zlacker

>>codech+(OP)
This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life. I'd ask everyone to please read it because it is incredible.

One thing I did not realize is that US researchers who conducted gain of function research tried to downplay and discredit the possibility of the virus originating from the wuhan lab. There was an anti-lab theory Lancet statement signed by scientists, and "Daszak had not only signed but organized the influential Lancet statement, with the intention of concealing his role and creating the impression of scientific unanimity."

Plus there's all the stuff about the miners shoveling bat poop for weeks and then dying of coronaviruses, and the Wuhan institute collecting and doing gain of function research on these similar-to-SARS samples. And then several of the lab's gain of function researchers became ill in late 2019. And there's the weird renaming of samples to hide the unmatched closeness of the mine samples and covid. This is just the absolute surface of the article. There's too much to list here

Edit: here's another amazement for the list: "Shi Zhengli herself had publicly acknowledged that, until the pandemic, all of her team’s coronavirus research — some involving live SARS-like viruses — had been conducted in less secure BSL-3 and even BSL-2 laboratories." And the article says "BSL-2 [is] roughly as secure as an American dentist’s office."

>>bartar+T5
The calculation is simple and could have been made in early 2020. What's the joint probability of occurrence given everything you know about the origins of SARS-CoV-2?

There is _very_ high probability that this is just a human error.

>>tpfour+t8
Was every other emerging virus also created in a lab? SARS? MERS? Influenza? Polio?

The highest probability is this virus originated like every other virus in history.

>>peter4+I8
Did any of them originate a few miles from a pathogen research lab that handled such pathogen that caused those outbreaks?

>>yumraj+49
These labs are in major cities. Epidemics are likely to be detected in Major cities. The chance of an outbreak being near a research lab aren't as long as you seem to think.

If an outbreak were to happen in the United states just about everywhere would be near a CDC location: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&tbs=lf:1,lf...]

>>flukus+E9
As pointed out in the article, there were exactly 3 cities in the world working on gain-of-function research related to bat-originated coronaviruses. Galveston, Texas, Chapel Hill N.C, and Wuhan. It’s way more narrow than just being near a biological laboratory.

>>kaesar+V9
At that point you've subtly moved from lab leak theory to engineered virus theory which is much higher up the conspiracy theory chain.

>>flukus+Ia
That's not what the person you are responding to said at all. Please stop dishonestly conflating the two theories. You can believe that a coronavirus accidentally leaked from a lab that was studying coronaviruses without believing that it was intentional, or that the disease was a bioweapon.

Honestly, this is not a difficult distinction to understand. You have to wonder why people are so eager to conflate the two.

>>tannha+8f
If it's nothing to do with an engineered virus conspiracy then there's no reason to constrain ourselves to the 1 or 2 labs doing that kind of research. If we don't have that constraint then appearing in Wuhan is much less coincidental.

>>flukus+Ef
Listen, if the virus originated in a city that simply had an infectious disease lab, that’s one thing.

For a virus to originate in a city with one of three labs in the entire world conducting heavy-duty researching involving the exact kind of virus that unleashed this pandemic, with the stated intention of working with said viruses to make them more infectious (NOT for the purposes of making a bioweapon) that deserves special consideration. Especially with the fact that the animal the virus is thought to come from ranges 1500 miles south from said city, and started during a time that animal is typically hybernating.

>>kaesar+vg
You do know that there's genetic evidence that seems to point to an origin 600 miles from Wuhan?

> Of 23 samples that came from Wuhan, only three were type A, the rest were type B, a version two mutations from A. But in other parts of China, Forster says, initially A was the predominant strain. For instance, of nine genome samples in Guangdong, some 600 miles south of Wuhan, five were A types. [0]

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