Lab Leak: The conspiracy theory is shaping up to look like real possibility

[demi-conservative]

From the National Review article

The Google translation of the job posting is: “Taking bats as the research object, I will answer the molecular mechanism that can coexist with Ebola and SARS- associated coronavirus for a long time without disease, and its relationship with flight and longevity. Virology, immunology, cell biology, and multiple omics are used to compare the differences between humans and other mammals.” (“Omics” is a term for a subfield within biology, such as genomics or glycomics.)

On December 24, 2019, the Wuhan Institute of Virology posted a second job posting. The translation of that posting includes the declaration, “long-term research on the pathogenic biology of bats carrying important viruses has confirmed the origin of bats of major new human and livestock infectious diseases such as SARS and SADS, and a large number of new bat and rodent new viruses have been discovered and identified.”

Tye contends that that posting meant, “we’ve discovered a new and terrible virus, and would like to recruit people to come deal with it.”

Yuge amount of spin.

[shunyadragon]

I found that article after watching SL's video in pause-and-google mode. It's primarily an analysis of Matthew Tye's video. It includes contrary information on his supposition that Huang Yanling was patient zero.

None of her publicly available research papers are dated after 2015.

That sounds like she left the lab with her masters degree in hand and stopped engaging in research five years ago, which would neatly explain initial confusion with suggestions she was currently working there and indeed, was patient zero. If she was continuing research in the lab, she'd have published, but with a bare masters she wouldn't have published alone or as the lead author.

Any suggestion that her research has been scrubbed has a high bar to pass. I'm imagining someone scrubbing a paper because it listed me, and how that would go over with the names in front of me in the author list. The answer is, it wouldn't. It would be easier to get away with stealing their infant children.

From the photo in Tye's video, I'd say she was far and away the prettiest. I wouldn't be surprised to find that fact is skewing attention toward her. More, she's one of three whose pictures and bios have recently been removed. And lastly, Tye says himself that he got the name from the Chinese version of FB.


While nothing pings my radar on this article, NR has not proven to be a reliable source in general. Those looking for more reputable sources will be pleased to find links to Scientific American's March 11 article, How China’s “Bat Woman” Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus, and the Feb 3 paper in Nature — the gold standard for academic journals — A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin.

The paper in Nature lists Tye's other name-drop, Zheng-Li Shi, as corresponding author, creating a possible conflict of interest behind the statement, "This disease outbreak—which started from a local seafood market ..."

NR garbles the paper's results, but that's extremely common in popular press. They linked it, and summarized it well enough. Here's the straight information from the abstract.

Full-length genome sequences were obtained from five patients at an early stage of the outbreak. The sequences are almost identical and share 79.6% sequence identity to SARS-CoV. Furthermore, we show that 2019-nCoV is 96% identical at the whole-genome level to a bat coronavirus.

Taking that apart, "almost identical" means there's only one patient zero. "96 percent identical" means it came from a bat. "79.6 percent sequence identity" strongly suggests that it's a variant of the SARS-CoV-1 that originated with Palm Civets and caused the 2002-2004 epidemic.

On the larger issue of origins, at this point I'm concluding with a good deal of confidence Covid-19 started with a lab accident involving a natural virus brought back with bat samples and that the references to the seafood market are a deliberate misdirection to a health risk previously known to members of the nearby lab from which it escaped.

The more recent research I cited conflicts with your conclusions concerning the involvement of the lab, and identifies the pangolin as the most likely source and the closest genetic match, and not the bats. The research indicates that the bats have been a historical reservoir of coronaviruses transmitted from host ot host over time. The two articles I cited together give a better argument for a natural source via the Wuhan market. The suspected first patient may or may not have been the first patient, but there is no evidence of any lab workers being early victims of COVAG-19.

The origin of COVAG-19 like SARS as a lab origin remains a vague possibility of hypothetical conjecture with no evidence. The two articles I cited together give a better argument for a natural source via the Wuhan market. The suspected first patient may or may not have been the first patient, but there is no evidence of any lab workers being early victims of COVAG-19.

The origin of COVAG-19 like SARS as a lab origin remains a vague possibility of hypothetical conjecture with no evidence.

[Sparko]

The genetic research I cited determined that the most likely source was the pangolin with a near exact genetic match. The previous cited research was more recent than the following article. The bats are considered historical reservoir source of a wide variation of coronavirus spread to other hosts in China including humans in the food chain. The following offers more details.

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200317175442.htm

COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic has a natural origin
Date: March 17, 2020
Source: Scripps Research Institute
Summary: An analysis of public genome sequence data from SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered.

The novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that emerged in the city of Wuhan, China, last year and has since caused a large scale COVID-19 epidemic and spread to more than 70 other countries is the product of natural evolution, according to findings published today in the journal Nature Medicine.

The analysis of public genome sequence data from SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered.

"By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural processes," said Kristian Andersen, PhD, an associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research and corresponding author on the paper.

In addition to Andersen, authors on the paper, "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2," include Robert F. Garry, of Tulane University; Edward Holmes, of the University of Sydney; Andrew Rambaut, of University of Edinburgh; W. Ian Lipkin, of Columbia University.

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause illnesses ranging widely in severity. The first known severe illness caused by a coronavirus emerged with the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in China. A second outbreak of severe illness began in 2012 in Saudi Arabia with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

On December 31 of last year, Chinese authorities alerted the World Health Organization of an outbreak of a novel strain of coronavirus causing severe illness, which was subsequently named SARS-CoV-2. As of February 20, 2020, nearly 167,500 COVID-19 cases have been documented, although many more mild cases have likely gone undiagnosed. The virus has killed over 6,600 people.

Shortly after the epidemic began, Chinese scientists sequenced the genome of SARS-CoV-2 and made the data available to researchers worldwide. The resulting genomic sequence data has shown that Chinese authorities rapidly detected the epidemic and that the number of COVID-19 cases have been increasing because of human to human transmission after a single introduction into the human population. Andersen and collaborators at several other research institutions used this sequencing data to explore the origins and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 by focusing in on several tell-tale features of the virus.

The scientists analyzed the genetic template for spike proteins, armatures on the outside of the virus that it uses to grab and penetrate the outer walls of human and animal cells. More specifically, they focused on two important features of the spike protein: the receptor-binding domain (RBD), a kind of grappling hook that grips onto host cells, and the cleavage site, a molecular can opener that allows the virus to crack open and enter host cells.

Evidence for natural evolution

The scientists found that the RBD portion of the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins had evolved to effectively target a molecular feature on the outside of human cells called ACE2, a receptor involved in regulating blood pressure. The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein was so effective at binding the human cells, in fact, that the scientists concluded it was the result of natural selection and not the product of genetic engineering.

This evidence for natural evolution was supported by data on SARS-CoV-2's backbone -- its overall molecular structure. If someone were seeking to engineer a new coronavirus as a pathogen, they would have constructed it from the backbone of a virus known to cause illness. But the scientists found that the SARS-CoV-2 backbone differed substantially from those of already known coronaviruses and mostly resembled related viruses found in bats and pangolins.

"These two features of the virus, the mutations in the RBD portion of the spike protein and its distinct backbone, rules out laboratory manipulation as a potential origin for SARS-CoV-2" said Andersen.

Josie Golding, PhD, epidemics lead at UK-based Wellcome Trust, said the findings by Andersen and his colleagues are "crucially important to bring an evidence-based view to the rumors that have been circulating about the origins of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) causing COVID-19."

"They conclude that the virus is the product of natural evolution," Goulding adds, "ending any speculation about deliberate genetic engineering."

Possible origins of the virus

Based on their genomic sequencing analysis, Andersen and his collaborators concluded that the most likely origins for SARS-CoV-2 followed one of two possible scenarios.

In one scenario, the virus evolved to its current pathogenic state through natural selection in a non-human host and then jumped to humans. This is how previous coronavirus outbreaks have emerged, with humans contracting the virus after direct exposure to civets (SARS) and camels (MERS). The researchers proposed bats as the most likely reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 as it is very similar to a bat coronavirus. There are no documented cases of direct bat-human transmission, however, suggesting that an intermediate host was likely involved between bats and humans.

In this scenario, both of the distinctive features of SARS-CoV-2's spike protein -- the RBD portion that binds to cells and the cleavage site that opens the virus up -- would have evolved to their current state prior to entering humans. In this case, the current epidemic would probably have emerged rapidly as soon as humans were infected, as the virus would have already evolved the features that make it pathogenic and able to spread between people.

In the other proposed scenario, a non-pathogenic version of the virus jumped from an animal host into humans and then evolved to its current pathogenic state within the human population. For instance, some coronaviruses from pangolins, armadillo-like mammals found in Asia and Africa, have an RBD structure very similar to that of SARS-CoV-2. A coronavirus from a pangolin could possibly have been transmitted to a human, either directly or through an intermediary host such as civets or ferrets.

Then the other distinct spike protein characteristic of SARS-CoV-2, the cleavage site, could have evolved within a human host, possibly via limited undetected circulation in the human population prior to the beginning of the epidemic. The researchers found that the SARS-CoV-2 cleavage site, appears similar to the cleavage sites of strains of bird flu that has been shown to transmit easily between people. SARS-CoV-2 could have evolved such a virulent cleavage site in human cells and soon kicked off the current epidemic, as the coronavirus would possibly have become far more capable of spreading between people.

Study co-author Andrew Rambaut cautioned that it is difficult if not impossible to know at this point which of the scenarios is most likely. If the SARS-CoV-2 entered humans in its current pathogenic form from an animal source, it raises the probability of future outbreaks, as the illness-causing strain of the virus could still be circulating in the animal population and might once again jump into humans. The chances are lower of a non-pathogenic coronavirus entering the human population and then evolving properties similar to SARS-CoV-2.

Funding for the research was provided by the US National Institutes of Health, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Wellcome Trust, the European Research Council, and an ARC Australian Laureate Fellowship.

© Copyright Original Source

Despite the USA government is conducting an investigation concerning the possibility that the COVAG-19 originated in the Wuhan lab there is absolutely no direct evidence that the lab is the source.

I will go with the science and continue to cite science.

Nobody is claiming it is genetically engineered. But that they were studying coronaviruses in a lab and one of the researchers got infected and spread the virus into the wild.

And if you watch that video Starlight posted, seems like there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that is what happened. And ever paper I have read says it was transmitted from horseshoe bats.

[Sparko]

From the National Review article



Yuge amount of spin.

So you are now pretending to be some Chinese agent instead of Russian?

LOL.

[Juvenal]

True. I am just tossing out what my thinking is.

But I think the CCP is the one doing the coverup because some of the doctors tried to warn the world and they "disappeared"

Are you sure that wasn't just done at the local level? The first Doctor who died was harassed by local police, likely at the direction of local officials. If these other doctors that were 'disasppeared' covered a more national scope, then the evidence would lean your direction.

Jim, where do you think the "local officials" get their marching orders? You really think they have any degree of autonomy at all?

The marching orders from their bosses are effectively to cover up their mistakes — by keeping news of them away from their bosses.

So, yeah, the "marching orders" come from the top.

There's a suggestion that the Chinese national government has granular control of local officialdom.

This goes against my personal experience of endemic corruption. As much as possible, local officials are very careful to keep their bosses from knowing what they're doing. If the boss is equally corrupt, it means extra payoffs. If they're not, or even if they are but need a scapegoat, it could mean jail, or worse. China is the world leader in capital punishment.

But on the broader issues like allowing WHO in to conduct their own studies, there's no one but the national government to blame. These labs have been working with foreign academics for years. They welcome this in normal circumstances. On a difficult, time-sensitive problem, the welcome would be that much warmer.

Only the national government could prevent the Wuhan lab from receiving the international support that's being offered, IMHO.

[Cow Poke]

There's a suggestion that the Chinese national government has granular control of local officialdom.

So, allow me to clear up my perspective for you.

I don't think "granular control" is necessary, as long as the "local officials" are aware that anything they do that hacks off the higher ups can get them disappeared.

[seanD]

So, allow me to clear up my perspective for you.

I don't think "granular control" is necessary, as long as the "local officials" are aware that anything they do that hacks off the higher ups can get them disappeared.

Considering there are now reports the lab in Wahun was getting western funding is even less likely the higher ups didn't know about it.

[Juvenal]

So, allow me to clear up my perspective for you.

I don't think "granular control" is necessary, as long as the "local officials" are aware that anything they do that hacks off the higher ups can get them disappeared.

In Tye's video, there's a Chinese newscast with English subtitles.

The news was about capital punishment for anyone coming from Wuhan who fails to report the fact and enter quarantine. The reporting wasn't strident.

It was casual.

[Juvenal]

In Tye's video, there's a Chinese newscast with English subtitles.

RTT shared a better video.

[Cow Poke]

In Tye's video, there's a Chinese newscast with English subtitles.

The news was about capital punishment for anyone coming from Wuhan who fails to report the fact and enter quarantine. The reporting wasn't strident.

It was casual.

OK, you done it! My favorite video with subtitles!!!!

[oxmixmudd]

Jim, where do you think the "local officials" get their marching orders? You really think they have any degree of autonomy at all?

Please. They answer in terms of what they are told to do. But they are given wide latitude in terms of how to do what they are told to do (e.g. in terms of human rights violations). Surely you don't think one or even a few dozen persons 'at the top' can micromanage thousands of municipalities and billions of people?

but you know what CP, I've never lived and worked in China, I've only heard from those that have. So I'm not speaking as an authority on China, but simply to the fact that it is not necessary for the top to be driving this detail by detail for the results to be as we observe. Nor is it likely preferred, at least in most cases.

So if you want to pretend that reality somehow means I'm daft - go right ahead. You certainly don't have any logical or persuasive substance to post, so hey - what else can you do?

[Cow Poke]

Please.

Thank you.

They answer in terms of what they are told to do.

EGGzackly.

But they are given wide latitude in terms of how to do what they are told to do (e.g. in terms of human rights violations).

You know this how?

Surely you don't think one or even a few dozen persons 'at the top' can micromanage thousands of municipalities and billions of people?

They don't have to, Jim. They set the tone. The fact that people who stand up to the communist regime get disappeared is quite a motivator.

but you know what CP, I've never lived and worked in China, I've only heard from those that have. So I'm not speaking as an authority on China,

EGGzackly!

but simply to the fact that it is not necessary for the top to be driving this detail by detail for the results to be as we observe. Nor is it likely preferred, at least in most cases.

Nor did I say anything of the sort, Jim. All they have to do is set the tone.

So if you want to pretend that reality somehow means I'm daft -

At this point, it doesn't appear I have to pretend.

go right ahead. You certainly don't have any logical or persuasive substance to post, so hey - what else can you do?

Just kinda smile at your abject hostility, and remember you for the outstanding kind intelligent confident man you used to be.

[oxmixmudd]

Thank you.



EGGzackly.



You know this how?



They don't have to, Jim. They set the tone. The fact that people who stand up to the communist regime get disappeared is quite a motivator.



EGGzackly!



Nor did I say anything of the sort, Jim. All they have to do is set the tone.



At this point, it doesn't appear I have to pretend.



Just kinda smile at your abject hostility, and remember you for the outstanding kind intelligent confident man you used to be.

You capacity to denigrate others has no equal. You win on that point. I'm glad to be well below the standard you set!

[Cow Poke]

You capacity to denigrate others has no equal. You win on that point. I'm glad to be well below the standard you set!

Your propensity to play the victim blows the standard to smithereens.

And what do you call this, Saint Ox?

You certainly don't have any logical or persuasive substance to post, so hey - what else can you do?

Rather hypocritical of you, friend.

[oxmixmudd]

Your propensity to play the victim blows the standard to smithereens.

And what do you call this, Saint Ox?



Rather hypocritical of you, friend.

Nothing hypocritical - and you are not my friend, you've long since used the last of that for toilet paper.

I didn't start it either, in fact I've put up with non-stop bovine feces from you for weeks now, and just now have decided to push back.

The old addage, "Turnabout is fair play" applies.

My overall call is for civility - and it still is. If you were not a moderator, I'd have you on ignore just to avoid interacting with you and to avoid the possibility your constant nastiness would goad a negative reaction from me. But that isn't possible, and you abuse that situation about as well as anyone can.

The reality is this: The hypocrisy here is to put out a constant string of bovine feces at a person you know would prefer civility, and then when that person finally pushes back to call them a hypocrite.