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Both the FBI and DOE, which have their own foreign intelligence gathering capabilities, had previously assessed that COVID was caused by a lab leak with moderat

Both the FBI and DOE, which have their own foreign intelligence gathering capabilities, had previously assessed that COVID was caused by a lab leak with moderate confidence. So while I agree with you that the truth will likely remain shrouded in some mystery, most of us that believed it originated from zoonosis at first (and I would include myself in that camp) should update our priors both based on the CIA assessment and previous assessments

mulderc 2y ago
Are the FBI or DOE assessments public? What I last read in the peer-reviewed public literature seemed to point strongly to animal origin and not from a lab.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Are the FBI or DOE assessments public? Yes (DNI) [1] and no (State) [2]. [1] https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Declassified-Assessment-on-COVID-19-Origins.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Declass... [2] https://oversight.house.gov/release/classified-state-department-documents-credibly-suggest-covid-19-lab-leak-wenstrup-pushes-for-declassification/ https://oversight.house.gov/release/classified-state-departm...
- adastra22 2y ago
  I think you are confusing “lab leak” with “lab made.”
  - epistasis 2y ago
    No, the academic papers that were published strongly pointed to the origin being the market and from wild animals, not lab animals.
    - otherme123 2y ago
      You are being downvoted, but you are right. Evidence suggest that patient zero was someone in the Wuhan market, around november 2019, and the SARS-CoV-2 genetic "signatures" where all found in wild animals for sale in that market. Even if it leaked from the lab, the first affected people (mainly sellers) were from the market, which is weird. Occam's razor points to what you said. I guess everyone loves a good conspirancy.
      - timr 2y ago
        > Evidence suggest that patient zero was someone in the Wuhan market, around november 2019, and the SARS-CoV-2 genetic "signatures" where all found in wild animals for sale in that market. You're just repeating the conclusions of papers that made ridiculous leaps of logic based on circumstantial evidence. For example [1], which is the likely source of the argument you're (mis-)remembering, bases this conclusion on: 1) case histories from reported, hospitalized cases, which were probably incorrect (i.e. they just assume that the cases they know about are, in fact, the first cases), being "geographically centered" on the market in December (not November) of 2019 [2]. 2) positive environmental samples near animal stalls in the market, of which they found two strains. Neither of which is dispositive of anything, and more an indictment of the motivated reasoning of the academic literature at the time than anything else. If you bother to read any of the subsequent analyses, you'll find that there are a bunch of different lines of evidence (genetic and case reports, at the least), pushing the date of the first infections well before December. In short, the first/WHO case reports were probably wrong, the virus likely broke out earlier and was circulating in Wuhan before these samples were taken. If that's true, it wouldn't be surprising, at all, to find positive environmental samples in a food market, and the tortured logic of this paper would fall apart. [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 [2] Seriously. Not joking. Here's the "methods" they used for this oh-so-rigorous analysis: > The 2021 WHO mission report identified 174 COVID-19 cases in Hubei Province in December 2019 after careful examination of reported case histories (7). Although geographical coordinates of the residential locations of the 164 cases who lived within Wuhan were unavailable, we were able to reliably extract the latitude and longitude coordinates of 155 cases from maps in the report They then take this data and blend it through a kernel analysis, wave their hands, and voilá! This this The Science (tm) upon which your confidence is based. ...oh, and by the way: the market in question just happens to be right next to the Wuhan CDC, and a major city hospital [3]. Weird, right? I'm sure it's just a coincidence. Certainly nothing worth including in a putative "probability analysis" of geographic distribution. [3] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-Huanan-Seafood-Market-location-in-Wuhan-location-of-the-Hankou-railway-station_fig1_364324900 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-Huanan-Seafood-Ma...
    - LorenPechtel 2y ago
      Actually, we probably can never prove that. Could the animals have come to the market via the lab? But I see no reason to suspect a leak from the hot part of the lab. While it's not impossible I see no non-political reason to think it did happen.
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  The peer reviewed literature is written and reviewed by the people who were funding/doing that kind of GoF research, so it isn't a reliable way to decide what's true.
spanktheuser 2y ago
My priors include none of the agencies having expertise in epidemiology.
- User23 2y ago
  Why would you think that? It's obviously false if you just think about it, but you can also do some searching if you need some authority to tell you.
- jandrewrogers 2y ago
  You are wrong, something that you could have easily checked yourself. There are many sophisticated epidemiology groups throughout defense and intelligence. It is a longstanding critical part of their mission, for a variety of end purposes.
- calf 2y ago
  My prior includes neither agency can provide genetic analysis which would be the easiest way to convince a professor of virology that this theory has any merit.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  My priors include all the agencies (the Intelligence Community, arguably the deep state) having ulterior political and personal motives. Does noone remember the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction hoax that the CIA cooked up for GWB? I would not trust any of these agencies to provide objective findings or conclusions, there is a lot of power on the table that's at stake.
  - ioulaum 2y ago
    I feel that that could've been an honest mistake too. The intelligence networks there were weak, and if people were talking about it, they may have assumed wrongly that there was something there. Politicians hunting for excuses to do what they already want to do though, is definitely a thing.
    - 2y ago
yobbo 2y ago
Lab leak and zoonotic origin are not mutually exclusive. The lab leak hypothesis means "accelerated evolution" through either caged animals or "in vitro cells" infecting the lab personnel. Gene splicing and such are not necessary to make the argument. The observed fact pointing to this is the number of generations required to produce the divergence between the first SCoV2 variant and the closest wild ancestor. It corresponds to something like 20 years (?) of evolution.
- harshreality 2y ago
  Although it's not specified in common dictionary definitions... "...zoonosis (a disease communicable from animals to man under natural conditions)." —Laurie Garrett, _The Coming Plague_ (Ch 14, section IV) Which is naturally how the word is used virtually all the time. Transmission from lab animals kept for study in a biolab, you could argue either way. Transmission from humanized lab animals purposely subjected to serial passage is not really zoonosis in any reasonable sense.
  - nickburns 2y ago
    Most accurately, lab leak and spillover event are not mutually exclusive theories.
- mharig 2y ago
  [dead]
- jaybrendansmith 2y ago
  ...and the most likely scenario is that it was leaked due to a mistake. Sloppy lab procedures. If anything, this should point to MORE regulation around GLP principles with more transparency and oversight, not less. And while I see some merit in determining potential risk, it should be only done with computation and computer modeling now, not an actual virus.
- LorenPechtel 2y ago
  Closest *identified* wild variant. The thing is it's made the jump before, making the jump again isn't astounding. What's notable about the SCov2 variant is how well it spreads between humans. It probably has made the jump many times, it's just this time it figured out how to spread.

mulderc 2y ago

Are the FBI or DOE assessments public? What I last read in the peer-reviewed public literature seemed to point strongly to animal origin and not from a lab.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Are the FBI or DOE assessments public? Yes (DNI) [1] and no (State) [2]. [1] https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Declassified-Assessment-on-COVID-19-Origins.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Declass... [2] https://oversight.house.gov/release/classified-state-department-documents-credibly-suggest-covid-19-lab-leak-wenstrup-pushes-for-declassification/ https://oversight.house.gov/release/classified-state-departm...
adastra22 2y ago
I think you are confusing “lab leak” with “lab made.”
- epistasis 2y ago
  No, the academic papers that were published strongly pointed to the origin being the market and from wild animals, not lab animals.
  - otherme123 2y ago
    You are being downvoted, but you are right. Evidence suggest that patient zero was someone in the Wuhan market, around november 2019, and the SARS-CoV-2 genetic "signatures" where all found in wild animals for sale in that market. Even if it leaked from the lab, the first affected people (mainly sellers) were from the market, which is weird. Occam's razor points to what you said. I guess everyone loves a good conspirancy.
    - timr 2y ago
      > Evidence suggest that patient zero was someone in the Wuhan market, around november 2019, and the SARS-CoV-2 genetic "signatures" where all found in wild animals for sale in that market. You're just repeating the conclusions of papers that made ridiculous leaps of logic based on circumstantial evidence. For example [1], which is the likely source of the argument you're (mis-)remembering, bases this conclusion on: 1) case histories from reported, hospitalized cases, which were probably incorrect (i.e. they just assume that the cases they know about are, in fact, the first cases), being "geographically centered" on the market in December (not November) of 2019 [2]. 2) positive environmental samples near animal stalls in the market, of which they found two strains. Neither of which is dispositive of anything, and more an indictment of the motivated reasoning of the academic literature at the time than anything else. If you bother to read any of the subsequent analyses, you'll find that there are a bunch of different lines of evidence (genetic and case reports, at the least), pushing the date of the first infections well before December. In short, the first/WHO case reports were probably wrong, the virus likely broke out earlier and was circulating in Wuhan before these samples were taken. If that's true, it wouldn't be surprising, at all, to find positive environmental samples in a food market, and the tortured logic of this paper would fall apart. [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715 [2] Seriously. Not joking. Here's the "methods" they used for this oh-so-rigorous analysis: > The 2021 WHO mission report identified 174 COVID-19 cases in Hubei Province in December 2019 after careful examination of reported case histories (7). Although geographical coordinates of the residential locations of the 164 cases who lived within Wuhan were unavailable, we were able to reliably extract the latitude and longitude coordinates of 155 cases from maps in the report They then take this data and blend it through a kernel analysis, wave their hands, and voilá! This this The Science (tm) upon which your confidence is based. ...oh, and by the way: the market in question just happens to be right next to the Wuhan CDC, and a major city hospital [3]. Weird, right? I'm sure it's just a coincidence. Certainly nothing worth including in a putative "probability analysis" of geographic distribution. [3] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-Huanan-Seafood-Market-location-in-Wuhan-location-of-the-Hankou-railway-station_fig1_364324900 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-Huanan-Seafood-Ma...
  - LorenPechtel 2y ago
    Actually, we probably can never prove that. Could the animals have come to the market via the lab? But I see no reason to suspect a leak from the hot part of the lab. While it's not impossible I see no non-political reason to think it did happen.
mike_hearn 2y ago
The peer reviewed literature is written and reviewed by the people who were funding/doing that kind of GoF research, so it isn't a reliable way to decide what's true.

spanktheuser 2y ago

My priors include none of the agencies having expertise in epidemiology.

User23 2y ago
Why would you think that? It's obviously false if you just think about it, but you can also do some searching if you need some authority to tell you.
jandrewrogers 2y ago
You are wrong, something that you could have easily checked yourself. There are many sophisticated epidemiology groups throughout defense and intelligence. It is a longstanding critical part of their mission, for a variety of end purposes.
calf 2y ago
My prior includes neither agency can provide genetic analysis which would be the easiest way to convince a professor of virology that this theory has any merit.
Dalewyn 2y ago
My priors include all the agencies (the Intelligence Community, arguably the deep state) having ulterior political and personal motives. Does noone remember the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction hoax that the CIA cooked up for GWB? I would not trust any of these agencies to provide objective findings or conclusions, there is a lot of power on the table that's at stake.
- ioulaum 2y ago
  I feel that that could've been an honest mistake too. The intelligence networks there were weak, and if people were talking about it, they may have assumed wrongly that there was something there. Politicians hunting for excuses to do what they already want to do though, is definitely a thing.
  - 2y ago

yobbo 2y ago

Lab leak and zoonotic origin are not mutually exclusive. The lab leak hypothesis means "accelerated evolution" through either caged animals or "in vitro cells" infecting the lab personnel. Gene splicing and such are not necessary to make the argument. The observed fact pointing to this is the number of generations required to produce the divergence between the first SCoV2 variant and the closest wild ancestor. It corresponds to something like 20 years (?) of evolution.

harshreality 2y ago
Although it's not specified in common dictionary definitions... "...zoonosis (a disease communicable from animals to man under natural conditions)." —Laurie Garrett, _The Coming Plague_ (Ch 14, section IV) Which is naturally how the word is used virtually all the time. Transmission from lab animals kept for study in a biolab, you could argue either way. Transmission from humanized lab animals purposely subjected to serial passage is not really zoonosis in any reasonable sense.
- nickburns 2y ago
  Most accurately, lab leak and spillover event are not mutually exclusive theories.
mharig 2y ago
[dead]
jaybrendansmith 2y ago
...and the most likely scenario is that it was leaked due to a mistake. Sloppy lab procedures. If anything, this should point to MORE regulation around GLP principles with more transparency and oversight, not less. And while I see some merit in determining potential risk, it should be only done with computation and computer modeling now, not an actual virus.
LorenPechtel 2y ago
Closest *identified* wild variant. The thing is it's made the jump before, making the jump again isn't astounding. What's notable about the SCov2 variant is how well it spreads between humans. It probably has made the jump many times, it's just this time it figured out how to spread.