Origin of Covid-19

[Incredulity 11655]

40 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

It’s amazing how unlikely a connection can appear when you leave out critical contextual information.

For example, Wuhan is a massive city of over 12 million inhabitants. It’s not at all an unlikely candidate for a disease to originate. There are a lot of potential Patient Zeros in the area.

And Wuhan is not unique in its proximity to a high-level virology research lab, either. One 2020 estimate counted 62 individual BSL3-level lab complexes in China. Want to bet that those 62 labs are collectively near most of China’s population? 

If a disease originated naturally somewhere in China, odds are high the location of that natural origin would be near a high-level pathogen lab. That has nothing to do with cause-and-effect, it’s just pure probability and statistics. 

And consider a salient difference between the Wuhan lab and the others: Wuhan is a BSL4 facilty, which implements even higher safety standards (and thus reduces the chances of a leak).

It’s a lot less impressive a coincidence when you frame it honestly. “What are the chances a natural outbreak would start near one of the country’s 62 high-security pathogen labs?” Pretty high, actually.

 

[Bevo 13569]

45 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

It’s amazing how unlikely a connection can appear when you leave out critical contextual information.

For example, Wuhan is a massive city of over 12 million inhabitants. It’s not at all an unlikely candidate for a disease to originate. There are a lot of potential Patient Zeros in the area.

And Wuhan is not unique in its proximity to a high-level virology research lab, either. One 2020 estimate counted 62 individual BSL3-level lab complexes in China. Want to bet that those 62 labs are collectively near most of China’s population? 

If a disease originated naturally somewhere in China, odds are high the location of that natural origin would be near a high-level pathogen lab. That has nothing to do with cause-and-effect, it’s just pure probability and statistics. 

And consider a salient difference between the Wuhan lab and the others: Wuhan is a BSL4 facilty, which implements even higher safety standards (and thus reduces the chances of a leak).

It’s a lot less impressive a coincidence when you frame it honestly. “What are the chances a natural outbreak would start near one of the country’s 62 high-security pathogen labs?” Pretty high, actually.

It came from the lab.

[BrickHorn 18217]

14 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

 

I don’t have a dog in this fight and don’t give a shit one way or the other. My point is the “too coincidental” gut feeling driving a lot of the lab leak theorists is based on a woefully incomplete picture, which is typical of conspiratorial thinking. 

[FORTY NINE TO ZERO 2652]

Wait do people here really not care where the fucking virus that killed millions of people and shutdown the world came from??

 

what the fuck, how do you hope to stop future outbreaks if you don’t study the sources of current ones.

it’s the god damn fbi and national labs saying this, not fucking Alex Jones. 

 

[Bevo 13569]

It is also typical of coverups without police investigations into the coverups. 

why should we assume innocent until proven guilty? China should allow an open investigation including the free and open interview of scientists and other people involved. Chinese govt should allow its employees to speak about the topic with lie detector tests being conducted. Until that happens they are guilty and it came from the lab. My point is a coverup presumes guilt and the perpetrators of coverups are guilty of the crime until they can prove their innocence. 

[BrickHorn 18217]

3 minutes ago, FORTY NINE TO ZERO said:

it’s the god damn fbi and national labs saying this, not fucking Alex Jones. 

There’s no consensus one way or the other. Various groups, including government agencies, disagree on their conclusions.

My point is not that this question is unimportant. It’s that it may be impossible to answer definitively based on the available evidence. I don’t have a position which is correct. I just recognize flawed logic when I see it.

Maybe additional context will make the “too coincidental” argument weightier. But as typically stated, it’s just not that compelling. 

[Dahobbs 17527]

1 hour ago, axiom of foundation said:

That’s easy, actually.  People get their information from competing propaganda sources and they group up according to their information source.  One group’s source said it was plausible that Covid was a lab leak early on, another group said that was a crazy conspiracy theory.  Now each group wants to be vindicated and feel scientifically and intellectually superior for listening to the more accurate propaganda. 

Negged for revisionist bullshit. One group didn't just say it was "plausible." Trying to reframe xenophobic rhetoric as the mere suggestion that a lab release was plausible is lame. 

Edited February 28, 2023 by Dahobbs

[Anastasis 23463]

2 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

I don’t have a dog in this fight and don’t give a shit one way or the other. My point is the “too coincidental” gut feeling driving a lot of the lab leak theorists is based on a woefully incomplete picture, which is typical of conspiratorial thinking. 

How many of the labs cited in your prior post were specifically going around the country, collecting CoV specimens from caves, and transporting them back to the facility for further research?  If we are talking about an incomplete picture, that seems like something relevant to consider. There may be a lot of BSL complexes around the country, we sure as shit have a bunch of them here. Throw a stone. But we know that this lab was doing precisely the type of work that carried with it increased risk, and we know that the safety standards in that lab were red flagged.

To the points that others have made, lab leak and natural origin and not mutually exclusive.  The last three or four outbreaks of SARS have all come from lab leaks.  Singapore, Beijing, Taipei. All from high security lab facilities. Shit, SARS-CoV-2 was acquired in multiple cases through lab accidents in Jan/Feb 2020. It does not require a conspiracy, far from it, for a lab accident to occur. 

 

 

 

[Gravy Train 974]

23 minutes ago, FORTY NINE TO ZERO said:

Wait do people here really not care where the fucking virus that killed millions of people and shutdown the world came from??

 

what the fuck, how do you hope to stop future outbreaks if you don’t study the sources of current ones.

it’s the god damn fbi and national labs saying this, not fucking Alex Jones. 

 

We've all established the novel coronavirus originated from China, be it wet market or virology lab leak.  Several other pandemics originated from China too, including variants of the avian flu and a swine flu with human pandemic potential.

Like Covid-19, China's response should be enough for us to continue our decoupling posture from China.  Their officials knew of the outbreak weeks prior, but travel associated with the Chinese New Year really kicked off its global spread.  What's changed since?

 

[BrickHorn 18217]

19 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

How many of the labs cited in your prior post were specifically going around the country, collecting CoV specimens from caves, and transporting them back to the facility for further research? 

Good question. How many?

[FartingMonk 3606]

22 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Negged for revisionist bullshit. One group didn't just say it was "plausible." Trying to reframe xenophobic rhetoric as the mere suggestion that a lab release was plausible is lame. 

What's xenophobic about having someone take responsibility for something?  There was signs something was wrong as early as Nov 2019.  The Chinese wouldn't say shit.  All they had to do was sound the alarm.  They refused.  We went into lockdown in middle of March.  

[Anastasis 23463]

3 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

Good question. How many?

We know of at least one where this work was a primary area of focus, and led by one of the eminent Chinese researchers in the field. 

[Anastasis 23463]

13 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

There was signs something was wrong as early as Nov 2019.  The Chinese wouldn't say shit.  All they had to do was sound the alarm.  They refused. 

 

[BrickHorn 18217]

3 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

We know of at least one where this work was a primary area of focus, and led by one of the eminent Chinese researchers in the field. 

That doesn’t answer to my question, and in fact exemplifies the logical error I initially pointed out. You’ve drawn a target around an arrow that already landed. 

China has approximately 60 BSL3 level labs. How many were conducting research on coronaviruses? 

[Celery Man 20933]

Do you guys think that people are defending the Chinese government?

21 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

What's xenophobic about having someone take responsibility for something?  There was signs something was wrong as early as Nov 2019.  The Chinese wouldn't say shit.  All they had to do was sound the alarm.  They refused.  We went into lockdown in middle of March.  

 Not what he said.

[Dahobbs 17527]

12 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

What's xenophobic about having someone take responsibility for something?  There was signs something was wrong as early as Nov 2019.  The Chinese wouldn't say shit.  All they had to do was sound the alarm.  They refused.  We went into lockdown in middle of March.  

China is responsible to some extent under either origination theory. But the early claims surrounding the lab weren't mere suggestions that a lab release was a plausible origination point. Rather, the rhetoric took rank speculation and elevated it to fact. And it did more than suggest there was a release, but rather focused on more conspiratorial theories that this was an intentional release of a bioweapon. 

Even to this day, the primary evidence supporting a lab release is China's refusal to allow independent investigation. We have scant direct evidence that connects SARS-CoV-2 to the Wuhan lab. 

I don't think anyone (besides China) thought a potential lab release was unworthy of investigation. The issue was folks speculating without evidence and presenting it as fact.

[Anastasis 23463]

45 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

That doesn’t answer to my question, and in fact exemplifies the logical error I initially pointed out. You’ve drawn a target around an arrow that already landed. 

China has approximately 60 BSL3 level labs. How many were conducting research on coronaviruses? 

Seems like something that the Chinese government could easily shed some light on.  We know that WIV was doing precisely this type of collection and research on CoVs. The logical error being made is assuming that the same work was being conducted at all 60+ lab complexes, when there is no evidence of such. And most of those facilities are run of the mill operations attached to their CDC. We've rejected the null wrt WIV. If you have information that supports the fact that widespread collection and focused CoV research in the same vein as what we know was occuring at WIV was also taking place at those other facilities, we can check those off one by one. We're gonna end up with something far fewer than the 60+ number though. 

Edited February 28, 2023 by Anastasis
fewer, hate that fucking gif.

[BrickHorn 18217]

2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Rather, the rhetoric took rank speculation and elevated it to fact. And it did more than suggest there was a release, but rather focused on more conspiratorial theories that this was an intentional release of a bioweapon. 

Exactly. Lab leak theorists will toss overboard all allegations of nefarious intent to keep their leaky boat (pun intended) afloat. “I’m not saying China was developing a weapon or that this was purposeful or that Covid-19 was manufactured by genetic modification. But… it’s still likely that the disease was in the lab building and got out on accident.” But when it comes time to convict, all of those caveats are forgotten and implications are conveniently left uncorrected. 

For an example of this, just see Anastasis’ post above. He watered his shit down like a 6th street martini on dollar drink night. 

[Anastasis 23463]

1 minute ago, BrickHorn said:

For an example of this, just see Anastasis’ post above. He watered his shit down like a 6th street martini on dollar drink night. 

Tell us all more about where logic breaks down. 

[BrickHorn 18217]

Just now, Anastasis said:

Tell us all more about where logic breaks down. 

Usually, in one of your posts.

[Anastasis 23463]

Just now, BrickHorn said:

Usually, in one of your posts.

I see you concede. 

[BrickHorn 18217]

12 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

We know that WIV was doing precisely this type of collection and research on CoVs. The logical error being made is assuming that the same work was being conducted at all 60+ lab complexes

No, you have it backwards. The coincidence is offered as evidence of a lab leak. The burden of proof is on the one advocating the coincidence as having any kind of deductive value. And that is only true if the Wuhan lab is unusual in a relevant way.

[FartingMonk 3606]

17 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

China is responsible to some extent under either origination theory. But the early claims surrounding the lab weren't mere suggestions that a lab release was a plausible origination point. Rather, the rhetoric took rank speculation and elevated it to fact. And it did more than suggest there was a release, but rather focused on more conspiratorial theories that this was an intentional release of a bioweapon. 

Even to this day, the primary evidence supporting a lab release is China's refusal to allow independent investigation. We have scant direct evidence that connects SARS-CoV-2 to the Wuhan lab. 

I don't think anyone (besides China) thought a potential lab release was unworthy of investigation. The issue was folks speculating without evidence and presenting it as fact.

I think part of the reason people were so mad about the lab leak theory was it got dismissed offhand right away and to even question it would be considered racist.  Now there is more light being shed on what is happening and yeah there might be so I told you so stuff on it.  It was just extremely frustrating that the WHO and the CDC basically said yeah, China wouldn't lie to us.  We don't want to press them on the issue because we don't want to piss them off.   The CDC funding to Wuhan was because they had identified it as having very lax protocols.  Do I believe it was nefarious.  No, I think it was just careless.  

[statsman 5453]

1 million Americans died, maybe 7 million worldwide. I think it was accidental, but it’s important to determine how it happened because it’s telling about a huge trading partner and increasingly competitive rival. 
 
China gives as much of a shit about the mill dead globally as Russia gives about the 777 shot down over Ukraine a few years ago (also, an accident that could have been avoided). It clarifies who China is, as they leverage influence, get into our supply chains, steal intellectual property and send their children to be educated. 

Edited February 28, 2023 by statsman

[Anastasis 23463]

Just now, BrickHorn said:

No, you have it backwards. The coincidence is offered as evidence of a lab leak. The burden of proof is on the one advocating the coincidence as having any kind of deductive value. And that is only true if the Wuhan lab is unusual in a relevant way.

You are like one post away from arguing that it is equally likely that COVID leaked from Ft. Detrick as WIV. All evidence indicates that WIV was in fact unique in terms of the type of CoV related research being conducted at their facilities compared to the other Chinese BSLs.  It take a pretty strong ostrich move to argue otherwise. 

[FartingMonk 3606]

I tend to go with lab leak theory not because of any scientific reason but because of the Chinese response.  If some weird ass virus popped up they could have easily said.  Hey there is something funky that just popped up.  You mind throwing some scientists and some money to help us figure this shit out?  Instead they went opposite and just started destroying shit.

[Dahobbs 17527]

5 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

I think part of the reason people were so mad about the lab leak theory was it got dismissed offhand right away and to even question it would be considered racist.  Now there is more light being shed on what is happening and yeah there might be so I told you so stuff on it.  It was just extremely frustrating that the WHO and the CDC basically said yeah, China wouldn't lie to us.  We don't want to press them on the issue because we don't want to piss them off.   The CDC funding to Wuhan was because they had identified it as having very lax protocols.  Do I believe it was nefarious.  No, I think it was just careless.  

You're confusing exploring the lab as a possible source with the racist rhetoric used by some in insisting that it was in fact a lab release. Plenty of people, including the CDC, encouraged investigation of the first. The latter was rightly denounced. 

Again, the primary evidence of a lab release is China's refusal to allow an investigation. Otherwise, we just have two coincidences, the location of the lab and the wet markets near the the first area the virus was identified. Both were and are plausible sources for the virus. But the lab release theory requires more assumptions, so I'd argue that Occam's razor points that direction. 

[Celery Man 20933]

To be fair a huge portion of America didn't give a shit about the million dead either.

[FartingMonk 3606]

4 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

You're confusing exploring the lab as a possible source with the racist rhetoric used by some in insisting that it was in fact a lab release. Plenty of people, including the CDC, encouraged investigation of the first. The latter was rightly denounced. 

Again, the primary evidence of a lab release is China's refusal to allow an investigation. Otherwise, we just have two coincidences, the location of the lab and the wet markets near the the first area the virus was identified. Both were and are plausible sources for the virus. But the lab release theory requires more assumptions, so I'd argue that Occam's razor points that direction. 

Again.  Where is the racist rhetoric?  I'm Chinese by the way.  Kung Flu?  China virus?  If that is the racist rhetoric you are saying that was used to drown out calls for an investigation then it's not on them.  

[Parliament 14247]

I bet my crazy cousin's  Tweet stream is ON FIRE tonight.

[Dahobbs 17527]

3 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

Again.  Where is the racist rhetoric?  I'm Chinese by the way.  Kung Flu?  China virus?  If that is the racist rhetoric you are saying that was used to drown out calls for an investigation then it's not on them.  

I'm Chinese as well. That is certainly part of the racist rhetoric, but hardly the full extent of it. I don't know what you're referring to when you say "drown out calls for investigation." No one was against investigation (again, other than China, but, to be clear, China was also against investigating the markets). It was being investigated. The problem was certain individuals presenting speculation or mere possibility as fact. 

[Schulz2.0 28951]

26 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

I think part of the reason people were so mad about the lab leak theory was it got dismissed offhand right away and to even question it would be considered racist.

Nah. Mainly because the animal to human transfer is fairly common and the Chinese prevalence of wet markets. There wasn't much evidence in favor of the lab leak early on. The fact that the conspiracy theory dipshits latched on to it early didn't help. A guy I went through the nuke training pipeline was lecturing me just the other day about how the lab leak is 100% proven and validates all the other nut job conspiracies he believes in.

[FartingMonk 3606]

3 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

I'm Chinese as well. That is certainly part of the racist rhetoric, but hardly the full extent of it. I don't know what you're referring to when you say "drown out calls for investigation." No one was against investigation (again, other than China, but, to be clear, China was also against investigating the markets). It was being investigated. The problem was certain individuals presenting speculation or mere possibility as fact. 

This is getting pretty close to CR but a certain Orange haired buffoon tried to ban travel from China in early January because "some very nasty stuff" going on over there.  It immediately got called out as racist and would get challenged.  I think a lot of the racist cries hampered anything that could actually be done because people get scared of being called racist.

[WhatTheBuck 28775]

1 hour ago, FORTY NINE TO ZERO said:

Wait do people here really not care where the fucking virus that killed millions of people and shutdown the world came from??

 

what the fuck, how do you hope to stop future outbreaks if you don’t study the sources of current ones.

it’s the god damn fbi and national labs saying this, not fucking Alex Jones. 

 

With what degree of certainty are they saying it?

[Celery Man 20933]

People should stop being pussies.

[jimmyjazz 45893]

We need more Swedes on this forum.

No particular reason, but I've never heard anyone pipe up that they're Swedish, like me being a pale Scot or a couple of regs being of Chinese descent.  Plus, all the Hispanic lawyers.  

Can we rename this place Melting Pot?

 

In all seriousness, I really enjoy reading the back and forth on this thread.  Seems fresh air-ish.  Not too much snark.  A little.

[FartingMonk 3606]

9 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

Nah. Mainly because the animal to human transfer is fairly common and the Chinese prevalence of wet markets. There wasn't much evidence in favor of the lab leak early on. The fact that the conspiracy theory dipshits latched on to it early didn't help. A guy I went through the nuke training pipeline was lecturing me just the other day about how the lab leak is 100% proven and validates all the other nut job conspiracies he believes in.

I think people latched on because that was very atypical of how the Chinese responded

[statsman 5453]

43 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

You're confusing exploring the lab as a possible source with the racist rhetoric used by some in insisting that it was in fact a lab release. Plenty of people, including the CDC, encouraged investigation of the first. The latter was rightly denounced. 

Again, the primary evidence of a lab release is China's refusal to allow an investigation. Otherwise, we just have two coincidences, the location of the lab and the wet markets near the the first area the virus was identified. Both were and are plausible sources for the virus. But the lab release theory requires more assumptions, so I'd argue that Occam's razor points that direction. 

That may be the primary evidence we have, but the DOE Lawrence Livermore Labs is reported to have other (classified) evidence. This is kind of their specialty. 

[Anastasis 23463]

5 minutes ago, statsman said:

That may be the primary evidence we have, but the DOE Lawrence Livermore Labs is reported to have other (classified) evidence. This is kind of their specialty. 

I read that the most recent DOE assessment came from other than LLL.  This is apparently a separate assessment from a different lab under the DOE umbrella. 

[Dahobbs 17527]

Just now, statsman said:

That may be the primary evidence we have, but the DOE Lawrence Livermore Labs is reported to have other (classified) evidence. This is kind of their specialty. 

Hard to say since the classified report was leaked and doesn't provide any information on what evidence was considered. However, the level of confidence was low, so obviously it wasn't definitive evidence. We have had 8 intelligence agencies release reports. Only two have indicated lab release. 4 say human exposure to an infected animal (https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Declassified-Assessment-on-COVID-19-Origins.pdf). 2 say not enough information either way. 

[SL Xpress 7513]

30 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

We need more Swedes on this forum.

No particular reason, but I've never heard anyone pipe up that they're Swedish, like me being a pale Scot or a couple of regs being of Chinese descent.  Plus, all the Hispanic lawyers.  

Can we rename this place Melting Pot?

 

In all seriousness, I really enjoy reading the back and forth on this thread.  Seems fresh air-ish.  Not too much snark.  A little.

 

As long as we're not including people who are intolerant of other people's cultures. And the Dutch, of course. 

[Anastasis 23463]

5 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Hard to say since the classified report was leaked and doesn't provide any information on what evidence was considered. However, the level of confidence was low, so obviously it wasn't definitive evidence. We have had 8 intelligence agencies release reports. Only two have indicated lab release. 4 say human exposure to an infected animal (https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Declassified-Assessment-on-COVID-19-Origins.pdf). 2 say not enough information either way. 

I think that you have to filter each of the assessments through the built in bias of the particular intelligence agency.  For example, NSA may weight assessments based on signals intelligence whereas a DOE lab may weight different aspects. CIA may weight based on human intelligence, FBI on other factors. 

[Schulz2.0 28951]

38 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

I think people latched on because that was very atypical of how the Chinese responded

The Chinese actively hampering western investigations isn't atypical. Plenty of people were skeptical of the CCP and felt they were hiding shit and being dishonest. The question was what exactly they were trying to keep quiet.

[FartingMonk 3606]

18 minutes ago, Schulz2.0 said:

The Chinese actively hampering western investigations isn't atypical. Plenty of people were skeptical of the CCP and felt they were hiding shit and being dishonest. The question was what exactly they were trying to keep quiet.

They were usually pretty open when it came to viruses.  SARa and whatnot the Chinese were very cooperative and let the CDC take lead on because they knew those guys had a better handle on tracking.  The COVID response was entirely different 

[Anastasis 23463]

3 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

They were usually pretty open when it came to viruses.  SARa and whatnot the Chinese were very cooperative and let the CDC take lead on because they knew those guys had a better handle on tracking.  The COVID response was entirely different 

I don't know if I agree with that.  They stifled the SARS investigation as well, and stifled the investigation into their SARS lab leak as a kicker. 

[Dahobbs 17527]

34 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I think that you have to filter each of the assessments through the built in bias of the particular intelligence agency.  For example, NSA may weight assessments based on signals intelligence whereas a DOE lab may weight different aspects. CIA may weight based on human intelligence, FBI on other factors. 

Maybe. But frankly I'm not sure there is that much difference between a low level confidence of lab release and a low level confidence of transmission. 

[Anastasis 23463]

4 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Maybe. But frankly I'm not sure there is that much difference between a low level confidence of lab release and a low level confidence of transmission. 

There is only one assessment that has been rated at above low confidence.  The FBI assessment "that COVID-19 most likely resulted from a laboratory associated incident involving WIV or other researchers—either through exposure to the virus during experiments or through sampling."

Edited February 28, 2023 by Anastasis

[Telegraph_it 3357]

5 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I don't know if I agree with that.  They stifled the SARS investigation as well, and stifled the investigation into their SARS lab leak as a kicker. 

China is not trustworthy. The graph below comparing satellite based estimates of electricity usage as a proxy for economic activity sums up how skewed their economic numbers are. Why should anything else be believed. It was laughable to see the Covid #’s reported out of China for the majority of the outbreak. 
 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

Negged for revisionist bullshit. One group didn't just say it was "plausible." Trying to reframe xenophobic rhetoric as the mere suggestion that a lab release was plausible is lame. 

You don’t owe me an explanation on why you deducted an internet point.  We’ve argued minutia on message boards for years. 

[Dahobbs 17527]

2 minutes ago, axiom of foundation said:

You don’t owe me an explanation on why you deducted an internet point.  We’ve argued minutia on message boards for years. 

The explanation wasn't for you.