[yurlungur]

No need for you to preach to the choir about not trusting the Chinese government. As can be seen in the thread, people would much prefer to trust conspiracy theorists and fringe scientists before they put any trust in the Chinese government.

To me, the only constructive discussion that can be had at this point needs to be around actual evidence, and not the absence of it. The first documented cases, first traces of positive samples etc etc. It's clearly still in the early stages of discoveries so all theories are just theories. That said I don't expect this to remain a mystery forever. It will just take time, because eventually the natural origins will be pinned down and reasonable chain of events of first spread will be identified.

[mxcrossb]

We’re just not following a good process of discerning truth here. We started with a blatant, baseless conspiracy theory “this is a weapon China created”. Then we white wash the theory to “China created it, but maybe it was an accident”. Then suddenly the burden of truth is on China to disprove this claim. It’s just not a sensible process, rooted in the fallacy of the middle ground; as you said we need to start from the evidence and not from what you want to be true.

[eggie]

While from a US political perspective, it may appear that the lab leak hypothesis began with the conspiracy theory that China created a weapon, this is not the dominant perspective among scientists who have expressed doubt publicly (and privately).

Our prior is that novel viruses come from zoonotic sources. We haven't ever experienced a pandemic derived from a laboratory leak. It seems fanciful, because it would be unprecedented. But, what would it look like if it did happen? How would it be any different than what we've seen?

Given the situation, yes, we cannot make any conclusions without evidence. And this implies a burden of proof on governments. The fact that this outbreak began in China is unfortunate, but it does not make it right for them to withhold information on the origins of the virus. They should share every scrap of information and evidence that they have, or expect exactly the kind of reaction that you are critiquing.

There is no fallacy of middle ground here. There is simply a lack of hard evidence to confirm a particular hypothesis about where this virus came from. And, there is an uncomfortable abundance of circumstantial evidence pointing in a highly unusual direction. This is not an issue that you can align with the US political spectrum. And it can be approached without needing to make any claims about how good or bad the Chinese government is. You cannot claim to know what this virus is without information that is not available.

Claims that it is zoonotic are unfortunately just as baseless as any conspiracy theories about weapon development that you've been hearing. The argument for zoonotic origin are based on a single piece of evidence that came out of the labs in the very city where the virus was first found: the sequence of a related SARS-like virus, and one with some very unusual sequence features and publication parameters. Doubt is reasonable. We should fully accept the possibility that humans were able to generate such a construct, and be ready for the next time it happens. The basic fact is that we know how to make such a virus, and that information is now out in the open whether or not this particular virus came from a lab.

[tim333]

I don't think many people believe "this is a weapon China created." It doesn't really make sense - it would be a rubbish weapon just killing the over 80s and why release it in your own country?

On the other hand asking if a bat type coronavirus could have come from the nearest place with lots of bat type coronavirus doesn't seem that unreasonable to me.

[jjcc]

>No need for you to preach to the choir about not trusting the Chinese government. As can be seen in the thread,

Great expression! I have the same strange feeling but couldn't put in correct words. Other than the topic of this thread, there's a meta topic which reflects some interesting human natures showing up more often among politicians and lawyers: Spread bias opinions without being caught misleading, disguise subjective speculations under objective delicately organized articulation.

Being constructive in discussion is extremely difficult. Sometime I watch the debate with fun on meta topics other than topics.

[fspeech]

Comments by experts who went on the WHO mission https://mobile.twitter.com/TheaKFischer/status/1360590441817...

[jgalt212]

Right now, I trust WHO slightly more than I trust CCP. Biden is right to re-engage them, but they have a lot of work to do to get its reputation back.

They can probably start by capping payments from any one country as to minimize the effects of soft power.

An under-funded WHO is better than a biased WHO.

[lostlogin]

Are you aware that the messed up situation with WHO funding is due to US policy?

“ Though the US paid $446.5m in 2019 compared with China’s $43m, the bulk of American funding was voluntary; the organization only receives 17% of its funding through “assessed” contributions, AKA country membership dues. The bulk of its budget is funded through voluntary donations, for which countries can earmark specific use, because President Ronald Reagan passed a “zero-growth policy” for WHO funding in the 1980s. With the assessed dues frozen at 1990s levels, the WHO has been forced to increasingly rely on donated funds.”

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/oct/19/john-oliver-...

[mcguire]

Note that the WHO has very similar problems to the International Red Cross: if they don't play by the rules of the governments in question, they get kicked out and can't do anything. Something is better than nothing, right?

On the other hand, the WHO after the pandemic had clearly emerged continued to appear biased, seriously damaging its reputation.

[raverbashing]

Yeah, I trust WHO technicians much more than their "upper management" who wasn't light on appeasement and delaying of important actions

[turdnagel]

Why do you think that is inevitable if the Chinese government continues to obfuscate?

[cratermoon]

Epidemiology. History. The Spanish Flu was called that because at the time everyone (for xenophobic reasons... sound familiar?) blamed Spain. Today we can say with reasonable confidence that the source of the 1918 influenza epidemic was.... wait for it.....

Kansas

[sebmellen]

People did not blame Spain for xenophobic reasons, just because the Spanish press was the first to report on it.

And, as pertains to the virus's origin, COVID-19 did come from China, and we know that. We have epidemiology to guide us here, and the situation is altogether different from 1918 w/r/t speed of communication and the state of science.

[Aunche]

> People did not blame Spain for xenophobic reasons, just because the Spanish press was the first to report on it.

That doesn't disprove xenophobia at all. The Spanish press reported on it first because every nation involved in WWI very aggressively censored any mention of the flu. After the war, they had every incentive to play into people's natural xenophobia rather admit to covering up the disease. Here you see the Spanish Flu depicted as a flamenco lady:

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/G386J3/the-spanish-flu-epidemic-ov...

[cratermoon]

"there is strong circumstantial evidence that the virus didn't originate in Wuhan after all"

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-05-...

[hayst4ck]

You are quoting an article that's very first sentence is:

"There's no doubt that the novel coronavirus ... originated in China."

As a response to the statement: "COVID-19 did come from China" in the previous post, the article you linked directly confirmed that statement.

[Splatter]

Epidemiology and history wasn't as effective as you think in identifying the origins of The Spanish Flu. The origin being Kansas is only one of many plausible theories.

[cratermoon]

What are the others? If you have some sources I'd be happy to look at them.

[andrepd]

As far as I understand, it's called spanish flu because neutral Spain was free to report on the epidemic, while warring nations imposed heavy censorship for morale reasons, giving the false impression that Spain was especially hit.

[tim333]

It would be ironic if the thing was basically started by the US again with funding for "in vivo characterization of SARSr-CoV spillover risk". (https://grantome.com/grant/NIH/R01-AI110964-06)

[opo]

>...The Spanish Flu was called that because at the time everyone (for xenophobic reasons... sound familiar?)

No, it tended to be called the Spanish Flu because Spanish newspapers simply reported more about the epidemic:

>...Spain was not involved in the war, having remained neutral, and had not imposed wartime censorship.[17][18] Newspapers were therefore free to report the epidemic's effects, such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII, and these widely-spread stories created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit.

Some theorize it might have first originated in Kansas:

>...The first confirmed cases originated in the United States. Historian Alfred W. Crosby stated in 2003 that the flu originated in Kansas,[61] and popular author John M. Barry described a January 1918 outbreak in Haskell County, Kansas, as the point of origin in his 2004 article.

But then again:

>...A 2018 study of tissue slides and medical reports led by evolutionary biology professor Michael Worobey found evidence against the disease originating from Kansas, as those cases were milder and had fewer deaths compared to the infections in New York City in the same period. The study did find evidence through phylogenetic analyses that the virus likely had a North American origin, though it was not conclusive. In addition, the haemagglutinin glycoproteins of the virus suggest that it originated long before 1918, and other studies suggest that the reassortment of the H1N1 virus likely occurred in or around 1915.

Some theorize it might have first originated in Europe:

>...The major UK troop staging and hospital camp in Étaples in France has been theorized by virologist John Oxford as being at the center of the Spanish flu.[63] His study found that in late 1916 the Étaples camp was hit by the onset of a new disease with high mortality that caused symptoms similar to the flu.[64][63] According to Oxford, a similar outbreak occurred in March 1917 at army barracks in Aldershot,[65] and military pathologists later recognized these early outbreaks as the same disease as the Spanish flu.[66][63] The overcrowded camp and hospital at Etaples was an ideal environment for the spread of a respiratory virus.

>...A report published in 2016 in the Journal of the Chinese Medical Association found evidence that the 1918 virus had been circulating in the European armies for months and possibly years before the 1918 pandemic.[67] Political scientist Andrew Price-Smith published data from the Austrian archives suggesting the influenza began in Austria in early 1917.

But then again:

>...A 2009 study in Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses found that Spanish flu mortality simultaneously peaked within the two-month period of October and November 1918 in all fourteen European countries analyzed, which is inconsistent with the pattern that researchers would expect if the virus had originated somewhere in Europe and then spread outwards.

Some theorize it was China:

>...In 1993, Claude Hannoun, the leading expert on the Spanish flu at the Pasteur Institute, asserted the precursor virus was likely to have come from China and then mutated in the United States near Boston and from there spread to Brest, France, Europe's battlefields, the rest of Europe, and the rest of the world, with Allied soldiers and sailors as the main disseminators.[70] Hannoun considered several alternative hypotheses of origin, such as Spain, Kansas, and Brest, as being possible, but not likely.[70] In 2014, historian Mark Humphries argued that the mobilization of 96,000 Chinese laborers to work behind the British and French lines might have been the source of the pandemic. Humphries, of the Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, based his conclusions on newly unearthed records. He found archival evidence that a respiratory illness that struck northern China (where the laborers came from) in November 1917 was identified a year later by Chinese health officials as identical to the Spanish flu.

On the other hand:

>...A report published in 2016 in the Journal of the Chinese Medical Association found no evidence that the 1918 virus was imported to Europe via Chinese and Southeast Asian soldiers and workers and instead found evidence of its circulation in Europe before the pandemic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

So far the historical and epidemiological data cannot identify the geographic origin of the Spanish flu.

[Hnrobert42]

> the only constructive discussion that can be had at this point needs to be around actual evidence, and not the absence of it.

I don’t understand this point.

[karmasimida]

> No need for you to preach to the choir about not trusting the Chinese government

I am honestly laughing like this needs to be communicated to the HN folks, like it bares any insights, like it is not already the default political correctness for majority here.

The top comment is as useless as to say the OP would believe whatever he/she would love to believe whatever the evidence presented.

New Yorker puts it well:

"The site’s now characteristic tone of performative erudition—hyperrational, dispassionate, contrarian, authoritative—often masks a deeper recklessness"