4 ms·
The non-lab-leak coincidence required: 1. They made a mistake in the lab, exposing themselves to a virus (not covid-19) 2. That virus was non-human-tra
by gcanyon 3y ago
The non-lab-leak coincidence required:
1. They made a mistake in the lab, exposing themselves to a virus (not covid-19)
2. That virus was non-human-transmissible
3. The exposure happened 1-several weeks before the actual start of covid-19 at the market
That's not impossible, especially if the lab was sloppy and (1) happened fairly regularly.
Given the early concentration of cases around the market, and the detection of covid-19 on market materials, the lab-leak coincidence seems to be:
1. They made a mistake in the lab, exposing themselves to covid-19
2. They nearly-immediately went to the market, and spent significant time there to get the place loaded up with the virus
3. They didn't go much of anywhere else
4. They didn't interact much with others at the lab
That's not impossible either, but I don't see that lab-leak scenario appears much more likely than the non-lab-leak scenario.
- MrOwnPut 3y agoCould you remind us what the "non-lab-leak scenario" is again? To be clear, is your "likeliness" determined on whether we can find a creature that is more similar to covid than RaTG13 (we haven't) or something else?
- jacquesm 3y agoThe non lab leak scenario is just what it historically has been for ~70% of all viruses that we can trace (and probably the remainder as well, but we have no evidence): zoonotic jump.
- Reason077 3y agoThe lab-leak scenario presumes zoonotic jump, too. Just rather than from something in the wild, it's from humanized (ACE2-transgenic) mice, which WIV was known to be using to study SARS-like Coronaviruses.
- jacquesm 3y agoSARS-like CoronaViruses != COVID19. All cows are animals. Not all animals are cows.
- Reason077 3y agoThe coronaviruses being studied at WIV included RaTG13, one of the closest relatives (96.1% genomic match) to SARS-CoV-2 ever found in the wild. But a key difference between SARS-CoV-2 and it's wild relatives is the spike protein with affinity for the ACE2 receptor, so it would have had to have evolved through an intermediate host with a human-like ACE2 receptor. For example, ACE2-transgenic lab mice. This does not itself rule out the wild-origin theory, but no wild host that could explain the missing link from RaTG13 to SARS-CoV-2 has yet been found.
- jacquesm 3y ago96.1 genomic match is less than the match between a male chimpanzee and a male human.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- MrOwnPut 3y agoThere is no closer match to SARS-CoV-2 found in the wild. Pangolins were floated for awhile but I believe the samples were 91%~ If there was GoF being done on the sample (adding of the spike protein to infect humans), that could be the remaining percentage.
- jacquesm 3y agoIndeed. So the only reasonable conclusion so far is that we haven't found the reservoir host yet. This may take a while and it may even never happen. If and when we do we will finally be able to make another step in this whole saga.
- jiggywiggy 3y agoYou still live in 2019
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago> 2. They nearly-immediately went to the market, and spent significant time there to get the place loaded up with the virus Wouldn't it be enough to just go there, buy some food, caugh on a few of the workers there, and they'd spread the thing around to other shoppers in the next few days?
- gcanyon 3y ago2 was meant to be in coordination with 3 -- the initial outbreak was at the market, so the researchers need to do two things: go to the market enough to infect people there, and not go other places to infect people elsewhere.