[StandardFuture]

This is very valid clarification on what I will just name "lab theories". There is a huge differentiation in: 'purposely bio-engineered and intentionally-released' theories, vs. 'someone collected bats in the wild for research, brought them to the Wuhan lab, and there was an accidental pathogen escape during the research.'

The former is entirely dramatic, while the latter is neither dramatic, unreasonable, illogical, or "conspiracy".

[burfog]

Neither extreme seems likely.

We know that the lab was adding functionality to bat coronaviruses, making them able to infect human cells. This can be done without gene editing technology. We've been doing that in the opposite direction for decades, passing viruses through non-human cells in order to make weakened ones for live-virus vaccines. To make a virus worse for humans, simply pass it through human cells. This is what the lab was doing.

It's extremely hazardous research. The USA banned it.

If you do that and then you have a lab accident, your level of culpability is at neither extreme. You didn't gene-edit the virus and release it on purpose. You didn't just get infected while studying bats.

[jml7c5]

>We know that the lab was adding functionality to bat coronaviruses, making them able to infect human cells.

Source?

[abandonliberty]

I reviewed Burfog's claims.

While it's true that Chinese scientists were investigating SARS, the above assertion is not supported by the evidence provided.

My best guess of where the confusion came from was the insertion of a temporary mammalian plasmid into HeLa cells in order to produce bat ACE2 for study.

While this could potentially be viewed as adding functionality to human cells in order to make them susceptible to bat coronaviruses, the above assertion doesn't follow. (and unfortunately we have no ability to genome-edit humans)

[burfog]

Here, because somebody else asked the same thing:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22875438

[jonny_eh]

It's a shame that China's covering something up, which will only fuel the most outlandish theories.

[JamesG124]

There's little evidence to support the cover-up charge

https://old.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/fnvvh8/some_th...

[bart_spoon]

Since that post was made, there has been widespread reporting that US intelligence agencies are quite sure that China's numbers regarding the infection have been fabricated and underreported by quite a large amount. [0]

Keep in mind that the Chinese government doesn't have to be pursuing a centralized disinformation campaign for it to occur. It would appear that at least a decent amount of the misinformation is occurring because local officials are covering up the extent of the damage from the party for fear of retaliation. In this case, its entirely plausible for large-scale cover-up to be occuring in China, without the national CCP driving it or even being aware of the extent that its occuring.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavir...

[JamesG124]

1. I'm well aware of that. Is that the only new evidence that's come to light since the piece I linked to though? Would have expected something more solid than unnamed sources from inside national security (see: big hack)

2. I'll grant that that's possibility in the exact same sense in which I grant the centralized cover-up theory to be a possibility, and in which I grant both the lab creation and the lab accident origin theories to be possibilities. But I'm not interested in possibilities. What I'm interested in is positive evidence supportive of this or that theory.

[bart_spoon]

> 1. I'm well aware of that. Is that the only new evidence that's come to light since the piece I linked to though? Would have expected something more solid than unnamed sources from inside national security (see: big hack)

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of stories produced by national security forces, but there are far more reasons to be skeptical of stories being produced by the CCP. If it's a question of who to believe, I don't know why one would pick the Chinese government.

> 2. I'll grant that that's possibility in the exact same sense in which I grant the centralized cover-up theory to be a possibility, and in which I grant both the lab creation and the lab accident origin theories to be possibilities. But I'm not interested in possibilities. What I'm interested in is positive evidence supportive of this or that theory.

I just gave you positive evidence, and you dismissed it as propaganda. CIA sources are saying that is exactly what is happening on the ground. But if you need more, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence coming from non-intelligence sources. About a month ago on the "This Week in Virology" podcast, one of the visiting virologists who is an expert on coronaviruses said that China had come out and said they won't be conducting any widespread serology testing, which would be necessary for determining how widespread the outbreak got. He said the only reason for not doing this is if you didn't want to know the answer. The implication being that China knows its much worse than has been reported and they don't want the world or their own people to know, as it challenges the narrative of a competent response. And secondly, its been widely reported that China is not including asymptomatic patients in their infection counts, which is absurd, given that we now know they make up anywhere from 20-50% of infections, and are capable of spreading the disease. Again, the only reason for this is if you want to make it seem like there are fewer infections than there actually are.

[JamesG124]

May be of interest:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22881922

[jonny_eh]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22849747