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I'm not sure that a serious discussion of this topic is even possible, but I will attempt it: isn't the consensus still that the virus has a zoonotic origin? Th

• conception 3y ago
  For those interested they found SARS in a bat cave (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-07766-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-07766-9 )but it took five years of hunting. Something similar will probably happen with Covid here in the future. Like 9/11 conspiracies, it’s more comforting to think someone is in charge and in control when terrible things happen then that terrible things can happen from random and weak sources.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • goatlover 3y ago
    A lab leak would mean there was a lack of proper control.
    • 6510 3y ago
      A historic first.... or wait..
    • Izkata 3y ago
      They're extremely common: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity... And keep in mind these are only the ones we know about.
  • tripletao 3y ago
    You've misunderstood the article that you linked. Scientists found SARS-1 in civet cats and raccoon dogs within about a year of the first human outbreaks. We believe these are the animals that first transmitted SARS-1 to humans. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5241a2.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5241a2.htm Much later, Dr. Zhengli Shi found viruses related to SARS-1 in bats. These bat viruses are more distant genetically from the human samples than the civet and racoon dog viruses were; but they're significant because of the prevalence and diversity of such viruses. This suggests that SARS-1 evolved mostly in bats (the reservoir hosts), then spilled to civets and racoon dogs (the proximal hosts) and evolved a little more, then spilled to humans. SARS-CoV-2 is close enough genetically to SARS-1 that we knew immediately that the reservoir host was bats. The proximal host still hasn't been found, despite the much greater effort to search. This doesn't mean SARS-CoV-2 is necessarily unnatural, since the exact zoonotic transmission path is still unknown for other viruses that are certainly of natural origin (e.g. Ebola). It's different from both SARS-1 and MERS, though.
• mountainofdeath 3y ago
  Exactly. The worry was that it would provide justification for violence against specific groups which is why it wasn't publicly entertained as a theory even if privately it was. Planting the seed of that thought in an armed populace already on edge is a recipe for disaster.
  • kneebonian 3y ago
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    • goatlover 3y ago
      Sarcasm? The science isn't settled regarding whether there was a lab leak.
    • NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      It just baffles me how people are shamed, and basically accused of attempted murder, and excluded from society in terms of public events, air travel, immigration, etc. when they make a choice about what to do with their own bodies in a medical situation. Do people in a free nation enjoy the right to choose treatment for our own bodies? Don't come at me about potential harm or risks that are measured in single-percentage-points. Vaccination is not the be-all, end-all of infection control.
      • AuthorizedCust 3y ago
        > Vaccination is not the be-all, end-all of infection control. For many diseases, it is, and we’re better off for that. E.g., measles.
        • NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
          We're better off without any other defense from viral infection? We have no other defense from measles except vaccination? Are you saying that, for measles, quarantines are ineffective, isolation is ineffective, negative pressure rooms are ineffective, contact tracing is ineffective? And we're better off because those are ineffective and we only have a single layer of defense? I'm a trained and experienced Cybersecurity professional, and by analogy to our Defense in Depth concepts, we're better off when there are multiple effective, overlapping, simultaneous defenses against some kind of attack. I think it would be foolish to abolish other defensive measures against measles only because vaccines are allegedly so effective. I knew a guy whose Linux login password was "abc", because he used MFA he said he didn't care.
• toomim 3y ago
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  • finite_depth 3y ago
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    • kneebonian 3y ago
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• xqcgrek2 3y ago
  Covid death maps need to be corrected for population age and underlying health conditions such as metabolic syndrome or obesity.
• jiggawatts 3y ago
  If 90% of people agree to a position to appease a few people in power, then it's not really consensus, it's coercion. The topic of COVID's origin is so politically charged, that many people can't state their opinion (or even their facts!) without upsetting someone in charge. That someone may not even be in their own country. As a random example, Australia was hit with punitive tariffs on tens of billions of dollars of exports to China for merely suggesting that it might be an idea to investigate the origins of COVID. Similarly, there has been a whole lot of silence coming from the Chinese scientific community. The zoonitic origin theory is the position of the Chinese government, and hence, essentially by law, it is also the position of the scientific community. The Chinese government doesn't have to bother with such trifles as evidence, facts, or even putting on the pretence of an investigation. They ruled, the matter is closed, there is now consensus. If you want to know what real power looks like, look no further than this. We'll now never know where COVID came from definitively, and scientists in other countries are keeping their opinions to themselves, or risking their careers to speak up.
  • hotdogscout 3y ago
    Please take a look at this analysis if you can. https://youtu.be/hhMAt3BluAU https://youtu.be/hhMAt3BluAU
  • PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    > The topic of COVID's origin is so politically charged, that many people can't state their opinion (or even their facts!) without upsetting someone in charge. Except that it is stated, it is discussed, and it has been all along. You want everyone who states any opinion to get a nice silk bag with some lovely gifts in it? Sorry, doesn't work that way. Nothing has stopped lab-leak theorists from publically stating their case, both in general media and in scientific contexts. Some people are upset about that, because they consider their case to be bullshit, or at best just very unlikely to be correct. It's not a 3 year old's birthday party. These are substantive questions, and the disagreements are going to hit hard. If you want kumbaya science, stay away from anything that involves (a) differences of interpretation and (b) real world implications.
    • 3y ago
• jahewson 3y ago
  There is no consensus.
• tripletao 3y ago
  > I do not recall any reputable scientist completely discounting the lab origin theory Here's The Lancet in Feb 2020: > We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... The authors are in positions of considerable influence, both scientifically and directly on funding (e.g. Farrar at the Wellcome Trust). So if those don't count as "reputable", who would? > isn't the consensus still that the virus has a zoonotic origin? There is no conclusive evidence for any origin of SARS-CoV-2. All past pandemics of novel[1] viruses have been of natural origin; but the technology to engineer a novel pathogen didn't exist until recently, so that past tells us nothing about the relative risks of natural spillover vs. a research accident. 1. I say "novel" to exclude the 1977 flu pandemic, which near-certainly arose from a research accident and killed ~700k people. No one seems to care, and I'm not sure why.
• philwelch 3y ago
  > isn't the consensus still that the virus has a zoonotic origin? That is mostly a rhetorical question, because unless I have missed something, it is. Why do so many folks want to pretend that this has been proven incorrect? There is no such consensus. That is one hypothesis. The other hypothesis is that SARS-CoV-2 was the product of gain-of-function research carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. There have been a number of papers published arguing for either hypothesis. Interestingly, it was recently discovered that the authors of one of the papers arguing against the lab leak hypothesis had privately expressed the opinion that the lab leak hypothesis was almost certainly correct. > Perhaps I have a selective memory but I seem to remember that most of the pushback against the lab origin theory from people like Fauci was primarily intended to combat racial and ethnic tensions that were growing at the time. Especially when it came to the notion that the virus was purposely released. That doesn’t really make any sense if you think about it. The uptick in violent crime against Asian-Americans started in the summer months alongside the more general uptick in violent crime. Furthermore, the official narrative essentially blamed the pandemic on Chinese people buying unsanitary exotic meat from wet markets. To me, that seems far more likely to incite ethnic hatred than simply pinning the blame on the Wuhan Institute of Virology. > I do not recall any reputable scientist completely discounting the lab origin theory At one point, the lab leak theory was considered “misinformation” and censored by social media companies, supposedly based on the guidance they received from public health authorities.
  • Izkata 3y ago
    > The other hypothesis That is one other hypothesis, not "the other" hypothesis. Here's another: Accidental leak of a natural virus. "Lab leak" encompasses both.
• nradov 3y ago
  There is no such consensus. It remains an open question and will probably never be resolved. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Report-on-Potential-Links-Between-the-Wuhan-Institute-of-Virology-and-the-Origins-of-COVID-19-20230623.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Report-...
• denton-scratch 3y ago
  > isn't the consensus still that the virus has a zoonotic origin? It's all very well to speak of a "scientific consensus" when that consensus is based on good, peer-reviewed research. But when the evidence is weak, then any "consensus" you might find is indistinguishable from an opinion poll among ill-informed folk. It's not a "scientific consensus", it's just an opinion that's popular.
• tim333 3y ago
  It depends who you ask and what evidence you look at but I'd guess it most likely came from manipulation in a lab. Until recently you get banned from forums etc for saying that, indeed I was censored, and one of the reasons behind that was a letter to Nature from some respected scientists saying it was almost certainly not from a lab. But it's recently been exposed they were basically lying. In private conversations said thought it probably was a lab leak but changed it for probably political reasons. (here's a fun graphic with some stuff they said https://twitter.com/JamieMetzl/status/1682816578872565761/photo/1 https://twitter.com/JamieMetzl/status/1682816578872565761/ph...) You won't see that said much by career scientists because doing so could still quite likely muck up their career. Funnily enough the most recent information seems to lean towards it being from one of the most conspiracyish things - an accidental release of a product of a chinese bioweapons research program - see https://archive.is/DSbF2 https://archive.is/DSbF2