Origins of Covid

[angrysoba]

Not limitless. When a person makes statements like there are virology labs all over China and I know there are not, then that is generalizing from not enough information.
You don't have to go to China to know a lot about the country. A lot of reading helps.

The person making the unsubstantiated claims with not a single citation among a slew of paragraphs, claiming falsely I'm only citing newspaper stories, that is the person who needs to support their claims.

Apparently there are 42 BSL-3 labs and over 1,000 BSL-2 labs in China

In 2004, China’s central government launched a national BSL program that aimed at building a national BSL network comprising high-level BSLs as the nodes. High-level BSLs were then constructed and successfully operated.2 As of December 31st 2013, 53 BSLs, including 42 BSL-3s, had been fully accredited in China1 and more laboratories have completed the accreditation in recent years. In addition, more than 1000 BSL-2 labs are currently being operated in universities, research institutions, hospitals and R&D entrepreneurship centers.[2], [9], [12] In addition, four mobile BSL-3 laboratories were imported from Labover (Montpellier, France) and distributed to institutes in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong for the nation-wide surveillance of pathogens and the emergency response of post-disaster and global public health events.

Link

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Enough of this AS. I'm not going to play dueling rabbit holes with you.

I quoted from the source of Quay's paper. What are you quoting from? A whole different paper?

If you want to say you found X that contradicts Y then say so. Don't claim I didn't cite the paper and quote directly from it.

I'll look at your NEW source and get back to you.


Spillover is years out of date BTW. I told you that pages back. I got a copy from the library. I was not impressed.

 

[angrysoba]

Enough of this AS. I'm not going to play dueling rabbit holes with you.

I quoted from the source of Quay's paper. What are you quoting from? A whole different paper?

If you want to say you found X that contradicts Y then say so. Don't claim I didn't cite the paper and quote directly from it.

I'll look at your NEW source and get back to you.


Spillover is years out of date BTW. I told you that pages back. I got a copy from the library. I was not impressed.

LOL! Sure.

 

[Planigale]

Pulling facts out of your rear is not an ad hominem. It has a specific meaning: You have not cited any sources and it's clear you are generalizing from limited knowledge about China.

Your whole post. You claim there are virology labs all over China studying coronaviruses for starters.

Looking at the English language literature from 2015 - 2019, specifying the largest twenty Chinese cities (Wuhan sits in the middle in this list) as institution every city has universities carrying out virology research. 13/20 were active in coronavirus research. This is probably an under estimate as there may well be Chinese language research published. What was unique about Wuhan was not that it had virology research, nor that it carried out coronavirus research, but that it had a BSL4 labiratory. People made the jump that if they had a BSL4 laboratory that meant they had nasty viruses and that those nasty viruses must be the cause of the outbreak. People jump to the report that the BSL4 laboratory was under funded / staffed. This is irrelevant, coronavirus research does not require level 4 containment. That is why more than half of large cities have coronavirus research despite not having BSL4 facilities.

Now you claimed that there was a super spreader event and that Wuhan was in some (relevant) way unique. Please evidence these assertions.

 

[Planigale]

Apparently there are 42 BSL-3 labs and over 1,000 BSL-2 labs in China



Link

Thanks so at the time of that report there were one thousand labs suitable for coronavirus research and 42 suitable for research on SARS / MERS.

 

[Sherkeu]

The latest situation as I see it:

Scientists:
We proved things CCDC hid from science using new data the CCDC released to us, then we analyzed it for some evidence.
We wrote a paper about it.
What a coincidence, a team of China's CCDC scientists just confirmed what we confirmed about the 'new' data they themselves gave us, after years of not giving it to us.

The evidence is overwhelming.

Therefore, raccoon dogs.

 

[jt512]

Thanks so at the time of that report there were one thousand labs suitable for coronavirus research and 42 suitable for research on SARS / MERS.

What does it matter how many labs there were throughout China? All that matters for there to be a lab-leak hypothesis, is that there was a lab working on coronaviruses in the vicinity of Wuhan.

 

[Planigale]

What does it matter how many labs there were throughout China? All that matters for there to be a lab-leak hypothesis, is that there was a lab working on coronaviruses in the vicinity of Wuhan.

Because if you argue that the lab leak case is supported by the huge co-incidence (it can't be a coincidence!) that there is a virology lab working on coronaviruses in Wuhan. The co-incidence disappears if over half of big cities have a virology lab working on coronaviruses. So that plank of the argument for a lab leak disappears.

Even if the city had a virology laboratory that did not work on coronaviruses I guess people would claim that the Chinese were hiding the coronavirus work.

There is also the argument that it must be more than a co-incidence that Wuhan has one of China's three BSL4 facillities. This is irrelevant since BSL4 laboratories are not required for work on corona viruses.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Also, if I post tables screenshot from papers, you complain because you don't like opening them up as it is a "pain in the ass". BUT you also claim that only you are citing sources for your arguments.

Can't have it both ways. I am citing sources and you complain. I am quoting papers and you claim that the papers "distort the evidence" and yet these are the papers that Quay and Muller base their own claims on.

Sheeeesh!

It's not opening thumbnails that is the problem. It's enlarging them. If you try to enlarge an open thumbnail the main screen opens back up. So I have to enlarge it a dozen times then shrink it back down to proceed reading the thread.

It's a pain in the ass.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Apparently there are 42 BSL-3 labs and over 1,000 BSL-2 labs in China

Link

Well that's absurdly misleading.

There are ~1,000 BSL3 labs in the US and we have a fraction of China's population. ~70% of those labs aren't research labs.

https://www.niaid.nih.gov/sites/default/files/bsl3_survey.pdf

See page 20, less than 30% of those are involved in research and that includes drug companies doing product research.

https://www.niaid.nih.gov/sites/default/files/bsl3_survey.pdf

All the labs that handle specifically identified pathogens like brucellosis, anthrax and TB have biosaftey regulations that include BSL2 and above capabilities. They aren't all doing coronavirus research which is what was claimed in this quote:

Every large city will have clinical and research / university virology laboratories at BSL2. Academic virus research is very much about manipulating viruses. If you claim that Wuhan is unique in having coronavirus research then it is your responsibility to provide the evidence. If you looked at research carried out in say the largest twenty Chinese cities and showed that coronavirus research was only done in Wuhan that would be of note, but if say five cities carry out coronavirus research then it was a 1;4 chance the outbreak would occur in a city where there was corona virus research, not such a coincidence.

Bolded sentence #1 is the claim that needs to be supported.

Bolded sentence #2 is false. I never said the only one was in Wuhan. And there are at least 3 in Wuhan, BTW—2 at the WIV and one at the CCDC.

The idea of trying to dilute the coincidence of COVID pandemic beginning near the WIV and the CCDC by claiming there was coronavirus research elsewhere is a fail. How many wet markets are there in Wuhan alone? How many are there across China? How many are there near a research facility doing the kind of work they were doing at the WIV. There are ~1.5 Billion people in China. How many of those people live near a research lab, let alone one doing coronavirus research and of those let alone one doing gain of function research on coronaviruses?

Then there was the uninformed assertion that there was no suoer spreader event at the seafood market when that was established at the very beginning of the pandemic and it is documented multiple times in this thread.

I don't mind having a reasonable debate. I shouldn't have to counter unsupportable assertions that it wasn't such a coincidence the pandemic started near the WIV and the CCDC. And I especially shouldn't have to revisit nonsense like there was no super spreader event at the seafood wet market when that was well established and documented in this thread.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

LOL! Sure.

Lol it is. It was written in 2012, a decade ago. That is out of date by medical research standards because medicine is advancing so fast.

It's like saying spillovers can happen therefore they did happen in this case.

I agree if one is going by odds, the odds of COVID coming from a spillover are greater than the odds it came from a lab leak.

But there is just as great of odds that the location of the beginning of the pandemic so close to the WIV doing research on that very pandemic pathogen makes the spillover odds a wash.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Looking at the English language literature from 2015 - 2019, specifying the largest twenty Chinese cities (Wuhan sits in the middle in this list) as institution every city has universities carrying out virology research. 13/20 were active in coronavirus research. This is probably an under estimate as there may well be Chinese language research published. What was unique about Wuhan was not that it had virology research, nor that it carried out coronavirus research, but that it had a BSL4 labiratory. People made the jump that if they had a BSL4 laboratory that meant they had nasty viruses and that those nasty viruses must be the cause of the outbreak. People jump to the report that the BSL4 laboratory was under funded / staffed. This is irrelevant, coronavirus research does not require level 4 containment. That is why more than half of large cities have coronavirus research despite not having BSL4 facilities.

Now you claimed that there was a super spreader event and that Wuhan was in some (relevant) way unique. Please evidence these assertions.

Where is your citation?

Even if there were 13 labs doing coronavirus research, that is in a country with ~1.5 billion people. How many of them were doing gain of function research? How many had collected specimens from bats in Yunnan for over a decade?
As for the super spreader event at the wet market you need to read more of the thread before asking people to go over that material again. There is no dispute that a super spreader event happened at the wet market.

 

[angrysoba]

Lol it is. It was written in 2012, a decade ago. That is out of date by medical research standards because medicine is advancing so fast.

It's like saying spillovers can happen therefore they did happen in this case.

I agree if one is going by odds, the odds of COVID coming from a spillover are greater than the odds it came from a lab leak.

But there is just as great of odds that the location of the beginning of the pandemic so close to the WIV doing research on that very pandemic pathogen makes the spillover odds a wash.

Calling the book outdated is silly unless new evidence contradicts the information I am presenting from it. The pages I showed were about the SARS outbreak. It’s not “outdated”. It’s information about how the virus was tracked down. Similarly I have used it as a source referring to Worobey’s detection of HIV/AIDS origins. If you call it “outdated” merely because of the date then your own citations on origins of SARS are also “outdated” as they are frequently papers from 2003 and 2004. But they should only be considered “outdated” if they are inaccurate because more recent research refutes them.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

Of course, scientists from the Wuhan Lab probably ate racoon dogs from the wet market and introduced it to them. (You'll hear that shortly)

There's no need for this. The evidence it came from the market in the first place is weaker than weak tea.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The latest situation as I see it:

Scientists:
We proved things CCDC hid from science using new data the CCDC released to us, then we analyzed it for some evidence.
We wrote a paper about it.
What a coincidence, a team of China's CCDC scientists just confirmed what we confirmed about the 'new' data they themselves gave us, after years of not giving it to us.

The evidence is overwhelming.

Therefore, raccoon dogs.

Not to mention pics of raccoon dogs at that market in 2014 were posted.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The main bit of evidence however is that all the COVID specimens collected from the wet market were closely related human COVID viruses. not one of them suggested it was well adapted to raccoon dogs.

Again, the distribution of the COVID positive cultures in the market is here under "What does the genetic evidence in the report say?"
Science: A new pandemic origin report is stirring controversy. Here are key takeaways

From the beginning of the article:

But critics, many of whom suspect SARS-CoV-2 may have escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), say the new sequences offer no great insight beyond the confirmation that the seafood market also sold mammals. It is “just preposterous” to suggest this is evidence that animals were actually infected with SARS-CoV-2 and transmitted it to humans, computational biologist Erik van Nimwegen says. In a 2021 letter in Science, he and 17 other scientists—including two who issued the new report—called for a “balanced consideration” of the lab-leak hypothesis.

Commenting on the cultures:

The report describes finding raccoon dog mtDNA in six samples from two different stalls in the Wuhan market. A sample from a cart that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 also had “abundant” raccoon dog genetic material. Far less human genetic material was found in the same sample.

Repeating what I posted upthread:
Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in the environment and animal samples of the Huanan Seafood Market

It has reported that a certain number of the early case clusters had a contact history with Huanan Seafood Market. Therefore, surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 within the market is of vital importance. Herein, we presented the SARS-CoV-2 detection results of 1380 samples collected from the environment and the animals within the market in early 2020. By SARS-CoV-2-specific RT-qPCR, 73 environmental samples tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and three live viruses were successfully isolated. The viruses from the market shared nucleotide identity of 99.980% to 99.993% with the human isolate HCoV/Wuhan/IVDC-HB-01. In contrast, no virus was detected in the animal swabs covering 18 species of animals in the market. The SARS-COV-2 nucleic acids in the positive environmental samples showed significant correlation of abundance of Homo sapiens with SARS-CoV-2.

There has never been genetic evidence of any COVID cultures that weren't connected to humans in the market.

I repeat (apparently it is necessary to do so), unless the suspect raccoon dog carried a human adapted virus there is no evidence of a spillover here.

 

[Planigale]

Well that's absurdly misleading.

There are ~1,000 BSL3 labs in the US and we have a fraction of China's population. ~70% of those labs aren't research labs.

https://www.niaid.nih.gov/sites/default/files/bsl3_survey.pdf

See page 20, less than 30% of those are involved in research and that includes drug companies doing product research.

https://www.niaid.nih.gov/sites/default/files/bsl3_survey.pdf

All the labs that handle specifically identified pathogens like brucellosis, anthrax and TB have biosaftey regulations that include BSL2 and above capabilities. They aren't all doing coronavirus research which is what was claimed in this quote:Bolded sentence #1 is the claim that needs to be supported.

Bolded sentence #2 is false. I never said the only one was in Wuhan. And there are at least 3 in Wuhan, BTW—2 at the WIV and one at the CCDC.

The idea of trying to dilute the coincidence of COVID pandemic beginning near the WIV and the CCDC by claiming there was coronavirus research elsewhere is a fail. How many wet markets are there in Wuhan alone? How many are there across China? How many are there near a research facility doing the kind of work they were doing at the WIV. There are ~1.5 Billion people in China. How many of those people live near a research lab, let alone one doing coronavirus research and of those let alone one doing gain of function research on coronaviruses?

Then there was the uninformed assertion that there was no suoer spreader event at the seafood market when that was established at the very beginning of the pandemic and it is documented multiple times in this thread.

I don't mind having a reasonable debate. I shouldn't have to counter unsupportable assertions that it wasn't such a coincidence the pandemic started near the WIV and the CCDC. And I especially shouldn't have to revisit nonsense like there was no super spreader event at the seafood wet market when that was well established and documented in this thread.

WIV was not near the wet market concerned it is miles away. It is not near where the early cases clustered, which was around the wet market.

Where do you think the BSL2 labs are? In small villages? They'll be in cities. I have checked and all twenty of China's largest cities have universities carrying out virology research requiring BSL 2 at least. Several of those cities have more than one institution carrying out research so will have more than one BSL2 facility. Some were doing research requiring BSL3. That is not saying those are the only thirteen places doing research, but thirteen out of twenty cities checked.

I think you need to decide which laboratory you are going to say the leak is from. CDC is near the wet market but hasn't done gain of function research. WIV isn't near but did.

 

[Planigale]

This is an interesting paper, a survey on animals sold at the four wet markets in Wuhan between 2017 and 2019. The authors certainly thought racoon dogs were actively being sold and documented this contemporaneously on their monthly survey.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-91470-2

Pictures are quite enlightening.

 

[Planigale]

This paper suggests 18% of butchers (such as those at wet market) showed serological evidence of prior infection by zoonotic viruses. So acquiring a zoonotic infection at a wet market is not uncommon.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0194647

 

[Planigale]

There are a huge number of different virus species (trillions) so identifying the ancestor for SARS-CoV-2 may take some time this study surveyed just under two thousand animals and discovered 65 new mammalian viruses 21 with potential for causing human illness. They were also able to obtain evidence for movement of viruses between species.

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/...m/retrieve/pii/S0092867422001945?showall=true

A further pandemic remains a real risk and not from a laboratory leak.

 

[angrysoba]

The main bit of evidence however is that all the COVID specimens collected from the wet market were closely related human COVID viruses. not one of them suggested it was well adapted to raccoon dogs.

Again, the distribution of the COVID positive cultures in the market is here under "What does the genetic evidence in the report say?"
Science: A new pandemic origin report is stirring controversy. Here are key takeaways

From the beginning of the article:


Commenting on the cultures:



Repeating what I posted upthread:
Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in the environment and animal samples of the Huanan Seafood Market


There has never been genetic evidence of any COVID cultures that weren't connected to humans in the market.

I repeat (apparently it is necessary to do so), unless the suspect raccoon dog carried a human adapted virus there is no evidence of a spillover here.

FWIW, I also don't think that the new paper is strong evidence of spillover. I think I have already said that, but want to repeat it here anyway.

That said, what it does show, as I also said before, is that the testing of animals that was reported before, and sometimes used as evidence that there was no spillover, was inadequate.

The WHO-SAGO are clearly very interested in these findings. Why do you think that is?

 

[angrysoba]

Maybe this was already brought up, but it seems that the intelligence on whether there was a lab leak will be released. So we can look forward to a lot of new theories!

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan bill Monday that directs the federal government to declassify as much intelligence as possible about the origins of COVID-19 more than three years after the start of the pandemic.

The legislation, which passed both the House and Senate without dissent, directs the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to declassify intelligence related to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. It cites “potential links” between the research that was done there and the outbreak of COVID-19, which the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020. The law allows for redactions to protect sensitive sources and methods.

U.S. intelligence agencies are divided over whether a lab leak or a spillover from animals is the likely source of the deadly virus. Experts say the true origin of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 1.1 million in the U.S. and millions more around the globe, may not be known for many years — if ever.

Biden, in a statement, said he was pleased to sign the legislation.

Link

 

[angrysoba]

Vincent and Amy give a short answer to a question about the paper and Florence Débarre's sample analysis here:

https://youtu.be/_o64pTxU_rE?t=4436

Hey, the fun thing is that Vincent said he is going to do an episode on the paper on "Friday", which I suppose is tomorrow in America (as this was recorded about 24 hours ago.

Vincent of course thinks that assumptions it came from a lab is BS.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

FWIW, I also don't think that the new paper is strong evidence of spillover. I think I have already said that, but want to repeat it here anyway.

That said, what it does show, as I also said before, is that the testing of animals that was reported before, and sometimes used as evidence that there was no spillover, was inadequate.

The WHO-SAGO are clearly very interested in these findings. Why do you think that is?

OK, I get it. You are still dismissing the fact no trail of infection in an intermediate species has been found because there are plenty more places they need to look.

But then why post stuff about how long it took to find the reservoir for SARS1 and not consider how fast intermediate animals were found at several wet markets in Guangdong?

Seriously, there was no difficulty tracing SARS1 to multiple spillover events in Guangdong. And it was clear it took a month or so for SARS1 to adapt to efficient person to person spread.

Camels were suspected early on with MERS. There was little mystery there as to how the spillover occurred.

Now we have SARS2, the genetics reveal it was easily spread person to person right when the pandemic began. It might have gotten even more efficient with later variants. But not being absolutely perfectly fine-tuned in Dec 2019 does not suggest it hadn't been adapted to humans in a lab.


Then there is the nonsense the WIV was further away than the market. That's absurd. There were 2 WIV labs and the CCDC lab was only a couple miles from the wet market.

I showed how COVID was introduced into WA State. There was no cluster of cases around patient zero, and that included some investigation of passengers on the flight from Wuhan he flew in on. Where the first recognized cluster occurred was more than 20 miles away in Kirkland and wasn't recognized until some time later.

There are 20.87 miles from Everett to Kirkland in south direction and 24 miles (38.62 kilometers) by car, following the I-405 S route.

 

[jt512]

Because if you argue that the lab leak case is supported by the huge co-incidence (it can't be a coincidence!) that there is a virology lab working on coronaviruses in Wuhan. The co-incidence disappears if over half of big cities have a virology lab working on coronaviruses. So that plank of the argument for a lab leak disappears.

That's not a valid argument. If it is accepted that the outbreak originated in Wuhan, then all that matters for there to be a lab-leak hypothesis is that there is a lab in Wuhan. Labs anywhere else in the country are irrelevant.

 

[Planigale]

That's not a valid argument. If it is accepted that the outbreak originated in Wuhan, then all that matters for there to be a lab-leak hypothesis is that there is a lab in Wuhan. Labs anywhere else in the country are irrelevant.

Yes, it is permissive but no more than that. I agree that if there was no laboratory then there could not be a laboratory leak. However, I disagree that because there is a laboratory, that is evidence that there was a laboratory leak. The evidential value of the presence of the laboratory is zero. The case for the laboratory leak then has to be made.

The problem with the laboratory leak theory is there is no evidence linking the laboratory with SARS-CoV-2. Just a lot of mud slinging and innuendo.

 

[Planigale]

OK, get it. You are still dismissing the fact no trail of infection in an intermediate species has been found because there are plenty more places they need to look.

But then why post stuff about how long it took to find the reservoir for SARS1 and not consider how fast intermediate animals were found at several wet markets in Guangdong?

Seriously, there was no difficulty tracing SARS1 to multiple spillover events in Guangdong. And it was clear it took a month or so for SARS1 to adapt to efficient person to person spread.

Camels were suspected early on with MERS. There was little mystery there as to how the spillover occurred.

Now we have SARS2, the genetics reveal it was easily spread person to person right when the pandemic began. It might have gotten even more efficient with later variants. But not being absolutely perfectly fine-tuned in Dec 2019 does not suggest it hadn't been adapted to humans in a lab.


Then there is the nonsense the WIV was further away than the market. That's absurd. There were 2 WIV labs and the CCDC lab was only a couple miles from the wet market.

I showed how COVID was introduced into WA State. There was no cluster of cases around patient zero, and that included some investigation of passengers on the flight from Wuhan he flew in on. Where the first recognized cluster occurred was more than 20 miles away in Kirkland and wasn't recognized until some time later.

There are 20.87 miles from Everett to Kirkland in south direction and 24 miles (38.62 kilometers) by car, following the I-405 S route.

I don't think you understand, you can't adapt a virus to human to human spread in a laboratory. We do not yet understand enough about viral transmission. Laboratory passage makes viruses less fit.

If the virus wasn't capable of person to person transmission we would not have had a pandemic. No other virus required to be adapted in a laboratory to cause a pandemic. Why should this virus uniquely require intelligent design instead on natural selection like every other pandemic?

 

[GraculusTheGreenBird]

Yes, it is permissive but no more than that. I agree that if there was no laboratory then there could not be a laboratory leak. However, I disagree that because there is a laboratory, that is evidence that there was a laboratory leak. The evidential value of the presence of the laboratory is zero. The case for the laboratory leak then has to be made.

The problem with the laboratory leak theory is there is no evidence linking the laboratory with SARS-CoV-2. Just a lot of mud slinging and innuendo.

That particular lab was studying gain of function on coronaviruses. That doesn't count as suspicious in your eyes?

At all?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

... that because there is a laboratory, that is evidence that there was a laboratory leak.

That's a straw man. There is way more to it than that.

...The evidential value of the presence of the laboratory is zero. The case for the laboratory leak then has to be made.

It's not zero, but the case has been made.

...The problem with the laboratory leak theory is there is no evidence linking the laboratory with SARS-CoV-2. Just a lot of mud slinging and innuendo.

IOW you still have not reviewed the thread for all the stuff you aren't acknowledging.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I don't think you understand, you can't adapt a virus to human to human spread in a laboratory.

OMG!!!! You can't be that naive.

We do not yet understand enough about viral transmission. Laboratory passage makes viruses less fit.

You really should stop digging that hole you are in.

If the virus wasn't capable of person to person transmission we would not have had a pandemic. No other virus required to be adapted in a laboratory to cause a pandemic. Why should this virus uniquely require intelligent design instead on natural selection like every other pandemic?

And more straw arguments.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Some basics for anyone who can't or doesn't want to Google how it is done:

Might SARS‐CoV‐2 Have Arisen via Serial Passage through an Animal Host or Cell Culture? - A potential explanation for much of the novel coronavirus’ distinctive genome

Unless the intermediate host necessary for completing a natural zoonotic jump is identified, the dual‐use gain‐of‐function research practice of viral serial passage should be considered a viable route by which the novel coronavirus arose. The practice of serial passage mimics a natural zoonotic jump, and offers explanations for SARS‐CoV‐2's distinctive spike‐protein region and its unexpectedly high affinity for angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE2), as well as the notable polybasic furin cleavage site within it.

This is all discussed in the thread, especially earlier on.

The long‐standing practice of serial passage is a form of gain‐of‐function research that forces zoonosis between species, and requires the same molecular adaptations necessary for a natural zoonotic jump to occur within a laboratory, leaving the same genetic signatures behind as a natural jump but occurring in a much shorter period of time.

IOW one need not see obvious genetic engineering to have a lab adapted pathogen.

Re the furin cleavage site which has been discussed at length in the thread:

Although they only emerge under artificial conditions in influenza viruses, these furin cleavage sites are found within several branches of the coronavirus family tree. However SARS‐CoV‐2 is the only lineage B coronavirus found with one, and the only other coronaviruses known to have them are only at most 60% identical to this novel coronavirus.[ 5 ] ...

It is possible that this novel coronavirus gained its furin cleavage site through recombination in an intermediate host species, however there are also two laboratory processes that may have imbued SARS‐CoV‐2 with its furin cleavage site which will be discussed below. ...

serial passage through a live animal host simply forces the same molecular processes that occur in nature to happen during a zoonotic jump, and in vitro passage through cell culture mimics many elements of this process—and neither necessarily leaves any distinguishing genetic traces.

People like to claim a lab leak never resulted in a pandemic but that isn't true. In 1977 a lab modified flu virus leaked and caused a pandemic.

... Although no one has ever taken responsibility for the introduction of this virus, it would become the first known example of a virus created by serial passage leaving a lab, which was later determined due to its inexplicable genetic distance from any known sister strain.[ 8 ]

 

[Sherkeu]

People like to claim a lab leak never resulted in a pandemic but that isn't true. In 1977 a lab modified flu virus leaked and caused a pandemic.

I read about that "Russian Flu" of '77. Had not known there were genetic modifications.
From old papers I saw, the virus only affected those under 25, and the last time an H1N1 was effectively circulating was 25 years prior. (so thanks Russia for bringing it back!)

Upon study of that virus, it appeared to be a near exact copy to a 1950 sample frozen from the flu at that time. Seems the Russians had a frozen sample as well and... ??? No one really knows. The Soviets denied everything.
Denial works- and eventually people don't care as much and there is little price to pay.

 

[jt512]

Yes, it is permissive but no more than that. I agree that if there was no laboratory then there could not be a laboratory leak. However, I disagree that because there is a laboratory, that is evidence that there was a laboratory leak. The evidential value of the presence of the laboratory is zero.

If it were true that "the evidential value of the presence of the laboratory [were] zero," then the plausibility that a lab leak caused the pandemic would be the same whether there was a lab in Wuhan or not. Since that is obviously not the case, then the presence of the lab must have "evidential value."

 

[angrysoba]

Not listened yet, but thought I would stick this BBC interview with Florence Debarre.

May be of interest to some...

Link

Richard Ebright has already made up his mind...

Trigger Warnings: "thumbnails"

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I read about that "Russian Flu" of '77. Had not known there were genetic modifications.
From old papers I saw, the virus only affected those under 25, and the last time an H1N1 was effectively circulating was 25 years prior. (so thanks Russia for bringing it back!)

Upon study of that virus, it appeared to be a near exact copy to a 1950 sample frozen from the flu at that time. Seems the Russians had a frozen sample as well and... ??? No one really knows. The Soviets denied everything.
Denial works- and eventually people don't care as much and there is little price to pay.

It's not clear whether the leak was of a virus sample that had merely been frozen for 25 years or whether there was work being done with the virus to modify it for use in a vaccine program.

There are some interesting parallels to today.

Lab leak is the biggest suspect in 1977 flu pandemic. But it took 3 decades to gain currency

The reason why the Russian flu is believed to be have started with a lab leak is that the H1N1 virus that caused the pandemic was found to be closely related to human influenza viruses that circulated in 1949-1950. Since viruses are known to evolve continuously, this discovery, made in 1978, convinced many scientists that a preserved sample of the virus from mid-20th century found its way out of a lab. ...

Here's where it gets interesting:

US researchers suggest that the Western scientists didn’t pursue the lab leak theory at the time for several reasons. These include tensions between the US and the USSR amid the Cold War.

The WHO’s Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS) — a network of laboratories to monitor the spread of influenza — was established in 1952 to conduct global influenza surveillance.

Russia joined this network only in 1971.

In a 2014 report titled “Laboratory Escapes and ‘Self-fulfilling prophecy’ Epidemics”, Martin Furmanski, affiliated with the Scientists’ Working Group on Chemical and Biologic Weapons Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, wrote that Western scientists at the time did not want to offend their Russian and Chinese counterparts, as their cooperation was important for such a global networks to track influenza to be successful.

Sound familiar?

A 2015 paper by Michelle Rozo and Gigi Kwik Gronvall at UPMC Center for Health Security noted how the 1977 outbreak had become a “cautionary tale” in the arguments against gain-of-function research — which involves enhancing the properties of a virus in a way that makes it more infectious or dangerous, so as to preempt potential pandemics and prepare vaccines or treatments.

Such research had come under the scanner in the US after a 2012 study modified an avian flu virus to show how it may have transmitted into humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Russian_flu

It has been suggested by many researchers that the virus leaked to the public from a laboratory accident.[4][11][24][25] The virus may have escaped from a lab attempting to prepare an attenuated H1N1 vaccine in response to the US swine flu pandemic alert of 1976.[26] The World Health Organization, however, ruled out a laboratory origin in 1978 after discussions with researchers in the Soviet Union and China: their report stated that "the laboratories concerned either had never kept H1N1 virus or had not worked with it for a long time".[3][5]
Others have suggested that it resulted from a vaccine trial or challenge.[5][23] The multiple source locations of outbreak made a single-laboratory origin less likely than a vaccine accident.[5] Virologist Peter Palese claims the outbreak was the "result of vaccine trials in the Far East involving the challenge of several thousand military recruits with live H1N1," according to personal communication with virologist Chi-Ming Chu.[14]
The idea that the virus may have been a deliberately-deployed bioweapon appears unlikely and inconsistent with Soviet biological weapon research at the time.[5]

It hasn't been shown clearly that the virus was being altered but that is one hypothesis.

 

[Sherkeu]

It's not clear whether the leak was of a virus sample that had merely been frozen for 25 years or whether there was work being done with the virus to modify it for use in a vaccine program.

There are some interesting parallels to today.

Here's where it gets interesting:
Sound familiar?

Eerily. It sounds like our own words years earlier in this very thread.
They were much poo poo'd at the time- and poo is an appropriate description of the sentiments directed at us. CONSPIRACY! But I am patient.

 

[Planigale]

That particular lab was studying gain of function on coronaviruses. That doesn't count as suspicious in your eyes?

At all?

No.

1) There is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was the product of gain of function research or artificial adaption.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8570237/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9546612/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7836551/

2) There is no evidence that WIV had access to an ancestral virus that could have been subject to gain of function research or otherwise manipulated to create SARS-CoV-2

So it is irrelevant to the origin of SARS-CoV-2.

 

[Planigale]

It's not clear whether the leak was of a virus sample that had merely been frozen for 25 years or whether there was work being done with the virus to modify it for use in a vaccine program.

There are some interesting parallels to today.

Lab leak is the biggest suspect in 1977 flu pandemic. But it took 3 decades to gain currency


Here's where it gets interesting:
Sound familiar?




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Russian_flu


It hasn't been shown clearly that the virus was being altered but that is one hypothesis.

But AH1N1 was a known pandemic virus that arose naturally in the US probably because of a jump from birds to pigs as an intermediate species. This was widely worked on in laboratories both for diagnostic, research and vaccine production.

The discussion isn't whether laboratory leaks occur. There is no doubt they do. The question is whether a novel coronavirus was in someway created at WIV and then leaked.

 

[angrysoba]

Yeah, I think the point about the particular flu strain that may have leaked from a Russian lab is that we know what it was. It is less of a surprise to have a virus that we know was likely to be in a lab rather than a completely new one that we have no evidence was in the lab.

 

[Dr.Sid]

But AH1N1 was a known pandemic virus that arose naturally in the US probably because of a jump from birds to pigs as an intermediate species. This was widely worked on in laboratories both for diagnostic, research and vaccine production.

The discussion isn't whether laboratory leaks occur. There is no doubt they do. The question is whether a novel coronavirus was in someway created at WIV and then leaked.

I don't think the question is if the coronavirus was created or modifed in a lab. The question is if the lab helped in any way in the spread, even if it meant just collecting samples, which then leaked.
The question IMHO is if the labs and their activities are safe enough, and if they shouldn't be a lot safer. That does include modification and creation of new viruses, of course. But also just collection and observation.