[wschfdkbrmcdf]

That comment on that page from Kristian G. Andersen is mildly disturbing (http://archive.is/O1vhN)... As Associate Professor, Scripps Research, Director of Infectious Disease Genomics, SRTI etc etc I assume he knows what he's talking about when he states:

"That means that the outbreak was detected almost immediately after the first case, which - given that this is flu season in China - is just amazing. Detecting an outbreak of pneumonia (similar to flu) of a novel coronavirus that fast is truly impressive."

I'm not sure I really want to wear this tin-foil hat, but it would certainly be easier to identify a novel coronavirus if it came directly from your own BSL-4 lab in Wuhan https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to...

[giarc]

It could be the result of having the lab in the same city that they could detect it so quickly. Not because the original sample (or any samples) would be tested in the BSL4, but simply because having that lab would attract talent, funding and equipment to reference labs in the same city. The index patient would likely have had a nasopharyngeal swab taken and run against the regular panel of respiratory viruses (influenza, parainfluenza, enterovirus, rhinovirus, metapneumovirus, and coronaviruses). I suspect there would have been a light signal on the coronavirus (perhaps some cross reactivity) and they would have done more investigation to determine what is was.

[segfaultbuserr]

No, the BSL-4 lab in Wuhan contributed absolutely nothing to help during the outbreak of the disease. The analysis on the samples and the gene sequencing were all performed in Shanghai, by various institutions such as Institut Pasteur of Shanghai, or the Chinese Academy of Science (e.g. see the list of authors in paper [0]), not in Wuhan at all - Which was an already huge surprise to everyone following the news in China, considering the fact that it has one of the best labs.

Although the exact reason is unknown, it is already known that the Wuhan government has successfully implemented the maximum level of incompetence during its early response. There is no much reporting in English yet, but a now-deleted government report in Chinese [1] said the first victims of the viral infection were already been hospitalized on as early as December 8th, 2019. In other words, they were given a time of three weeks to get useful things done. Yet, the Wuhan government took no actions whatsoever other than covering up the outbreak.

It had been going on like that, until the last week in December, when the news about a new type of unknown pneumonia started to leak out. At this time, someone at a higher position probably realized a serious investigation was warranted. On December 26th, researchers from Shanghai arrived, collected samples, and brought the samples to Shanghai for analysis [4].

Meanwhile, on December 30th, the case was escalated and put under increased supervision of the national government. And On December 31th, a Wuhan government official was interviewed [2]. He was asked for whether a laboratory analysis will be started, and the reply was,

> With regarding to the pathogen determination of the unknown pneumonia, currently, the BSL-4 Lab was not activated, we are still following conventional procedures to verify the cases of infection. We are always prepared to active the Lab accordingly when it is necessary.

> So far, it is not in our considerations.

So Wuhan, still, wasn't doing any analysis at this point. Well, they have other things to do. On January 1st, Wuhan police arrested 8 citizens for spreading the "false rumor" of outbreak of a mysterious pneumonia in Wuhan to the social media online.

Later on January 7th, 2020, the first laboratory observation [3] of the virus sample under the electron microscope came out from Shanghai. And the gene sequencing was only completed in the second week of the month. [0] I guess the Shanghai labs were probably working on a 24x7 basis.

Meanwhile, Wuhan ordered a partial travel ban, only at this point - without any preparation work, Wuhan suddenly suspended the public transport for everyone, including medical workers, creating a massive chaos.

The popular belief is: The fact the analysis was performed in Shanghai is another indicator of the Beijing government's effort to bypass the provincial government to obtain real information. According to what Wuhan has done, it's possible that the Wuhan government was intentionally withholding medical samples and hampering the BSL-4 lab to do any useful work, and that Beijing didn't even receive prompt information until the last moment.

What is the lesson to learn as a citizen? Never overestimate the effectiveness of an authoritarian government, and never underestimate its incompetence. In an authoritarian government, the best interests of the ruler at a higher level is not always served by the ruler at the lower level. Sometimes, it's Nineteen Eighty-Four, other times, it's Brazil.

[0] http://engine.scichina.com/publisher/scp/journal/SCLS/doi/10...

[1] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Cq9-K5...

[2] https://m.yicai.com/news/100452355.html

[3] https://news.sina.cn/gn/2020-01-09/detail-iihnzhha1262297.d....

[4] https://cfcnews.com/277356/%E8%AF%95%E5%89%82%E7%9B%92%E4%BE...

[codingslave]

This is the best analysis I have seen yet. Thanks for your comment. So then we should be even more concerned? If CCP quarantines so soon after learning of the virus, clearly they saw something ugly.

[mantap]

They had to act quickly because of the large movement of people associated with Chinese New Year. I don't see that they had any other option.

I don't think we should be concerned about the Chinese government taking this seriously. It is clearly a very serious situation, the fatality rate is lower than SARS but not hugely. It would be more concerning if they weren't taking it seriously.

[Nursie]

Reminds me of the recent Chernobyl series - state pride and appearing to have it all in hand can be far more important than actually finding out what's going on.

[mikhailfranco]

Recent paper from the Wuhan lab about the outbreak:

Zhou, et al., "Discovery of a novel coronavirus associated with the recent pneumonia outbreak in humans and its potential bat origin."

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.22.914952v2....

[Mirioron]

>In an authoritarian government, the best interests of the ruler at a higher level is not always served by the ruler at the lower level.

Or maybe the national government is trying to find a scapegoat to blame, and the provincial government is a good target? They can massage all of this very well, because they also control the news in China.

[segfaultbuserr]

> the national government is trying to find a scapegoat to blame

It's definitely a possibility that cannot be ruled out.

> they also control the news in China.

Now, this point-of-view is too simplistic, First, it's certainly the truth that every single news outlet is ultimately owned and controlled by the national government, but sometimes, this model is insufficient to describe many observed complex behaviors in national politics - saying that they are all a monolithic institution is somewhat misleading. Why? Because the very same reason I stated previously,

> In an authoritarian government, the best interests of the ruler at a higher level is not always served by the ruler at the lower level.

It's usually difficult to see it in political operations, since the national politics is not transparent. On the other hand, it's relatively easy to identify this phenomenon in the media, you may even see it in a propaganda campaign with direct support from Beijing.

Before I try to explain anything, it must be understood that, in all forms of governments (perhaps with the exception of the most totalitarian governments), different interest groups or political fractions always exist. In a liberal government, the struggle over political powers, the debate on different policies, etc., are often carried out in public, via means defined by the Constitution, and governed by civil institutions - federal power vs state power, a new election, a judicial review, an impeachment, the existence of multiple political parties, or the existence of different media outlets, are all examples.

In an authoritarian government, the situation is actually not too different, except that the power struggle is not carried out by defined means in the Constitution or governed by civil institutions, instead, they are governed entirely by informal interest groups, political conspiracies and sometimes "gangs" behind the scene. Superficially, it may appear that everyone works for the government is loyal to the government, but at a closer look, it isn't the case at all. Power in a authoritarian government can be, de facto, separated, in a chaotic and pathological way.

If one studies the media outlets in China, a lot of anomalies can be identified.

1. It's different for Beijing to micro-manage every single media outlet. Some media outlets are more independent than others.

2. The national politics is too opaque, sometimes even the state media outlets have difficulties understanding the national government's real motivation, not even mention media outlets at second-tier and lower levels. As a result, everyone is forced to play an educated guess on Beijing's intention and act accordingly. Observable, sometimes significant, inconsistencies exist in the news coverage of the same topic by different media outlets.

3. Since the political system is authoritarian, even a powerful state media outlet can operate under the fear of being punished if it's not what Beijing wants, in this case, many media outlets will choose a conservative style of reporting - repeat thoughtless propaganda, withholding information, etc., ironically, sometimes it can backfire and effectively work against the interests of Beijing.

4. Media outlets are biased in their own ways. Although every media outlet is state media outlet, but they can serve the special interests of different people in power. The people who are operating these media outlets can influence the style of reporting as well, it's easy to recognize "liberal" media outlets and "nationalistic" media outlets.

5. Although state-owned, some media outlets are commercial and operate for profit. Sensationalized news is launched in exchange of more views and ads revenues. State media outlets are not immune from the impact either, bad articles can be published even at the expense of the media's reputation.

6. People themselves who are working in the media outlets, can become dissatisfied regarding to the actions of the government and secretly sabotage the propaganda in subtle ways. One example is, when the Xinhua News Agency, the mouthpiece directly represents the national government, miswrote "Obama" as "Omaba", the mistake in the original article was left unchanged and forwarded by a huge number of local media outlets. One hypothesis was that some people in media outlet identified the mistake, but left it uncorrected intentionally to ridicule the government power over media outlets.

All of these above occur from time to time, and remember, they are only a few selected examples of anomalies on the management and reporting of the media. Now imagine the situation of national politics in China behind the scene, or the internal politics within the CPC. Often, it's not something that the Western press like the New York Times is willing to report - not all journalists are familiar with the situation, and the internal politics inside the authoritarian government of China is simply too complex to even make sense of.

What is the moral of this story? Remember, nobody knows anything about China, including the Chinese government.

* https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/21/nobody-knows-anything-a...

[wschfdkbrmcdf]

Thanks for the research!

And yes... rather worrying...

[segfaultbuserr]

The matter worth worrying is not the virus itself, it doesn't seem to be an extremely lethal virus, but the fact that much is still unknown about the virus, overwhelmed medical infrastructure, and the spectacular early mismanagement of the government.

The fact that you have a state-of-the-art lab that is supposed to be the first-line of Research and Development of the most dangerous virus. And that the lab wasn't even working on it due to government mismanagement, is disturbing.

[adinobro]

Are you aware that the Coronavirus is also known as "The Common Cold" and is actually fairly common?

If you take a swab of someone and it comes back as a virus that causes the common cold what response do you expect?

A person gets a cold virus ... what should happen next?

It wasn't until it was sequenced that they found it was a new variant.

[jgwil2]

Yes and no. Per Wikipedia: "The common cold is a viral infection of the upper respiratory tract. The most commonly implicated virus is a rhinovirus (30–80%), a type of picornavirus with 99 known serotypes. Other commonly implicated viruses include human coronavirus (≈ 15%), influenza viruses (10–15%), adenoviruses (5%), human respiratory syncytial virus, enteroviruses other than rhinoviruses, human parainfluenza viruses, and metapneumovirus.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold#Viruses

[adinobro]

It is one of the 200+ viruses that make up the common cold. If you did a lab test and found a coronavirus would it automatically raise a concern?

[segfaultbuserr]

It can explain Wuhan's early ignorance, but it cannot explain the incompetence of the government after the case has been escalated since the end of December.

[adinobro]

So, you do a lab test and it comes back Coronavirus which is expected. They do nothing (its the "cold").

Someone else wants to check it (basically luck or maybe policy since SARs) and when they do they notice it is different - 7th of January then by the 14th, they have it sampled and they have detection kits.

Because of SARs Wuhan takes a few days to figure out what to do and then decide to quarantine the entire city. It is a rush job but they don't exactly have a lot of time.

From the real discovery (7th) to massive response time is 2 weeks. In the past it has often been over a month before anything effective is done. What would you do differently?

[hobofan]

I'm pretty sure they already knew that it was a new variant when they saw that it was a coronavirus causing pneumonia. You don't just blindly start to sequence random swabs if you don't already have a very certain hunch about what you'll see.

[Fomite]

This is sort of my reaction.

It's a little like being astonished that a microbe could be identified so quickly in Boston or Atlanta.

[chrisco255]

My reaction is that the lab should be suspected. They've been doing research on SARS-like viruses from bats for years now. What are the odds that it would break out in the same city, of all the cities in the world? Is the seafood market a scapegoat?

[Fomite]

Tons of people have been doing work on SARS-like viruses from bats for years now. That's what happens when you go from "No one gets infected by cornaviruses" to...SARS.

Accidental releases almost always involve people with direct links to the lab in question first. That's a really obvious epidemiological link.

"A coronavirus emerged in China and got detected quickly because of solid medical infrastructure" is a way more parsimonious explanation than "Accidental release from a BSL-4 lab."

[ColanR]

> solid medical infrastructure

From what I've read, "solid medical infrastructure" doesn't exist in Wuhan.

[Fomite]

Where "solid" = not Liberia or the Congo.

For emerging infectious diseases, Wuhan is perfectly functional, and the Chinese have the necessary resources. Motorbikes with samples aren't getting stuck as roads turn into mud during the rainy season.

[neiman]

>My reaction is that the lab should be suspected.... What are the odds that it would break out in the same city, of all the cities in the world?

I dunno what are the odds, but do you know what are the odds? If you don't, then you have no base for suspicious.

[7952]

In this kind of argument odds are just a way of making intuition sound objective. Based on one person's experience it may be obvious that accidental release from labs can happen. To another person this will seem more far fetched.

So which side of the argument should provide evidence? Why is the parents suspicion any less valid than your lack of suspicion? These kind of questions are particularly difficult when secretive government institutions are involved.

[mensetmanusman]

If patient zero really came from Wuhan, the law of large numbers would put you at odds around 6/100 (60 million people in Wuhan in the 1 billion people region)

[onlyrealcuzzo]

That seems higher than the odds of it being a lab outbreak.

Doesn't every major city the world have some lab testing some kind of virus nearby?

[lobster45]

Atlanta has the US center for disease control. But your point of just about every other city in the US is accurate

[Fomite]

That was the point of picking Atlanta - there's a very high concentration of infectious disease experts with close connections to the major public health agency.

Both Atlanta and Boston have BSL-4 labs.

[wjn0]

That's exactly the point.

[threeseed]

Maybe it's different in China but in most countries the labs that handle common blood tests are generic, commercial entities that follow a standard process for things to test.

They aren't doing infectious disease research and they definitely aren't checking for anything exotic.

[endogui]

In Korea (not China), but here it is common to get PCR assays for infections when the cause is unknown. People are also tested to determine the type (type A influenza) when showing flu-like symptoms. So if someone comes in with severe flu-like systems but is not a match for flu, that may trigger further assays.

[wschfdkbrmcdf]

I'd be surprised if geographical proximity to a BLS4 made much a of a difference to what would otherwise be a rudimentary swab & routine inspection (if that was even done at all).

As Kristian Andersen notes, the background noise of flu season would surely drown out the weak signal of an unknown novel virus. Then to not only notice the weak signal but act on it so quickly to do primary research and characterise it as a novel virus within such a short timeframe?

Seems far less likely than simply the effect of poor operational standards.

[Symmetry]

Who the heck would want to be using a coronavirus as a biological weapon? Generally you want your bioweapons to have limited or zero human-to-human transmissibility - think anthrax or tularemia or y-pestis. And if you're evil and want to burn down the world you want something that's lethal to people who are conscription age, not just the young and old.

This[1] is what I'd expect a bioweapon accident to look like or maybe a multiply drug resistant outbreak of plague.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak

[voldacar]

I think the implication was that the virus may have escaped due to an error, and was later covered up by authorities and blamed on the local meat market.

You are totally right about how insane it would be to use a coronavirus as a bioweapon

[Symmetry]

Ah, that makes sense.

[kube-system]

Who suggested bio weapon? Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

[threeseed]

I've worked at a facilities department for a university that did infectious disease research. There were incidents of air filters and other protective systems failing and safety processes needing to be executed. It doesn't need to be stupidity but just a random failure.

And then China worrying about their international reputation attributing it to a seafood market.

[vatueil]

I don't think it's the most likely explanation, far from it, but it wouldn't have to be a bioweapon to have been released from a lab.

The reemergence of H1N1 in 1977 is believed to have been the result of a lab accident or vaccine trial gone awry, for example: http://www.virology.ws/2009/03/02/origin-of-current-influenz...

[sdinsn]

Note that the Chinese government has admitted they are trying to research bio weapons with high human-to-human transmissibility but engineered to only affect certain groups (like races).

[darawk]

Do you have a source on that?

[sdinsn]

Yes, Zhang Shibo (retired general and fmr. President of the PLA National Defense University) in his book. And a textbook from the NDU called Science of Military Strategy. Both these sources are from 2017.

[yellow_lead]

I was going to dismiss this as a conspiracy theory, but then I remembered how everything in China is built. Looks good on the outside, but if you look closely, you see terrible design flaws or materials that were cheaped out on.

There is another option though, which has nearly been proven by people that have talked to physicians in Wuhan. That is the theory that this virus has been around much longer than initially reported by China. I find this a bit more likely given China's history of censoring things like this.

[hristov]

It could be that their hospitals were just well prepared. Remember we had the SARS outbreak in Africa a couple of years ago and that was a terrible tragic virus, and the hospitals in the entire world were supposed to be prepared to deal with something like this.

Well, guess what -- SARS is also a type of corona virus, and perhaps the hospitals in China had ready corona virus tests and used them on everybody that came in with pneumonia symptoms. So perhaps they were just doing their jobs?

[platinumrad]

Absolutely amazing that a completely unsubstantiated conspiracy theory is the top comment.

[perf1]

There is also "Institute of Military Medicine Nanjing Command" that submitted an identical envelope protein 2 years ago [1]. They adapt quickly to avoid detection of the immune system [2]. People argue it would have evolved and not be the same if it didn't came fresh from a lab.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/protein/AVP78033.1 (Click "Identical Proteins")

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_envelope

[fsh]

This seems to be a pattern in echo-chamber sites such as hn or reddit. If there is no reliable information, the most outrageous speculation makes it to the top.

[LorenPechtel]

I don't think you're in tinfoil hat territory here at all. While it wouldn't be anything amazing for a BL-4 lab to quickly identify that it's novel what is amazing is that the samples would get sent to the lab that fast in the first place. Zebras, not horses! That's going to take the frontline docs realizing that they're dealing with something novel. (This is not at all the same thing as the CDC jumping in very quickly when Ebola landed in the US--that wasn't novel.)

Now, I don't think it would have been a weapon. China isn't so stupid as to try to weaponize a coronavirus. However, it does make sense that this might be a leak from studying it. The genetic study really only shows when the population was one, not where it came from.

[codingslave]

I have been wondering the same. It's a bit of a conspiracy theory, but for the last few years different people have called for the lab to be shutdown. There have been confirmed reports of SARS breaks from a lab in Beijing, none of which turned into anything big.

[est31]

Don't forget the H1N1 influenza break of 1977. It first appeared in China and is genetically identical to the strains of 1957, while the wild influenza usually mutates year after year. The best explanation is an accidental leak from a Chinese laboratory.

[sneak]

The immediately preceding sentence is quite important: “Since I believe ~ 50% of the diversity in the tree comes from sequencing errors, the TMRCAs would likely be even more recent - possibly pushing the interval towards the end of December.“

The models to which they were replying put the date range of the most common recent ancestor potentially as far back as October.

Please don’t compound the error bars.

[rorykoehler]

It's the only reason I can think of for why they would arrest journalists for reporting on it in the early days.

[fsh]

Totalitarian governments routinely arrest journalists for all kinds of reasons.