5 ms·

The map showing the clustering around the lab is not labelled in the article. It looks like the map from the senate report which used internet search history. I

by amoss 3y ago

The map showing the clustering around the lab is not labelled in the article. It looks like the map from the senate report which used internet search history. I recall that their point in the original report was that there was a cluster of internet searches for flu-like symptoms clustered around the institute, rather than the market. There is no new direct evidence in the article, simply the weight of existing indirect evidence synthesized together. There does not seem to be another hypothosis for how the virus emerged that has as much indirect evidence pointing towards it? The main gist of the article is: * The institute applied for funding for a specific piece of research (inserting a furin cleavage site). * The institute claims it did not perform the research. * Covid is what we would expect if somebody did perform that research. * The research would have been performed at the time and place where covid emerged. It is not direct evidence, but under a weaker burden of proof (e.g. balance of probabilities) it is fairly convincing.

thevagrant 3y ago
Research applications, in particular to obtain funding. It is common for researchers to apply to grants/funding for work they are already doing. They tweak the research application to meet whatever the funding criteria is using knowledge they have from existing experiments.
ricksunny 3y ago
Chief among key new assertions the parent article makes, https://twitter.com/BlockedVirology/status/1667662325090746370?t=6utzB7y9NeK1fkT1mXFblA&s=19 https://twitter.com/BlockedVirology/status/16676623250907463... • WIV added FCS's to coronavirus(es?) exactly as described in DEFUSE, according to a US lab collaborator. • Zhou Yusen "fell" off the roof of the WIV in May 2020 • WIV was working on a 'closer [than published] unpublished variant' • Of all caves/mines, only scholarly attempts to access the Mojiang mine made touched off access denial and confiscation of samples from other mines from the authorities. While alluded to in the past, (https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-coronavirus-pandemic-china-only-on-ap-bats-24fbadc58cee3a40bca2ddf7a14d2955 https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-coronavirus-pandem... ) this is the first time to my awareness that the Mojiang mine has been uniquely & unequivocally associated with the authorities' clamp-down efforts, that too with attribution to Alice C Hughes, PhD
- samspenc 3y ago
  > Zhou Yusen "fell" off the roof of the WIV in May 2020 I mean, this is a pretty significant and concerning new finding right? Someone associated with the lab researching COVID early on just mysteriously disappearing in China?
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    This was news in the summer of 2021 and still seems a concerning (albeit not new) finding as he had reportedly filed a patent for a COVID-19 vaccine in Feb of 2020 prior to dying in May of 2020.
  - binx_ 3y ago
    specifically the person working on a possible vaccine at the same time as these GoF experiments, very interesting indeed.
- ricksunny 3y ago
  • an item covered that isn't strictly new but is probably unfamiliar to many even so, is: Of the researchers who the Jan 2021 State Dep Fact Sheet described as having fell sick with 'Covid-like symptoms' in Nov 2019 • they were taken to hospital, desoite being in their 30's and 40's (age) • one of their relatives died • they were working on advanced coronavirus research in the laboratory The WaPo journalist Josh Rogin who is known for maintainibg quality confidential sources in DC, had long ago tweeted the above. While some aspects may have been covered in intervening press, this is the first time to my knowledge all of tbese items are asserted explicitly with a quote attributed to one of the anonymous investigators. --- my take fwiw: While intriguing, vis-a-vis a seasonal illness null hypothesis, it's never been discussed whether they were unique cases at that time with such symptoms (more likely covid), or if many others both in and out of the WIV had similar symtoms at the time (more likely seasonal illness)
  - ricksunny 3y ago
    Just updating my above comment that the observations about the sick researchers did actually make it into print in 2021 thx to Ian Birrell in DailyMail: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9410163/US-State-Department-expert-David-Asher-says-lab-leak-logical-explanation-Covid-source.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9410163/US-State-De...
pera 3y ago
The map in the senate report comes from this paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/9/6/402 https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/9/6/402 if I understand correctly it concludes that the cluster correlates with population density and a concentration of elderly population in that area. Unfortunately that wasn't mentioned in the senate report (nor in the news article)
lamontcg 3y ago
> It is not direct evidence, but under a weaker burden of proof (e.g. balance of probabilities) it is fairly convincing. - We have a bunch of evidence of WIV engineering SARS-1-like viruses because they talked about it before the pandemic. - We have zero evidence of them ever doing experiments on live SARS-2-like virus - We have zero evidence of the existence of a SARS-2-like progenitor virus - Before the pandemic they had no reason to be more secretive of any SARS-2-like work than their SARS-1-like work - The spread of SARS-CoV-2 looks exactly like it originated in the Seafood market. - If it was transported to the seafood market by someone who worked at the lab that is highly coincidental that the place they infected first just happened to be the most likely place for zoonotic spillover - The hypothetical infected labworker didn't spread it all over their residence or create any other superspreading incidents clustered elsewhere around Wuhan On the balance of probabilities I'm going with zoonotic spillover. The coincidence that the lab happened to be in the city is much less of a coincidence than the lab causing a leak of a virus that there's zero evidence the lab ever had, causing a pandemic that looks exactly like it came from zoonotic spillover.
- Biorealism 3y ago
  The nearest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 are found in Yunnan and Laos. The only known link to Wuhan is the Wuhan Institute of Virology sampled both areas. They refuse to share their records with WHO or the NIH. That's a crucial caveat when saying there is no evidence they held a precursor. We don't know as they have refused to share their database. The Times article is interesting as it suggests the work in DEFUSE to add furin cleavage sites went ahead and they passaged the virus in humanized mice. This would explain the furin site not seen in other sarbecoviruses and why humans topped the list for binding affinity from the outset. Note the cases near the market are based on what David Relman described as "hopelessly impoverished" early case data. There was also sampling bias in retrospectively counting cases as market link was often required. WHO hasn't accepted market origin in part as there were likely much earlier cases than those in December linked to the market where no animals tested positive.
  - inciampati 3y ago
    > why humans topped the list for binding affinity from the outset This is an unbelievable coincidence that makes the zoonotic spillover hypothesis laughable. To a biologist, the likelihood of this happening by chance is clear: virtually 0. But explaining the size of the space of optimal solutions to a given binding problem versus the space of good solutions to the general public, well, that's really hard too. So an obvious and completely non-circumstantial piece of evidence is the last one in the public's mind. And we are still acting like there is a question of where the virus came from, and we will be for decades, or at least until the average level of biology education is raised by a few sharp degrees.

by amoss 3y ago

thevagrant 3y ago

Research applications, in particular to obtain funding. It is common for researchers to apply to grants/funding for work they are already doing. They tweak the research application to meet whatever the funding criteria is using knowledge they have from existing experiments.

ricksunny 3y ago

Chief among key new assertions the parent article makes, https://twitter.com/BlockedVirology/status/1667662325090746370?t=6utzB7y9NeK1fkT1mXFblA&s=19 https://twitter.com/BlockedVirology/status/16676623250907463... • WIV added FCS's to coronavirus(es?) exactly as described in DEFUSE, according to a US lab collaborator. • Zhou Yusen "fell" off the roof of the WIV in May 2020 • WIV was working on a 'closer [than published] unpublished variant' • Of all caves/mines, only scholarly attempts to access the Mojiang mine made touched off access denial and confiscation of samples from other mines from the authorities. While alluded to in the past, (https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-coronavirus-pandemic-china-only-on-ap-bats-24fbadc58cee3a40bca2ddf7a14d2955 https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-coronavirus-pandem... ) this is the first time to my awareness that the Mojiang mine has been uniquely & unequivocally associated with the authorities' clamp-down efforts, that too with attribution to Alice C Hughes, PhD

samspenc 3y ago
> Zhou Yusen "fell" off the roof of the WIV in May 2020 I mean, this is a pretty significant and concerning new finding right? Someone associated with the lab researching COVID early on just mysteriously disappearing in China?
- sokoloff 3y ago
  This was news in the summer of 2021 and still seems a concerning (albeit not new) finding as he had reportedly filed a patent for a COVID-19 vaccine in Feb of 2020 prior to dying in May of 2020.
- binx_ 3y ago
  specifically the person working on a possible vaccine at the same time as these GoF experiments, very interesting indeed.
ricksunny 3y ago
• an item covered that isn't strictly new but is probably unfamiliar to many even so, is: Of the researchers who the Jan 2021 State Dep Fact Sheet described as having fell sick with 'Covid-like symptoms' in Nov 2019 • they were taken to hospital, desoite being in their 30's and 40's (age) • one of their relatives died • they were working on advanced coronavirus research in the laboratory The WaPo journalist Josh Rogin who is known for maintainibg quality confidential sources in DC, had long ago tweeted the above. While some aspects may have been covered in intervening press, this is the first time to my knowledge all of tbese items are asserted explicitly with a quote attributed to one of the anonymous investigators. --- my take fwiw: While intriguing, vis-a-vis a seasonal illness null hypothesis, it's never been discussed whether they were unique cases at that time with such symptoms (more likely covid), or if many others both in and out of the WIV had similar symtoms at the time (more likely seasonal illness)
- ricksunny 3y ago
  Just updating my above comment that the observations about the sick researchers did actually make it into print in 2021 thx to Ian Birrell in DailyMail: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9410163/US-State-Department-expert-David-Asher-says-lab-leak-logical-explanation-Covid-source.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9410163/US-State-De...

pera 3y ago

The map in the senate report comes from this paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/9/6/402 https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/9/6/402 if I understand correctly it concludes that the cluster correlates with population density and a concentration of elderly population in that area. Unfortunately that wasn't mentioned in the senate report (nor in the news article)

lamontcg 3y ago

> It is not direct evidence, but under a weaker burden of proof (e.g. balance of probabilities) it is fairly convincing. - We have a bunch of evidence of WIV engineering SARS-1-like viruses because they talked about it before the pandemic. - We have zero evidence of them ever doing experiments on live SARS-2-like virus - We have zero evidence of the existence of a SARS-2-like progenitor virus - Before the pandemic they had no reason to be more secretive of any SARS-2-like work than their SARS-1-like work - The spread of SARS-CoV-2 looks exactly like it originated in the Seafood market. - If it was transported to the seafood market by someone who worked at the lab that is highly coincidental that the place they infected first just happened to be the most likely place for zoonotic spillover - The hypothetical infected labworker didn't spread it all over their residence or create any other superspreading incidents clustered elsewhere around Wuhan On the balance of probabilities I'm going with zoonotic spillover. The coincidence that the lab happened to be in the city is much less of a coincidence than the lab causing a leak of a virus that there's zero evidence the lab ever had, causing a pandemic that looks exactly like it came from zoonotic spillover.

Biorealism 3y ago
The nearest relatives to SARS-CoV-2 are found in Yunnan and Laos. The only known link to Wuhan is the Wuhan Institute of Virology sampled both areas. They refuse to share their records with WHO or the NIH. That's a crucial caveat when saying there is no evidence they held a precursor. We don't know as they have refused to share their database. The Times article is interesting as it suggests the work in DEFUSE to add furin cleavage sites went ahead and they passaged the virus in humanized mice. This would explain the furin site not seen in other sarbecoviruses and why humans topped the list for binding affinity from the outset. Note the cases near the market are based on what David Relman described as "hopelessly impoverished" early case data. There was also sampling bias in retrospectively counting cases as market link was often required. WHO hasn't accepted market origin in part as there were likely much earlier cases than those in December linked to the market where no animals tested positive.
- inciampati 3y ago
  > why humans topped the list for binding affinity from the outset This is an unbelievable coincidence that makes the zoonotic spillover hypothesis laughable. To a biologist, the likelihood of this happening by chance is clear: virtually 0. But explaining the size of the space of optimal solutions to a given binding problem versus the space of good solutions to the general public, well, that's really hard too. So an obvious and completely non-circumstantial piece of evidence is the last one in the public's mind. And we are still acting like there is a question of where the virus came from, and we will be for decades, or at least until the average level of biology education is raised by a few sharp degrees.