3 ms·

This post: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/practically-a-book-review-rootclaim https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/practically-a-book-review-r... (warning, long a

This post: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/practically-a-book-review-rootclaim https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/practically-a-book-review-r... (warning, long and detailed and full of links to even longer stuff) took me the best part of an evening to read and digest, but also convinced me that Covid was NOT a lab leak. I would change my opinion if much stronger evidence came out for the opposite side, but what we have so far in favour of a zoonotic origin seems very convincing to me. You have to dig in to details about furin cleavage, nucleotide insertions, and how CGG codes for arginine etc. But the point is that the pro-zoonotics team makes a very strong case that the extra bits on Covid (a) do look like what we've observed in other naturally occurring viruses, like the flu, and (b) does not look like the techniques that labs use for this kind of thing, which are actually _simpler_ than what Covid does.

infotainment 2y ago
A lab leak doesn’t necessarily mean that it was created in a lab; it could also be a natural zoonotic virus that was actively being studied and accidentally infected one or more researchers.
- red_admiral 2y ago
  That might be technically correct, but I suggest that's not what 95% or so of people mean when they say "lab leak".
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- eesmith 2y ago
  This panel's summary says "The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature", which tells they are not using "lab leak" to mean a natural zoonotic virus.
tim333 2y ago
If you are prepared for long and detailed you can look at Ralph Baric's testimony to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus. He's probably the world's leading authority on coronavirus gain of function research and was involved in proposing research that would have produced something near identical to covid along with the reasons for doing so scientifically. He proposed such research in association with the WIV and it didn't get US funding but it seems very possible they went ahead with what he was suggesting anyway. From the testemony: >[The] first part was that we were fundamentally interested in why didn't sarbecoviruses have a furin cleavage site... >Feline infectious peritonitis virus, it's an enteric form, it's got a furin cleavage site, it replicates, and it got very mild infection. When the furin cleavage site is lost, it kills the cat. So it's a flip, right? Furin cleavage site is the loss of -- it's protecting from virulent disease. So the data going into that proposal, the exact role of furin cleavage site was not clear. We were interested in it because most other coronaviruses in family had those sites. Why didn't sarbecovirus?... And then about a year after proposing playing around with that, this never found in nature thing, a sarbecovirus with a cleavage site, pops up by the WIV. Bit of a coincidence it seems to me.

infotainment 2y ago

A lab leak doesn’t necessarily mean that it was created in a lab; it could also be a natural zoonotic virus that was actively being studied and accidentally infected one or more researchers.

red_admiral 2y ago
That might be technically correct, but I suggest that's not what 95% or so of people mean when they say "lab leak".
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
eesmith 2y ago
This panel's summary says "The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature", which tells they are not using "lab leak" to mean a natural zoonotic virus.

tim333 2y ago

If you are prepared for long and detailed you can look at Ralph Baric's testimony to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus. He's probably the world's leading authority on coronavirus gain of function research and was involved in proposing research that would have produced something near identical to covid along with the reasons for doing so scientifically. He proposed such research in association with the WIV and it didn't get US funding but it seems very possible they went ahead with what he was suggesting anyway. From the testemony: >[The] first part was that we were fundamentally interested in why didn't sarbecoviruses have a furin cleavage site... >Feline infectious peritonitis virus, it's an enteric form, it's got a furin cleavage site, it replicates, and it got very mild infection. When the furin cleavage site is lost, it kills the cat. So it's a flip, right? Furin cleavage site is the loss of -- it's protecting from virulent disease. So the data going into that proposal, the exact role of furin cleavage site was not clear. We were interested in it because most other coronaviruses in family had those sites. Why didn't sarbecovirus?... And then about a year after proposing playing around with that, this never found in nature thing, a sarbecovirus with a cleavage site, pops up by the WIV. Bit of a coincidence it seems to me.