Wuhan Lab Might be COVID Origin

[Nilokeras]

If your theory hinges upon a conspiracy for which there is no evidence but your own suspicion it's not a very good theory.

Again, these are based on observable known things.

There's actually a fair bit of circumstantial evidence. It wouldn't be enough for a conviction, but it would be enough for a search and seizure warrant and to go looking for more evidence (if there were any or, perhaps, were any left).

1) Wuhan institute was engaging in coronavirus gain of function experiments at the time of the outbreak. This is a form of accelerating evolution of a virus to see what it might evolve into later.
2) They were explicitly re-engineering coronaviruses from bats to be infectious to humans by modifying the spike protein
3) We have seen photos and video - and read reports - documenting the extremely insufficient level of security and containment procedures at the Wuhan institute
3) The outbreak started in Wuhan
4) The bats that were considered the "origin" are 2000 miles away from Wuhan, and we have no evidence of any infection between those two points prior to the outbreak in Wuhan
5) Wuhan scientists from the institute did travel 2000 miles to those bats in particular to collect coronaviruses for their gain of function research and then returned to Wuhan
6) And now (allegedly), we have several scientists hospitalized with severe flu like symptoms just prior to the outbreak in Wuhan

Is that proof positive? No, but there's enough circumstantial evidence that I could get a search warrant out of it. It definitely hits probable cause.

Also, it's not "another investigation". It's a "first investigation". We never got to have an investigation the first time because... well, China.

I did mistake miles and kilometers in the original post, full disclosure - it was 2000km not 2000mi, which is a 40% error. But it's still pretty decent. Add to that they denied WHO from visiting the lab back in January, and... again, it's not enough for an arrest, but in any judicial system in the world, it would be enough for a search it, seize all the documentation, test everything search warrant.

The part where it fails is that the reported genomes do not match Covid, and are Infact relatively distantly related. The assumption inherent in this is that they did collect Covid in this expedition, which happened in 2012 nine years ago, and experimented on it before it escaped. They then destroyed that evidence to prevent knowledge of this work from getting out. That fundamental conspiracy has no evidence beyond your inherent suspicion of China, since there's a number of reasons why they would deny it ranging from wanting to hide incompetence in the initial response to Covid to not wanting to give ammunition to anti-China hawks.

Beyond that there are other holes. Like the nine year gap, the lack of evidence of experimentation on the genome of Covid, and the fact that bats do not need the additional help from virologists to come into contact with humans on a regular basis, and that the sampled viruses from the Yunnan cave represent a tiny fraction of the coronaviruses present in bats.

[Galloism]

Again, these are based on observable known things.


I did mistake miles and kilometers in the original post, full disclosure - it was 2000km not 2000mi, which is a 40% error. But it's still pretty decent. Add to that they denied WHO from visiting the lab back in January, and... again, it's not enough for an arrest, but in any judicial system in the world, it would be enough for a search it, seize all the documentation, test everything search warrant.

The part where it fails is that the reported genomes do not match Covid, and are Infact relatively distantly related. The assumption inherent in this is that they did collect Covid in this expedition, which happened in 2012 nine years ago, and experimented on it before it escaped. They then destroyed that evidence to prevent knowledge of this work from getting out. That fundamental conspiracy has no evidence beyond your inherent suspicion of China, since there's a number of reasons why they would deny it ranging from wanting to hide incompetence in the initial response to Covid to not wanting to give ammunition to anti-China hawks.

Beyond that there are other holes. Like the nine year gap, the lack of evidence of experimentation on the genome of Covid, and the fact that bats do not need the additional help from virologists to come into contact with humans on a regular basis, and that the sampled viruses from the Yunnan Cave represent a tiny fraction of the coronaviruses present in bats.

When you say "reported genomes", you mean the limited ones that investigators were allowed to look at while being denied access to the others?

And I don't really see a "nine year gap" as a hole. Viral progression research can take years. And I don't know think bats are migratory back and forth to Wuhan.

In any case, you are not looking at this as an investigator. An investigator looks at these set of circumstantial pieces, and of course the recalcitrance of the suspect, and would go "hmmm, we need to investigate more". Which is what needs to happen.

Sure it could be 40 other things. That's entirely possible. But that doesn't mean you throw away looking at the evidence you have.

[Nilokeras]

When you say "reported genomes", you mean the limited ones that investigators were allowed to look at while being denied access to the others?

The ones published in March 2020 on an internationally accessible database.

And I don't really see a "nine year gap" as a hole. Viral progression research can take years. And I don't know think bats are migratory back and forth to Wuhan.

Bats live everywhere in China. The assumption that Covid had to come from this specific cave from the viruses in that specific colony is yours - it's much more likely that the Yunnan case is reflective of multiple zoonotic events that happen periodically in China and pull from a large variety of different viruses and strains. One likely happened somewhere in Wuhan and unlike in Yunnan nobody caught it and it successfully made the leap to person-to-person transmission.

In any case, you are not looking at this as an investigator. An investigator looks at these set of circumstantial pieces, and of course the recalcitrance of the suspect, and would go "hmmm, we need to investigate more". Which is what needs to happen.

Sure it could be 40 other things. That's entirely possible. But that doesn't mean you throw away looking at the evidence you have.

There's being a thorough investigator and there's pinning pictures to a wall with red string and inventing connections. Which is what's happening here.

[Galloism]

When you say "reported genomes", you mean the limited ones that investigators were allowed to look at while being denied access to the others?

The ones published in March 2020 on an internationally accessible database.

So, the ones they chose to publish after they already denied WHO access? Well, I'm convinced.

I'm sure all those "financial disclosures" from Donald Trump were 100% on the up and up too.

And I don't really see a "nine year gap" as a hole. Viral progression research can take years. And I don't know think bats are migratory back and forth to Wuhan.

Bats live everywhere in China. The assumption that Covid had to come from this specific cave from the viruses in that specific colony is yours - it's much more likely that the Yunnan case is reflective of multiple zoonotic events that happen periodically in China and pull from a large variety of different viruses and strains. One likely happened somewhere in Wuhan and unlike in Yunnan nobody caught it and it successfully made the leap to person-to-person transmission.

This feels like an assertion without any evidence. You got any?

Because right now you're just saying "ignore the evidence you have - it's more likely that some thing happened somewhere at some time and you should just drop & ignore all the circumstantial evidence and not look into this any further".

Which is an argument from ignorance - "we can't know what happened so stop looking" is not good enough.

In any case, you are not looking at this as an investigator. An investigator looks at these set of circumstantial pieces, and of course the recalcitrance of the suspect, and would go "hmmm, we need to investigate more". Which is what needs to happen.

Sure it could be 40 other things. That's entirely possible. But that doesn't mean you throw away looking at the evidence you have.

There's being a thorough investigator and there's pinning pictures to a wall with red string and inventing connections. Which is what's happening here.

Again, that's not really the case. Experts in the field at this time are calling for more investigation based on the circumstantial evidence we have.

We have enough circumstantial evidence to investigate.

[Parxland]

Fuck 'em. Blame it on them anyway.

[Bombadil]

Fuck 'em. Blame it on them anyway.

Well ain't that the game, but let's not forget that China has their own theory, which is widely held..

Beijing vehemently denied the report, calling it “completely untrue”. On Thursday Zhao also proposed China’s own theory, without evidence, that the virus may have originated from a US army base in Maryland.

[Esthe]

Fuck 'em. Blame it on them anyway.

Well ain't that the game, but let's not forget that China has their own theory, which is widely held..

Beijing vehemently denied the report, calling it “completely untrue”. On Thursday Zhao also proposed China’s own theory, without evidence, that the virus may have originated from a US army base in Maryland.

Well that’s definitely a lie.

[Galloism]

Fuck 'em. Blame it on them anyway.

Well ain't that the game, but let's not forget that China has their own theory, which is widely held..

Beijing vehemently denied the report, calling it “completely untrue”. On Thursday Zhao also proposed China’s own theory, without evidence, that the virus may have originated from a US army base in Maryland.

I mean, this is the same place though that claims absolutely nothing happened back in 1989.

[Nilokeras]

So, the ones they chose to publish after they already denied WHO access? Well, I'm convinced.

I'm sure all those "financial disclosures" from Donald Trump were 100% on the up and up too.

Again, your suspicion alone is not evidence of anything.

This feels like an assertion without any evidence. You got any?

Because right now you're just saying "ignore the evidence you have - it's more likely that some thing happened somewhere at some time and you should just drop & ignore all the circumstantial evidence and not look into this any further".

Which is an argument from ignorance - "we can't know what happened so stop looking" is not good enough.

To help reveal the diversity and evolution of bat coronaviruses we collected 1067 bats from 21 species in China [sourced from 5 cave sites distributed across 5 provinces]. A total of 73 coronaviruses (32 alphacoronaviruses and 41 betacoronaviruses) were identified in these bats, with an overall prevalence of 6.84%. All newly-identified betacoronaviruses were SARS-related Rhinolophus bat coronaviruses (SARSr-Rh-BatCoV). Importantly, with the exception of the S gene, the genome sequences of the SARSr-Rh-BatCoVs sampled in Guizhou province were closely related to SARS-related human coronavirus. Additionally, the newly-identified alphacoronaviruses exhibited high genetic diversity and some may represent novel species. Our phylogenetic analyses also provided insights into the transmission of these viruses among bat species, revealing a general clustering by geographic location rather than by bat species. Inter-species transmission among bats from the same genus was also commonplace in both the alphacoronaviruses and betacoronaviruses. Overall, these data suggest that high contact rates among specific bat species enable the acquisition and spread of coronaviruses.

It's an observation based on the work already done on coronaviruses in bats. Bat species in China based on a small number of samples are host to a large variety of coronaviruses, many of which are unknown to science. Global modeling work to estimate the number of unidentified viruses based on observed patterns of diversity also suggests that southeast China and southeast Asia are global hotspots for bat coronavirus diversity. This viral diversity and its potential to spill over into humans also is borne out by pre-COVID work in testing for zoonoses in China:

Human interaction with animals has been implicated as a primary risk factor for several high impact zoonoses, including many bat-origin viral diseases. However the animal-to-human spillover events that lead to emerging diseases are rarely observed or clinically examined, and the link between specific interactions and spillover risk is poorly understood. To investigate this phenomenon, we conducted biological-behavioral surveillance among rural residents in Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong districts of Southern China, where we have identified a number of SARS-related coronaviruses in bats. Serum samples were tested for four bat-borne coronaviruses using newly developed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). Survey data were used to characterize associations between human-animal contact and bat coronavirus spillover risk. A total of 1,596 residents were enrolled in the study from 2015 to 2017. Nine participants (0.6%) tested positive for bat coronaviruses. 265 (17%) participants reported severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and/or influenza-like illness (ILI) symptoms in the past year, which were associated with poultry, carnivore, rodent/shrew, or bat contact, with variability by family income and district of residence. This study provides serological evidence of bat coronavirus spillover in rural communities in Southern China. The low seroprevalence observed in this study suggests that bat coronavirus spillover is a rare event. Nonetheless, this study highlights associations between human-animal interaction and zoonotic spillover risk. These findings can be used to support targeted biological behavioral surveillance in high-risk geographic areas in order to reduce the risk of zoonotic disease emergence.

tldr, testing people in rural areas in southern China, including Yunnan, for immunological evidence of coronavirus infections shows that people are frequently infected by coronaviruses caught by environmental contact with bats, though those infections don't lead to person-to-person transmission. That repeated frequent exposure is the evolutionary engine that leads viruses like COVID to adapt to human-to-human spread.

All this paints a picture where a successful spillover from bats to humans of coronaviruses or other viruses in southern China is a matter of when, not if - and as we've seen it's already happened twice, in 2003 with SARS and in 2019 with COVID. This was not some rare event that could only have happened due to a lab accident.

[Galloism]

So, the ones they chose to publish after they already denied WHO access? Well, I'm convinced.

I'm sure all those "financial disclosures" from Donald Trump were 100% on the up and up too.

Again, your suspicion alone is not evidence of anything.

When untrustworthy people claim things that are purely in their interests while the outside evidence paints a different picture, yes, I'm suspicious.

This feels like an assertion without any evidence. You got any?

Because right now you're just saying "ignore the evidence you have - it's more likely that some thing happened somewhere at some time and you should just drop & ignore all the circumstantial evidence and not look into this any further".

Which is an argument from ignorance - "we can't know what happened so stop looking" is not good enough.

To help reveal the diversity and evolution of bat coronaviruses we collected 1067 bats from 21 species in China [sourced from 5 cave sites distributed across 5 provinces]. A total of 73 coronaviruses (32 alphacoronaviruses and 41 betacoronaviruses) were identified in these bats, with an overall prevalence of 6.84%. All newly-identified betacoronaviruses were SARS-related Rhinolophus bat coronaviruses (SARSr-Rh-BatCoV). Importantly, with the exception of the S gene, the genome sequences of the SARSr-Rh-BatCoVs sampled in Guizhou province were closely related to SARS-related human coronavirus. Additionally, the newly-identified alphacoronaviruses exhibited high genetic diversity and some may represent novel species. Our phylogenetic analyses also provided insights into the transmission of these viruses among bat species, revealing a general clustering by geographic location rather than by bat species. Inter-species transmission among bats from the same genus was also commonplace in both the alphacoronaviruses and betacoronaviruses. Overall, these data suggest that high contact rates among specific bat species enable the acquisition and spread of coronaviruses.

It's an observation based on the work already done on coronaviruses in bats. Bat species in China based on a small number of samples are host to a large variety of coronaviruses, many of which are unknown to science. Global modeling work to estimate the number of unidentified viruses based on observed patterns of diversity also suggests that southeast China and southeast Asia are global hotspots for bat coronavirus diversity. This viral diversity and its potential to spill over into humans also is borne out by pre-COVID work in testing for zoonoses in China:

Human interaction with animals has been implicated as a primary risk factor for several high impact zoonoses, including many bat-origin viral diseases. However the animal-to-human spillover events that lead to emerging diseases are rarely observed or clinically examined, and the link between specific interactions and spillover risk is poorly understood. To investigate this phenomenon, we conducted biological-behavioral surveillance among rural residents in Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong districts of Southern China, where we have identified a number of SARS-related coronaviruses in bats. Serum samples were tested for four bat-borne coronaviruses using newly developed enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). Survey data were used to characterize associations between human-animal contact and bat coronavirus spillover risk. A total of 1,596 residents were enrolled in the study from 2015 to 2017. Nine participants (0.6%) tested positive for bat coronaviruses. 265 (17%) participants reported severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and/or influenza-like illness (ILI) symptoms in the past year, which were associated with poultry, carnivore, rodent/shrew, or bat contact, with variability by family income and district of residence. This study provides serological evidence of bat coronavirus spillover in rural communities in Southern China. The low seroprevalence observed in this study suggests that bat coronavirus spillover is a rare event. Nonetheless, this study highlights associations between human-animal interaction and zoonotic spillover risk. These findings can be used to support targeted biological behavioral surveillance in high-risk geographic areas in order to reduce the risk of zoonotic disease emergence.

tldr, testing people in rural areas in southern China, including Yunnan, show that people are frequently infected by coronaviruses caught by environmental contact with bats, though those infections don't lead to person-to-person transmission. That repeated frequent exposure is the evolutionary engine that leads viruses like COVID to adapt to human-to-human spread.

All this paints a picture where a successful spillover from bats to humans of coronaviruses or other viruses in southern China is a matter of when, not if - and as we've seen it's already happened twice, in 2003 with SARS and in 2019 with COVID. This was not some rare event that could only have happened due to a lab accident.

So which ones have closer genetic similarity to COVID-19 than the one previously identified? And where is it from?

Don't say "well there's a lot of cororonavirii". "It's a coronavirus" is only marginally better than "it's an animal with legs".

[Bombadil]

Well ain't that the game, but let's not forget that China has their own theory, which is widely held..

Beijing vehemently denied the report, calling it “completely untrue”. On Thursday Zhao also proposed China’s own theory, without evidence, that the virus may have originated from a US army base in Maryland.

Well that’s definitely a lie.

If you want to create a conspiracy oven you've the perfect ingredients for conspiracy.. a secretive regime, a suspicious foe, a state of antagonism.

In fact it's very similar to the whole WMD case against Iraq, experts not given full access, a reason to fan the flames, agendas on both sides that give cause to obscure the truth, or at least to fit 'facts' to a theory as opposed to the other way around.

[Nilokeras]

So which ones have closer genetic similarity to COVID-19 than the one previously identified? And where is it from?

Don't say "well there's a lot of cororonavirii". "It's a coronavirus" is only marginally better than "it's an animal with legs".

The closest known coronavirus to COVID is RaTG13, which diverged from the lineage that produced COVID 20+ years ago based on molecular evidence. And again this is the closest known coronavirus, based on an extremely limited sample of coronaviruses. The actual wild ancestors of COVID are still unknown.

[Galloism]

So which ones have closer genetic similarity to COVID-19 than the one previously identified? And where is it from?

Don't say "well there's a lot of cororonavirii". "It's a coronavirus" is only marginally better than "it's an animal with legs".

The closest known coronavirus to COVID is RaTG13, which diverged from the lineage that produced COVID 20+ years ago based on molecular evidence. And again this is the closest known coronavirus, based on an extremely limited sample of coronaviruses. The actual wild ancestors of COVID are still unknown.

Which feels kinda weird, given collecting bats around Wuhan with traps likely would have been one of the very first steps to take back in... well, early last year anyway.

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

Fuck 'em. Blame it on them anyway.

Well ain't that the game, but let's not forget that China has their own theory, which is widely held..

Beijing vehemently denied the report, calling it “completely untrue”. On Thursday Zhao also proposed China’s own theory, without evidence, that the virus may have originated from a US army base in Maryland.

Evidence the CCP is full of bullshit item #8657309.

IDK where COVID came from--whether it was naturally occurring or engineered--but it was not from the US.

[North Washington Republic]

Well ain't that the game, but let's not forget that China has their own theory, which is widely held..

Beijing vehemently denied the report, calling it “completely untrue”. On Thursday Zhao also proposed China’s own theory, without evidence, that the virus may have originated from a US army base in Maryland.

Evidence the CCP is full of bullshit item #8657309.

IDK where COVID came from--whether it was naturally occurring or engineered--but it was not from the US.

State run tv even attacked Dr. Fauci for suggesting that the lab leak theory may be true. They also aired segments that said that COVID came from the U.S.

This is projection coming from Xi and the CCP. The more they resist independent and unrestricted investigations on the origins of COVID, the more they look guilty.

[Galloism]

Well ain't that the game, but let's not forget that China has their own theory, which is widely held..

Beijing vehemently denied the report, calling it “completely untrue”. On Thursday Zhao also proposed China’s own theory, without evidence, that the virus may have originated from a US army base in Maryland.

Evidence the CCP is full of bullshit item #8657309.

IDK where COVID came from--whether it was naturally occurring or engineered--but it was not from the US.

Even if it was a lab leak, "engineered" is likely not the right term. They were doing virus "gain of function" experimentation, which is a way of accelerating virus evolution to see where a disease might be headed to get ahead of it in the wild. Have a vaccine before it breaks out, or a treatment, or such. That's the idea.

But that's not "engineering". It's just seeing where it's headed naturally and trying to accelerate the rate.

[North Washington Republic]

Evidence the CCP is full of bullshit item #8657309.

IDK where COVID came from--whether it was naturally occurring or engineered--but it was not from the US.

Even if it was a lab leak, "engineered" is likely not the right term. They were doing virus "gain of function" experimentation, which is a way of accelerating virus evolution to see where a disease might be headed to get ahead of it in the wild. Have a vaccine before it breaks out, or a treatment, or such. That's the idea.

But that's not "engineering". It's just seeing where it's headed naturally and trying to accelerate the rate.

That may be true, but the CCP and Xi are too full of their own shit to admit to anything.

[Bombadil]

Even if it was a lab leak, "engineered" is likely not the right term. They were doing virus "gain of function" experimentation, which is a way of accelerating virus evolution to see where a disease might be headed to get ahead of it in the wild. Have a vaccine before it breaks out, or a treatment, or such. That's the idea.

But that's not "engineering". It's just seeing where it's headed naturally and trying to accelerate the rate.

That may be true, but the CCP and Xi are too full of their own shit to admit to anything.

It's all a real headache, it's the 100 year anniversary of the founding of the CCP this year, which is making the CCP even more sensitive than usual. This was supposed to be a year of full on celebration. Instead they have this issue, the HK issue, countries fully reconsidering having their manufacturing eggs in one basket and just a general heightened distrust of China in general.

[North Washington Republic]

That may be true, but the CCP and Xi are too full of their own shit to admit to anything.

It's all a real headache, it's the 100 year anniversary of the founding of the CCP this year, which is making the CCP even more sensitive than usual. This was supposed to be a year of full on celebration. Instead they have this issue, the HK issue, countries fully reconsidering having their manufacturing eggs in one basket and just a general heightened distrust of China in general.

There was this issue of how do we retaliate and hold Xi and the CCP accountable. There was this talk about increasing tariffs to “1000%”, however I don’t think that will do anything and will just hurt the American consumer. One thing we can do is formally recognize Taiwan as an independent country, and increase our military presence in the South China Sea.

[Galloism]

It's all a real headache, it's the 100 year anniversary of the founding of the CCP this year, which is making the CCP even more sensitive than usual. This was supposed to be a year of full on celebration. Instead they have this issue, the HK issue, countries fully reconsidering having their manufacturing eggs in one basket and just a general heightened distrust of China in general.

There was this issue of how do we retaliate and hold Xi and the CCP accountable. There was this talk about increasing tariffs to “1000%”, however I don’t think that will do anything and will just hurt the American consumer. One thing we can do is formally recognize Taiwan as an independent country, and increase our military presence in the South China Sea.

That was me throwing out a shitpost figure. I don't think multilateral 1000% tariffs would have any practical difference to a blockade.

[North Washington Republic]

There was this issue of how do we retaliate and hold Xi and the CCP accountable. There was this talk about increasing tariffs to “1000%”, however I don’t think that will do anything and will just hurt the American consumer. One thing we can do is formally recognize Taiwan as an independent country, and increase our military presence in the South China Sea.

That was me throwing out a shitpost figure. I don't think multilateral 1000% tariffs would have any practical difference to a blockade.

Okay, so how do we hold Xi and the CCP accountable. Xi has money to burn. He doesn’t give a shit about tariffs. All this does is hurt the American consumer. Xi is a psychopath. He needs a good kick in the ass.

[Washington Resistance Army]

That was me throwing out a shitpost figure. I don't think multilateral 1000% tariffs would have any practical difference to a blockade.

Okay, so how do we hold Xi and the CCP accountable. Xi has money to burn. He doesn’t give a shit about tariffs. All this does is hurt the American consumer. Xi is a psychopath. He needs a good kick in the ass.

Realistic take: you can't, China has all the cards.

[North Washington Republic]

Okay, so how do we hold Xi and the CCP accountable. Xi has money to burn. He doesn’t give a shit about tariffs. All this does is hurt the American consumer. Xi is a psychopath. He needs a good kick in the ass.

Realistic take: you can't, China has all the cards.

Oh, and you think we cannot get enough pissed off countries to join a coalition? Xi and the CCP can’t act like this and get away with this!

[Bombadil]

That was me throwing out a shitpost figure. I don't think multilateral 1000% tariffs would have any practical difference to a blockade.

Okay, so how do we hold Xi and the CCP accountable. Xi has money to burn. He doesn’t give a shit about tariffs. All this does is hurt the American consumer. Xi is a psychopath. He needs a good kick in the ass.

We can hardly hold the military junta of Myanmar accountable, let alone China.

This is an age old challenge brought into sharp contrast by the pandemic, on the one hand what right does any country have to interfere into the internal affairs of another country, on the other do we allow for repression, dictatorship and propaganda given we live in a world of global, boundary crossing threats such as a pandemic?

Frankly it should be a wake up call that we need far greater cooperation and transparency, alas it's actually led to finger-pointing, insular nationalism and a vast increase in bullshit being spread around.

If anything the past few years have shown that government is in the business of protecting government, that's it.. the way protests or any threat to the established order, near anywhere in the world, are dealt with violently, shows that rightful dissent is not to be tolerated when it comes to threatening the existing order.. and increasingly it seems as if a population can do nothing about it.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Realistic take: you can't, China has all the cards.

Oh, and you think we cannot get enough pissed off countries to join a coalition? Xi and the CCP can’t act like this and get away with this!

Your coalition will mean fuck all when the global economy has a complete meltdown and collapses.