lived for more than 2 years with it, and most HN readers probably read for thousands of hours about Covid. The claim that you can get Covid from food is preposterous. Of course, if you intentionally want to get it, you can get it, so one cannot rule it out, but deeming this "possible" is clearly just based on politics. It should be deemed "possible, but highly improbable". So, no, I don't see a plausible scenario where the wildlife is the source of the disease. I can see a lab worker contracting the virus in the lab, and then going to lunch to the market, and then the disease spreading from there. But not from wildlife, because there were no documented cases of live bats or live pangolins being sold in that market.
    - igouy 4y ago
      > because there were no documented cases of live bats or live pangolins being sold in that market. Was selling live bats or live pangolins legal?
secondcoming 4y ago
> many people would like it to be true, because it feeds into a conspiracy narrative And many people would like it to be false, because they don't want a) public uproar about what sort of activites go on in these labs, b) fear of losing money, c) embarrassment We'll never truly know where it all came from.
arisAlexis 4y ago
Actually many people would like it to be false for personal profit or just human mentality. It's another ballpark of seriousness if that wasn't brought up by mother nature. What kind of evidence do you need? This paper is full of evidence that if you combine the probability of each event happening, the probability that it was accidental is really small. So the burden of probability should be to prove that it wasn't leaked which isn't proven after 3 years.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  At what probability does the burden of proof shift?
  - WithinReason 4y ago
    An important question. For the sake of adjusting priors here is a list of biosecurity incidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity... SARS itself leaked from the lab 4 times, once from a BSL-4 lab.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      * SARS*, including the original SARS virus (3 times, per page) and SARS-CoV-2 (1 time, post-pandemic)
      - WithinReason 4y ago
        Actually I meant SARS-CoV-1 leaked 4 times, one of the events listed was actually 2 separate ones 2 weeks apart if you read the description.
  - arisAlexis 4y ago
    Although you can find a Bayesian answer for this which I am not qualified to calculate, it's irrelevant. The most pressing issue is not to dismiss it as zero probability as has been until know because it is viewed as a conspiracy. Even if the probability is very small we have to dig in deeper to prevent the next catastrophe.
barnacled 4y ago
There is now evidence firmly against lab leak and firmly in favour of natural origins, covered in depth by a domain expert here - https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1551937826580824070 https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/15519378265808240... I feel like this isn't publicised enough. The lab leakers are louder and people definitely seem to want it to be true more than natural origins and they are not being honest in their attempts to dismiss these papers.
- johndfsgdgdfg 4y ago
- chrisan 4y ago
  Hope this gets more upvotes. Kind of dismaying the number of people relying on tweets with no source(s). Haven't we learned enough over these years of misinformation and "fake news"? TLDR the tweet string from the actual Dr of Virology: evidence so far points to natural but more info is needed
  - barnacled 4y ago
    Ah I expected to get downvoted into oblivion, I know it's a cliche to say it but HN isn't what it once was. A key point to take away is that the fact there are 2 lineages means that lab leak is super unlikely. It would require somebody from the lab to come to the same relatively small market to give lineage A, then somebody else who got infected through a totally different evolutionary route at the lab to happen to come to the market just after and both to not spread it anywhere else. Of course lab leakers are working hard to try to deny this or claim the data is wrong or yada yada. It's an ongoing battle and they have several highly dedicated 'independent scientists' (lol) working on it seemingly 24/7. It's quite dispiriting to see.
    - tripletao 4y ago
      The two lineages are literally just two SNPs apart. SARS-CoV-2 averages ~1/3 of an SNP per human-to-human transition, so ~1/9 of such transmissions generate "two lineages" at least that different. So intuitively, it seems easy to believe those lineages could have evolved in just a few weeks of early cryptic (unsampled) human spread. Pekar et al. did some complicated modeling that purports to establish that the MRCA in humans is so recent that the two lineages must have arisen in animals, implying two introductions into humans. I believe that's highly suspect though, per my explanation and links at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32740568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32740568
chaosbolt 4y ago
>Hitchens' razor applies- what can be stated without evidence can be as easily dismissed without evidence Say mr X was seen at the crime scene at 10 am, he also knew the victim and lots of people have seen them fight a week ago, the victim had just came out of the bank with 20k$ in cash in a bag, mr X who's broke have been seen driving a car a month after the crime worth 18k$. There is no evidence mr X killed the victim, but he probably did it. Your argument removes probability, we have many coincidences linked to the lab leak theory, we don't have a 100% evidence that supports it, so we can assume it probably leaked from the lab, maybe it didn't, and since we can't quantify it with precision and a certain negligible error margin, we can use a language where probably happened means >50% and maybe happened means <50%. A woman can safely assume her husband is cheating if she catches him flirting with girls online, find a different long hair on his coat everytime he travels for work, etc.
- rasz 4y ago
  You forget the part where mr X went to a bar and asked patrons if anyone wants to rob and kill the victim (darpa grant proposal), but was told to get lost.
- mortehu 4y ago
  I think you are using a definition of evidence normally associated with criminal trials here, and not scientific evidence.
  - chaosbolt 4y ago
    Yeah sure I need to bring you mathematical irrefutable proof that some event happened, but you can just call me a conspiracy theorist or whatever new words go with it today: racist, sexist, religious, bigot, homophobe, transphobe, etc. with 0 evidence.
  - Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
    Touché - and that m'lud is why even the best barristers seldom get awarded the Nobel prize in any of the sciences.
  - 4y ago
Closi 4y ago
> Hitchens' razor applies- what can be stated without evidence can be as easily dismissed without evidence. I think the problem is that there is very little evidence exists for the other explanations - and an absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. The lack of non-circumstantial evidence for the "Lab Leak" theory can be partially explained by the fact that China blocked investigations within the lab until 2021, and there are obvious and strong geopolitical reasons why they would want to destroy evidence if the 'lab leak' theory WAS true. This is from a country already known to perform cover-ups. So this is the problem - if the hypothesis was true, any biological evidence would have most likely been intentionally destroyed, which means we can't really apply 'Hitchens Razor'.
- igouy 4y ago
  > … very little evidence exists for the other explanations… Well, there's evidence of transmission from mammals to people — "Sequencing has subsequently shown that mink-to-human transmission also occurred." https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5901 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5901 There's evidence of novel coronaviruses occurring in mammals and then infecting people — "In May [2021], researchers reported that two coronaviruses in dogs recombined in Malaysia. The result was a hybrid that infected eight children." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/science/bat-coronaviruses-lab-leak.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/science/bat-coronaviruses... There's evidence of "vendors selling live mammals, including raccoon dogs, hog badgers, and red foxes, immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic" at a Wuhan market. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 There's "Multiple positive samples … from one stall known to have sold live mammals, and the water drain proximal to this stall, as well as other sewerages and a nearby wildlife stall on the southwest side of the market, tested positive for SARS-CoV-2." https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 Please be more specific.
- jiscariot 4y ago
  US officials also have the strong incentives to muddy the waters for lab-leak. I mean, if true, we likely funded it since Fauci's NIH was giving millions in grant money to Daszak/EcoHealth Alliance, which was studying bat corona viruses and arguing with the government over their gain of function research. Oddly Vanity Fair has done the best deep-dive I've seen on this. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/the-virus-hunting-nonprofit-at-the-center-of-the-lab-leak-controversy https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/the-virus-hunting-no...
abigail95 4y ago
If you say there's no evidence for something, what does that mean? Are we talking about something without positive verification, or that there is evidence the opposite is true. If you are witness to a cover-up, that's not a signal that "no evidence" is a good position to take. There is evidence they lied about what they were doing. What does that say about the probability of the existence of positive evidence? They aren't covering up something that would make them look innocent I'll tell you that. WRT policy, it doesn't matter where the leak actually occured. We should treat both scenarios are likely and plan accordingly. If the next leak does come from a lab, it's obvious the Chinese will cover it up anyway.
- mellavora 4y ago
  > If you say there's no evidence for something, what does that mean? Back in the 70's, when the Pentagon was concerned that the Soviets were up to something, they would sometimes say in response to a world event that "And we have no evidence that the Soviets are behind this"-- as tongue in cheek "proof" of how clever the Soviets were about hiding their tracks. <edit> to expand-- this was a standing joke which was useful for reducing workplace stress, not often a serious claim </edit>
roenxi 4y ago
> On the other hand, many people would like it to be true, because it feeds into a conspiracy narrative. I think this is missing Occam's razor - many people believe it because they've seen more evidence that it is true than the reverse, but they aren't necessarily good at judging evidence. It doesn't make much difference either way. Given the number of people in the world, it seems likely we're going to see similar waves of disease in the future. The Asia-Pacific region has been on high alert for exactly this happening for 20 years, this could easily be a 1 in 40 years pandemic or worse as the world keeps getting smaller. And if it is even half plausibly a lab leak then given where tech is up to it takes one lab anywhere with bad safety standards - this is almost a level of risk that is hitherto outside the human experience.
Loveaway 4y ago
> People can't believe things like global, deadly viral pandemics can occur naturally Isn't that what most people believe? To me it seems people can't just believe all of this was not a coincidence at all, artificial hyped through oligopoly media, not even as deadly as advertised, and just another bamboozle to keep everyone in their hamster wheels.
zthrowaway 4y ago
Couldn’t a contributor to the lack of evidence be that the CCP blocked a lot of discovery from being conducted, and didn’t release enough information? We’re never going to know due to that alone. Obviously the optics would be really bad if they showed evidence that they leaked it accidentally. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/how-china-blocked-who-chinese-scientists-early-coronavirus-outbreak-n1222246 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/how-china-blocked...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
chmod600 4y ago
There is also no evidence that it came from animals directly. Given that there are really only two plausible hypotheses, and nondirect evidence of either, we have to speculate based on circumstantial evidence. And if one hypothesis is floated around the media, we need to raise the other one as well. I'll also point out that some people don't like to believe that there can be global media conspiracies, even though there are (cf. "masks don't work unless you're a trained medical professional" propaganda at the beginning).
- isitmadeofglass 4y ago
  Where have I heard this kind of reasoning before? Oh yes, I remember: There is no direct evidence for god not existing. Given that there are only two possible hypothesis, that he exists and that he doesn’t, we need to teach both sides to children, and the case for a 4000 year old planet with dinosaur bones buried to confuse scientists must be taught at equal level!
- PurpleRamen 4y ago
  > I'll also point out that some people don't like to believe that there can be global media conspiracies, even though there are (cf. "masks don't work unless you're a trained medical professional" propaganda at the beginning). That's not a conspiracy, that's just common shared knowledge.
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    It isn't a conspiracy. Conspiracy implies planning and plotting. That was just decentralized media figures deciding to copy each other's opinions, because there's safety in numbers and group think, and because dissent sticks out and gets attacked.
    - heartbreak 4y ago
      You just described the early-Covid shutdown policy-making too.
parkingrift 4y ago
There isn’t enough evidence to convict, so to speak, but the one place that could easily disprove the lab leak claim is the same place desperately stonewalling and destroying evidence. Acting guilty doesn’t mean your guilty, but something nefarious went on in that lab. To the point where they would rather fire bomb the entire lab than answer questions or provide documents. >On the other hand, many people would like it to be true, because it feeds into a conspiracy narrative. I wonder how many such people would exist if there wasn’t such a massive media and big tech push to silence anyone discussing lab leak. At peak manipulation you were labeled a racist for discussing lab leak and permanently banned from most (all?) big tech platforms.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  I can't agree with this anymore. For some reason, this lab isn't allowed to be inspected and investigated thoroughly. So there is something wrong, likely, it's where COVID19 came from or else, why not just allow an investigation team in to remove all doubts.
  - RyEgswuCsn 4y ago
    Why would they? Would you allow your neighbours to search your home and inspect your computer as soon as they claim that you are a pedophile?
    - endominus 4y ago
      Probably not the comparison you want to make. If your door blew open in a strong wind one day and a bunch of CP flew out of it and around town, you probably wouldn't have a choice, no matter how convincing your story of the previous tenant being a sicko was.
      - RyEgswuCsn 4y ago
        If CP were to be compared to virus, then all households would have some. New virus emerge naturally all the time, the same cannot be said for CP. Also things can go wrong just due to bad luck. Someone's home caught fire doesn't necessary mean they are committing insurance fraud; majority of them will be genuine accidents.
tomp 4y ago
The fact that there is no evidence, is evidence. (China suppressing all information about what was going on in the lab.)
- desindol 4y ago
  It’s more akin to you being paranoid than anything else. It’s like myths, dragons and sea monsters came about. No, it was our flagship it’s unsinkable it must be the kraken!
6510 4y ago
> The main issue I have with the 'lab leak' theory is that I haven't seen much evidence one way or another. MY main issue is that we even have to consider it. We have plenty of horrific diseases studied in labs that could (and do) escape at times but are very much worth studying. Designing new ones should not be a thing.
null_object 4y ago
> If you click on the link in the thread, there's an editor's note clarifying that this paper is being used to prop up dodgy claims, for which there's no evidence. Note that the addendum to the paper was added in March 2020, when Peter Daszak and many others directly associated with the Wuhan Institute were working covertly[0] to destroy any rational or scientific debate about the origins of covid. The Lancet letter was published on 7 March 2020. [0] Daszak and many of the other co-signers to the Lancet letter which "strongly condemned conspiracy theories” declared no conflicts of interest.
- initplus 4y ago
  Daszak acted unethically regardless of the actual truth of the lab leak hypothesis. His actions were a self serving attempt to muddy the waters on investigation of the virus origin, and may have prevented conclusive proof one way or the other from ever emerging. I doubt Daszak himself knows for sure. But if there is a risk that you are responsible, why not try cover it up anyway. Just in case? Same reasoning goes for the Chinese government.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Co-signing a letter is hardly covertly doing something, isn't it?
  - null_object 4y ago
    > Co-signing a letter is hardly covertly doing something, isn't it? Daszak made strenuous efforts to hide: • that he was the organizer and writer of the letter • that he had direct and invidious connections to the Wuhan Institute • that the signatories to the letter had any connection to EcoHealth Alliance or the Wuhan Institute All of the above were later confirmed by emails obtained via public record requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
    - oasisbob 4y ago
      > Daszak made strenuous efforts to hide [...] that the signatories to the letter had any connection to EcoHealth Alliance or the Wuhan Institute That's a strange thing to argue given that Peter Daszak's position within EcoHealth Alliance is public and well-known, and he signed the letter publicly. His extended conflict statement isn't exactly a smoking gun either: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01377-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
quadcore 4y ago
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- CrazyStat 4y ago
  Please provide an example of such a case.
narwal46 4y ago
phkahler 4y ago
I think it's important to set aside the question of weather Covid was made in a lab. For the sake of argument let's say it was not. There were proposals to do the kind of experimental work that would have created a virus very much like Covid-19. Those who wrote the proposal and shopped it around for funding probably considered it relatively harmless to do, both in a lab, and should it accidentally get out (it's just a corona virus after all). The fact remains that there are people out there who want to make stuff like that in a lab. That kind of "work" needs to stop. Thats what I take away from Covid whether it came from a lab or not, it very well could have given what goes on in labs. The fact that a lab leak is highly plausible is the problem, not the truth of it happening in this case.
- nullc 4y ago
  Yeah! exactly. If by some weird accident of history the research wasn't the actual cause of the virus-- it's just an accident. The problem was that we setup a situation where if it wasn't human originated, it's only a fluke.
- niemandhier 4y ago
  > The fact remains that there are people out there who want to make stuff like that in a lab. That kind of "work" needs to stop. No we need much more of such work. Why do you think we had a vaccine so fast? We were able to create an Ebola vaccine before?
  - isthisthingon99 4y ago
    The reason was because the virus was sequenced and we have technology that can supposedly create safe and effective vaccines based on this.
- isthisthingon99 4y ago
  I like this idea.
anonu 4y ago
> conspiracy narrative implies people conspired to create a pandemic. Which detracts from the first point of it being a lab-leak. > what can be stated without evidence can be as easily dismissed without evidence So we should never develop a hypothesis? Given the lack of any indicators lending support to any of the plausible hypotheses put forward, I think its fair game to discuss the lab leak version. If you recall in the early days of the pandemic, the lab-leak theory become a politically divisive one in the US, pitting right against left for no good reason other than the fact that the "other side" held an undesirable view. It was labeled as a conspiracy theory, incorrectly. It is very simply, a theory, and it should be discussed on par with any other theory.
jmyeet 4y ago
The problem is there are really only two contenders for Covid origins: lab origin (I much prefer this label than "lab leak") and zoonotic origin. Zoonotic origin is the obvious choice. As a general rule, nature is way better at evolving pathogens than humans are. The problem with this theory is we haven't yet found the wild population from which Covid originated. Now this can take time, sometimes years. But for SARS/MERS this was established relatively quickly. The other problem is the bats widely thought responsible were hundreds of miles away from Wuhan. Since Covid has entered certain wild animal populations it's possible we'll never know. That leaves us with lab origin. Lack of evidence for anything else is not positive proof for lab origin of course. But lab origin hasn't been ruled out either. There are lots of variations on lab origin theories. Deliberate release, accidental release, naturally-occuring pathogen, gain-of-function reserach, the authorities knew, the authorities didn't know, etc. Given the asymptomatic nature of Covid I personally think that if this is the origin, accidental release is the most likely cause. So what evidence supports this? The CCP's failure to cooperate with WHO investigations is a big one. Right at the beginning, WHO fell in too quickly with China's narrative too. Plus China did punish the doctor who originally raised the alarm about a novel coronavirus (who later died from Covid). I personally think it's way more likely that China doesn't want to know if it was lab origin rather than they're covering it up. Like there's literally no upside to finding out. Every level of the government doesn't want to know or be the one responsible for screwing something up. It's a bit like the Columbia space Shuttle disaster where it was suspected a foam tile damaged the shuttle but using satellites to image the shuttle met with internal NASA resistance. Part of that was there was nothing they could do but also people just don't want to know sometimes. Another issue: the missing coronavirus database that China had that was taken offline in late 2019. Weird timing. Again, no proof of anything. Perhaps it's changed now but as of last year this hasn't been examined by anyone in the West (like the WHO).
- isitmadeofglass 4y ago
  > But for SARS/MERS this was established relatively quickly. And for HIV or took close to a decade, so let’s see where we are in 2030. The argument “we haven’t found it after 2 years so it must not exist” borders conspiracy theory.
- 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
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Enginerrrd 4y ago
>but there's no serious evidence it was the case here I mean, the furan cleavage site certainly counts as evidence of a potential modification if it hasn't been observed in any of the natural coronaviruses and inserting it in the position it is was the subject of a grant proposal just a couple of years prior, at the institute in close proximity to the outbreak. There's also the fact that US intelligence leaked that a couple of workers at WIV were hospitalized with COVID-like symptoms in November, before the outbreak was otherwise detected which is an unusual event for working-aged people. That is an extremely suspicious timing and location of an unusual event in more than one person, though we don't have confirmation of the causative agent. Also, while we're back into speculative evidence, I found the behavior of the Chinese government was very suspicious throughout. I found it very interesting that there was a nation-wide initiative in China toward enhancing lab safety at BSL labs which was rolled out relatively quietly a few months into the pandemic. They also pulled their viral genetic database offline after the outbreak. Non-transparency is expected, but a couple of those actions seem more damning.

credit_guy 4y ago

Here's some evidence: if you fart in an elevator, it stinks, but if you fart outdoors, not so much. Viruses, as opposed to farts, don't smell, but otherwise they are similar. If someone coughs outdoors, the aerosols containing the viral particles just spread around and soon their concentration becomes negligible. If someone coughs, or just breathes indoors, the aerosols spread, but if the space is not very large, their concentration will stay elevated, enough to infect other people. With this preamble out of the way, what is the hypothetical scenario where the pandemic starts in the market? Covid does not spread from dead meat, it's an airborne disease. Was there some live bat (or pangolin) that was sneezing in some enclosed space, and some people acquired the virus there? A google search shows links with evidence to the contrary ([1], [2]). Here's and NY Times article [3] that's arguing for the non-lab-leak origin, but you'll notice they are using misdirection (e.g. "dozens of species that can carry pathogens that infect humans" -> ok, this says nothing specific about Covid, but is written to prime the reader to think Covid was among those pathogens). Overall, the simplest explanation is that one lab worker acquired the disease from aerosols in the lab produced by the lab mice infected with the virus. The worker then left the lab and stopped here and there (home too) and left aerosols that some other people inhaled. Whenever it was outdoors, the aerosols did not cause infections, but sometimes when it was indoors, they did. Is it possible that that person went to the market nearby to have lunch or dinner and coughed or sneezed while indoors, and some of the market workers, or co-diners got infected? It does not sound outrageous. You can envision tons of plausible scenarios with an initial lab worker getting infected, but you need to get into contorted scenarios to cook up a theory where some bats from a few thousand kilometers away get transported to Wuhan and fail to infect anyone on their way, then the disease explodes like a bomb in Wohan, and then nobody is able to find evidence of those live bats being sold in that market. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2 [2] https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/wet-market-sources-covid-19-bats-and-pangolins-have-alibi https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/science-blog/wet-market-sources-co... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/world/wuhan-animal-markets-covid.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/world/wuhan-animal-market... [4]

igouy 4y ago
> Overall, the simplest explanation… "New studies say Wuhan market is the only ‘plausible’ source of COVID-19 pandemic" https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2022-07-26/new-studies-say-wuhan-market-was-the-only-plausible-source-of-covid-19-pandemic https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2022-07-26/new-studies... “I was quite convinced of the lab leak myself until we dove into this very carefully and looked at it much closer,” Andersen said. “Actually, the data points to this particular market.”
- credit_guy 4y ago
  I read your link, and except for words, I see not explanation why the market hypothesis is more likely. Just "I thought that, and now I think this". The rest of the article says that the reports were deemed by the WHO to be "inconclusive". And what else do you expect? Conclusive evidence for the lab-leak hypothesis should be hyper-ultra-uber strong, because its consequences could potentially be requests for trillions of dollars of reparations. Evidence for the market hypothesis doesn't need to be as strong, this alternative would make quite a lot of people quite happy, but for some reason no clear evidence was found. In the article they claim the possibility for contagion via frozen food was deemed "possible". This is total BS. Covid is an airborne disease. We've all lived for more than 2 years with it, and most HN readers probably read for thousands of hours about Covid. The claim that you can get Covid from food is preposterous. Of course, if you intentionally want to get it, you can get it, so one cannot rule it out, but deeming this "possible" is clearly just based on politics. It should be deemed "possible, but highly improbable". So, no, I don't see a plausible scenario where the wildlife is the source of the disease. I can see a lab worker contracting the virus in the lab, and then going to lunch to the market, and then the disease spreading from there. But not from wildlife, because there were no documented cases of live bats or live pangolins being sold in that market.
  - igouy 4y ago
    > because there were no documented cases of live bats or live pangolins being sold in that market. Was selling live bats or live pangolins legal?

secondcoming 4y ago

> many people would like it to be true, because it feeds into a conspiracy narrative And many people would like it to be false, because they don't want a) public uproar about what sort of activites go on in these labs, b) fear of losing money, c) embarrassment We'll never truly know where it all came from.

arisAlexis 4y ago

Actually many people would like it to be false for personal profit or just human mentality. It's another ballpark of seriousness if that wasn't brought up by mother nature. What kind of evidence do you need? This paper is full of evidence that if you combine the probability of each event happening, the probability that it was accidental is really small. So the burden of probability should be to prove that it wasn't leaked which isn't proven after 3 years.

ethbr0 4y ago
At what probability does the burden of proof shift?
- WithinReason 4y ago
  An important question. For the sake of adjusting priors here is a list of biosecurity incidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity... SARS itself leaked from the lab 4 times, once from a BSL-4 lab.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    * SARS*, including the original SARS virus (3 times, per page) and SARS-CoV-2 (1 time, post-pandemic)
    - WithinReason 4y ago
      Actually I meant SARS-CoV-1 leaked 4 times, one of the events listed was actually 2 separate ones 2 weeks apart if you read the description.
- arisAlexis 4y ago
  Although you can find a Bayesian answer for this which I am not qualified to calculate, it's irrelevant. The most pressing issue is not to dismiss it as zero probability as has been until know because it is viewed as a conspiracy. Even if the probability is very small we have to dig in deeper to prevent the next catastrophe.

barnacled 4y ago

There is now evidence firmly against lab leak and firmly in favour of natural origins, covered in depth by a domain expert here - https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1551937826580824070 https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/15519378265808240... I feel like this isn't publicised enough. The lab leakers are louder and people definitely seem to want it to be true more than natural origins and they are not being honest in their attempts to dismiss these papers.

johndfsgdgdfg 4y ago
chrisan 4y ago
Hope this gets more upvotes. Kind of dismaying the number of people relying on tweets with no source(s). Haven't we learned enough over these years of misinformation and "fake news"? TLDR the tweet string from the actual Dr of Virology: evidence so far points to natural but more info is needed
- barnacled 4y ago
  Ah I expected to get downvoted into oblivion, I know it's a cliche to say it but HN isn't what it once was. A key point to take away is that the fact there are 2 lineages means that lab leak is super unlikely. It would require somebody from the lab to come to the same relatively small market to give lineage A, then somebody else who got infected through a totally different evolutionary route at the lab to happen to come to the market just after and both to not spread it anywhere else. Of course lab leakers are working hard to try to deny this or claim the data is wrong or yada yada. It's an ongoing battle and they have several highly dedicated 'independent scientists' (lol) working on it seemingly 24/7. It's quite dispiriting to see.
  - tripletao 4y ago
    The two lineages are literally just two SNPs apart. SARS-CoV-2 averages ~1/3 of an SNP per human-to-human transition, so ~1/9 of such transmissions generate "two lineages" at least that different. So intuitively, it seems easy to believe those lineages could have evolved in just a few weeks of early cryptic (unsampled) human spread. Pekar et al. did some complicated modeling that purports to establish that the MRCA in humans is so recent that the two lineages must have arisen in animals, implying two introductions into humans. I believe that's highly suspect though, per my explanation and links at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32740568 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32740568

chaosbolt 4y ago

>Hitchens' razor applies- what can be stated without evidence can be as easily dismissed without evidence Say mr X was seen at the crime scene at 10 am, he also knew the victim and lots of people have seen them fight a week ago, the victim had just came out of the bank with 20k$ in cash in a bag, mr X who's broke have been seen driving a car a month after the crime worth 18k$. There is no evidence mr X killed the victim, but he probably did it. Your argument removes probability, we have many coincidences linked to the lab leak theory, we don't have a 100% evidence that supports it, so we can assume it probably leaked from the lab, maybe it didn't, and since we can't quantify it with precision and a certain negligible error margin, we can use a language where probably happened means >50% and maybe happened means <50%. A woman can safely assume her husband is cheating if she catches him flirting with girls online, find a different long hair on his coat everytime he travels for work, etc.

rasz 4y ago
You forget the part where mr X went to a bar and asked patrons if anyone wants to rob and kill the victim (darpa grant proposal), but was told to get lost.
mortehu 4y ago
I think you are using a definition of evidence normally associated with criminal trials here, and not scientific evidence.
- chaosbolt 4y ago
  Yeah sure I need to bring you mathematical irrefutable proof that some event happened, but you can just call me a conspiracy theorist or whatever new words go with it today: racist, sexist, religious, bigot, homophobe, transphobe, etc. with 0 evidence.
- Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
  Touché - and that m'lud is why even the best barristers seldom get awarded the Nobel prize in any of the sciences.
- 4y ago

Closi 4y ago

> Hitchens' razor applies- what can be stated without evidence can be as easily dismissed without evidence. I think the problem is that there is very little evidence exists for the other explanations - and an absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. The lack of non-circumstantial evidence for the "Lab Leak" theory can be partially explained by the fact that China blocked investigations within the lab until 2021, and there are obvious and strong geopolitical reasons why they would want to destroy evidence if the 'lab leak' theory WAS true. This is from a country already known to perform cover-ups. So this is the problem - if the hypothesis was true, any biological evidence would have most likely been intentionally destroyed, which means we can't really apply 'Hitchens Razor'.

igouy 4y ago
> … very little evidence exists for the other explanations… Well, there's evidence of transmission from mammals to people — "Sequencing has subsequently shown that mink-to-human transmission also occurred." https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5901 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5901 There's evidence of novel coronaviruses occurring in mammals and then infecting people — "In May [2021], researchers reported that two coronaviruses in dogs recombined in Malaysia. The result was a hybrid that infected eight children." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/science/bat-coronaviruses-lab-leak.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/science/bat-coronaviruses... There's evidence of "vendors selling live mammals, including raccoon dogs, hog badgers, and red foxes, immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic" at a Wuhan market. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 There's "Multiple positive samples … from one stall known to have sold live mammals, and the water drain proximal to this stall, as well as other sewerages and a nearby wildlife stall on the southwest side of the market, tested positive for SARS-CoV-2." https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 Please be more specific.
jiscariot 4y ago
US officials also have the strong incentives to muddy the waters for lab-leak. I mean, if true, we likely funded it since Fauci's NIH was giving millions in grant money to Daszak/EcoHealth Alliance, which was studying bat corona viruses and arguing with the government over their gain of function research. Oddly Vanity Fair has done the best deep-dive I've seen on this. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/the-virus-hunting-nonprofit-at-the-center-of-the-lab-leak-controversy https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/the-virus-hunting-no...

abigail95 4y ago

If you say there's no evidence for something, what does that mean? Are we talking about something without positive verification, or that there is evidence the opposite is true. If you are witness to a cover-up, that's not a signal that "no evidence" is a good position to take. There is evidence they lied about what they were doing. What does that say about the probability of the existence of positive evidence? They aren't covering up something that would make them look innocent I'll tell you that. WRT policy, it doesn't matter where the leak actually occured. We should treat both scenarios are likely and plan accordingly. If the next leak does come from a lab, it's obvious the Chinese will cover it up anyway.

mellavora 4y ago
> If you say there's no evidence for something, what does that mean? Back in the 70's, when the Pentagon was concerned that the Soviets were up to something, they would sometimes say in response to a world event that "And we have no evidence that the Soviets are behind this"-- as tongue in cheek "proof" of how clever the Soviets were about hiding their tracks. <edit> to expand-- this was a standing joke which was useful for reducing workplace stress, not often a serious claim </edit>

roenxi 4y ago

> On the other hand, many people would like it to be true, because it feeds into a conspiracy narrative. I think this is missing Occam's razor - many people believe it because they've seen more evidence that it is true than the reverse, but they aren't necessarily good at judging evidence. It doesn't make much difference either way. Given the number of people in the world, it seems likely we're going to see similar waves of disease in the future. The Asia-Pacific region has been on high alert for exactly this happening for 20 years, this could easily be a 1 in 40 years pandemic or worse as the world keeps getting smaller. And if it is even half plausibly a lab leak then given where tech is up to it takes one lab anywhere with bad safety standards - this is almost a level of risk that is hitherto outside the human experience.

Loveaway 4y ago

> People can't believe things like global, deadly viral pandemics can occur naturally Isn't that what most people believe? To me it seems people can't just believe all of this was not a coincidence at all, artificial hyped through oligopoly media, not even as deadly as advertised, and just another bamboozle to keep everyone in their hamster wheels.

zthrowaway 4y ago

Couldn’t a contributor to the lack of evidence be that the CCP blocked a lot of discovery from being conducted, and didn’t release enough information? We’re never going to know due to that alone. Obviously the optics would be really bad if they showed evidence that they leaked it accidentally. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/how-china-blocked-who-chinese-scientists-early-coronavirus-outbreak-n1222246 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/how-china-blocked...

deleted 4y ago
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chmod600 4y ago

There is also no evidence that it came from animals directly. Given that there are really only two plausible hypotheses, and nondirect evidence of either, we have to speculate based on circumstantial evidence. And if one hypothesis is floated around the media, we need to raise the other one as well. I'll also point out that some people don't like to believe that there can be global media conspiracies, even though there are (cf. "masks don't work unless you're a trained medical professional" propaganda at the beginning).

isitmadeofglass 4y ago
Where have I heard this kind of reasoning before? Oh yes, I remember: There is no direct evidence for god not existing. Given that there are only two possible hypothesis, that he exists and that he doesn’t, we need to teach both sides to children, and the case for a 4000 year old planet with dinosaur bones buried to confuse scientists must be taught at equal level!
PurpleRamen 4y ago
> I'll also point out that some people don't like to believe that there can be global media conspiracies, even though there are (cf. "masks don't work unless you're a trained medical professional" propaganda at the beginning). That's not a conspiracy, that's just common shared knowledge.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  It isn't a conspiracy. Conspiracy implies planning and plotting. That was just decentralized media figures deciding to copy each other's opinions, because there's safety in numbers and group think, and because dissent sticks out and gets attacked.
  - heartbreak 4y ago
    You just described the early-Covid shutdown policy-making too.

parkingrift 4y ago

There isn’t enough evidence to convict, so to speak, but the one place that could easily disprove the lab leak claim is the same place desperately stonewalling and destroying evidence. Acting guilty doesn’t mean your guilty, but something nefarious went on in that lab. To the point where they would rather fire bomb the entire lab than answer questions or provide documents. >On the other hand, many people would like it to be true, because it feeds into a conspiracy narrative. I wonder how many such people would exist if there wasn’t such a massive media and big tech push to silence anyone discussing lab leak. At peak manipulation you were labeled a racist for discussing lab leak and permanently banned from most (all?) big tech platforms.

bamboozled 4y ago
I can't agree with this anymore. For some reason, this lab isn't allowed to be inspected and investigated thoroughly. So there is something wrong, likely, it's where COVID19 came from or else, why not just allow an investigation team in to remove all doubts.
- RyEgswuCsn 4y ago
  Why would they? Would you allow your neighbours to search your home and inspect your computer as soon as they claim that you are a pedophile?
  - endominus 4y ago
    Probably not the comparison you want to make. If your door blew open in a strong wind one day and a bunch of CP flew out of it and around town, you probably wouldn't have a choice, no matter how convincing your story of the previous tenant being a sicko was.
    - RyEgswuCsn 4y ago
      If CP were to be compared to virus, then all households would have some. New virus emerge naturally all the time, the same cannot be said for CP. Also things can go wrong just due to bad luck. Someone's home caught fire doesn't necessary mean they are committing insurance fraud; majority of them will be genuine accidents.

tomp 4y ago

The fact that there is no evidence, is evidence. (China suppressing all information about what was going on in the lab.)

desindol 4y ago
It’s more akin to you being paranoid than anything else. It’s like myths, dragons and sea monsters came about. No, it was our flagship it’s unsinkable it must be the kraken!

6510 4y ago

> The main issue I have with the 'lab leak' theory is that I haven't seen much evidence one way or another. MY main issue is that we even have to consider it. We have plenty of horrific diseases studied in labs that could (and do) escape at times but are very much worth studying. Designing new ones should not be a thing.

null_object 4y ago

> If you click on the link in the thread, there's an editor's note clarifying that this paper is being used to prop up dodgy claims, for which there's no evidence. Note that the addendum to the paper was added in March 2020, when Peter Daszak and many others directly associated with the Wuhan Institute were working covertly[0] to destroy any rational or scientific debate about the origins of covid. The Lancet letter was published on 7 March 2020. [0] Daszak and many of the other co-signers to the Lancet letter which "strongly condemned conspiracy theories” declared no conflicts of interest.

initplus 4y ago
Daszak acted unethically regardless of the actual truth of the lab leak hypothesis. His actions were a self serving attempt to muddy the waters on investigation of the virus origin, and may have prevented conclusive proof one way or the other from ever emerging. I doubt Daszak himself knows for sure. But if there is a risk that you are responsible, why not try cover it up anyway. Just in case? Same reasoning goes for the Chinese government.
hef19898 4y ago
Co-signing a letter is hardly covertly doing something, isn't it?
- null_object 4y ago
  > Co-signing a letter is hardly covertly doing something, isn't it? Daszak made strenuous efforts to hide: • that he was the organizer and writer of the letter • that he had direct and invidious connections to the Wuhan Institute • that the signatories to the letter had any connection to EcoHealth Alliance or the Wuhan Institute All of the above were later confirmed by emails obtained via public record requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
  - oasisbob 4y ago
    > Daszak made strenuous efforts to hide [...] that the signatories to the letter had any connection to EcoHealth Alliance or the Wuhan Institute That's a strange thing to argue given that Peter Daszak's position within EcoHealth Alliance is public and well-known, and he signed the letter publicly. His extended conflict statement isn't exactly a smoking gun either: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01377-5/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

quadcore 4y ago

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CrazyStat 4y ago
Please provide an example of such a case.

narwal46 4y ago

phkahler 4y ago

I think it's important to set aside the question of weather Covid was made in a lab. For the sake of argument let's say it was not. There were proposals to do the kind of experimental work that would have created a virus very much like Covid-19. Those who wrote the proposal and shopped it around for funding probably considered it relatively harmless to do, both in a lab, and should it accidentally get out (it's just a corona virus after all). The fact remains that there are people out there who want to make stuff like that in a lab. That kind of "work" needs to stop. Thats what I take away from Covid whether it came from a lab or not, it very well could have given what goes on in labs. The fact that a lab leak is highly plausible is the problem, not the truth of it happening in this case.

nullc 4y ago
Yeah! exactly. If by some weird accident of history the research wasn't the actual cause of the virus-- it's just an accident. The problem was that we setup a situation where if it wasn't human originated, it's only a fluke.
niemandhier 4y ago
> The fact remains that there are people out there who want to make stuff like that in a lab. That kind of "work" needs to stop. No we need much more of such work. Why do you think we had a vaccine so fast? We were able to create an Ebola vaccine before?
- isthisthingon99 4y ago
  The reason was because the virus was sequenced and we have technology that can supposedly create safe and effective vaccines based on this.
isthisthingon99 4y ago
I like this idea.

anonu 4y ago

> conspiracy narrative implies people conspired to create a pandemic. Which detracts from the first point of it being a lab-leak. > what can be stated without evidence can be as easily dismissed without evidence So we should never develop a hypothesis? Given the lack of any indicators lending support to any of the plausible hypotheses put forward, I think its fair game to discuss the lab leak version. If you recall in the early days of the pandemic, the lab-leak theory become a politically divisive one in the US, pitting right against left for no good reason other than the fact that the "other side" held an undesirable view. It was labeled as a conspiracy theory, incorrectly. It is very simply, a theory, and it should be discussed on par with any other theory.

jmyeet 4y ago

The problem is there are really only two contenders for Covid origins: lab origin (I much prefer this label than "lab leak") and zoonotic origin. Zoonotic origin is the obvious choice. As a general rule, nature is way better at evolving pathogens than humans are. The problem with this theory is we haven't yet found the wild population from which Covid originated. Now this can take time, sometimes years. But for SARS/MERS this was established relatively quickly. The other problem is the bats widely thought responsible were hundreds of miles away from Wuhan. Since Covid has entered certain wild animal populations it's possible we'll never know. That leaves us with lab origin. Lack of evidence for anything else is not positive proof for lab origin of course. But lab origin hasn't been ruled out either. There are lots of variations on lab origin theories. Deliberate release, accidental release, naturally-occuring pathogen, gain-of-function reserach, the authorities knew, the authorities didn't know, etc. Given the asymptomatic nature of Covid I personally think that if this is the origin, accidental release is the most likely cause. So what evidence supports this? The CCP's failure to cooperate with WHO investigations is a big one. Right at the beginning, WHO fell in too quickly with China's narrative too. Plus China did punish the doctor who originally raised the alarm about a novel coronavirus (who later died from Covid). I personally think it's way more likely that China doesn't want to know if it was lab origin rather than they're covering it up. Like there's literally no upside to finding out. Every level of the government doesn't want to know or be the one responsible for screwing something up. It's a bit like the Columbia space Shuttle disaster where it was suspected a foam tile damaged the shuttle but using satellites to image the shuttle met with internal NASA resistance. Part of that was there was nothing they could do but also people just don't want to know sometimes. Another issue: the missing coronavirus database that China had that was taken offline in late 2019. Weird timing. Again, no proof of anything. Perhaps it's changed now but as of last year this hasn't been examined by anyone in the West (like the WHO).

isitmadeofglass 4y ago
> But for SARS/MERS this was established relatively quickly. And for HIV or took close to a decade, so let’s see where we are in 2030. The argument “we haven’t found it after 2 years so it must not exist” borders conspiracy theory.
4y ago

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Enginerrrd 4y ago

>but there's no serious evidence it was the case here I mean, the furan cleavage site certainly counts as evidence of a potential modification if it hasn't been observed in any of the natural coronaviruses and inserting it in the position it is was the subject of a grant proposal just a couple of years prior, at the institute in close proximity to the outbreak. There's also the fact that US intelligence leaked that a couple of workers at WIV were hospitalized with COVID-like symptoms in November, before the outbreak was otherwise detected which is an unusual event for working-aged people. That is an extremely suspicious timing and location of an unusual event in more than one person, though we don't have confirmation of the causative agent. Also, while we're back into speculative evidence, I found the behavior of the Chinese government was very suspicious throughout. I found it very interesting that there was a nation-wide initiative in China toward enhancing lab safety at BSL labs which was rolled out relatively quietly a few months into the pandemic. They also pulled their viral genetic database offline after the outbreak. Non-transparency is expected, but a couple of those actions seem more damning.