PRRI released a survey today about QAnon believers that mostly contains no surprises. Believers tend to be Republican, white, low-income, evangelical, etc. Here's a chart showing that if you believe in one conspiracy theory, you believe in all of them:
If this polling is correct, it shows the danger of our newfound belief that the coronavirus might have been released from the Wuhan lab. It's one thing to believe in an accidental release, but this poll suggests that 39 percent of Americans believe the virus was intentionally developed by Chinese scientists. This is a very different thing, and there's convincing genomic evidence that it's not true.
So let's be careful with the lab leak theory, OK? Reporters need to take extra care when they write about it to distinguish between an accidental release (possible) and some kind of engineered virus (very unlikely).
The lab leak hypothesis is possible, but completely unsupported by evidence. It should be treated like any number of other speculations that could be true but have no evidence to support them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DpMwDgxC-I
This is all the Chinese dictatorship's own fault. As long as they are so secretive about the virus' origins and restrictive of attempts to investigate it (on top of being a brutal, totalitarian regime that allows no opposition, imprisons Uyghurs, wants to retake Taiwan, etc.), nobody trusts them.
If you are concerned about people believing the Communist Chinese regime does terrible things, you need to convince the dictators to stop giving people reasons to think that way.
How can you not be 'secretive' about something that there is no evidence for?
Dictatorship, you say, demanding evidence that can't exist. It doesn't matter their government style, you're asking for evidence that can't exist.
They have refused to cooperate with legitimate investigations into how the virus emerged. And one reason for that is they are a totalitarian dictatorship, and totalitarians never allow investigations that might show they screwed up.
Who cares if the cooperate or not. Your looking at the wrong part of the world.
Cooperate with who? They cooperated with the WHO.
"Dr. Daszak added that the W.H.O. team was not restricted in its interviews with scientists who were on the ground at the start of the pandemic." -NYTimes
Uninformed, armchair epidemiologists are just making it up as they go along at this point.
They delayed months before bringing the WHO in, and the WHO is beholden to the Chinese government and cannot say publicly that the dictators did not cooperate.
Unfortunately, reporters usually have no understanding of the science, so they'll rely on anyone who seems to be an expert for a quick comment and opinion. Throughout the COVID-19 epidemic I've seen experts quoted on all sorts of things, but in retrospect they didn't know what they were talking about. But I'll say this again...
It's doubtful that the original SARS-CoV-2 variant detected in Wuhan was produced by a gain-in-function process, because it subsequently mutated into more contagious variants (e.g. B.1.1.7, B.1.617, etc.). A gain-in-function process should have produced something more like British or Indian variants.
I'm not saying that lab couldn't have accidentally released the virus. I've recently learned that there have been at least 5 accidental SARS virus releases in Western labs over the years. But I think the odds favor the explanation that it was some ignorant pangolin merchant who was SARS-CoV-2's patient zero, rather than a worker in lab with safety protocols in place releasing the virus accidentally or on purpose.
"it subsequently mutated into more contagious variants (e.g. B.1.1.7, B.1.617, etc.). A gain-in-function process should have produced something more like British or Indian variants."
You don't know that.
First, you don't know if their GoF research re Spike/ACE2 RBD was merely to produce a usable coding combination to then create a chimera, or to find the most efficient attachment. You're strictly relying on the goal of highest efficiency, but, it's not clear that this was their goal.
Second, you're assuming they only had one variant of a specific coding that could have leaked. You honestly don't think they had hundreds of samples of different coding combinations, any one of which may have accidentally leaked under BSL2 or BSL3 conditions?
"the odds favor the explanation that it was some ignorant pangolin merchant who was SARS-CoV-2's patient zero"
This is implausible.
The *only* reason why pangolins are casually linked is because of the matching coding at the RBD. Yet, the only known decoded pangolin coronavirus variants have a *lower* total match than that of the bat RaTG13 that the WIV had documented. To be believed, the pangolin coronavirus made a miraculous series of correct mutations after jumping to humans. That can be tested -- use the recently developed coronavirus antigen test across southern China.
Ha! I'm sure your comment and that of "qx49" is quite meaningful, but you guys need your own forum if you're gonna talk like that.
My understanding is that a GoF couldn't produce a chimera. It just selects for mutations that meet the criteria of the GoF. I think instead that you're suggesting a possible site-directed mutagenesis on the Furin cleavage site and he receptor binding domain?—where a string of pangolin RNA was inserted into the RaTG12 sequence?
(And I was just being sarcastic about the shady pangolin merchants.)
But, yes, you are correct that most of the SARS-CoV-2 sequence closest to bat CoV RaTG13, whereas its RBD is almost identical to that of a pangolin CoV. However, there have been examples of naturally occurring viral chimeras. The fact that the mechanism is not understood, doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen with SARS-CoV-2.
Maybe Chinese researchers did create a chimera, but it would be impossible to *prove* that they used site-directed mutagenesis to create the chimera—even Yuri Deigin, who's pushing for an investigation, admits human intervention wouldn't leave a trace. In Deigin's paper he claims that bat CoVs have been thoroughly studied. The media assumed he meant that *all* bat CoVs have been classified and studied. Other researchers have pointed out the bat CoVs collected so far may be the tip of the iceberg. (Deigin does make a good point that Shi and the WIV teams have published a bunch of papers on CoV chimeras, but that's not a smoking gun, because other labs have done this, too.)
Until recently we haven't a "generic" PCR assay for CoVs. The diagnostics have been very specific—focused on IDing known viruses—it was only recently that Gray and Xiu developed an assay that could detect *all* coronaviruses, even the unknown ones. Researchers using this assay immediately discovered some CoVs that can infect humans that we had no clue existed until now.
Again, unless someone finds a paper trail, we'll never be able to prove that Shi and WIV created this virus. Likewise, focusinf on the WIV as the source for SARS-CoV-2 makes us ignore all the other possibilities that are out there.
Not to beat a dead pangolin, D_Ohrk_E1, but I did some more digging into the Furin cleavage site papers. BTW, thanks for challenging my assumption, because I've discovered that I always learn something new when somebody challenges my reasoning in detail!
Until now, I hadn't realized how mutable the FCS is on the S2 section of the spike protein. Unfortunately, the outbreak dot info website doesn't break out the S1 RBD mutations for the S2 mutations, so I don't know what the proportions are between the two. (https://outbreak.info/situation-reports#custom-report)
So, yes, a gain-of-function series could have also be run against the FCS to make SARS-CoV-2 more infective. But that leaves the big question of where did the original pangolin-like FCS come from?
Turns out that the bat RaTG13 CoV was collected in 2012, but no one has been back to the cave to collect any more recent Coronavirus samples. And the experts don't think that that was only CoV harbored in that particular bat population. The non-conspiracy explanation for not doing any more caving is that it's dangerous to go in there, and that's why Chinese have blocked access to the site. The conspiracy explanation is that Dr. Shi found something really nasty there, and the Chinese are hiding something from the rest of the world.
As to the origin of the pangolin-like FCS in SARS-CoV-2, it turns out there are some codon differences between the the pangolin FCS in and the SARS-CoV-2 FCS. This paper dumps cold water on a chimera having happened through recombination (either site-directed mutagenesis in the lab or a natural chimeric event).
file:///Users/wullosee/Downloads/preprints202102.0264.v1.pdf
"This makes it difficult to consider a virus recombination as mechanism for
the PRRA acquisition. The origin of SARS-CoV-2, is the origin of the recognition cleavage site. The bat coronavirus RaTG13 appears to be the closest relative of the SARS-CoV-2, but was isolated in 2013. So, new
RatG13 samples would provide insights into the acquisition of the polybasic motif."
Sorry. The link is...
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202102.0264/v1
Re: "So let's be careful with the lab leak theory, OK? Reporters need to take extra care when they write about it to distinguish between an accidental release (possible) and some kind of engineered virus (very unlikely)."
I think it's quaint we still think reporting matters to the convince-able. Anti-social media gets orders of magnitude more attention. Toothpaste eternally leaking out of the tube...
The emphasis should be on the word "possible". The Zoonotic explanation has come up dry so far, and it's certainly possible for lab leak incidents to occur - but there's just no evidence on it, much less anything to support the dubious speculation about it supposedly being engineered.
It seems unlikely we'll see any evidence of it, either. The Chinese government has been pretty aggressive in trying to cover up even zoonotic outbreaks for fear of embarrassment, and I imagine the censorship on a suspected lab leak would be even more intense.
The Chinese government is irrelevant. That is part of the problem. Europe's data supports a October 2019 outbreak. Pure and simple, that wasn't the flu.
Sorry, it was the flu. Actual flu tests say it was the flu. The fact that people who got the flu in October 2019 also were susceptible to COVID also says it was.
This scientist apparently has a very good track record (per prominent people like Nate Silver) and he pegs the lab lead probability at 2%.
https://twitter.com/florian_krammer
Anyone putting a hard percentage on things is automatically suspect. Also Silver has spent his pandemic opining on things he knows less than nothing about.
Too right, that. Unfortunately.
Yeah.. Nate Silver is a cancer.
I wouldn't say that. My thought is that he is merely yet another example of the Peter Principle.
He is that too, in spades
Anyone putting a hard percentage on things is automatically suspect.
Why would an eminent PhD research scientist making an educated estimate by "automatically suspect?" Because it doesn't jive with the outcome you're hoping for?
Has the Dilbert guy weighed in yet?
Scott Adams, and yes, apparently, but someone else will have to listen to it.
Per Florian Krammer (via Twitter)...
"Sure? Occam's razor. So many people are exposed to bats every day in South East Asia. So many chances for this to happen. Day in day out. Versus a lab accident where all stars would have to align."
Exactly!
+1
Believing it was intentionally *developed* is not the same as believing it was intentionally *released*.
It seems wildly unlikely, into the crazy QAnon territory to believe it was intentionally released. It seems somewhat unlikely, but hardly crazy to believe it was developed but accidentally released.
It is not rational to believe a hypothesis that, while possible, even plausible, is unsupported by evidence, such as the hypothesis that it was developed but accidentally released. You may distinguish between "irrational" and 'crazy"; I don't.
If Drum is right, no wild candidates have yet been found and no intermediate animal between bats and humans either.
So the pure natural route also has no evidence supporting it.
The thing is, the number of wild viruses we know about are vastly out-numbered the ones we don't know about.
That's not true for viruses in captivity.
Quite true, so it's not rational to believe that either. The only rational position is "we don't know".
'It is a capital mistake to theorize in the absence of evidence.'
-- S. Holmes
This story has absolutely nothing to do with determining the cause of Covid-19 and how to prevent or mitigate reoccurrence. It has everything to do with politics and the desire of Trumpists to say “HA HA! Trump was right again!!” Our pathetic “news” organizations will keep this up because controversy is good for their bottom line. Then they will sorrowfully report the sad news of people who look Asian getting beat up and murdered.
Unfortunately in this case MAGA seems to be getting some rhetorical ammo from prominent non-American scientists. The latter are right to maintain the lab leak theory remains possible, of course -- it hasn't been disproved, after all. But it would probably have helped for them to have been more careful with their words: (something to the effect of "We haven't ruled any explanation out or in, but the evidence continues to strongly suggests zoonotic spillover.") Then again maybe they're trying to pressure Beijing into being more forthcoming.
But, other than scientific reasons of better understanding Covid-19, why does this matter at all? If it was determined it was an accidental leak would China admit it? And suppose they know it is an accidental leak, wouldn’t they already have taken steps to assure it didn’t happen again? What is there to do other than that? Demand reparations? Stop trading with them? Demand their government resign? Go to war?
If this is only a story of what the science is it wouldn’t be in the news every day, particularly in the Right Wing News. Trump isn’t President any more but MAGAland seems to dictate the news narrative every day.
Some people simply need to know where the virus came from. I have no idea why, for basically the same reasons you've identified: If we knew for a fact that China did it, what exactly would we do differently? How would we "punish" China for doing it - launch another world war, destroy our own economy in the process of destroying theirs, what? How would it improve our handling of it now that it's widespread? Crickets usually are heard in response. But it still remains that some people simply cannot deal with "we don't know and we likely will never know where the virus came from" and need a scapegoat to blame.
"And suppose they know it is an accidental leak, wouldn’t they already have taken steps to assure it didn’t happen again?"
Not really. I think that a global pandemic that has cost humanity millions of lives and trillions of dollars is probably not a bad excuse to place some sharp scrutiny on how carefully labs are handling potentially deadly viruses. Even if there's only a 1% likelihood that this is a lab accident, that means a probabilistic share of like ~$500 billion in harm. That's worth investigating.
It is front page banner headline news on Fox. Do you think that’s because they believe it is something worth investigating for scientific reasons?
Why does this matter at all? Because the right wing loonies think it's a chance to "own the libs".
And do you know why that is? It is because people with two little grey cells to knock together don't read or watch much dedicated news channels, much less subscribe to them (I only have WaPo & NYT myself.) That leaves the vast unwashed who have a craving for a news-like product. And to them, the subscription base, this is 'news'.
I think the answer to "why does it matter" is that military contractors would love to spend the next 20 years saying "you'd better pay for this super advance weapons system; look what China did with a little virus; now imagine what they'll do with missiles."
In other words, it matters because it's going to become part of the vocabulary of why we have to fear Chinese military aggression.
THIS.
If Osama hadn't butted in, we'd be celebrating W's 2 decade old (cold) war against China. Lots of lucrative weapons contracts doled out to prevent the Red Menace from washing up on our Pacific coast.
China has been a nuclear power, with the missiles to deliver them, since the 1960's. Whatever fearmongering that has led to, it did so long ago. Secondly, only an idiot would think that SARS-CoV-2 was developed as a bioweapon. Do the Chinese fear invasion by an army of octogenarians?
Replying to your comment below ("It is front page banner headline news on Fox. Do you think that’s because they believe it is something worth investigating for scientific reasons?")
No, I don't think that's why Fox News is beating this or any other drum. But that's different than why figuring out how the pandemic started matters. That was your initial question: "why does this matter at all?"
The covid pandemic is the most significant thing to happen to humanity since WW2. We shouldn't be discounting the importance of figuring out exactly what happened and what we need to do differently going forward out of fear that some racists somewhere will misinterpret data for their own agenda.
What about, 'racists are making stuff up and pretending it's an investigation'?
Note that I said this:
“other than scientific reasons of better understanding Covid-19, why does this matter at all?”
Understanding Covid is a job for scientists not politicians, pundits, and general Trump toadies. I don’t fear “racists somewhere” I fear racists here. And I don’t fear they will misinterpret findings, I fear they will use the investigation to point fingers and excuse violence against people who look Asian.
I'm going with Door "D". It's going to happen some day, so better now when our existing capabilities are still slightly better than theirs.
@iamr4man
Well, I'm dismayed by a lot of the breathless, neo-McCarthyite, anti-China hysteria coming out of Washington in recent times (especially before Trump left). But the reality is even a squish like me acknowledges the West is in an ideological competition with China. So, apart from any scientifically useful information that might flow from getting the details of the pandemic's start, I'd frankly want the Xi regime taken down a peg or two. He's a vicious thug. Who knows, maybe a real black eye for the PRC/CCP over covid would hasten Xi's departure (not likely, but you never know). That would be a win for the world.
I just happen to be of the opinion that even this desirable outcome doesn't justify gaslighting or peddling fake narratives; and to my eyes it look like the evidence overwhelmingly points to a natural zoonotic spillover event.
Let the Orange Man be wrong though the heavens fall!
Look, you are changing the meaning of the question as you report this. The question asked whether people believe the virus was intentionally developed. It is perfectly possible that this is the case and that it was accidentally released. In fact, all four combinations of intentional/accidental development/release are possible and none of them can at the moment be totally ruled out by the evidence currently available.
Intentional release is the very unlikely because it would be such an incredibly stupid and dangerous thing to do, and would likely blow back on China (and, if that is what happened, in fact it did blow back.)
But accidental releases from biosafety labs do occur from time to time, even from labs with the highest level of security (BSL-4). This wouldn't be the first and probably wouldn't be the last either. Also, the regulations for coronaviruses other than the ones that cause SARS and MERS require only BSL-2 handling, which is about the level of precautions practiced in dental offices. So an escape from that level of security would not be all that unlikely.
My bottom line: the accidental release story is plausible, and so far we have failed to find the intermediate species through which the natural origin story occurred. So the natural origin story is losing credibility over time. That's good Bayesian reasoning. We may never find out what really happened. But whatever may be the case, we should not de-emphasize certain possibilities just because the QAnon crazies will latch on to them. Crazies gonna craze.
The question asked whether people believe the virus was intentionally developed. It is perfectly possible that this is the case and that it was accidentally released.
Your "perfectly possible" is doing a great deal of heavy lifting. As Kevin points out, there is genomic evidence strongly suggesting a natural, zoonotic origin for covid19. "Not impossible" might be an ok way to put it -- but "perfectly possible" carries an air of "quite likely."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01383-3
The lab leak hypothesis in general should probably be characterized along these lines, too (that is, can't been ruled out). But, "not-impossible" is a very far cry from "likely" and one gets the impression a lot of folks think believe it's the latter. At this point the main thing the lab leak theory has going for it is the fact that the means of zoonotic spillover have not been identified (hardly a rare delay -- it's only been eighteen months -- in the history of epidemiology).
'Your "perfectly possible" is doing a great deal of heavy lifting'
Not at all! In fact there is a long paper trail as to exactly how and why these types of modifications/developments were made.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html
It's really blowing my mind how the content of that NYMag article has made nary a dent in most people's strong assurances that "there's no evidence" for a lab leak/gain of function modification. Certainly the information in the article is circumstantial, but there's so much of it that it's borderline ideological to insist that a non-zoo original is nearly impossible.
Reminds me of people waving away the lead-crime hypothesis . . .
The evidence isn't just circumstantial, it's conjecture.
It's really blowing my mind how the content of that NYMag article has made nary a dent in most people's strong assurances that "there's no evidence" for a lab leak/gain of function modification
That's a mischaracterization from what I can see. "Nary a dent" isn't accurate: I believe many people were not aware that the lab leak theory hadn't been disproven. The NY Magazine article and other media coverage should ensure that anyone who follows the news is now fully aware that the lab leak scenario can't be ruled out, and thus remains a possibility. In my view this is a non-trivial "dent."
HOWEVER, my (pretty obsessive, frankly) following of this story informs me that the bulk of the expert opinion doesn't accept the NY Magazine article's *case, but, rather, believes (by pretty overwhelming majorities, frankly) that the natural zoonotic spillover explanation remains by far the most plausible scenario as to how this plague started.
*That is, majority scientific opinion accepts that the lab leak theory hasn't been disproven but considers said theory very unlikely.
"The Zoonotic explanation has come up dry so far..."
Well, then, it must have been a lab in China. Sheesh.
It took many decades for scientists to identify the source of the Marburg virus (a bat species). They still haven't identified the source of Ebola. But it's now been more than a year since the SARS-CoV-2 virus appeared, so it's obviously time to give up looking for a natural source and declare it the result of a lab release. Today, absence of evidence about one thing can be taken as proof for another, despite a lack of evidence for it.
We've reached the point where the idiocy is so prevalent, so pervasive that there is diminishing hope of our returning to a rational way of life. Media are dominated by "click bait," millions of increasingly narcissistic Americans are obsessed with social media recognition, and one of our two major political parties has abandoned democracy, truth, science, and decency.
It's prudent to assume that this possibility is in fact a possibility and investigate it as much as we can. At the same time continuing to search for a natural origin.
Your statement seems to suggest we forget about the possibility at all.
Your comment suggests that you think it was made in a lab, given absolutely no evidence.
If it takes us decades to find the cause doesn't mean we stop looking, which... is what the people blaming it on magical super-science lab would have you believe.
Zoonotic? Like, the early 90s U2 tour?
I don’t really understand the significance of the lab leak theory. Either way, we would have had the exact same time to prepare. And either way, the West’s response would have been the same.
Even apart from issues of China, how do we do things better in future (ie what is an appropriate balance of investigation vs remaining in ignorance, how much more should labs spend to isolate themselves, should labs of this sort all be placed deep in the desert rather than cities, etc etc) if we refuse to actually understand what might have happened in this most serious outbreak?
But, at least for everyone in the West outside of possibly Italy, the exact origin of the virus and whether lab safety protocols need to be upgraded (or followed better) is not really going to make much of a difference to the next pandemic for basically the same reason that Western countries couldn't get a handle on the virus this time.
How we do things better in the future depends, evidently, on whether we elect better leaders. That's particularly true here in the United States where, thanks to the Republican Party, the virus has essentially a lobby consisting of the ruling party and roughly one-third of the country seeking to protect the virus and worsen the situation.
No matter how careful we are in the future, nothing will change in the next pandemic or the one after that. This focus on the origins of the virus are, in a political context, much like the man who lost his car keys in a dark alley but looks for the under the street lamp because that's where it's light.
handling a pandemic and preventing one are two separate and distinct issues. certainly "we" failed in our handling of covid19 and need to learn from it in order to be better prepared for the next novel disease to come down the pike. there are also lessons to learn from how it originated in the first place and what can be done to reduce the likelihood of a repeat. it's vital that we be doing both.
I think think they’re exactly the same. If you can’t hand one, you can’t handle the other.
Republicans both disarmed our preparedness and our response. So,,,
I'm looking forward to someone being infected with SARS-CoV-2 and MERS at the same time, to let the little buggers get it on in that inimitable way that viruses have.
A return of death rates in The Black Plague range would go a long way toward ameliorating Climate Change and habitat loss.
Would I be correct in assuming that you are Boris Johnson writing under a nom de plume ?
It would prove that China did it deliberately to make Trump look bad and that they are in league with the child molesting Democrat Party.
If that was China's goal, they failed almost entirely to implement it. The virus failed to prod voters into doing the Democratic Party's bidding, unless electing Biden was *the sole goal* in 2020. Republicans gained strength in a ton of down-ballot races, so much so that we're now looking at another decade of Republican gerrymandered control of the House and state legislatures, as well as the possible return of Mitch McConnell's control over the Senate.
You can’t reason with insane people.
There's more money in alleged bribes from Hunter Biden's supposed Chinese interests than there is in real bribes for Ivanka Trump's actual patents.
We could get really, really, really mad at China and do nothing of any real consequence to punish them. However, it might prevent more of the same in the future. That said, the more likely explanation is not one based in a lab.
I think that you’re accidentally conflating the “lab leak” theory with the “bioweapon” theory. My point is that no matter the origins of the virus, the inept response was caused by political and social factors in the West which would remain unchanged during the next pandemic.
And, as you implied, the how the virus got going isn’t significant because you can’t eliminate the exact same problems of human engineering that caused the Italian tramway disaster we were discussing on the blog earlier today. If the lab leak theory is correct, people in the lab overrode or unintentionally disabled what we’re supposed to be multiple redundant safety systems. As long as we have labs studying these viruses the risk will remain.
So we need to have improvements in the redundant safety measures but also, the West needs to see what happened clearly and understand why we failed so badly rather than searching for scapegoats.
Asking reporters to not cash in on fear or outrage dollars is quixotic.
With only 39% of “believers” believing the microchip conspiracy?
Microchips wouldn't fit through the needle. Jes' sayin'.
Yesterday on Twitter I saw a certain contingent working hard to make Tom Cotton the favorite right winger of liberals since Liz Cheney. Kevin makes an important point that should disabuse anyone making Cotton some kind of hero.
In other news, I had unfollowed Yglesias many weeks ago yet his tweets still pop up in my timeline as often as anyone else's. I really wish that would stop. Do I have to block him altogether?
You can mute him, or block him, or select 'latest tweets' instead of 'home'.
But you can't stop your friends from retweeting about him without unfollowing them.
...Which is what I did.
Yeah. Thanks. I think I'll try the mute option next.
The most interesting thing of the survey is, of course, not highlighted. It is that Protestant belief, rather than white or even republican identity, seems to be driving this ill-defined 'conspiracy' belief.
"Hispanic Protestants (26%), white evangelical Protestants (25%), and other Protestants of color (24%) are more likely than other religious groups to agree that the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.[1]"
There figures are similar to on the other questions.
Of course the questions themselves are cr*p. Q anon was a very specific thing and had little to do with Pizza gate or pedophiles in that specificity. It was about a supposedly high ranking government/Trump official that 'knew the score' and would tell followers that, essentially, Trump had everything under control. It was, in fact, a conspiracy to lead Trump supporters into complacency.
Dude, they believe in a version of a Flying ATM. Their "belief barriers" fell a long time ago.
Yeah, and an interesting sub-issue of this is that for the scientifically illiterate, meaning 97% of America, a key piece of evidence being presented is that some lab workers fell ill in November 2019 and went to the hospital. Immediately my Kevin Drum-instincts kicked in when I heard that. How many lab workers usually fall ill in November and go to the hospital? It's entirely possible that it's usually more than whatever the number was in November 2019.
Having spent a few years in China living, studying and working, "going to the hospital" is, I know, exactly what Chinese people do when most people in the US would go to CVS, buy some Tylenol, and rest at home for a day. For whatever reason, in their health system, when you feel unwell or have a fever, the answer is to go to the hospital and be put on a saline drip for a few hours. I'm sure there's some cultural/historical reason for this which I don't know much about but can easily be googled up.
(I confess I haven't paid careful attention to this controversy because it doesn't interest me much; if some of the media articles have discussed the issue of whether the Wuhan lab workers' trips to the hospital in November 2019 were indeed unusual or normal for that time of year, I apologize.)
It's like the complaint that Musk endangered and sickened his workers: Tesla reported four hundred cases of Coronavirus!
Left unsaid is that is lower than the state's infection rate at the time, what you would expect from community spread outside of the factories.
WIV was working on bat coronaviruses, researching coronavirus gain of function of the Spike protein to attach to ACE2, under BSL2 and BSL3 level protocols. BSL4, being the most restrictive, highest level containment, was not used, even though the facility had added the capability.
One of the samples, named RaTG13, WIV had collected from southern China from an abandoned mine, came after an incident where there was a breakout of a respiratory disease involving people who'd recently worked in/around the mine. That virus, at the time, had a 96.1% overall genetic match to SARS-CoV2.
RaTG13 did not match well at a particular region, the "RBD" where the virus' Spike protein attaches itself to ACE2 receptor in humans. Here, a pangolin version matching SARS-CoV2 at the RBD, made lots of experts assume that the source was pangolins from a wet market. However, the pangolin variants were significantly less similar to SARS-CoV2 elsewhere. Furthermore, the first acknowledged infections did *not* come from people who'd visited any wet market.
If there was zoonotic transmission (from animal to human) via a wet market or naturally within the region, it is curious that no one has found the intermediate species. This is unlike what happened with SARS and MERS, where they were able to very quickly find the intermediate species, genetically speaking.
This week, we learned that a cluster of WIV researchers suffered respiratory issues and went to the hospital at around the suspected start of the pandemic. It could have been the flu, but, rarely does a cluster of Influenza result in three associates having to seek medical attention. Most people usually just feel like a train hit them and lie in bed for a week.
Human error is so common, we have checks against it everywhere and entire industries exist around QA/QC and ISO 9000 series, etc. But hey, natural transmission is the leading candidate? Mkay. What's the circumstantial evidence supporting natural transmission, other than to say that it's *also* common? 🤔
Moments ago I just posted a note explaining that in China it's incredibly common to go to the hospital with the slightest hint of respiratory trouble. (Remember, it's a public system. You wait in line forever, but it's very cheap.)
I really don't think the "lab researchers went to the hospital" bit tells us much, at least with the info we have so far.
Okay, I'll do the googling since it's so easy... Just google "China IV drips" and watch the hits unfold for you...
https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1115/chinese-hospitals-go-cold-turkey-iv-drips
Yes, but, I gave this greater credence on the belief that virus researchers would know better than to "seek treatment" aka antibiotic IV drip from a hospital.
Shouldn't we assume that viral researchers know better?
IDK, maybe not. Maybe they're like the majority of people who think antibiotics can treat viruses.
It's my view that you can't assume anything. My only point was that in China it's extremely common to go to the hospital for just about anything. Saying a few people from one organization went to the hospital in November 2019, to me, is meaningless.
I agree that "lab researchers went to the hospital" doesn't tell us much and it is vague enough for people to extrapolate whatever they want. Lots of hospitals have outpatient clinics that treat people and send them on their way.
If there was zoonotic transmission (from animal to human) via a wet market or naturally within the region, it is curious that no one has found the intermediate species.
No. There is nothing the least bit "curious" about failure of the scientific community to unravel the details of a zoonotic spillover event a mere eighteen months or so after the initial outbreak. As several commenters have pointed out, there are decades-old zoonotic events we still haven't clarified.
I smell a concerted media campaign.
The lab-leak hypothesis has been bubbling in the nether regions of the internet, but it burst into the mainstream media about a week ago, even though no new evidence has been uncovered. No the WSJ story about the three lab workers getting sick isn't new: a researcher working for the WHO reported that to NBC News on March 11:
"Virologist Marion Koopmans told NBC News that some scientists working at a Wuhan lab studying the coronavirus became sick in Fall 2019. She says China revealed the researchers tested negative for the virus, and the evidence does not point to a lab leak."
https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/who-team-scientist-wuhan-lab-workers-fell-sick-in-2019-104497733806
The WSJ spiced up their story by claiming it was based on intelligence of "exquisite quality" and that's what caught my attention because I recall intelligence of "exquisite quality" about aluminum tubes back in 2002.
Many will reflexively say that the PRC is lying about the sick lab workers testing negative for the virus, but they are pushing their ideology and have no interest in the actual facts. Recently, David Frum wrote:
"In many ways, what is happening is highly reminiscent of the anti-Communist battles of the late 1940s and early 1950s. In those days, the United States faced a dangerous external challenge from Soviet Communism. Isolationist Republicans had little interest in meeting that challenge: It would cost money and implied foreign commitments. They opposed the Marshall Plan, NATO, everything that really mattered. Instead, they used the foreign threat to justify launching a purge against an enemy within: domestic ideological opponents."
"The United States is today in danger of repeating that sorry history. Pro-Trumpers want to use Chinese misconduct—real and imagined—as a weapon in a culture war here at home. They are not interested in weighing the evidence. They want payback for the political and cultural injuries inflicted on them by the scientists. They want Fauci to have time in the barrel."
Beware of reporter bearing intelligence of "exquisite quality."
You shouldn't assume that China's reporting is accurate or truthful on the subject of testing of WIV associates. If China were to be believed, the Uighurs are enjoying their optional stay at recreational facilities in central China.
Sure, and then those three visiting the hospital in flu season is doubly meaningless. Because that matches what happened the world over in 2019.
After a bad flu season, we had a second 'flu' but it was coronavirus.
Crissa -
Hold on a second here.
I am probably wrong about this but here goes
I would assume the lab workers are NOT elderly.
This means, based upon what we know NOW that they had less severe cases of COVID - many were asymptomatic and very few of the hospitalizations here were young to middle aged.
So, what are the chances this virus was "new" in November? For it to have caused not one not two but 3 younger workers at the same facility to be sick enough to go to the hospital at the same time - it had to have been more widespread than even the Chinese knew - at that time. Correct?
I suspect they stumbled upon something that was wide spread by the time they discovered it. If this is the case we need to re-assess everything
You shouldn't assume that China's reporting is accurate or truthful on the subject of testing of WIV associates
No question.
But you also shouldn't assume that the Murdoch-controlled Wall Street Journal is accurately reporting every aspect of this story, either.
Where's their proof, for instance, with respect to the lab workers who supposedly had covid? Could it have been flu, or bad colds? Also, there have been hints here and there that covid19 was beginning to spread (perhaps initially more slowly, in a less-evolved stage?) earlier than initially thought. If cases were indeed beginning to show up in November in metro Wuhan, that surely is still utterly consistent with natural zoonotic spillover. In other words, "lab workers getting covid in November" might simply mean: A) Wuhan residents were getting infected in growing numbers as early as November because of zoonotic spillover in the autumn or late summer, and B) these lab workers got it, just like plenty of other residents of that city.
(Also, given the likely early investigatory focus on the lab, it wouldn't be surprising if two lab workers who were infected were identified, while lots of random Wuhanites -- especially those with light or asymptomatic cases -- were never discovered).
Lol,Trumpers want a Zionist dictatorship.
Are we back to not believing US intel agencies again?
I am very suspicious of intelligence divulged to press by anonymous sources.
RIP Ahmad Chalabi
The George Washington of Iraq!
Tangled up aluminum tubes!
Lets remember covid-19 was seen years before in East Asia in a earlier premutated form. I tried to say this earlier, it was likely zoonotic transmission occurred years ago. The real point is when covid-19 began mutating into a highly infectious disease. That is what people are missing.
Qnan is a Zionist front based around Zionism. Why even care about them Drum?? I mean, why bother bringing this up again???
Um, er, ah, whatever this "years before" "premutated form" was called, the illness certainly wasn't called "Covid-19". The "19" part has to do with the year of discovery.
And WHERE IS that Block button for this muttonhead?
Dude, you do realize that the virus that became covid-19 was already there years before???? Block yourself.
Lab leak is more reassuring to people than just some random pathogen coming out of nowhere (which could happen again at any random time). Most conspiracy theories are all about soothing fears about what we cannot control. Not that this is a conspiracy theory. But I get why people want to believe it even for non-political reasons.
This. Humans don't do well with the random, chaotic, indifferent nature of the cosmos. We can often go long stretches managing to ignore or forget this state of affairs. But then something like the pandemic (or 911 or the Kennedy assassination) comes around and punctures our comfort bubble. And so come the conspiracy theories to offer an explanation. Because the real explanation -- bad shit happens in a our random, chaotic, indifferent universe -- is scary.
Part of the problem here is how people are parsing the word "intentional".
The statement is "The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was developed intentionally by scientists in a lab" can be both somewhat innocuous or extremely insidious. Part of the point of a lot of these labs is that they *do* intentionally create strains of viruses for study. Hell, we expressly know that US labs have created highly infectious variants of H5N1 (1) (a flu variant that has > 50% mortality), and they did it for study. I feel the insidious interpretation is that it was intentionally *released*.
I think it's entirely reasonable and not at all conspiratorial to say that *if* it came from a lab, the coronavirus variant was intentionally in said lab, and if it was in a lab, there was almost certainly work being done with it, otherwise, why was it in the lab?
I think it's entirely conspiratorial at this point to suggest in any way that if it escaped from said lab, the *release* was intentional. Even the best labs (unfortunately) don't have a great track record of keeping diseases they are working on isolated. Turns out, it's actually very difficult to store and work on viruses without any risk of escape.
(1) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fears-grow-over-lab-bred-flu/
If "it's actually very difficult to store and work on viruses without any risk of escape", why TF is the US "working on" highly infectious variants of H5N1?
Because no risk is not the same as a really low risk. Every time you go down the stairs, there's a low - not no - risk you will trip and die.
Understanding why its far, far more likely that SARS Covid 2 is in fact zoonotic as opposed to something else requires a fairly high level knowledge about genetics and virology, whereas believing that it was some super-virus the Chinese captured from a downed UFO or something, hid in a secret lab funded by Dr. Fauci, and then released on their own population because reasons only requires that you be an idiot or at least someone who pretends to be an idiot purely to pwn the libs. So of course Republicans are all over this.
Why would a Chinese bio-weapons lab develop a virus if not to use it as a bio-weapon? That's the mentality of the Trump Republicans. The more deranged believe the whole pandemic was an elaborate plot to make Trump look bad and help defeat him at the election. As far as they are concerned, a finding that the virus originated in a lab would confirm their entire conspiracy narrative.
The Chinese government is not lacking in information about US politics and attitudes. And of course it is suspicious of American intentions by habit and inclination, after 70 years of relentless hostility from Washington. Why should it allow a bunch of Americans to go on a fishing expedition in Hubei Province, knowing full well some of them will probably be CIA officers and the findings will inevitably be leaked selectively to the Peter Navarros of this world to support anti-China narratives?
LOL. An actual Chi-Com symp!
This. Sino-US relations are already near a low point. From their perspective it's hard to see what risks they run by failing to cooperate. And they quite understandably fear what the lack of good faith on the part of US officials might do to any information that's gleaned from investigators. Also, let's put ourselves in their shoes: the specter of Chinese Communist investigators traipsing around the USA poking their noses at this or that is frankly unimaginable. We'd never allow it.
That's not to say, mind you, that Chinese leadership -- I'm looking at you, Secretary Xi -- doesn't bear a big part of the responsibility for the decline in bilateral relations between Washington and Beijing. Xi Jinping is an arrogant, power-hungry tyrant. But it's pretty clear that substantial elements among the US political class -- mostly in the MAGA/Trump wing of the Republican Party -- wanted that relationship to be weakened as much possible as a goal in its own right (beyond whatever reduction in the closeness of ties was necessitated by the unavoidable divergence of interests between the two countries). Maximalist, gratuitous China-bashing (much of it ginned up for reasons of domestic political consumption) tends not to be very good for, uh, getting cooperation from China.
This is what that looks like.
Social conservatives are the only people capable of self-brainwashing.
Fox News is like The Real Housewives of PBS Newshour.
I would like to thank everyone that has contributed to this thread...if there were awards given for intelligent conversation on the internet...this thread of Kevin's would win.
I learned a lot...and I appreciate it.
(my take, FWIW, a possible positive...Mankind would sit up and reassess all their potential weapons of mass destruction, dismantle and destroy all atomic weapons, close all Bio-Labs with the capability of creating a viruses with possible great transmissiblity and a lethality above 80%....{it was just an accident! As would be an humanity ending atomic war exchange}).
Why not have the pandemic cause us all to suddenly become smart? Now that would be a good virus, escape from a lab or not!
Best Wishes, Traveller