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

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  • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
    We need to nuke those bat caves.
    Okay, that's crazy. But it's the kind of crazy that works for me.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
      Keep your crazy away from the machinery we need to tackle the crisis, please.

      And never, ever, cite the Daily Fail in a serious discussion. What the hell, Sparko?
      There you go again. You can easily find the same material elsewhere.

      The WHO depends upon cooperation to get their data from their members. China is a member. So are we. Suggestions that the WHO should be pounding on the table or otherwise acting like idiots burning bridges we're going to need might fill some primal emotional need but they're just plain crazy.

      Or more gently, unhelpful. Very unhelpful.
      Their advice on things has not been particularly helpful. Do you know that they are still saying we never should have stopped international travel from China?
      And now that everyone is saying wearing a mask is useful they are still advising against wearing them. It's like they want the pandemic to get worse. Job security?

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
        Okay, that's crazy. But it's the kind of crazy that works for me.
        You you'd be onboard with these Coronavirus seeking missiles?

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
          The WHO is now defending wet markets and saying the virus might not have even originated there. But they are NOT saying it came from a lab. They want their cake and eat it to.
          Fauci an immunologist also emphatically agrees the COVID 19 has a natural origin, the greatest possibility is the Wuhan Market where the infected animals were slaughtered and sold, including all the references I have cited. Another possibility is that someone slaughtered the animal elsewhere in Wuhan.

          'Might not?' that is rather vague. Can you cite a specific WHO document.
          ----------
          The World Health Organisation has said markets selling live animals should not be forced to closed down - despite acknowledging they can cause epidemics in humans.

          Officials said the markets were critical in providing food and jobs to millions of people across the globe and should be allowed to continue operating, even though the outbreak of coronavirus is believed to have spread from a Wuhan wet market.
          ...
          He said it is still unclear whether the market in Wuhan linked to the first several dozens of coronavirus cases in China was the actual source of the virus or if it instead played a role in spreading the disease further.
          https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...an-market.html

          The more the WHO pontificates about this virus, the less I trust them. They seem to be in China's pocket.
          I lived in China 9 years and realize by experience shutting down markets is like playing 'Wack a Mole.' They just sprout up elsewhere. Black Markets are everywhere.
          Last edited by shunyadragon; 05-08-2020, 07:18 PM.
          Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
          Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
          But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

          go with the flow the river knows . . .

          Frank

          I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
            Fauci an immunologist also emphatically agrees...
            You keep using that word "emphatically" -- might I suggest you look it up in the dictionary?
            The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
              Did coronavirus accidentally escape from a Wuhan lab? It’s doubtful. | The Fact Checker
              April 30, 2020 | 8:11 PM EDT
              In the absence of crucial information on how the novel coronavirus began many theories have flourished — one is that the virus accidentally escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China. The Fact Checker investigates if any evidence supports that origin story.

              The multimedia journalists are Sarah Cahlan and Meg Kelly.

              I watched this in pause and google mode. It's captioned, but not very well. All transcriptions are mine.
              Meg Kelly: The viruses most similar to the new coronavirus that causes Covid-19 are from bats that live in caves a thousand miles away.

              That's something that confused me early on because I didn't know the geography. The original SARS-CoV outbreak was in Guangdong Province, six hundred miles southeast of Wuhan. But the original SARS-CoV virus itself, like its cousin SARS-CoV-2, came from Yunnan Province, southwest of Wuhan. From a journal paper, I've gleaned the caves are in or near Pu'er City, where Zhengli Shi takes her field trips.

              Notably, a virus made its way from that cave to Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, creating the first SARS epidemic. And now it's made its way to Wuhan, creating a SARS pandemic.

              The video features interviews with Daniel Lucey, Georgetown University Infections Disease Specialist and Milton Leitenberg, University of Maryland Chemical Weapons Expert. Also interviewed are Adam Lauring, University of Michigan Medical School Professor, Angela Rasmussen, Columbia University Virologist, New York, and Peter Daszak, Ecohealth Alliance, New York.
              Kelly: As of late April, experts don't have all the information they need to say where the virus started.
              Milton Leitenberg, University of Maryland Chemical Weapons Expert: If the Chinese know evidence, of course they're not telling us or anyone else.

              That's significant because that evidence would normally come from WIV, which had previously been remarkably open to outsiders. They're not even available for interviews now. That runs counter to what I'd expect if they had good evidence CoV-2 didn't come from their labs, and were at a loss on where the virus originated. I'd expect they'd be asking for help before it was offered.

              It's not enough to say the government has the researchers gagged. It's necessary to ask why the researchers are gagged.

              There's a biosafety level 2 lab close to the market, but that doesn't handle the really dangerous viruses. That's biosafety level 4; that's WIV. WIV was set up specifically to study coronaviruses.
              Leitenberg: BL-4 is the ones you will see in films with people in a suit and an air hose attached behind them. They’re completely enclosed and protected.

              Creating the WIV was a point of national pride for China. Questioning WIV makes China lose face.
              Kelly: When China first brought the lab online, it was with the explicit goal of studying coronaviruses. Sarah Cahlan: China wanted to set up its own laboratory after the SARS outbreak to study SARS-relevant pathogens so that they could do that on their own territory without having to rely on the international system.

              That's not a divorce from the international system.
              Peter Daszak, Ecohealth Alliance President: The work we do with the Wuhan Institute of Virology is to look for viruses in bats that we think could be the next pandemic.

              Daszak goes on to compliment them on how open they've been, but it's not clear whether he means prior to the pandemic or since. Daszak is listed on a 2017 paper with Zhengli Shi featured in the video. I'd guess that's how he came to the attention of Cahlan and Kelly. That's how I'd have looked for sources.

              The WIV has had safety issues, like all BL-4 labs.
              Angela Rasmussen, Columbia University Virologist: Without fail, every single BSL-4 lab in the US gets some type of safety violation, some type of, you know, something the could do better and that’s the purpose of doing those inspections is to make sure that biosafety is as tight and secure as it can possibly be.

              China still maintains the pandemic began in the wet market.
              Daniel Lucey, Georgetown University Infections Disease Specialist: As of today, to the best of my knowledge, and I look for this every single day for 112 days, China has not divulged any information about what animals they tested from the market when they closed it, and, of course, what the results of any of those tests were.

              Yes, there are doubts, important doubts, about a lab leak, but the official story doesn't hold up. What else is there but to look at alternatives China might not want to see investigated.


              Selected references from the video.

              State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses

              Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus Notable authors include Zhengli Shi and Peter Daszak.

              How early signs of the coronavirus were spotted, spread and throttled in China


              A question for clarification: Do we know that the virus is not present in natural sources (bats or whatever) closer to Wuhan than the caves a thousand miles away?

              If researchers found (similar?) viruses in the caves, does that preclude there being (similar) viruses in other sites much closer, or is it an assumption that the nearest site is X miles away because 'that's where we found it'.

              I'm guessing that the researchers looked in a bunch of likely places, but the idea that it might not be natural-sourced because it's found in a cave so far away seems to rely on the assumption that there is no closer natural source.

              Your thoughts?
              ...>>> Witty remark or snarky quote of another poster goes here <<<...

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                You keep using that word "emphatically" -- might I suggest you look it up in the dictionary?
                No need to look it up. Fauci's statements are clear and specific. All the evidence supports a natural source, and my other references confirm this from the scientific perspective, and not conjecture, rumors, maybes and arguing from ignorance.
                Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                go with the flow the river knows . . .

                Frank

                I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                  There you go again. You can easily find the same material elsewhere.
                  You read it for the articles, right?

                  Kate Beckinsale, 46, showcases her slender physique in a sports bra and checked pants as her pet Pomeranian pooch adorably mimics her moves

                  Britney Spears strips to her bikini in new cover for 2016 album Glory... after fans sent it soaring to #1 on iTunes

                  'Major goals!' Kim Kardashian shares bikini snap of Kris Jenner after she'd given birth as well as rare wedding snap in early Mother's Day tribute

                  Kate Hudson sizzles in barely-there green bikini as she poses up for bathroom mirror selfie in lockdown

                  If you want to keep going there, I can post pics, too.

                  Their advice on things has not been particularly helpful. Do you know that they are still saying we never should have stopped international travel from China?
                  No, I don't, and you don't either.

                  Use better sources.

                  And now that everyone is saying wearing a mask is useful they are still advising against wearing them. It's like they want the pandemic to get worse. Job security?
                  I'm an ex-sailor, which means I'm plenty okay with crazy, just not in the engine spaces. You don't know that, and not just because it's not true. Because you haven't looked.

                  Use better sources.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by MaxVel View Post
                    A question for clarification: Do we know that the virus is not present in natural sources (bats or whatever) closer to Wuhan than the caves a thousand miles away?
                    No, we don't.

                    If researchers found (similar?) viruses in the caves ...
                    They (have).

                    ... does that preclude there being (similar) viruses in other sites much closer ...
                    It (doesn't).

                    ... or is it an assumption that the nearest site is X miles away because 'that's where we found it'.
                    The assumption is that the bats in the caves in Pu'er are the "natural reservoir" for its closest relatives.

                    I'm guessing that the researchers looked in a bunch of likely places, but the idea that it might not be natural-sourced because it's found in a cave so far away seems to rely on the assumption that there is no closer natural source.

                    Your thoughts?
                    No need to guess.
                    A large number of SARS-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoV) have been detected in horseshoe bats since 2005 in different areas of China.

                    It's both the similarity and diversity of SARSr viruses in Pu'er City caves that makes them the most likely suspect in my estimation. Scientists studying them are naturally more reticent to say so directly. If I'm wrong, I'll just say I'm wrong. I'm just a math guy posting anonymously on the internet outside his field. Expectations are lower.

                    If they're wrong, there are papers to retract. That can get messy.
                    Author summary [with paragraphing added for readability]

                    Increasing evidence has been gathered to support the bat origin of SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in the past decade. However, none of the currently known bat SARSr-CoVs is thought to be the direct ancestor of SARS-CoV.

                    Herein, we report the identification of a diverse group of bat SARSr-CoVs in a single cave in Yunnan, China. Importantly, all of the building blocks of SARS-CoV genome, including the highly variable S gene, ORF8 and ORF3, could be found in the genomes of different SARSr-CoV strains from this single location.

                    Based on the analysis of full-length genome sequences of the newly identified bat SARSr-CoVs, we speculate that the direct ancestor of SARS-CoV may have arisen from sequential recombination events between the precursors of these bat SARSr-CoVs prior to spillover to an intermediate host. In addition, we found bat SARSr-CoV strains with different S proteins that can all use the receptor of SARS-CoV in humans (ACE2) for cell entry, suggesting diverse SARSr-CoVs capable of direct transmission to humans are circulating in bats in this cave.

                    Our current study therefore offers a clearer picture on the evolutionary origin of SARS-CoV and highlights the risk of future emergence of SARS-like diseases.

                    RaTG13 was collected there in 2013, which at 96 percent similarity is speculated to be 20 to 50 years of natural selection away from SARS-CoV-2. Further reading tells me that a close relative Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, also found in the cave, unlike Rhinolophus affinis, has an ACE2 ortholog.

                    I can easily imagine RaTG13 or a closer relative passing from Ra to Rf, using the ACE2-selection pressure to mutate into CoV-2, and from there to an intermediate host on its way to Wuhan. CoV-1 arrived in Guangzhou via an illegally traded pangolin. It's an open question whether pangolins were being traded in Wuhan.
                    Pangolins were not listed on an inventory of items sold at the market — although the illegality of trading pangolins could explain this omission.

                    But other evidence points away from the market, which was the best alternative until it wasn't. More evidence could exclude WIV as well. China is preventing any evidence from being released, and throwing major economic muscle against countries calling for an investigation.

                    I wonder if they even realize how suspicious that looks.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Cerebrum123 View Post
                      You you'd be onboard with these Coronavirus seeking missiles?
                      Right 20 for ranging fire. Fire for effect.

                      article-6101-2.jpg

                      Want.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                        No need to look it up. Fauci's statements are clear and specific.
                        Yeah, there's obviously a need for you to look it up, because that's NOT what emphatic means.

                        Need help?
                        The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Cerebrum123 View Post
                          Same. I get Fauci is busy with everything, but his dismissal of such a scenario as "circular reasoning" seems a bit too flippant IMO. The evidence for a lab leak didn't seem to be getting a fair look. I don't really care which one it turns out to be in the end.
                          If it's just a question of an intermediate host bringing CoV-2 to Wuhan, an argument that the lab was responsible because they brought it there is circular reasoning. All of the alternative scenarios I'm considering go further than that.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                            Yeah, there's obviously a need for you to look it up, because that's NOT what emphatic means.

                            Need help?
                            Where's the net nanny police when you need them.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                              Where's the net nanny police when you need them.
                              You're here! Right on time!
                              The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                                Thanks for taking the time Juvenal, I'll try not to waste any more of it. That is, I am going to try to spend the proper time to give you a reasonable response to this post. You are posting on a different level than most here, and I apologize for not taking the time required to give you something useful to work with.
                                I have friends throughout West Africa. I can't check what they're telling me but it's clear what's merely a crisis here is much more than that there.

                                This is important to me.

                                Yes. It makes sense that it is possible a mechanism that would create an environment that would hasten evolution to a human transmissible form could have been used to hide any tool related artifacts.
                                That's not right. Gain of function experiments aren't used to hide tool related artifacts.

                                If it evolved through normal means in a lab environment that simulated years or decades of interaction with a human host, I do not have any idea how that could be distinguished from more normal 'in the wild' interactions with humans. There might indeed be a way, but I'm not anywhere near well versed enough in this topic to know.
                                Lab records.

                                They might know, but would they tell us is the question there. Assuming they are embarrassed by their carelessness, purging all records of the discovery of the virus in the wild would make it impossible to know if that is what happened.
                                Bat coronavirus RaTG13, complete genome
                                Submitted (27-JAN-2020)

                                CAS Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Center for Biosafety Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 44 Xiao Hong Shan, Wuhan, Hubei 430071, China

                                You reasoning is sound as best I can tell. The issue for me is that others with a Ph.D in the field have not arrived at the same conclusion, and my background is Mathematics and Comp Sci - not biology. In fact, of the major sciences i have some familiarity with (astronomy, physics, paleantology, climatology, geology, chemistry, biology) biology is by far the weakest. So the fact your reasoning seems sound to me is not sufficient for me to decide that what you have concluded is more sensible that what they have concluded.
                                Please stop speaking of my suggestions as conclusions.

                                A suggestion that the virus was created at WIV is a suggestion that WIV is responsible for what will likely be millions of deaths before it's contained and what is already trillions in damages worldwide. That's serious enough that no one should be arriving at conclusions that aren't supported by overwhelming evidence.

                                Thanks again for you time and effort pulling these posts together and drilling into the paper(s) in question.
                                Welcome.

                                Comment

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