So... What if China's Wuhan Institute of Virology did leak covid-19?

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[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
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That's where this is changing.

That lying dummy Trump pushed this explanation at some point between magically going away, hoax virus, bleach injections, The Hydroxy, and the nephelem sperm lady.

Being the racist, flailing shitbag he was, the idea was dismissed as another xenophobic crackpot scapegoating, of which the scientific community was also interested in letting go.

But where we are now, lots of researchers / few answers, lots of stonewalling by China, a credible administration and a China skeptical nation wanting answers why the economy was destroyed and 600,000 Americans are dead?

This is not going away by a long shot.

Besides, what else do Republicans have to talk about? Plus if Democrats reflexively defend the Chinese, then they walk right into a 2022 midterm trap.

Ds need to lean right into this and demand answers. If it's from a SARS/MERS like transmission, then push china to open up and prove it. And if it's not... Oh shit.
AND push the State Department to explain why they're funding not only virology research in China, but specifically gain of function research. I would like my elected representative to ask very pointed questions into how this is in my interest.
 

Bitek

Lifer
Aug 2, 2001
10,647
5,220
136
I think there has been a problem with how people are defining the origins. I think when people say laboratory origin, I think most of the experts mean that SARS-CoV-2 was sitting in some sample Wuhan was analyzing, infected someone, and "escaped" the lab in that manner, aka the lab escape origin. The virus occurred in nature but found the right series of steps to disseminate into the human population. I have no problem with that theory given the current data. It could be real. That is totally different than someone engineering SARS-CoV-2 and the sequence/virus being man-made. That theory I don't buy into.

Certainly could be. If it was manipulated it's somewhat immaterial to the response, as they are doing that work currently, and saying they only lost control of wild type virus and not one of their juiced up baddies isn't much of a comfort.

What does that mean really? No worries, could have been even worse, but wasn't, so carry on then? Keep building bigger nukes to blow up more atolls? Gotta do better than that Dr. Shi.

Why? There would be fingerprints of other viruses in SARS-CoV-2, which doesn't exist. You'd have to argue that someone has sufficient time/money in the virology world to create a virus, and purposefully erase all traces that the virus was engineered. Unless SR Hadden was on the case, that's technology, skills, time, and resources that exceed what is reasonably possible in science today. That's getting into the realm of believing that a cabal of pedophiles rule the world. Sure the NWO could exist given all these ifs, but should we believe it?

The story and body of research refutes this tho. We have had the capability to engineer novel virus from parts of naturally occurring viruses for some time. They can be further enhanced for infectiousness in the lab with selection pressure through repeated passes through model cells.

As far as detection.. we could identify restriction enzyme fingerprints (one paper did) but you can't necessarily distinguish between a natural sequence if you don't know which restriction enzyme that was specifically used.

Also, one of the papers laid out a seamless ligation technique developed by a collaborating researcher that leaves no nucleotide disturbances after insertion of the sequence for study into the target genome.

And we know there is money to do this because we have the receipts from the NIH and Ecohealth.

Truth is, without a great deal of transparency from the Chinese, as well as identification of the reservoir population for a natural origin explanation, it will be difficult to come to a firm conclusion one way or the other.

The politics won't wait anymore for all the science to catch up. This is ready to get radioactive quickly.
 
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Leeea

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2020
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Ensure that any wet market related theory includes the fact that bats hibernate in the winter.

I think the point being made its very suspicious a lab with one of the world's premier bat coronavirus researchers also is the one town that has a sudden and highly infectious outbreak of a bat coronavirus in the middle of winter.

If you think about it, wintertime is the best time for bats in the wet market.

In the summer time, super hard to catch, active, and fast.

In the winter, just climb into the cave and gather them up. Ignore the cramped conditions, oppressive atmosphere, and the fact your standing in the viral incubator. Easy peasy.

And we know people were going into those caves in the winter. They video taped themselves.
 
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abj13

Golden Member
Jan 27, 2005
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Certainly could be. If it was manipulated it's somewhat immaterial to the response, as they are doing that work currently, and saying they only lost control of wild type virus and not one of their juiced up baddies isn't much of a comfort.

What does that mean really? No worries, could have been even worse, but wasn't, so carry on then? Keep building bigger nukes to blow up more atolls? Gotta do better than that Dr. Shi.

Depends on the perspective you take. If someone is purposefully designing a virus, from the ground up, and then it got out, that's different from researchers having a virus (whether it was known or not to be in a sample) and it unknowingly infects a worker and gets out. Let me make it clear, both are bad. But one is at entirely different level of bad. Having someone design it and it get out really gets at the level of nefarious purposes.

The story and body of research refutes this tho. We have had the capability to engineer novel virus from parts of naturally occurring viruses for some time. They can be further enhanced for infectiousness in the lab with selection pressure through repeated passes through model cells.

As far as detection.. we could identify restriction enzyme fingerprints (one paper did) but you can't necessarily distinguish between a natural sequence if you don't know which restriction enzyme that was specifically used.

Also, one of the papers laid out a seamless ligation technique developed by a collaborating researcher that leaves no nucleotide disturbances after insertion of the sequence for study into the target genome.

And we know there is money to do this because we have the receipts from the NIH and Ecohealth.

No, that's not the fingerprinting or engineering I'm getting at. The vast majority of coronavirus reverse genetics system rely on either a bacterial artificial chromosome or having the genome split across multiple plasmids and essentially performing a golden gate assembly of the genome prior to in vitro transcription and subsequent transfection/electroporation. Both of those approaches don't involve intraviral restriction digest sites that would be detectable. Coronaviruses are so large its nearly impossible to find appropriate restriction sites for single cutters, and on top of it, portions of the genome is known to be toxic to bacteria.

Where the fingerprints would be is that long stretches of open reading frames of SARS-CoV-2 are unique. The technology simply doesn't exist for researchers to "create" unique nucleotide/amino acid sequences to assemble a functional protein. So any virus that is engineered in the lab, given the current technology, would be a chimera, consisting of several highly (>99%) identical sequences to previously known viruses. That doesn't occur with SARS-CoV-2.

The differences between the most closely related genome cannot be explained by serial passage through cell culture as you claim. The paper that best represent the pressure of serial passage was done in 1997 where they passaged the virus 600 times. Each passage was 3 days each, so 3x600 = 1800 days or just under 5 years of continual passaging in culture. Even after growing the virus in the lab, the S protein only differed by 2.1% from the original virus. The closest neighbor to SARS-CoV-2 differs by 4% across the entire genome. When you look at the closest neighbor to SARS-CoV-2, and even if I remove the RBD domain (invoking a purposeful recombination event), what is the nucleotide difference between the S domains? 6.17%. So if you wanted to invoke that serial passage created SARS-CoV-2, using the mutation rate, it would have taken nearly 15 years of continual serial passage in cell culture

So no, it doesn't add up that current techniques could have generated SARS-CoV-2. Its too divergent from any known virus, so they would have been stuck making up sequences of unknown function and pathogenicity.

Truth is, without a great deal of transparency from the Chinese, as well as identification of the reservoir population for a natural origin explanation, it will be difficult to come to a firm conclusion one way or the other.
I think once a closer neighbor to SARS-CoV-2 is discovered, which predict will be found at some point, I think it will be more clear the engineered virus theory is bunk. It already fails to explain the current genome outside of somebody guessing what a functional nucleotide sequence is. Trying to invoke serial passage isn't possible unless someone has been passaging the virus since one year after SARS-CoV-1 was discovered.
 
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brandonbull

Diamond Member
May 3, 2005
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Please explain how it's the Democrats' and the media's fault that conservatives/GOP routinely make themselves look like a bunch of racist, science denying, conspiracy nuts. Keep in mind that it was the "orange man" that made this an issue in the first place, in order to deflect responsibility from his failure to lead the country in a time of crisis.
But anyway, it's not the Democrats' nor the media's fault that conservatives/GOP are consistently gullible chumps to Orange man's cons. For example, "draining the swamp" was just an euphemism for filling the govt with nothing but corrupt Trump loyalists. Maybe if you took some responsibility for yourselves, stopped trying to blame everyone else for every little thing, and started trying to help find solutions, you'd quit looking like a bunch of racist, science denying, conspiracy nuts.
But nah, you're not gonna do that when it's all the libtard progressivshiks' fault, right?
I guess you have failed to understand anything that has happened since Jan 2020 because the likes of Trevor Noah or Andrew Cuomo fill your news feed. We had members of Congress and other elected politicians running around calling Trump and any non Democrat a racist for suggesting COVID-19 was linked to China and that people needed to get out. We are seeing more and more evidence that government officials had vested interests in squashing any theory about a lab leak or that China withheld information. You line of thinking is par for the course because you helped elect Joe "We choose truth over facts" Biden. At the end of the day, the self anointed intellectuals look more and more like arrogant morons that have no use for facts or logic.
 

Leeea

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2020
3,599
5,340
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I guess you have failed to understand anything that has happened since Jan 2020 because the likes of Trevor Noah or Andrew Cuomo fill your news feed. We had members of Congress and other elected politicians running around calling Trump and any non Democrat a racist for suggesting COVID-19 was linked to China and that people needed to get out. We are seeing more and more evidence that government officials had vested interests in squashing any theory about a lab leak or that China withheld information. You line of thinking is par for the course because you helped elect Joe "We choose truth over facts" Biden. At the end of the day, the self anointed intellectuals look more and more like arrogant morons that have no use for facts or logic.

so

Which Trump republican theory do you espouse?
Bioweapon?
Chlorine injections?
UV light bulb implants?
Democratic Hoax?
Lab leak?

The republicans are a pathetic joke of drooling racist morons. There is a reason people write off their moronic babblings.
 

cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
23,046
12,712
136
We had members of Congress and other elected politicians running around calling Trump and any non Democrat a racist for suggesting COVID-19 was linked to China and that people needed to get out.
By “suggesting” you mean C-c-c-c-hina Virus, Wu-Flu etc... Yea that is some bigoted racist STUPID inflammatory bullshit to have any official spewing out, specially the prez. Trump decided to only speak Bigot early on, thank god most of you refused to lean into that language and rhetoric. Shame on you.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
12,969
7,886
136
Not entirely sure where this article is "coming from", so-to-speak, but his point about "experts" and "vested interests" is something I frequently wonder about. American conservatives have given distrust of experts a bad name, but I still somewhat share that feeling. Credentials and expert status are so often mixed-up with vested-interests and hierarchies of power.

For me, climate change is the exception that proves the rule, in that I feel I understand that topic well enough to decide for myself that the 'orthodox science' is supported by the evidence and that the denier arguments are not convincing - but there are other topics where I don't feel I know enough to make up my own mind, yet find myself suspicious of the 'expert' class. It feels like an impossible dilemma - the world is far too complicated for any mere mortal to evaluate every issue themselves, yet its hard to trust anyone in a world full of vested-interests.

If the Wuhan lab-leak hypothesis is true, expect a political earthquake | Thomas Frank
 

Puffnstuff

Lifer
Mar 9, 2005
16,015
4,785
136
If found to be true combined with China's overt attempts to silence witnesses and suppress information I think the world should ban together and collectively punish them for it.
 

Leeea

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2020
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If found to be true combined with China's overt attempts to silence witnesses and suppress information I think the world should ban together and collectively punish them for it.

of course, and the World will also need to ban together and punish the financers and directors of the research, the United States of America. Who willingly ignored signs that the Wuhan lab had issues, and oversaw research projects at Wuhan the US labs would not touch. For this Gross Negligence, 50% of the income of all US citizens should be collected for perpetuity as compensation for the massive economic damage and widespread death the USA inflicted on the world. It does not take an expert to see researching the "gain function" of corona viruses at a lab known for leaks and shoddy practices would result in this outcome.

oh wait, you did not realize the USA was the primary responsible party? You see, Obama banned financing/doing this research in 2015, but Trump reinstated it in 2017. It is only fair the US population be held to account for the mass murder they irresponsibility inflicted upon the world with their poor electoral choices.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
12,969
7,886
136
oh wait, you did not realize the USA was the primary responsible party? You see, Obama banned financing/doing this research in 2015, but Trump reinstated it in 2017. It is only fair the US population be held to account for the mass murder they irresponsibility inflicted upon the world with their poor electoral choices.

Do you have links for that? The best I could find was snopes - which seems to partially support the claim, but it doesn't say that Obama cancelled it and Trump reinstated it, rather that Trump simply continued the existing grant (which was only indirectly to the Wuhan institute).

This all looks more-and-more murky and confusing to me. I still don't see any basis for believing in a deliberate release (which would have been an outright insane thing to do), but it's maybe starting to look a little bit as if 'science', as presently practiced in real world conditions, just may have a case to answer - _if_ it turns out it was an accidental release from a legit research project.

 

Puffnstuff

Lifer
Mar 9, 2005
16,015
4,785
136
of course, and the World will also need to ban together and punish the financers and directors of the research, the United States of America. Who willingly ignored signs that the Wuhan lab had issues, and oversaw research projects at Wuhan the US labs would not touch. For this Gross Negligence, 50% of the income of all US citizens should be collected for perpetuity as compensation for the massive economic damage and widespread death the USA inflicted on the world. It does not take an expert to see researching the "gain function" of corona viruses at a lab known for leaks and shoddy practices would result in this outcome.

oh wait, you did not realize the USA was the primary responsible party? You see, Obama banned financing/doing this research in 2015, but Trump reinstated it in 2017. It is only fair the US population be held to account for the mass murder they irresponsibility inflicted upon the world with their poor electoral choices.
We will nuke you instead.....:p
 
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Leeea

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2020
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Do you have links for that? The best I could find was snopes - which seems to partially support the claim, but it doesn't say that Obama cancelled it and Trump reinstated it, rather that Trump simply continued the existing grant (which was only indirectly to the Wuhan institute).

This all looks more-and-more murky and confusing to me. I still don't see any basis for believing in a deliberate release (which would have been an outright insane thing to do), but it's maybe starting to look a little bit as if 'science', as presently practiced in real world conditions, just may have a case to answer - _if_ it turns out it was an accidental release from a legit research project.


First post in this thread:

Obviously highly controversial. Banned by Obama in 2014, loosened by Trump in 2017. Ha! You didn't think US taxpayer money would be involved? Did we learn nothing from Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein?

looks like he pulled it from the vanity fair article he posted, referring to:
In October 2014, the Obama administration imposed a moratorium on new funding for gain-of-function research projects that could make influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses more virulent or transmissible.
and then
In the first year of the Trump administration, the moratorium was lifted and replaced with a review system called the HHS P3CO Framework (for Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight). It put the onus for ensuring the safety of any such research on the federal department or agency funding it. This left the review process shrouded in secrecy.

;)
 

cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
23,046
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Orange man bad. You are racist for even suggesting a lableak theory.
tenor.gif


ok
 
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Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
33,378
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Meanwhile we just raised a generation of children across much of the planet to be terrified of other people and invisible germs. No way this doesn't get stamped onto the collective psyche in ways we can't yet predict.

Just think of the imprint 9/11 and terrorism left, and almost no one directly experienced the the event or know someone who died. That's not true for covid-19.

I don't know anyone who has even had COVID. Though this certainly isn't over yet.....

OTOH, everyone has felt the economic impact of a "government" response, where we had shutdowns and restrictions. Could be a backlash against authority, a boon to the Republican "!@#$ Government" approach.

There will be two stamps of our collective psyche. One for those who were scarred by the virus. Another for those who were harmed by the response.
 
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pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
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First post in this thread:



looks like he pulled it from the vanity fair article he posted, referring to:

and then


;)


Argh. I think my brain is full. Can I be excused? I can't read that many words. It's too many. Someone figure it out, come up with a definitive explanation and let me know.
 
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Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
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I guess you have failed to understand anything that has happened since Jan 2020 because the likes of Trevor Noah or Andrew Cuomo fill your news feed. We had members of Congress and other elected politicians running around calling Trump and any non Democrat a racist for suggesting COVID-19 was linked to China and that people needed to get out. We are seeing more and more evidence that government officials had vested interests in squashing any theory about a lab leak or that China withheld information. You line of thinking is par for the course because you helped elect Joe "We choose truth over facts" Biden. At the end of the day, the self anointed intellectuals look more and more like arrogant morons that have no use for facts or logic.

Lol... I don't get my opinions about Trump or Republicans from the media. I get them directly from Trump and Republicans. That's what you fucking morons just don't seem to get. I don't watch Trevor Noah or CNN. I read the comments and posts from Republicans and conservatives on social media, and derive my opinions of them directly from their own words. That's why I told you to start taking some personal responsibility and quit playing the perpetual victim.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
14,303
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Orange man bad. You are racist for even suggesting a lableak theory.
Suppose the lab leak 'theory' is true... now what? How would that do anything to solve the problem of COVID-19? Would war with China somehow stop the spread of disease? Of course not. But that doesn't stop weak minds from looking for blame instead of solutions, and then getting butthurt when their absence of basic problem solving skills is pointed out to them.

As for the 'Orange man,' maybe he shouldn't have called the more than half of Americans who didn't vote for him 'human scum.' And it wasn't the media that said that, it was Trump on his own twitter feed.
 
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[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
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Suppose the lab leak 'theory' is true... now what? How would that do anything to solve the problem of COVID-19? Would war with China somehow stop the spread of disease? Of course not. But that doesn't stop weak minds from looking for blame instead of solutions, and then getting butthurt when their absence of basic problem solving skills is pointed out to them.

As for the 'Orange man,' maybe he shouldn't have called the more than half of Americans who didn't vote for him 'human scum.' And it wasn't the media that did said that, it was Trump on his own twitter feed.
I'm personally not looking for 'blame', I'm just trying to determine how something like this happened (if it can be shown within reason that it was likely an accidental lab release of the end result of gain-of-function research on bat viruses), so that we can prevent it from happening again. If we do nothing, we learn nothing, and we go through this again in another few years when some bigbrain decides to do the same thing on an avian flu, or a swine flu.
 

Matt390

Member
Jun 7, 2019
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Suppose the lab leak 'theory' is true... now what? How would that do anything to solve the problem of COVID-19? Would war with China somehow stop the spread of disease? Of course not. But that doesn't stop weak minds from looking for blame instead of solutions, and then getting butthurt when their absence of basic problem solving skills is pointed out to them.

As for the 'Orange man,' maybe he shouldn't have called the more than half of Americans who didn't vote for him 'human scum.' And it wasn't the media that said that, it was Trump on his own twitter feed.

Shilling for your CCP overlords I see. I cant believe you don't see the value in finding out if a Chinese government lab was so irresponsible they caused a global pandemic. Ill spell it out for you: Preventing the next one.
 

Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
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I'm personally not looking for 'blame', I'm just trying to determine how something like this happened (if it can be shown within reason that it was likely an accidental lab release of the end result of gain-of-function research on bat viruses), so that we can prevent it from happening again. If we do nothing, we learn nothing, and we go through this again in another few years when some bigbrain decides to do the same thing on an avian flu, or a swine flu.

For sure, if the virus was human-made, then those involved should be held accountable to the fullest extent in order to deter such a thing from happening again. I just don't see the virus being human-made as the most probable scenario though. More likely is that it developed as a natural mutation, like every other disease does, and the politicians who mishandled the pandemic are engaging in finger-pointing and blame in order to distract the populace from their own incompetence.
 
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Vic

Elite Member
Jun 12, 2001
50,415
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Shilling for your CCP overlords I see. I cant believe you don't see the value in finding out if a Chinese government lab was so irresponsible they caused a global pandemic. Ill spell it out for you: Preventing the next one.

And a weak mind gets butthurt. I could just as easily say that you're shilling for incompetent and corrupt politicians who are desperate to find some external blame so that people don't see how incompetent and corrupt they are. And just FYI: keeping such weak leaders in power (or electing them back into power) won't protect us from the next one anymore that they did this last one.
 
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