[ch4s3]

I don't really have a stake in this, and no real idea how plausible the lab accident theory is. That said, don't you think that the location of a lab like that would be highly correlated with the location of dangerous natural viral reservoir? Or put another way, if you wanted to study zoonotic viruses, wouldn't you put your lab in a place like that?

[loveistheanswer]

If we have no say in whether or not scientists should be creating super viruses (a.k.a. weapons of mass destruction), I'd prefer they do so somewhere like Antarctica or on a space station, not in the middle of a city.

[bpodgursky]

Not really. The lab is in a major city, and imported samples from all over China (and the rest of the world).

The hypothesized bat in question, if it was really a wet-market outbreak, was imported from hundreds of miles away.

[vergessenmir]

It's also been reported that it wasn't the season for the bat species.

Those in favour of the lab leak hypothesis point out that the virus showed up on the scene with all the evolutionary capability to spread amongst humans i.e with batteries included.

With previous Sars viruses my understanding is that each zoonotic jump was traceable with examples of previous forms in prior animal hosts to corroborate the lineage.

What makes Covid-19 interesting is that these zoonotic jumps or the gain of functions can be accelerated in the lab with the purpose of preparing us ahead of time for a dangerous forms of Sars style viruses. It looks like covid-19 may be that type of strain, not man made, but given the lab conditions for it to gain the capability. It may have escaped.

It's worth exploring the lab leak hypothesis but I would say that it's not politically expedient for any of the scientists or parties involved. We will never really know the truth and that is something we need to grow comfortable with.

[Pyramus]

You are mixing two theories here: A) A lab leak B) Gain of function research.

My understanding is that A) is very much possible because it has happened before (SARS), but we have no evidence yet (and might never acquire).

For B) however, from my limited understanding, there is no strong evidence. We only know about a fraction of existing coronaviruses out there and given we observe one, that has caused a pandemic, the (conditional!) probability that it is well adapted is extremely high (survivorship bias).

If you have a credible source that claims B) please share it.

[bpodgursky]

The Wuhan lab was absolutely involved in gain-of-function research. This has been widely reported https://www.newsweek.com/controversial-wuhan-lab-experiments...

> What's more, Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists have for the past five years been engaged in so-called "gain of function" (GOF) research, which is designed to enhance certain properties of viruses for the purpose of anticipating future pandemics. Gain-of-function techniques have been used to turn viruses into human pathogens capable of causing a global pandemic.

> This is no nefarious secret program in an underground military bunker. The Wuhan lab received funding, mostly for virus discovery, in part from a ten-year, $200 million international program called PREDICT, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and other countries.

[Pyramus]

I'm not doubting that at all, see also this statement by a US embassy [1].

What I'm saying is that we don't have strong (any?) evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is the result of gain of function research. It is entirely possible but the majority of the scientists who do gain of function research say it's unlikely (given what we know today, which might change).

Again, a credible source saying the opposite is appreciated.

[1] https://ge.usembassy.gov/fact-sheet-activity-at-the-wuhan-in...

[Enginerrrd]

>What I'm saying is that we don't have strong (any?) evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is the result of gain of function research

There is analysis that suggests that SARS-CoV-2 wasn't engineered. However, if you were intentionally giving it to a bunch of animals in batches with some interspecies mixing, you wouldn't really expect it to look any different than a natural jump.

[Enginerrrd]

We do at least know that they were doing gain-of-function research on coronaviruses in the Wuhan lab, since the US publicly funded it.

[polartx]

Isn’t he referring to a lab leak of a virus which was engineered with ‘gains of function’. I’m particularly convinced of this theory because it explains the glaring weakness of the Covid-19 virus to UV radiation (ie sunlight). If Chinese researches were modifying viral samples to gain functions (evolutionary or otherwise), weakness against sunlight is a believable oversight, considering it wouldn’t have been subjected to it indoors.

[8note]

Huh? Do most viruses thrive in UV radiation?

I thought UV resistant organisms were usually referred to as extremophiles because it's so infrequent

[ch4s3]

After giving this a few hours of thought, I now think it's all most likely a coincidence base on presently available evidence, for what that's worth.

[abecedarius]

The claim I've read is that the bats live thousands of miles away. We shouldn't need to speculate.

[hyperpape]

The migratory range of bats is apparently up to 2000 miles: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7149675/ (no idea whether this describes the specific bats that are known reservoirs of these viruses).

[minblaster]

If I wanted to study zoonotic viruses, I would put labs in places filled with universities or government agencies focused on disease, like Boston, Atlanta, Maryland.

Tell me about that lab in the Congo again.