International Did COVID come from a Lab in China? US Energy Dept asserts it was a lab leak [megathread]

[DespicablePeep]

Lmao? News flash, you don’t need to get access to a lab in China to study the covid-19 virus and put it under a microscope. It’s kind of easy to track it down.

What about the genetically altered mice with human DNA they used to infect with Coronaviruses? Could not that lead to a virus mutation, that would appear natural but would infect humans?

How can that be studied if nobody has access and the lab was cleaned out?

 

[blaseblah]

I've seen that claim many, many times on this board.

By who?

 

[blaseblah]

If it was a lab leak than knowing that is crucial in preventing a pandemic. Its not impossible to figure this was not natural considering you can't trace in nature the path of the virus into humans.

This is the deadliest pandemic ever its crucial to know the origins in order to prevent future ones

Exactly. We need to know the origin of the virus to prevent this from happening in the future.

If gain of function research did cause the pandemic that would suggest we should probably stop doing that. Or at the very least have strict regulation and protocol surrounding it. This is a conversation that needs to be had.

 

[ocean size]

How many coronavirus have spilled over to humans directly? They all had a intermediate host. The virus jumped in the lab because their research is actually modifying coronavirus to infect humans, to study gain of function.

Quote from Peter Daszak who funded the research

"Daszak states that researchers found that SARS likely originated from bats and then set out to find more SARS-related coronaviruses, eventually finding over 100. He observed that some coronaviruses can "get into human cells in the lab," and others can cause SARS disease in "humanized mouse models.""


There you go buddy

A gain of function research origin has the same issue as a natural origin according to your logic, because we haven't yet found a strain that is similar enough to serve as the backbone of SARS-CoV-2. The most similar viruses found still have a large amount of genomic difference that simply mix and matching spike protein sections into, the chimeric gain of research that was being done, wouldn't explain.

That means that not enough ecological surveying has been done to find the most recent wild progenitor regardless.

Yes, beta coronaviruses can jump from bats to humans, people that live near bat caves had a 3% prevalence of antibodies suggesting bats can serve as an immediate reservoir. I'm not saying that's definitely the case here and a zoonotic origin probably involves a different species as a reservoir, but like.. I'm not sure what the point of that Daszak quote was, he doesn't state that it definitely wasn't a bat...

You might be interested in https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(21)00991-0.pdf

 

[blaseblah]

Why? For it to leak out of a lab it had to be collected from the wild to be brought to that lab, unless you are also alleging heavy bioengineering.

Well we know they had live bats at that lab and we also know they were performing gain of function research. In addition there were several researchers at that lab who got sick in November 2019. I don't see how you can dismiss that possibility in good faith.

 

[The Audience]

If gain of function research did cause the pandemic that would suggest we should probably stop doing that. Or at the very least have strict regulation and protocol surrounding it.

There already is. And whats to stop a rogue element conducting such an experiment for a bio-terror purpose without it? Fact is -pandemic preparedness was piss poor, and the post-outbreak management continues to be disjointed and often contradictory to science advice. We cant stop pandemics either way but we can prepare for them and manage the response better.

 

[ocean size]

Well we know they had live bats at that lab and we also know they were performing gain of function research. In addition there were several researchers at that lab who got sick in November 2019. I don't see how you can dismiss that possibility in good faith.

I didn't dismiss anything, I'm asking how not finding a recent relative of SARS-CoV-2 in an animal yet is evidence of a lab leak when even a gain of function origin would require something more similar that what has been found in the wild to date.

Btw, while the WIV kept bats years ago, the Rhinolophus bats known to harbour these viruses - no lab has ever successfully kept them in captivity.

 

[Letssnuggle]

Oh puhlease. This was made by China and released on purpose.

This was a response to Donald Trump's tariffs. Companies (such as Hasboro, bed bath & beyond, etc) were relocating manufacturing to India, Pakistan, Egypt, etc. It simply was to difficult doing business in China. These tariffs were working.

This was retaliation by China. Accept it.

 

[blaseblah]

There already is.

You don't know what you're talking about.

https://www.politico.com/news/magaz...os-under-heaven-wuhan-lab-book-excerpt-474322

"When they sat down with the scientists at the WIV, the American diplomats were shocked by what they heard. The Chinese researchers told them they didn’t have enough properly trained technicians to safely operate their BSL-4 lab. The Wuhan scientists were asking for more support to get the lab up to top standards.

The diplomats wrote two cables to Washington reporting on their visits to the Wuhan lab. More should be done to help the lab meet top safety standards, they said, and they urged Washington to get on it. They also warned that the WIV researchers had found new bat coronaviruses could easily infect human cells, and which used the same cellular route that had been used by the original SARS coronavirus."

And whats to stop a rogue element conducting such an experiment for a bio-terror purpose without it?

Speculation about some fantasy terrorist organization doesn't imply we shouldn't more heavily regulate or ban gain of function research.

 

[FIMN]

By who?

I ain't trawling back through threads filled with dupes and the mentally unwell to name names, lifes too short. But I ain't making it up.

Edit - @Letssnuggle just said it on this page.

 

[DespicablePeep]

If altered mice were the intermediate host and a lab worker was contaminated, you won't find the origin, the mice are gone, destroyed.

China did not allow any investigation, the virus broke out near a lab and none of the animals in Wuhan market had the link.

Its just laughable someone saying not enough ecological survey has been done, this has been the most studied and investigated virus in history.

A gain of function research origin has the same issue as a natural origin according to your logic, because we haven't yet found a strain that is similar enough to serve as the backbone of SARS-CoV-2. The most similar viruses found still have a large amount of genomic difference that simply mix and matching spike protein sections into,.

That means that not enough ecological surveying has been done to find the most recent wild progenitor regardless.

 

[DespicablePeep]

Well we know they had live bats at that lab and we also know they were performing gain of function research. In addition there were several researchers at that lab who got sick in November 2019. I don't see how you can dismiss that possibility in good faith.

He can't, he is playing dumb for some odd reason. Probably a Chinese chill

 

[High Test With da Best]

That’s what gain of function Research/manipulation does, I believe.


Your second sentence is either
A. Intentional shilling
B. Sign of a brainwashed mind
C. Intentional comedy
D. Unintentional comedy

“That doesn’t make the virus coming from the lab more likely; why they had hundreds of corona viruses they were experimenting on just laying around. It’s still likely to me it came from the street right next door.”


Dude, it came from the lab, of course. The odds of it appearing “naturally” unrelated to the lab, right next to the lab, are statistically impossible. It’s like 999,999,999,999 to 1 lol. Like hitting the lottery 5 times in a row. Stop putting in work for those that lie to us as masses.. Dems are supposed to “resist” them, remember? *snap snap* hellooo??

Like

 

[ocean size]

Its just laughable someone saying not enough ecological survey has been done, this has been the most studied and investigated virus in history.

Yet... we still don't have a strain similar enough to allow gain of function research to explain the origin.

I'm not sure you realise how big nature is mate.

 

[DespicablePeep]

Yet... we still don't have a strain similar enough to allow gain of function research to explain the origin.

I'm not sure you realise how big nature is mate.

The strain did not have to scape the lab, the host could have been destroyed, the blunder was a lab worker catching the virus.

How stupid you have to be to realize that the gain of function had to scape the lab to be discovered? You kill the animals and clean the lab and that ancestral virus will never be discovered

As big as nature is buddy, the outbreak region was clear and in prior Coronaviruses the host was found, not this time.

 

[cincymma79]

https://link.springer.com/article/1...T7ZxIfqBZcL_sHxJxMl__CTfiIXEmnljDPI_aTDPbMw9Q

Anal oxygen for covid, technically o3 but still

 

[The Audience]

You don't know what you're talking about.

https://www.politico.com/news/magaz...os-under-heaven-wuhan-lab-book-excerpt-474322

"When they sat down with the scientists at the WIV, the American diplomats were shocked by what they heard. The Chinese researchers told them they didn’t have enough properly trained technicians to safely operate their BSL-4 lab. The Wuhan scientists were asking for more support to get the lab up to top standards.

The diplomats wrote two cables to Washington reporting on their visits to the Wuhan lab. More should be done to help the lab meet top safety standards, they said, and they urged Washington to get on it. They also warned that the WIV researchers had found new bat coronaviruses could easily infect human cells, and which used the same cellular route that had been used by the original SARS coronavirus."



Speculation about some fantasy terrorist organization doesn't imply we shouldn't more heavily regulate or ban gain of function research.

Yes the famous cables. What you have linked is the Josh Rogin account of them; the original cables are not so alarming [here]. Notably they do not state that the lab was operating high risk work under unsafe conditions, but do underscore the importance of the work being carried out there as well as highlight the government oversight required for work with human disease causing agents such as SARS coronavirus.

Higher scrutiny of such work is inevitable following the pandemic and doesnt depend on the outcome of the origin investigation; if tomorrow's headline was "Covid origin found in wild pangolin", would you walk back your insistence on a GoF ban? The origin investigation should continue but the real lesson to be learned is how vulnerable we are to the catastrophic health and financial outcomes of a pandemic.

 

[AndroidRage]

 

[ocean size]

The strain did not have to scape the lab, the host could have been destroyed, the blunder was a lab worker catching the virus.

How stupid you have to be to realize that the gain of function had to scape the lab to be discovered? You kill the animals and clean the lab and that ancestral virus will never be discovered

As big as nature is buddy, the outbreak region was clear and in prior Coronaviruses the host was found, not this time.

Most of this post is irrelevant to the topic at hand, im realizing you don't know how your supposed origin story actually works.

Gain of function research has to start with a virus that can be cultured as a backbone to make chimeras with. Then subunits of spike proteins of other similar viruses are swapped in to see if it makes the virus better able to infect cells in a petri dish. But you have to have those original natural viruses on hand in order to to make the GOF chimeras. The closest strains that have been found are like a decade away in terms of divergence time. We haven't found one similar enough to be that backbone in a GOF story. If you are suggesting that these viruses are rare enough in the wild the WIV could have found it in an animal once and nothing similar is seen again despite all of the recent surveying, the same thing could apply to a zoonotic event.

Also, the outbreak region has nothing to do with how far you need to survey to find the virus in the wild. The WIV was collecting samples from like 1000 km away? And Wuhan is the largest city in central china, it has a number of markets that are selling animals from at least that far in every direction. Some of the closest relatives of SARS-CoV-2 found so far were around Thailand.

 

[DespicablePeep]

. The closest strains that have been found are like a decade away in terms of divergence time. We haven't found one similar enough to be that backbone in a GOF story.

Wrong again they have found a virus, RMYN02, in bat in China that is 93.6% similar to Sars-Cov-2

What is yet to be found is such related virus in an animal that could spread to humans.


https://pesquisa.bvsalud.org/global...avirus-2019-ncov/resource/pt/covidwho-1245362

This makes it even more strange