Wuhan Lab Might be COVID Origin

[Nilokeras]

Posted without further comment:

Leading biologist dampens his ‘smoking gun’ Covid lab leak theory
Nobel laureate David Baltimore says he overstated case, and the origins of the virus are still unknown

A Nobel prize-winning US biologist, who has been widely quoted describing a “smoking gun” to support the thesis that Covid-19 was genetically modified and escaped from a Wuhan lab, has said he overstated the case.

David Baltimore, a distinguished biology professor, had become one of the most prominent figures cited by proponents of the so-called lab leak theory.

*snip*

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... eak-theory

Ah that depressingly common failure mode for profs of a certain age and distinguishment - wandering into a field they know little about, making a pronouncement and then immediately retreating in embarassment after the real experts tear them a new one. I hope your fifteen minutes of renewed national prominence was worth what you've enabled, Dr. Baltimore.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

So in other words the lab leak theory was bullshit after all. Laughing my ass off right now.

[Seangoli]

So in other words the lab leak theory was bullshit after all. Laughing my ass off right now.

Its not so much bullshit as it is unproven. It's neither unlikely not impossible for it to be a lab leak, particularly given that the Wuhan lab did have a track record apparently of poor safety procedures. I would still not be surprised to learn it was a lab leak, given:

1. The lab was specifically studying coronaviruses of bats.
2. It's general viscinity to the initial outbreak.
3. Concerns from prior to the outbreak a out poor safety measures.

What it is not is an engineered bioweapon, not a deliberate leak. It could also be natural, as there is a reason the lab was studying bat coronaviruses.

I have always put it at about 50-50 natural/leak. There is good reason to suspect it is a lab leak, however it is also hardly proven.

[Nilokeras]

So in other words the lab leak theory was bullshit after all. Laughing my ass off right now.

Its not so much bullshit as it is unproven. It's neither unlikely not impossible for it to be a lab leak, particularly given that the Wuhan lab did have a track record apparently of poor safety procedures. I would still not be surprised to learn it was a lab leak, given:

1. The lab was specifically studying coronaviruses of bats.
2. It's general viscinity to the initial outbreak.
3. Concerns from prior to the outbreak a out poor safety measures.

What it is not is an engineered bioweapon, not a deliberate leak. It could also be natural, as there is a reason the lab was studying bat coronaviruses.

I have always put it at about 50-50 natural/leak. There is good reason to suspect it is a lab leak, however it is also hardly proven.

Again I don't think it's likely there was a leak. None of the viruses the WIV worked with were closely related to COVID, and the bat populations in Wuhan are perfectly capable of hosting an unknown virus and spreading it to humans through environmental contact. A lab leak requires an assumption of conspiracy on the same order as the 'accidentally released bioweapon' conspiracy, as it necessitates that the WIV destroyed records of ever collecting or working with the virus. Given that and the lack of any signal of gain-of-function or serialization in COVID's genome it's just not a supportable theory.

[Grave_n_idle]

So in other words the lab leak theory was bullshit after all. Laughing my ass off right now.

Its not so much bullshit as it is unproven. It's neither unlikely not impossible for it to be a lab leak, particularly given that the Wuhan lab did have a track record apparently of poor safety procedures. I would still not be surprised to learn it was a lab leak, given:

1. The lab was specifically studying coronaviruses of bats.
2. It's general viscinity to the initial outbreak.
3. Concerns from prior to the outbreak a out poor safety measures.

What it is not is an engineered bioweapon, not a deliberate leak. It could also be natural, as there is a reason the lab was studying bat coronaviruses.

I have always put it at about 50-50 natural/leak. There is good reason to suspect it is a lab leak, however it is also hardly proven.

50/50 is a fallacy - just because a thing could or could not happen, does not mean those two probabilities are equal. We've known for more than a year that this almost certainly didn't escape from a lab, and definitely didn't start out as a bioweapon - and we've known that based on the pathological epidemiology. The same way we know that the version of coronavirus that ravaged Europe and the US is not the same strain as the version that initially ran through Chinese populations. We even know that it's not the same strain that the China virus evolved into, that spread into southeast Asia. In fact, we know that both those strains do extremely poorly where they have turned up in Europe or the US. Ours is the third strain to evolve (referred to as the European strain).

[FutureAmerica]

Covid19 was brought into the Wuhan lab from a Yunnan cave. There was a major lab accident in October of 2019. The CPC tried to cover it up and the virus spread to most of Wuhan. Had there not been a coverup, Wuhan citizens would have taken precautions and limited its spread.

[The Black Forrest]

Covid19 was brought into the Wuhan lab from a Yunnan cave. There was a major lab accident in October of 2019. The CPC tried to cover it up and the virus spread to most of Wuhan. Had there not been a coverup, Wuhan citizens would have taken precautions and limited its spread.

You posted that before.

[Kus Ther]

It would explain why the Chinese government tried so hard to cover up the outbreak's existance for all of those months and waiting until it was too late to take any action to prevent it from spreading outside its borders.

[Seangoli]

It would explain why the Chinese government tried so hard to cover up the outbreak's existance for all of those months and waiting until it was too late to take any action to prevent it from spreading outside its borders.

Not necessarily.

Authoritarian governments typically act in such manners simply because they want to show everything is fine, nothing to see here, etc. Etc. Couple this with two other unique factors for China:

1. They are a major exporter and manufacturer, and admitting to a major outbreak would likely lead to economic damage at a time they were already facing internal strife.

2. China has a very prevalent "face saving" culture. They don't want to admit that they can't keep things under control, simply because it would make them look worse.

Assuming a natural outbreak, it is entirely within the realm of China's MO to try to keep it under wrap under the assumption they could contain it and minimize the spread, and doing so would hypothetically minimize the fallout towards China. Granted, they could keep it under control given the nature of COVID-19'S long incubation period and relatively milder symptoms over something like SARS (which had an incubation period of days and presented with more severe symptoms, making containment easier).

Basically, they tried to contain and cover up the outbreak, as well minimize the severity of the outbreak because admitting failure is not a thing authoritarian governments do, particularly one whose trade would have been severely impacted.

[Seangoli]

Its not so much bullshit as it is unproven. It's neither unlikely not impossible for it to be a lab leak, particularly given that the Wuhan lab did have a track record apparently of poor safety procedures. I would still not be surprised to learn it was a lab leak, given:

1. The lab was specifically studying coronaviruses of bats.
2. It's general viscinity to the initial outbreak.
3. Concerns from prior to the outbreak a out poor safety measures.

What it is not is an engineered bioweapon, not a deliberate leak. It could also be natural, as there is a reason the lab was studying bat coronaviruses.

I have always put it at about 50-50 natural/leak. There is good reason to suspect it is a lab leak, however it is also hardly proven.

Again I don't think it's likely there was a leak. None of the viruses the WIV worked with were closely related to COVID, and the bat populations in Wuhan are perfectly capable of hosting an unknown virus and spreading it to humans through environmental contact. A lab leak requires an assumption of conspiracy on the same order as the 'accidentally released bioweapon' conspiracy, as it necessitates that the WIV destroyed records of ever collecting or working with the virus. Given that and the lack of any signal of gain-of-function or serialization in COVID's genome it's just not a supportable theory.

I haven't actually read that it wasn't related to the strains the lab was working on; source on that? Not that I don't believe it, but rather I'm cruous to read about it.

As for covering it up and conspiracy, it's China. I would not in the least bit be surprised if China did that, simply because even assuming it's a natural outbreak, they did everything in their power to cover up the severity and spread of the disease. It's a Hallmark of authoritarian governments to do this, and China was less than forthcoming with information even assuming a natural outbreak. They have also had a history of this sort of thing in the past in numerous other ways. This isn't evidence for a lab leak, mind you, but rather evidence against the notion that destroying records or covering it up is unlikely or outlandish. It's quite possible, though hardly proven, that China could and would do such.

Is it a conspiracy theory? Sure. Admittedly so. But it's orders of magnitude less outlandish than the bioweapon notion, which is likely just not what happened. At absolute worst, I would imagine it was them mucking about in things that are a concern (SARS was a coronavirus, and given peculiarities of Chinese culture, Coronavirus outbreaks are more likely there than elsewhere, leading to a desire to study them), and due to known poor safety standards in Chinese facilities, it's not a stretch to believe it could happen.

A bioweapon this was not, but an authoritarian government screwing up, minimizing the problem, and destroying the evidence isn't a stretch.

[Picairn]

I haven't actually read that it wasn't related to the strains the lab was working on; source on that? Not that I don't believe it, but rather I'm cruous to read about it.

See this article: https://healthfeedback.org/could-scient ... -in-a-lab/

[Great Algerstonia]

Ok so one thing that we can all agree on is that the CCP is full of unepic nerds, right?

[Nilokeras]

I haven't actually read that it wasn't related to the strains the lab was working on; source on that? Not that I don't believe it, but rather I'm cruous to read about it.

See Picairn's helpful summary. tldr, the viruses the WIV were working with were collected in 2012 after a zoonotic event among miners in Yunnan. None of the viruses they sampled were particularly closely related to COVID - the closest, RATG13, was estimated to have shared a common ancestor with COVID about 50 years ago. This is not surprising, since southern China is a global hotspot for coronavirus diversity:

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.

Bats in southern China have lots of coronaviruses endemic to them, and we know almost nothing about them. Bats in Wuhan probably harboured a heretofore unknown strain of coronavirus that is part of a broad viral community endemic to bats.

As for covering it up and conspiracy, it's China. I would not in the least bit be surprised if China did that, simply because even assuming it's a natural outbreak, they did everything in their power to cover up the severity and spread of the disease. It's a Hallmark of authoritarian governments to do this, and China was less than forthcoming with information even assuming a natural outbreak. They have also had a history of this sort of thing in the past in numerous other ways. This isn't evidence for a lab leak, mind you, but rather evidence against the notion that destroying records or covering it up is unlikely or outlandish. It's quite possible, though hardly proven, that China could and would do such.

Is it a conspiracy theory? Sure. Admittedly so. But it's orders of magnitude less outlandish than the bioweapon notion, which is likely just not what happened. At absolute worst, I would imagine it was them mucking about in things that are a concern (SARS was a coronavirus, and given peculiarities of Chinese culture, Coronavirus outbreaks are more likely there than elsewhere, leading to a desire to study them), and due to known poor safety standards in Chinese facilities, it's not a stretch to believe it could happen.

A bioweapon this was not, but an authoritarian government screwing up, minimizing the problem, and destroying the evidence isn't a stretch.

None of us can say whether or not it was a coverup. That a coverup makes sense to you is a notion entirely without evidence at the moment, and is based on your preconceived ideas of what the Chinese state is likely or not to do.

As for 'the pecularities of Chinese culture', walking right up to the line of the old racist canard of bat soup is not required.

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, scientists did immune assays on a sample of rural people across southern China and found that people were regularly exposed to bat coronaviruses, mostly for very banal reasons - like, say, sweeping out a chicken coop where bats were roosting and getting exposed to the virus through proximity to the bats or their guano.

If I had to guess what happened, one of these repeated exposure events - which select for viruses that are able to survive and replicate in a human host - was finally successful, and some farmer in Hubei caught what they thought was an atypical flu or cold after cleaning out a barn or an attic or something. It started to spread in the village and beyond to the city of Wuhan, and blended in with the usual background of winter colds and flus until it started to really take off. Coincidentally as COVID was spreading, some of the workers at WIV caught it just being out and about in the city, and because they're under heightened medical surveillance because of where they work that might have been one of the first signs that something was off.

[Grave_n_idle]

It would explain why the Chinese government tried so hard to cover up the outbreak's existance for all of those months and waiting until it was too late to take any action to prevent it from spreading outside its borders.

Maybe. Does it explain why the British and American governments tried so hard to cover up the virus' existence for all those months and waiting until it was too late to prevent it from spreading outside their borders?

[Sungoldy-China]

After 90 days, will we have a conclusion?

[The Black Forrest]

After 90 days, will we have a conclusion?

Probably not. I would prefer we have a solution for the future versus assigning blame.

[Nolo gap]

even if it escaped from there, doesn't make the "origin". they WERE studying the bats who's d.n.a. it matches.

they ARE annoying for one thing though. they repressed the original researchers from making much of their raw data available to the scientific community,
and were unwilling to share it with international researchers. still doesn't mean anyone intentionally created it.

not convinced capital market forces would have done any better.

research needs to take place where neither economic nor political interests can put their thumbs on the scales.

and much, not all.
i DID read about the several bat species and sars and mears d.n.a. comparisons in the public newsletter of the journal nature.
and that way back when the first wave was just getting started.

[ImperialRussia]

Where they weaponizing the virus or researching the virus to enhance there medicine research.

[Chernoslavia]

Ok and? He didn't say ''Mexicans are rapists'', that would mean that all Mexicans or Mexicans in general which he clearly wasn't implying, he's obviously referring to illegal immigrants who aren't all Mexican.

Trump supporters generally don’t know the different between different Latin American groups, with one Fox News article referring to several nations of Central America as “Mexican countries”.

Imagine using one article’s mistake to generalize an entire political group. Btw, take it to TG.

[GuessTheAltAccount]

After 90 days, will we have a conclusion?

Probably not. I would prefer we have a solution for the future versus assigning blame.

Culpability tells us who not to believe about anything else, and therefore is inseparably tied to "solutions for the future".

[Grave_n_idle]

Probably not. I would prefer we have a solution for the future versus assigning blame.

Culpability tells us who not to believe about anything else, and therefore is inseparably tied to "solutions for the future".

Most people already don't trust their own governments or anyone else's, so that seems like a redundant step. But if the 'culpability' lies with some bats, I'm not sure how not trusting them is the future.

[Kowani]

Culpability tells us who not to believe about anything else, and therefore is inseparably tied to "solutions for the future".

Most people already don't trust their own governments or anyone else's, so that seems like a redundant step. But if the 'culpability' lies with some bats, I'm not sure how not trusting them is the future.

We should probably stop expanding into their habitats…
Seems like a good way to reduce this in the other future

[Nilokeras]

Most people already don't trust their own governments or anyone else's, so that seems like a redundant step. But if the 'culpability' lies with some bats, I'm not sure how not trusting them is the future.

We should probably stop expanding into their habitats…
Seems like a good way to reduce this in the other future

Part of the problem is that bats are opportunistic urban dwellers too. Horseshoe bats, which are the reservoir for SARS and probably COVID, use human structures for nesting sites as well as caves. Disused military fortifications, mines, warehouses and other abandoned structures are all potential sources of human-bat contact.

[The Black Forrest]

Probably not. I would prefer we have a solution for the future versus assigning blame.

Culpability tells us who not to believe about anything else, and therefore is inseparably tied to "solutions for the future".

That’s not the way people work. Applying blame means the problem is over. We punished the wrong doers and we are good.

I would rather have a solution from what went wrong and what we could have done.

You can’t get this if you are bent on applying blame.

Let’s not forget much of the blame hunt is driven by trying to hide how incompetent the last president was in this matter.

[The Rich Port]

Culpability tells us who not to believe about anything else, and therefore is inseparably tied to "solutions for the future".

That’s not the way people work. Applying blame means the problem is over. We punished the wrong doers and we are good.

I would rather have a solution from what went wrong and what we could have done.

You can’t get this if you are bent on applying blame.

Let’s not forget much of the blame hunt is driven by trying to hide how incompetent the last president was in this matter.

Or, worse, trying to drum up fake outrage to make China look like the victim.

As if there wasn't enough horrible shit China is guilty of that we needed fake atrocities.