Coronavirus

[mids]

That's very good. I doubt we'll ever know but some of the experts did note that initial balanced discussions moved quite quickly to ruling out the LLT entirely on the basis of no new evidence. Others said that it was science in action.

[ootlg]

Ruling out the LLT seemed to have some bearing on funding the Chinese. Also, much of the highly sensitive work was done in less secure grade 2 labs in Wuhan's "Wild West".

[mids]

This is a political, not a scientific reason for arguing against LLT.

"He also warned his colleagues that further debate about the “accusation” that SARS-CoV-2 may have been engineered and released into the environment by humans “would unnecessarily distract top researchers from their active duties and do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular.” He expressed doubt that a follow-up discussion about the origin question “needs to be done on very short term,” given other pressing issues."

[ootlg]

Precisely. As there is no evidence (?) to support any of the theories it's odd they'd want to stifle it. If there was evidence that the outbreak was outside the Lab there'd be no reason to stifle it. And 'harm to science' is a bit of a non-runner, science being science, which again points to the harming or even discontinuation of funds going to (certain branches of) science.

[voice]

Mar 18, 2023 9:00:17 GMT perrykneeham said:

One way or another, the Chinese are to blame. Either through scientific incompetence or squalid indifference to animal welfare.

on that, there is no doubt

[flatandy]

I’m glad even our right wing loons have finally accepted that it wasn’t the worst-ever bioweapon created by the powers that be in order to crush Freedom.

[voice]

When you say no evidence to support either theory it just shows you've ignored the stuff that leans heavily towards wild covid. I can't remember exactly how long it took to do the initial gene sequence of the novel SARS Covid 2, but it was well within the first 6 months and that pointed strongly to wild covid, all subsequent studies of the virus including the one out this week appear to back up the initial findings of wild covid. Yet still the only thing pointing to the lab is that it exists, no one has brought forward anything other than that to make the case for the LLT any stronger.

putting aside all the lunatic lab conspiracies that have all been easily debunked, while you can never dismiss entierly it leaked from a lab, what is known to a fairly high degree now is it jumped from animal to human by itself and not as a result of human meddling with it first.

[mids]

I see the left are unable to understand or accept the science. It's as if the CCP have some kompromat on them. Komplomat.

[voice]

Ok then, show us your evidence to back up the LLT.

Though, that someone like yourself who has a PhD in a related field, steadfastly refusing to accept evidence for political reasons cos you feel the evidence of wild covid undermines the loons on the far right you worship, its a sad reflection of the state academic decline.

[mids]

See, that's not my position. My position, as I've said repeatedly, is that there is now a likelihood that it was a lab leak. The Wuhan market hasn't been ruled out but it seems that that is now less likely. For reasons (probably multiple) that are a bit hard to discern, there was a fairly early shift away from an open and reasoned debate for each theory to an established theory that it couldn't possibly be a lab leak and so among the media, at least, the idea of a lab leak was ridiculed, poo-poo'd and even suppressed. Now however, and with no new evidence, the LLT has gained ground and is being given proper consideration and some "official" backing. The article ootlg posted is very good on the switch from equal consideration among virologists to backing only one horse quite early on, although it does seem that among scientists, it wasn't as clear cut as the media made it appear.

[voice]

based on what though, show us your working that lead you to believe that over the evidence of genetic sequencing that points to wild covid, what is it about the virus that makes you want to discount actual evidence of wild covid and lean more towards the idea that the lab did it? Citations, evidence, that kind of thing will do.

oh and you know why the lab theory has been wildly pilloried, its not cos the lab may have been the source, its cos the lab leak thing was glommed onto by a wide variety of far right lunatics' who wove numerous bullshit conspiracies around its mere existence, all of which have been easily debunked, and while you may prefer to push the line it was just a handful of loons, it really wasn't, it was, and is, widespread on the right believed and pushed by millions of your fellow far righters.

[ootlg]

Mar 18, 2023 16:13:04 GMT voice said:

When you say no evidence to support either theory it just shows you've ignored the stuff that leans heavily towards wild covid. I can't remember exactly how long it took to do the initial gene sequence of the novel SARS Covid 2, but it was well within the first 6 months and that pointed strongly to wild covid, all subsequent studies of the virus including the one out this week appear to back up the initial findings of wild covid. Yet still the only thing pointing to the lab is that it exists, no one has brought forward anything other than that to make the case for the LLT any stronger.

putting aside all the lunatic lab conspiracies that have all been easily debunked, while you can never dismiss entierly it leaked from a lab, what is known to a fairly high degree now is it jumped from animal to human by itself and not as a result of human meddling with it first.

Did you read the link?

[ootlg]

Mar 18, 2023 18:25:43 GMT voice said:

based on what though, show us your working that lead you to believe that over the evidence of genetic sequencing that points to wild covid, what is it about the virus that makes you want to discount actual evidence of wild covid and lean more towards the idea that the lab did it? Citations, evidence, that kind of thing will do.

oh and you know why the lab theory has been wildly pilloried, its not cos the lab may have been the source, its cos the lab leak thing was glommed onto by a wide variety of far right lunatics' who wove numerous bullshit conspiracies around its mere existence, all of which have been easily debunked, and while you may prefer to push the line it was just a handful of loons, it really wasn't, it was, and is, widespread on the right believed and pushed by millions of your fellow far righters.

Did you read the link?

[mids]

All the evidence in both directions seems circumstantial. There's no smoking gun but there are definitely patterns of behaviour from the Chinese and some evidence of early infections that were suppressed by them. There seems to be a bit of disagreement over the viriiiiii evolution about whether it could or could not have evolved naturally. One huge missing piece is the animal origin evidence, if that's where it came from. SARS and MERS were traced in less than a year yet here we are years later and nothing. The left have painted themselves into a corner here. Now you're covered in Ronseal and it's starting to dry.

[ootlg]

And the security of Chinese labs was in question:

"“Surely that wouldn’t be done in a BSL-2 lab?” wrote Collins, referring to biosafety level 2 labs, which do not have the most stringent safety protocols.

“Wild West…” was Farrar’s response, an apparent reference to lab practices in China or possibly to the Wuhan Institute of Virology itself."


It's odd that some are desperate to cling onto their view come what may: there's no definitive evidence here, but the old 'conspiracy theory loons' keeps getting dragged up as some form of justification.

[voice]

Mar 19, 2023 9:06:37 GMT mids said:

All the evidence in both directions seems circumstantial. There's no smoking gun but there are definitely patterns of behaviour from the Chinese and some evidence of early infections that were suppressed by them. There seems to be a bit of disagreement over the viriiiiii evolution about whether it could or could not have evolved naturally. One huge missing piece is the animal origin evidence, if that's where it came from. SARS and MERS were traced in less than a year yet here we are years later and nothing. The left have painted themselves into a corner here. Now you're covered in Ronseal and it's starting to dry.

So you think the two published studies on the genetic sequencing of the original virus and the follow up studies on the sequencing of the variants are circumstantial? Weird, thought you were a scientist and academic.

Though you are certainly correct that the Chinese by their trying to cover it up and pretend there was nothing wrong have made it almost impossible now to ever know for sure.

If anyone's in a corner its you, you are refusing to accept data pointing strongly to wild covid, preferring to say the LLT is stronger despite little actual data linking it to the lab, all because the far right have been on the lab conspiracy rollercoaster for almost 3 years and you can't be seen to be breaking for your tribe.

I've already said if strong data or proof of a lab leak comes forward I'd accept it, that's what you do with evidence, while you continue to dismiss any evidence that does not back up your LLT.

[mids]

This paper cautiously casts some doubt on the zoonotic origin although they don't rule it out.  Their analyses suggests that by November 2019, covid was already adapted to human transmission and that it's likely that humans infected the Wuhan market rather than the other way around. Unlike you, who has plumped rigidly for the zoonotic origin, my mind is gaping wide open.

"In a side-by-side comparison of evolutionary dynamics between the 2019/2020 SARS-CoV-2 and the 2003 SARS-CoV, we were surprised to find that SARS-CoV-2 resembles SARS-CoV in the late phase of the 2003 epidemic after SARS-CoV had developed several advantageous adaptations for human transmission. Our observations suggest that by the time SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in late 2019, it was already pre-adapted to human transmission to an extent similar to late epidemic SARS-CoV. However, no precursors or branches of evolution stemming from a less human-adapted SARS-CoV-2-like virus have been detected. The sudden appearance of a highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 presents a major cause for concern that should motivate stronger international efforts to identify the source and prevent near future re-emergence. Any existing pools of SARS-CoV-2 progenitors would be particularly dangerous if similarly well adapted for human transmission. To look for clues regarding intermediate hosts, we analyze recent key findings relating to how SARS-CoV-2 could have evolved and adapted for human transmission, and examine the environmental samples from the Wuhan Huanan seafood market. Importantly, the market samples are genetically identical to human SARS-CoV-2 isolates and were therefore most likely from human sources. We conclude by describing and advocating for measured and effective approaches implemented in the 2002-2004 SARS outbreaks to identify lingering population(s) of progenitor virus.

"There has been considerable debate among scientists and the public on whether SARS-CoV-2 originated from the Wuhan Huanan seafood market (2). According to the Chinese CDC’s website, accessed on April 27, 2020, SARS-CoV-2 was detected in environmental samples at the Huanan seafood market, and the Chinese CDC suggested that the virus originated from animals sold there (51). However, phylogenetic tracking suggests that SARS-CoV-2 had been imported into the market by humans (52). To look for clues regarding an intermediate animal host, we turned to samples collected from the market in January, 2020. In contrast to the thorough and swift animal sampling executed in response to the 2002-2004 SARS-CoV outbreaks to identify intermediate hosts (37,53), no animal sampling prior to the shut down and sanitization of the market was reported. Details about the sampling are sparse: 515 out of 585 samples are environmental samples, and the other 70 were collected from wild animal vendors; it is unclear whether the latter samples are from animals, humans, and/or the environment. Only 4 of the samples, which were all environmental samples from the market, have passable coverage of SARS-CoV-2 genomes for analysis. Even so, these contain ambiguous bases that confound genetic clustering with human SARS-CoV-2 genomes. Nonetheless, the market samples did not form a separate cluster from the human SARS-CoV-2 genomes. We compared the market samples to the human Wuhan-Hu-1 isolate, and discovered >99.9% genome identity, even at the S gene that has exhibited evidence of evolution in previous CoV zoonoses. In the SARS-CoV outbreaks, >99.9% genome or S identity was only observed among isolates collected within a narrow window of time from within the same species (Figure 5) (15). The human and civet isolates of the 2003/2004 outbreak, which were collected most closely in time and at the site of cross-species transmission, shared only up to 99.79% S identity (Figure 5) (37). It is therefore unlikely for the January market isolates, which all share 99.9-100% genome and S identity with a December human SARS-CoV-2, to have originated from an intermediate animal host, particularly if the most recent common ancestor jumped into humans as early as October, 2019 (54,55). The SARS-CoV-2 genomes in the market samples were most likely from humans infected with SARS-CoV-2 who were vendors or visitors at the market. If intermediate animal hosts were present at the market, no evidence remains in the genetic samples available."


www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.073262v1.full

[mids]

By the way, I'm not pretending to understand most of that paper, just their conclusions.

[voice]

Interesting, and thank you. Though the paper is from May 2020 and while I'm no expert, this was before it was first sequenced and before we realized it was, and not, as they stated, stable, but muted quite quickly with, now multiple, varients, in fact it's mutated as early models predicted to be more easily spread but less deadly.

So while its an interesting paper (concerning it says it was never peer reviwed) we have learned an awful lot more since, so I still lean more to accepting the latest reserch over something produced just a few months into the pandemic.

Though, again, should some new data back this early assessment up rather than continue to point to wild covid, I'll certainly be changing my view of things and won't continue to cling to old reaserch simply cos I think it backs what I want to believe.

[mids]

"We"? "We"?