[lil-lugger]

Never before have I so often been convinced by the last thing I read about this topic on either side. Usually the smartest people in the room agree and eventually convince other people who are genuinely trying to seek the truth. In this case, I’ll see a HN comment laying out how it’s obvious it’s lab leak for xyz convincing reason and then a twitter thread from a virologist debunking everything with a thread about how the lab leak theory is ridiculous. At the end of it all I probably lean toward lab leak simply because it just feels like it makes sense (which is not great reasoning I know!). I don’t know if more evidence coming out will move the trenches that are already dug deep. People like me can be swayed still possibly…

[torstenvl]

There's no such field as forensic virology. If you try to Google "forensic virologist," it will automatically correct to "forensic serologist." A virologist, without more, has absolutely no relevant expertise on the issue of whether the outbreak was due to a lab leak or came directly to the wet market from a natural source.

A virologist who is also a geneticist may have relevant expertise on whether the viral genetics indicate that the existence of the virus is natural or artificial, given a sufficient knowledge of extant viruses known to be naturally occurring. However, an engineered virus could have come from somewhere other than the WIV; or alternatively, a naturally occurring virus being studied at the WIV could have leaked. The question of whether the virus is naturally occurring is orthogonal to the question of whether it leaked from the WIV.

[rcarr]

> At the end of it all I probably lean toward lab leak simply because it just feels like it makes sense

This is how I see it too. You have a lab that was world famous for coronavirus research, that happens to be in the same city as ground zero for a coronavirus pandemic, and the government of the country that city belongs to hide, obfuscate and destroy the information they have, particularly to do with the early emergence of the virus, from the rest of the world.

Occam's razor.

[baja_blast]

> then a twitter thread from a virologist debunking everything with a thread about how the lab leak theory is ridiculous

As someone who has followed this closely one thing I noticed is the disingenuousness of many of these virologists in their arguments.

Here is a list of disingenuousness points I always here:

1. "But it took almost a decade to find the origin of SARS" this is misleading since they are talking about ancestral origin (i.e. what bat it came from and how it evolved) but when people say no animal has been found they mean proximal origin i.e. what intermediate host infected patient zero. And for SARS1 they found that within months, MERS less than a year despite having less than 600 cases at the time.

2. "The lab is there because that's where the viruses are", now this one is more of a direct lie since it's just completely false, they just expect no one will check up on that claim.

3. "Mutating a virus leaves marks so we know it was not modified", this is false the technology to leave seamless edits has been around for a decade and is the standard practice. But there are many common locations they may insert a change typically in S1/S2 junction which surprise surprise SARS2 furin cleaveage site is located. It also happens to be where they proposed to insert furin cleaveage site's in the DEFUSE proposal.

4. "We do not have the technology to create a virus from scratch", this argument is a straw man since what people argue happened was SARS2 is a modified animal virus taken from field samples, and possibly enchanted through serial passaging in humanized mice models

[lamontcg]

> And for SARS1 they found that within months

They sterilized the wet market this time. With SARS1 the market was open and there were infected animals there when they went and looked. The reaction to this pandemic was to attempt to sterilize everything.

> possibly enchanted

It wasn't "possibly enchanted".

SARS-CoV-2 is still 1,000 mutations and a couple decades of evolution away from the closest known animal virus that WIV might have had, and which there's no evidence that they had that live virus in the lab. And you don't get from one to the other from forming chimeras or from serial passage experiments. The mutations were all distributed around the genome.

[ricksunny]

I believe 'enchanted' was an autoincorrect of 'enhanced' -(an activity which, by the way, moots molecular clock arguments)

[lamontcg]

No it doesn't. We don't have any magic that can create decades worth of mutations across the entire genome.

[ricksunny]

Yes and,

>then a twitter thread from a virologist debunking everything with a thread about how the lab leak theory is ridiculous.

The virologists & evolutionary biologists writing these twitter threads are, shall we say, 'highly conserved'; On Twitter, it's always the same few folks - Rasmussen, Andersen (now off Twitter), Worobey & Debarre, self-referencing each other ad nauseam. Second-tier (at least in terms of volume) Holmes, Bauer, Goldstein, & Rasmussen's PhD advisor Racaniello.

[mharig]

I wonder why this

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fviro.2022.8348...

is not more widely discussed.

[nocoiner]

Ha, I think I’m probably in a pretty similar boat as you. I don’t have the expertise to evaluate any of the underlying science, so all I can really do is try to logically evaluate whatever I read about it (taking into account the author’s probable motivations). I think my current view is that is probably isn’t a deliberately engineered bioweapon, almost certainly wasn’t deliberately released, and could go either way on zoonotic transmission and an accidental release.

The aspect that puzzles me most are the claims (which still seem to circulate regularly) saying that the virus was definitely present (in Wuhan, or Italy, or wherever) in Q3 2019. But I’ve never seen any direct evidence of this. Shouldn’t it be a pretty trivial matter of testing pre-pandemic blood samples to definitely identity whether or not the virus is present? I’m sure I’m missing something, but if HIV could be identified from late ‘50s specimens that had been forgotten in a Belgian Congolese lab for several decades, I don’t know what would be different here.

[credit_guy]

I don't have many doubts in my mind that it was a lab leak.

But then, so what?

Let's say that someone presents irrefutable evidence at these hearings. Not long after you'll start hearing demands for reparations. The US is large, and you can find people that hold all sorts of opinions. Some will claim that it is only just that China needs to pay. One quadrillion dollars.

But then, even if the virus came from a lab leak, it was our own ineptitude that resulted in so many deaths. I remember CNN's Sanjay Gupta telling everyone that you don't need masks, that you only need to wash hands, that it's safe to travel on an airplane. In a show dedicated to educating people about Covid. Did China force him to say these things? By the way, there was nothing special about Gupta, all sorts of medical experts were proclaiming the same falsehoods.

Ok, let's make China pay. But what exactly should they pay for? CDC says that 1.1 million people have died in the US from Covid as of today, and 6.1 million have been hospitalized. How many of these deaths and hospitalizations could have been avoided with a proper government response?

One reasonable response from China could be: in our country only about 120k people have died of Covid, and our population is 4 times higher than yours. With a competent handling of the situation, you could have had only 30k deaths. Less than 3% of the deaths you did have. If you want us to pay reparations, we pay for 3% and you pay for the 97% that your action or inaction caused. How's that?

And of course, China could rightfully point to the fact that the research at the WIV was partially funded by the NIH. Specifically the research that lead to the Covid leak. If China is at fault for the leak, so is the US. If China owes reparations to the US, then so the US owes (along with China) to the rest of the world.

So, yes, it was caused by a lab leak. What exactly are we going to do then?

[thunky]

> Ok, let's make China pay. But what exactly should they pay for?

Monetary payment isn't the only way to make them pay.

I'm less concerned about the lab leak itself and more concerned with China's behaviour that followed, assuming the leak is true. They should be treated accordingly.

> CNN's Sanjay Gupta telling everyon

He's a TV personality. I'm more concerned with our own government agency's actions that did major damage to their credibility.

> One reasonable response from China could be: in our country only about 120k people have died of Covid

If you believe a word the Chinese say then you haven't learned the lesson yet, any you're not doing your part to make China "pay".

> And of course, China could rightfully point to the fact that the research at the WIV was partially funded by the NIH.

Yes and now you've identified yet another way to make them pay.

[wsgeorge]

> But then, so what?

Sometimes an answer is an end in itself.

[credit_guy]

Oh, yeah. Because we pursue truth for the sake of truth. Knowledge is what we are after.

In the real world though, this type of answer can increase the likelihood of war. Actual war. I for one am ok with letting this particular "truth" remain unstated.

And let's be honest, it's not like we will ever get the actual "truth". No matter what anyone says, there will always be evidence in support of the opposite view.

[piloto_ciego]

I find the lab leak theory less and less plausible as anti-China rhetoric picks up in the west, to be honest.

[andromeduck]

China pushed the WHO to recommend against masking and airborne spread.