7 ms·

It's disappointing to see how comments on this topic always center around whether masking worked or not and whether it was a lab leak or not. These just aren't

It's disappointing to see how comments on this topic always center around whether masking worked or not and whether it was a lab leak or not. These just aren't that important in the grand scheme of things. It's like we got in a car crash and instead of taking about how we can be safer drivers we're debating which brand of crutches is best. I wish we'd zoom out a bit and look for some more impactful questions to ask. Questions like: - How many fewer pandemics would we have if we stopped eating mammals? - Does dwindling diversity among wild animals make for greater risk? (Presumably so, because the remaining ones start to look like a monoculture) How can we prioritize the types of conservation work that most effectively mitigate this? - How much more effective could our vaccines be if we equipped people with the genes for CAS9? (Such that our vaccines could be CRISPR targeting RNA). - How much better could our surveillance be if it were more common to sequence samples from sick people? How much cheaper does sequencing need to get before that can happen? Can we achieve that with policy alone or is there engineering work to do?

alex1138 2y ago
Lab leak matters when studying viral transmission (and general characteristics of the virus), especially if it's been enhanced via gain of function research It also matters when the basic doctor-patient relationship is interfered with
- oneshtein 2y ago
  If we look at final report of Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic: COVID-19 ORIGIN: COVID-19 most likely emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. The FIVE strongest arguments in favor of the “lab leak” theory include: 1) The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature. Yes. 2) Data shows that all COVID-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover events. Yes. 3) Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research at inadequate biosafety levels. Other biolabs can match this description too. 4) Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researchers were sick with a COVID-like virus in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market. Covid-like virus is not a Covid-19. 5) By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. Yes. So, yes, it realy looks like a leak from a biolab or a deliberate spreading of the virus in preparation to a war or a trade war.
  - alex1138 2y ago
    Right and it's not necessarily a causal relationship between that and censorship, but ONCE you see how coordinated it was, it starts looking like part of a bigger effort (David Martin for example has talked about some of this) Otherwise I might not be so gung ho about it. I would have accepted "sorry, it got out, it's our fault". Accidents happen, but not when you coerce, censor, and make illegal (certain early treatment drugs) tools in the toolkit to fight the virus
  - thr3000 2y ago
    [dead]
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    I think many of those points are pretty flimsy. But even if they weren't I don't know how you get to your conclusion. That part of the world has a biolab doing gain of function research on that kind of virus because that part of the world has had problems with that kind of virus in the past. It receives finding from other countries because now that we know the source of the threat it makes sense to study it on the correct side of the world. Zoonotic diseases are ecosystems' hedge against diversity loss and Chinas rapid growth in the last 50y has put a strain on local species such that it has activated twice before. They'd be negligent not to be attempting to prepare for a third event. Maybe they went too far in their strategy, maybe they screwed up in their containment practices, but 99-100% of this this is a nature-made weapon. Maybe a lab managed to carve their initials into it somewhere. But we're never going to get good information about whether that's the case. Yet we're still all amped about that maybe-1% even though there's a lot of other things we could learn from here--things which nobody has any reason to spread misinformation about, and which could prevent a lot of hardship.
    - oneshtein 2y ago
      I cited the US congress commission report[1]. It further explained in full report[2]. In short: 1) WIV proposed to modify CoV virus to infect humans in same way as SARS CoV2 using BSL-2 lab to save costs (see screenshot). BSL-2 means that protective masks are not required. 2) No such variation of CoV virus is found in nature. 3) Paper written by Dr. Baric and Dr. Shi which describes how to perform that insertion of furin cleavage sites into SARS CoV. So, arguments in favor of accidental leak from Chines WIH lab are strong. However, I'm biased against Russia (it saves lot of time), so I see few more arguments in favor of accidental leak from Chinese «Vector» lab in Koltsevo (Novosibirsk), which then transferred to Wuhan by Wuhan military police after shared military training with Russian military police in Koltsevo, because «Vector» BSL-4 lab had major incident (small bang and fire which broke windows, then doors are broken and equipment is stolen by Russian military looking for a fire) few weeks before that training. Paper with instructions was published, so it was open knowledge, so Russians may tried to reproduce it in preparation to the war. [1]: https://oversight.house.gov/release/final-report-covid-select-concludes-2-year-investigation-issues-500-page-final-report-on-lessons-learned-and-the-path-forward/ https://oversight.house.gov/release/final-report-covid-selec... [2]: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024.12.04-SSCP-FINAL-REPORT-ANS.pdf https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024.... [3]: https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/12/19/trump-s-ukraine-envoy-nominee-keith-kellogg-says-assassination-of-russian-general-igor-kirillov-was-not-a-good-idea-at-all https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/12/19/trump-s-ukraine-envoy-n...
NicholasGurr 2y ago
I found Klaus Schwab’s HN burner account! > let’s modify peoples’ genes and make them eat bugs
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  It's the viral genome that I'm proposing we target. Specifically, we should cut it in half so it doesn't work anymore. That's is how CRISPR works in nature: for modifying the threat, not modifying oneself. It would be much simpler to make vaccines this way. It could happen fast enough to make a difference. The only part of the human genome that would need to change for this is the one that puts the scissors (CAS-9) in place for later use. I suppose since we'd have them lying around we might later want to use them for more invasive gene therapies which do target the human genome, but that would be a separate decision for a later date. As for the diet part... if nature is going to force our hand here one way or another, we might as well handle things on our own terms. Or maybe nature isn't going to. But that's the kind of thing a scientist would study in the wake of a pandemic if we weren't all so toxic about it. Maybe we'll be more interested in prevention after there are a few more of these and COVID starts looking like the warning shot that we ignored.

alex1138 2y ago

Lab leak matters when studying viral transmission (and general characteristics of the virus), especially if it's been enhanced via gain of function research It also matters when the basic doctor-patient relationship is interfered with

oneshtein 2y ago
If we look at final report of Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic: COVID-19 ORIGIN: COVID-19 most likely emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. The FIVE strongest arguments in favor of the “lab leak” theory include: 1) The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature. Yes. 2) Data shows that all COVID-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover events. Yes. 3) Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research at inadequate biosafety levels. Other biolabs can match this description too. 4) Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researchers were sick with a COVID-like virus in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market. Covid-like virus is not a Covid-19. 5) By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. Yes. So, yes, it realy looks like a leak from a biolab or a deliberate spreading of the virus in preparation to a war or a trade war.
- alex1138 2y ago
  Right and it's not necessarily a causal relationship between that and censorship, but ONCE you see how coordinated it was, it starts looking like part of a bigger effort (David Martin for example has talked about some of this) Otherwise I might not be so gung ho about it. I would have accepted "sorry, it got out, it's our fault". Accidents happen, but not when you coerce, censor, and make illegal (certain early treatment drugs) tools in the toolkit to fight the virus
- thr3000 2y ago
  [dead]
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  I think many of those points are pretty flimsy. But even if they weren't I don't know how you get to your conclusion. That part of the world has a biolab doing gain of function research on that kind of virus because that part of the world has had problems with that kind of virus in the past. It receives finding from other countries because now that we know the source of the threat it makes sense to study it on the correct side of the world. Zoonotic diseases are ecosystems' hedge against diversity loss and Chinas rapid growth in the last 50y has put a strain on local species such that it has activated twice before. They'd be negligent not to be attempting to prepare for a third event. Maybe they went too far in their strategy, maybe they screwed up in their containment practices, but 99-100% of this this is a nature-made weapon. Maybe a lab managed to carve their initials into it somewhere. But we're never going to get good information about whether that's the case. Yet we're still all amped about that maybe-1% even though there's a lot of other things we could learn from here--things which nobody has any reason to spread misinformation about, and which could prevent a lot of hardship.
  - oneshtein 2y ago
    I cited the US congress commission report[1]. It further explained in full report[2]. In short: 1) WIV proposed to modify CoV virus to infect humans in same way as SARS CoV2 using BSL-2 lab to save costs (see screenshot). BSL-2 means that protective masks are not required. 2) No such variation of CoV virus is found in nature. 3) Paper written by Dr. Baric and Dr. Shi which describes how to perform that insertion of furin cleavage sites into SARS CoV. So, arguments in favor of accidental leak from Chines WIH lab are strong. However, I'm biased against Russia (it saves lot of time), so I see few more arguments in favor of accidental leak from Chinese «Vector» lab in Koltsevo (Novosibirsk), which then transferred to Wuhan by Wuhan military police after shared military training with Russian military police in Koltsevo, because «Vector» BSL-4 lab had major incident (small bang and fire which broke windows, then doors are broken and equipment is stolen by Russian military looking for a fire) few weeks before that training. Paper with instructions was published, so it was open knowledge, so Russians may tried to reproduce it in preparation to the war. [1]: https://oversight.house.gov/release/final-report-covid-select-concludes-2-year-investigation-issues-500-page-final-report-on-lessons-learned-and-the-path-forward/ https://oversight.house.gov/release/final-report-covid-selec... [2]: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024.12.04-SSCP-FINAL-REPORT-ANS.pdf https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2024.... [3]: https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/12/19/trump-s-ukraine-envoy-nominee-keith-kellogg-says-assassination-of-russian-general-igor-kirillov-was-not-a-good-idea-at-all https://meduza.io/en/news/2024/12/19/trump-s-ukraine-envoy-n...

NicholasGurr 2y ago

I found Klaus Schwab’s HN burner account! > let’s modify peoples’ genes and make them eat bugs

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
It's the viral genome that I'm proposing we target. Specifically, we should cut it in half so it doesn't work anymore. That's is how CRISPR works in nature: for modifying the threat, not modifying oneself. It would be much simpler to make vaccines this way. It could happen fast enough to make a difference. The only part of the human genome that would need to change for this is the one that puts the scissors (CAS-9) in place for later use. I suppose since we'd have them lying around we might later want to use them for more invasive gene therapies which do target the human genome, but that would be a separate decision for a later date. As for the diet part... if nature is going to force our hand here one way or another, we might as well handle things on our own terms. Or maybe nature isn't going to. But that's the kind of thing a scientist would study in the wake of a pandemic if we weren't all so toxic about it. Maybe we'll be more interested in prevention after there are a few more of these and COVID starts looking like the warning shot that we ignored.