6 ms·

I mean guys, it supposedly started next to a lab that studies the virus and they've yet to find the original bat population spreading it. If I made a Contagion

by oxff 4y ago

I mean guys, it supposedly started next to a lab that studies the virus and they've yet to find the original bat population spreading it. If I made a Contagion 2 film that asked you to suspend your disbelief wrt. these two facts you wouldn't buy it.

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
It started at a wet market on the other side of the city. That's been very solidly established now. The early cases were very heavily concentrated around the wet market, but not around the lab, which is more than 10 km away.[0] > a lab that studies the virus The lab did not study SARS-CoV-2. It studied viruses that are about 20% different from SARS-CoV-2. We know what viruses they were working with, because they publish papers, go to scientific conferences, etc. > they've yet to find the original bat population spreading it It took about 10 years to find the bat population that the original SARS came from. In the last two years, researchers have gotten closer to the origin of SARS-CoV-2, which appears to be somewhere in southwest China or northern Laos. 0. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abp8715 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abp8715
- nostrebored 4y ago
  The cases were very heavily investigated around the wet market — particularly looking at adjacent hospitals. This is an obvious example of a biased sample. If you were doing controversial research using controversial methods how transparent would you be?
- JetSetWilly 4y ago
  > It started at a wet market on the other side of the city. That's been very solidly established now. That's simply not true at all, whatsoever. See for example this paper sequencing early samples of the virus: https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/38/12/5211/6353034?login=false https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/38/12/5211/6353034?logi... The "wet market" samples are less similar to closely related bat strains than other early samples which are unrelated to the market. The market is close to a major hospital. If the virus was circulating, it is unsurprising that a super spreader event would occur there. But saying that the market is the point of origin, and this this is "very solidly established" simply flies in the face of known facts.
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    Your information is out of date. The paper I linked to shows that both early strains of the virus were present at the Huanan market. That is already very strong evidence that the market was the origin point of the original outbreak in Wuhan, and not merely a superspreader event. We now know that early cases were centered on the market, that both strains were present in the market, and that the types of wild animals that caused the original SARS outbreak in 2002 were being sold at the market.
    - initplus 4y ago
      The market is still involved lab leak hypothesis or not. The market may still be the place where the earliest animal-human crossover occurred, even if the lab leak hypothesis is correct. Say a group of animals intended to be euthanized were actually clandestinely sold at the market, it's completely reasonable that the virus could have mutated at the lab in the animal population before being transmitted to humans. In fact, this is literally exactly what occurs during gain of function research, when scientists are explicitly trying to get a virus to mutate in live animals. There is simply not any hard evidence to concretely prove either hypothesis. Any evidence that points to the market can just as easily be involved in a lab leak scenario. When you have no comprehensive data on transmission, and no audit trail of how the animals arrived at the market, it's not possible to determine origin from super spreader. The evidence for both would look identical!
      - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
        This is why conspiracy theories never completely die. They can be made more and more convoluted in order to avoid falsification. You're now just asserting, without any evidence, that the Wuhan Institute of Virology sent animals to the Huanan market. We already know that wild animals from the countryside are shipped into the market to be sold, and that this is exactly how the original SARS outbreak in 2002 happened. So why would you suggest that the animals came from a lab?
        4y ago
- undecisive 4y ago
  I'd recommend being a little more strict with your language if you want to convince anyone here. "It started"..."solidly established" - that's enough inaccuracy for most HN people to ignore the whole of your post. Compare that with the context and abstract of the paper you've cited: "the earliest human cases", "circumstantial evidence", "earliest known COVID-19 cases", "spatially associated with vendors", "insufficient evidence to define upstream events" At this point, it is all opinion vs opinion based on circumstantial evidence or the lack thereof - and claiming anything else is either a) Faith or b) Misrepresentation.
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    I chose my language precisely. The paper is much more definitive than you're claiming, beginning with the title: "The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic." Many people have only vaguely followed this issue. Those who have been following it closely know that a lot of basic facts have actually been settled over the last year. The location of the initial outbreak in Wuhan (namely, in a market that sold wild animals similar to the animals that caused the original SARS outbreak in 2002) is one of those settled facts now.
    - undecisive 4y ago
      > I chose my language precisely. The paper is much more definitive than you're claiming, beginning with the title: "The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic." You may have chose your language precisely, but you've read meaning into the text that wasn't there. An epicenter is NOT where a thing started, and it's not in any doubt to even the most die-hard conspiracy theorists that the market was "the early epicenter". The fact that the initial major spread event happened there is pretty clear, the question is where did the virus originate - where exactly did it become the coronavirus we know and love? Did it mutate into that form by being passed between animals stored in the market? Was it brought to the market from bats caught in the wild? Did a lab employee doing highly sensitive transmissibility research pop to the market on their way home to give their spouse a hug? The idea that these are "settled facts" flies in the face of papers like this that go to great lengths to hedge their language. There are things we know. There are things that are likely, or less likely, or unlikely. There are things we have been prevented from knowing. There are lots of opinions. There are people with settled opinions. There are settled opinions that have come about with the best of intentions (worries about stoking sinophobia and anti-science thinking, worries about lack of accountability and governmental deceit). There are those shouting their "truths" with the best and worst of intentions, whether aiming to promote truth, or peace, or clickbait. You may have chose your language precisely, but your language is shouting about your settled opinion, not settled facts. (P.S: "The paper is much more definitive than you're claiming" - since the sentence I wrote was just a chain of quotes from the paper, without any real commentary, I'd be interested to know how you feel the paper was "much more definitive")
- junofan 4y ago
  The lab is not 10 km away. It is next door to the market. From the WHO report [0]: > The Wuhan CDC laboratory moved on 2nd December 2019 to a new location near the Huanan market. [0]: page 119, https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/final-joint-report_origins-studies-6-april-201.pdf?sfvrsn=4f5e5196_1&download=true#page119 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/final-j...
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    You're confusing the Wuhan CDC and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
  - vidro3 4y ago
    i thought cases were already cropping up prior to that move
  - LatteLazy 4y ago
    The first cases of Covid were in November 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic#2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic#2019 Also, the new location is over 5km from the market. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Wuhan+Centres+for+Disease+Prevention+%26+Control,+24+Jiang+Han+Bei+Lu,+Jiang'An,+Wuhan,+Hubei,+China,+430015/Huanan+market/@30.604466,114.2693729,15.03z/data=!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x342eaee6df67e08b:0x9cbacadc65f81283!2m2!1d114.2796472!2d30.5894427!1m5!1m1!1s0x342eaeb553b58fd7:0x355ff7d1fe8e8fb7!2m2!1d114.2622935!2d30.6165888 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Wuhan+Centres+for+Disease+Pr...
npteljes 4y ago
This argument is partly argumentum ad populum, appealing to the supposed normalcy of the argument, to validate the argument itself. The virus started there, so is it normal to think it might be correlated? Sure. Is it evidence? It's not. The second argument is backwards. Reality is more wild, chaotic, unpredictable than the baseline set by entertainment, and that's because it's easiest to reach people when you build upon what they already expect. As TVtropes would put this: "Reality is unrealistic". If you put too much unexpected things in a medium, as you say people won't buy it. But while storytelling is often bound by this constraint, reality isn't. Please note that I don't take a side with this comment. I want to know the truth, as I imagine many do, and I want to get there with a story that really makes sense, and doesn't just appeal to my nonrational parts. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityIsUnrealistic https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityIsUnreali...
contravariant 4y ago
While true, the same can be said for any gun that doesn't go off somewhere in the near future. Which isn't a terribly realistic expectation for most guns in the real world, thankfully.
tzs 4y ago
> I mean guys, it supposedly started next to a lab that studies the virus and they've yet to find the original bat population spreading it. It often takes years or even decades to find the original animal source of viruses. Sometimes it is never found, such as with ebola.
- NovaVeles 4y ago
  For example the origin of the 2002 SARS out break was only established in 2017/2018 - so 16 years after the fact.

by oxff 4y ago

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago

It started at a wet market on the other side of the city. That's been very solidly established now. The early cases were very heavily concentrated around the wet market, but not around the lab, which is more than 10 km away.[0] > a lab that studies the virus The lab did not study SARS-CoV-2. It studied viruses that are about 20% different from SARS-CoV-2. We know what viruses they were working with, because they publish papers, go to scientific conferences, etc. > they've yet to find the original bat population spreading it It took about 10 years to find the bat population that the original SARS came from. In the last two years, researchers have gotten closer to the origin of SARS-CoV-2, which appears to be somewhere in southwest China or northern Laos. 0. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abp8715 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abp8715

nostrebored 4y ago
The cases were very heavily investigated around the wet market — particularly looking at adjacent hospitals. This is an obvious example of a biased sample. If you were doing controversial research using controversial methods how transparent would you be?
JetSetWilly 4y ago
> It started at a wet market on the other side of the city. That's been very solidly established now. That's simply not true at all, whatsoever. See for example this paper sequencing early samples of the virus: https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/38/12/5211/6353034?login=false https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/38/12/5211/6353034?logi... The "wet market" samples are less similar to closely related bat strains than other early samples which are unrelated to the market. The market is close to a major hospital. If the virus was circulating, it is unsurprising that a super spreader event would occur there. But saying that the market is the point of origin, and this this is "very solidly established" simply flies in the face of known facts.
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  Your information is out of date. The paper I linked to shows that both early strains of the virus were present at the Huanan market. That is already very strong evidence that the market was the origin point of the original outbreak in Wuhan, and not merely a superspreader event. We now know that early cases were centered on the market, that both strains were present in the market, and that the types of wild animals that caused the original SARS outbreak in 2002 were being sold at the market.
  - initplus 4y ago
    The market is still involved lab leak hypothesis or not. The market may still be the place where the earliest animal-human crossover occurred, even if the lab leak hypothesis is correct. Say a group of animals intended to be euthanized were actually clandestinely sold at the market, it's completely reasonable that the virus could have mutated at the lab in the animal population before being transmitted to humans. In fact, this is literally exactly what occurs during gain of function research, when scientists are explicitly trying to get a virus to mutate in live animals. There is simply not any hard evidence to concretely prove either hypothesis. Any evidence that points to the market can just as easily be involved in a lab leak scenario. When you have no comprehensive data on transmission, and no audit trail of how the animals arrived at the market, it's not possible to determine origin from super spreader. The evidence for both would look identical!
    - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
      This is why conspiracy theories never completely die. They can be made more and more convoluted in order to avoid falsification. You're now just asserting, without any evidence, that the Wuhan Institute of Virology sent animals to the Huanan market. We already know that wild animals from the countryside are shipped into the market to be sold, and that this is exactly how the original SARS outbreak in 2002 happened. So why would you suggest that the animals came from a lab?
      - 4y ago
undecisive 4y ago
I'd recommend being a little more strict with your language if you want to convince anyone here. "It started"..."solidly established" - that's enough inaccuracy for most HN people to ignore the whole of your post. Compare that with the context and abstract of the paper you've cited: "the earliest human cases", "circumstantial evidence", "earliest known COVID-19 cases", "spatially associated with vendors", "insufficient evidence to define upstream events" At this point, it is all opinion vs opinion based on circumstantial evidence or the lack thereof - and claiming anything else is either a) Faith or b) Misrepresentation.
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  I chose my language precisely. The paper is much more definitive than you're claiming, beginning with the title: "The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic." Many people have only vaguely followed this issue. Those who have been following it closely know that a lot of basic facts have actually been settled over the last year. The location of the initial outbreak in Wuhan (namely, in a market that sold wild animals similar to the animals that caused the original SARS outbreak in 2002) is one of those settled facts now.
  - undecisive 4y ago
    > I chose my language precisely. The paper is much more definitive than you're claiming, beginning with the title: "The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic." You may have chose your language precisely, but you've read meaning into the text that wasn't there. An epicenter is NOT where a thing started, and it's not in any doubt to even the most die-hard conspiracy theorists that the market was "the early epicenter". The fact that the initial major spread event happened there is pretty clear, the question is where did the virus originate - where exactly did it become the coronavirus we know and love? Did it mutate into that form by being passed between animals stored in the market? Was it brought to the market from bats caught in the wild? Did a lab employee doing highly sensitive transmissibility research pop to the market on their way home to give their spouse a hug? The idea that these are "settled facts" flies in the face of papers like this that go to great lengths to hedge their language. There are things we know. There are things that are likely, or less likely, or unlikely. There are things we have been prevented from knowing. There are lots of opinions. There are people with settled opinions. There are settled opinions that have come about with the best of intentions (worries about stoking sinophobia and anti-science thinking, worries about lack of accountability and governmental deceit). There are those shouting their "truths" with the best and worst of intentions, whether aiming to promote truth, or peace, or clickbait. You may have chose your language precisely, but your language is shouting about your settled opinion, not settled facts. (P.S: "The paper is much more definitive than you're claiming" - since the sentence I wrote was just a chain of quotes from the paper, without any real commentary, I'd be interested to know how you feel the paper was "much more definitive")
junofan 4y ago
The lab is not 10 km away. It is next door to the market. From the WHO report [0]: > The Wuhan CDC laboratory moved on 2nd December 2019 to a new location near the Huanan market. [0]: page 119, https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/final-joint-report_origins-studies-6-april-201.pdf?sfvrsn=4f5e5196_1&download=true#page119 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/final-j...
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  You're confusing the Wuhan CDC and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
- vidro3 4y ago
  i thought cases were already cropping up prior to that move
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  The first cases of Covid were in November 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic#2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic#2019 Also, the new location is over 5km from the market. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Wuhan+Centres+for+Disease+Prevention+%26+Control,+24+Jiang+Han+Bei+Lu,+Jiang'An,+Wuhan,+Hubei,+China,+430015/Huanan+market/@30.604466,114.2693729,15.03z/data=!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x342eaee6df67e08b:0x9cbacadc65f81283!2m2!1d114.2796472!2d30.5894427!1m5!1m1!1s0x342eaeb553b58fd7:0x355ff7d1fe8e8fb7!2m2!1d114.2622935!2d30.6165888 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Wuhan+Centres+for+Disease+Pr...

npteljes 4y ago

This argument is partly argumentum ad populum, appealing to the supposed normalcy of the argument, to validate the argument itself. The virus started there, so is it normal to think it might be correlated? Sure. Is it evidence? It's not. The second argument is backwards. Reality is more wild, chaotic, unpredictable than the baseline set by entertainment, and that's because it's easiest to reach people when you build upon what they already expect. As TVtropes would put this: "Reality is unrealistic". If you put too much unexpected things in a medium, as you say people won't buy it. But while storytelling is often bound by this constraint, reality isn't. Please note that I don't take a side with this comment. I want to know the truth, as I imagine many do, and I want to get there with a story that really makes sense, and doesn't just appeal to my nonrational parts. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityIsUnrealistic https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealityIsUnreali...

contravariant 4y ago

While true, the same can be said for any gun that doesn't go off somewhere in the near future. Which isn't a terribly realistic expectation for most guns in the real world, thankfully.

tzs 4y ago

> I mean guys, it supposedly started next to a lab that studies the virus and they've yet to find the original bat population spreading it. It often takes years or even decades to find the original animal source of viruses. Sometimes it is never found, such as with ebola.

NovaVeles 4y ago
For example the origin of the 2002 SARS out break was only established in 2017/2018 - so 16 years after the fact.