4 ms·

> I do believe that's all one really needs to know about this shift in their thinking. In other words: it's really far from certain. There's never going to be

> I do believe that's all one really needs to know about this shift in their thinking. In other words: it's really far from certain. There's never going to be any conclusive evidence of the source of covid, and anyone claiming they have certainty (who wasn't a witness to a lab leak) is simply lying to you. What they're doing is going along with everyone else worth listening to, who find the coincidence that we were funding banned research on coronaviruses in a lab a few feet away from the origin of the outbreak unlikely. They also find tales of non-lab origin both speculative and vague, while stories of lab origin are only speculative. It's so strange to demand so much more proof of lab origin than one does of non-lab origin. The obvious reasons for that demand are that millions died, and that everybody involved with that lab can easily be named. Also weird that this observation is covid-skeptic coded, when in reality the worse you think covid is, the greater the crime that a lab leak entails.

silverquiet 2y ago
I assumed it was a non-lab origin at first because that's how all previous pandemics have started as far as I am aware. A lab origin (and what precisely that means has never been particularly clear to me), but I have to say that I'd say your last observation cuts both ways - if one thinks this is such a great crime, then perhaps one would have encouraged masking, shutdowns/distancing, and vaccines, but those seem anti-correlated. Perhaps we'll do better next time around?
- rayiner 2y ago
  > Perhaps we'll do better next time around? We won’t, because the judgment of many of our cognitive elites has been impaired. This is a bit of a digression, but I’m reading a tweet thread by a $2,300/hour attorney who is an MSNBC contributor that is making just basic logical errors in discussing the birthright citizenship EO. Not even on the merits, literally in just summarizing the implications of the argument being made on a page of a filing he screenshotted in his tweet. I’m persuaded that if you had these folks take the LSAT with questions that had a political coding, they’d score a 160. We need to get back to prioritizing the institutional and values of the different professions above all else. The public should view our scientific and professional organizations as neutral actors staffed by people who put the institutions above their personal beliefs. They shouldn’t be wondering whether medical organizations would be saying the same things about the “Lab Leak” theory if it had involved Russia instead of China.
  - teddyh 2y ago
    > a tweet thread by […] an MSNBC contributor that is making just basic logical errors in discussing the birthright citizenship EO No surprise there. Some people are not, contrary to your apparent assumption, actually trying to analyze something logically and arrive at some form of truth. I very much doubt that this has anything at all to do with COVID.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  Not that it was the start of a pandemic, but the original SARS leaked from labs in China twice.[1] [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7096887/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7096887/
- Polizeiposaune 2y ago
  As an example of a lab escape of a novel virus (fortunately not leading to a pandemic) see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Marburg_virus_disease_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Marburg_virus_disease_out... African green monkeys later found to be carrying the virus were shipped to several labs in Germany and Yugoslavia; the virus hopped from the monkeys to lab workers and then from the lab workers to a small number of others.
- belorn 2y ago
  If we are looking what we could do better next time, then we should look to the studies that showed what worked and what was most effective. The most effective initial method against the virus was neither masking, shutdowns/distancing (vaccines are not applicable since they didn't exist initially). It was to close down mass transportation. Shared recycled air is a highly suitable transportation mechanism for this kind of virus, with airplanes, trains and busses being mobile centers for outbreaks. We should try to look towards this kind of research next time something like this hit and be more focused on what actually work, rather than what either the governing party or opposing party want to promote. Airborne diseases travel by air and if you want to prevent that you need to make sure that people who are non-infected do not share the same air as people who are. If that is impossible, shutdowns/distancing helps to reduce the risks until a vaccine is developed.
strangecasts 2y ago
> It's so strange to demand so much more proof of lab origin than one does of non-lab origin. It's not, zoonotic transmission has happened many times, lab leak is the extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence
- pstuart 2y ago
  And there's been mutations in the virus since the initial exposure. How could that happen? How can a virus change its genetic code without a lab to do it?!?!!/s Regardless of the source, it was dangerous but could have been better mitigated if it was taken seriously as a threat (not just a "common cold").
- labster 2y ago
  You just set an arbitrary bar that that is higher for the lab leak based on an “everybody knows” argument. That’s not science, it’s faith.
  - strangecasts 2y ago
    Prior probability estimates are not part of science?
    - labster 2y ago
      Prior probability estimates of p = 0.083 are not extraordinary. As the sibling says one out of twelve past pandemics was a known lab leak.
      - strangecasts 2y ago
        Okay, but your objection was requiring more evidence for the less likely assertion constituted an "arbitrary bar", you cannot argue that and quote _an arbitrary estimate by another commenter_
- tripletao 2y ago
  The 1977 flu is uncontroversially accepted to have arisen from a research accident, probably either an inadequately attenuated vaccine or a challenge trial in human subjects. The death toll is typically reported as 700,000, though I don't think that's a very good number and I can't find the methodology. Many fewer people died in the 1977-78 season; but the virus has continued to spread, so the cumulative toll is much higher (and continues to increase). https://muse.jhu.edu/article/936217 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/936217 So how many people have to die before this is no longer an extraordinary claim? Bhopal managed to change chemical manufacturing standards with "only" thousands or tens of thousands of deaths; but the 1977 flu is somehow completely forgotten. Perhaps the death toll is so high that people simply can't believe it? YouTube's fact-checkers recently removed an unambiguously factual description of the 1977 pandemic, ignoring appeals well-referenced into the peer-reviewed literature with no stated justification. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-i-fell-foul-of-youtubes-fact-checkers/ https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-i-fell-foul-of-youtu...

silverquiet 2y ago

I assumed it was a non-lab origin at first because that's how all previous pandemics have started as far as I am aware. A lab origin (and what precisely that means has never been particularly clear to me), but I have to say that I'd say your last observation cuts both ways - if one thinks this is such a great crime, then perhaps one would have encouraged masking, shutdowns/distancing, and vaccines, but those seem anti-correlated. Perhaps we'll do better next time around?

rayiner 2y ago
> Perhaps we'll do better next time around? We won’t, because the judgment of many of our cognitive elites has been impaired. This is a bit of a digression, but I’m reading a tweet thread by a $2,300/hour attorney who is an MSNBC contributor that is making just basic logical errors in discussing the birthright citizenship EO. Not even on the merits, literally in just summarizing the implications of the argument being made on a page of a filing he screenshotted in his tweet. I’m persuaded that if you had these folks take the LSAT with questions that had a political coding, they’d score a 160. We need to get back to prioritizing the institutional and values of the different professions above all else. The public should view our scientific and professional organizations as neutral actors staffed by people who put the institutions above their personal beliefs. They shouldn’t be wondering whether medical organizations would be saying the same things about the “Lab Leak” theory if it had involved Russia instead of China.
- teddyh 2y ago
  > a tweet thread by […] an MSNBC contributor that is making just basic logical errors in discussing the birthright citizenship EO No surprise there. Some people are not, contrary to your apparent assumption, actually trying to analyze something logically and arrive at some form of truth. I very much doubt that this has anything at all to do with COVID.
Workaccount2 2y ago
Not that it was the start of a pandemic, but the original SARS leaked from labs in China twice.[1] [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7096887/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7096887/
Polizeiposaune 2y ago
As an example of a lab escape of a novel virus (fortunately not leading to a pandemic) see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Marburg_virus_disease_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Marburg_virus_disease_out... African green monkeys later found to be carrying the virus were shipped to several labs in Germany and Yugoslavia; the virus hopped from the monkeys to lab workers and then from the lab workers to a small number of others.
belorn 2y ago
If we are looking what we could do better next time, then we should look to the studies that showed what worked and what was most effective. The most effective initial method against the virus was neither masking, shutdowns/distancing (vaccines are not applicable since they didn't exist initially). It was to close down mass transportation. Shared recycled air is a highly suitable transportation mechanism for this kind of virus, with airplanes, trains and busses being mobile centers for outbreaks. We should try to look towards this kind of research next time something like this hit and be more focused on what actually work, rather than what either the governing party or opposing party want to promote. Airborne diseases travel by air and if you want to prevent that you need to make sure that people who are non-infected do not share the same air as people who are. If that is impossible, shutdowns/distancing helps to reduce the risks until a vaccine is developed.

strangecasts 2y ago

> It's so strange to demand so much more proof of lab origin than one does of non-lab origin. It's not, zoonotic transmission has happened many times, lab leak is the extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence

pstuart 2y ago
And there's been mutations in the virus since the initial exposure. How could that happen? How can a virus change its genetic code without a lab to do it?!?!!/s Regardless of the source, it was dangerous but could have been better mitigated if it was taken seriously as a threat (not just a "common cold").
labster 2y ago
You just set an arbitrary bar that that is higher for the lab leak based on an “everybody knows” argument. That’s not science, it’s faith.
- strangecasts 2y ago
  Prior probability estimates are not part of science?
  - labster 2y ago
    Prior probability estimates of p = 0.083 are not extraordinary. As the sibling says one out of twelve past pandemics was a known lab leak.
    - strangecasts 2y ago
      Okay, but your objection was requiring more evidence for the less likely assertion constituted an "arbitrary bar", you cannot argue that and quote _an arbitrary estimate by another commenter_
tripletao 2y ago
The 1977 flu is uncontroversially accepted to have arisen from a research accident, probably either an inadequately attenuated vaccine or a challenge trial in human subjects. The death toll is typically reported as 700,000, though I don't think that's a very good number and I can't find the methodology. Many fewer people died in the 1977-78 season; but the virus has continued to spread, so the cumulative toll is much higher (and continues to increase). https://muse.jhu.edu/article/936217 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/936217 So how many people have to die before this is no longer an extraordinary claim? Bhopal managed to change chemical manufacturing standards with "only" thousands or tens of thousands of deaths; but the 1977 flu is somehow completely forgotten. Perhaps the death toll is so high that people simply can't believe it? YouTube's fact-checkers recently removed an unambiguously factual description of the 1977 pandemic, ignoring appeals well-referenced into the peer-reviewed literature with no stated justification. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-i-fell-foul-of-youtubes-fact-checkers/ https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-i-fell-foul-of-youtu...