I’m pretty much on the same boat, I doubt it will ever be known, some more evidence for zoonosis should be forthcoming someday, one would hope, but until then, it does leave both theories with about the same amount of evidence.
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That’s not seen as definitive as of yet:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0300891620987756
As multiple coronaviruses can trigger that particular antibody, supposedly testing for the specific neucloecapsid from C-19 would be a more definitive answer.
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If you read later in the literature, a better matching bat was found here, in 2017: Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus - PubMed
so it is unlikely that the first group of bats identified was the correct source. So, later research contradicted the earlier finding. We can misidentify the reservoir today, if you like, but that shouldn’t really count.
The Saudi Arabian analog of the Wuhan lab (with the help of Chinese (Beijin and Hong Kong) and US scientists), were on the case in MERS, and found MERS before 2012. Again, if we’re finding obscure viruses, it’s going to be easier in dromedaries and camels than critters smaller than a breadbox.
nick-warr is not responsible for widespread demonization, but it’s happening. Zoonosis is incredibly common throughout biology, it makes little sense to look at this one instance of zoonosis as an oddity.
ETA: If 1918 “Spanish” flu happened today, it’s origin (possibly China, possibly a US Army base) would be seen by some as highly suspicious to incontrovertible evidence of deliberate gene tampering. How likely is it that a usually mild virus could suddenly become virulent and specifically target young healthy people, whereas other flu strains targeted infirm and the elderly? What are the odds that happened naturally, and not in a lab?
Yeah, just making the point that we don’t know that it definitely originated in China, which is worth bearing in mind with the increase in anti-Asian abuse in the last 16 months.
#4 isn’t that big of a stretch. It’s not really a ‘constructed virus’, just a tweak of an existing thing. If I took a sedan and replaced the street tires with racing tires to see how it improved the car’s track performance, I didn’t construct a race car. That’s what #4 is. Some researcher making a (clearly poor in hindsight) decision to see what changing the structure in one spot just a little would do to it in the lab. The tools available today make this very easy. It’s not even an entirely bad decision, but it should have triggered other decisions too. For instance, that type of thing would likely require an increase in the BSL level, which also may not have happened.
There’s probably researchers all across the world doing similar stuff all the time, grad students, bio hackers, people playing a little fast and lose with the rules/guidelines.
It’s not one bad decision, but a cascade of problems that all lined up. Just like many failure scenarios where it’s not one thing that went wrong but a bunch and they all lined up.
I’m not saying this definitely happened. I’m saying if it did, it’s not a huge surprise or some huge conspiracy and it doesn’t mean it’s a state action. It’s not even that hard to imagine it.
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If the animal reservoir isn’t found, it certainly won’t be for lack of trying.
I’m sure that, being professionals, these scientists will continue to investigate animal origins despite whatever other unproven theories may be out there. Not sure what you’re referring to with “widespread demonization” but I’ve never gotten the impression that anyone of consequence is asking that this line of investigation be stopped when a source hasn’t been confirmed yet.
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This is the crystallization of what bugs me. Zoonosis has happened throughout history. Saying “well, there’s two theories on where this came from, so… 50-50?” is sloppy. One of those hypotheses may result in getting people killed. So, maybe hold off on the one that blames the Wuhan lab? Or Fauci?
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Ask someone Asian how comfortable they and their family feel about walking around in North America. ETA: I very much doubt anyone literate/smart enough to comment on BB is harassing anyone, but sticking blame on China has real consequences on people. I similarly would tell Chinese sources who think this was an American plot that they’re not correct. So, the lab theory hypothesis is having repercussions.
There’s lots of disgusting anti-Asian racism out there right now, which is truly awful. But I’ve never understood the idea that the theory of an accidental lab leak is somehow more racist than the ugly stereotypes out there of Chinese people being backwards, primitive people who brought this virus upon us because they love to eat bats and other icky wild animals at wet markets. Racists will heap their hate upon people either way.
Edit to add, here’s just one of many examples showing that the racism is not just a result of the lab leak theory:
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It would be nice if they could find one as close to the first source, but they haven’t even gotten that far yet… and with SARS they definitely found the intermediate animals quickly, which were more or less breadbox sized?
They found a precursor of MERS, as far as I can tell, as it took years to arrive at the disease it was in 2012. You keep baniging on about zoonosis being nnormal, how often is it that there isn’t all this peripherary evidnce of it happening?
I’m not looking at this type of zoonosis as an oddity, I’m looking at the fact that it happened without leaving all the traces most other zoonotic diseases do. I’ve never said it’s either, I’d just expect we would have some traces of the zoonosis happening.
There are 2 theories with the same amount of evidence (almost all circumstantial), which do you chose?
I haven’t chosen either, I just find the lack of evidence for zoonosis odd.
I haven’t blamed Fauci, or the lab…
Our species has relentlessly expanded into previously wild spaces. Through intensive agriculture, habitat destruction, and rising temperatures, we have uprooted the planet’s animals, forcing them into new and narrower ranges that are on our own doorsteps. Humanity has squeezed the world’s wildlife in a crushing grip—and viruses have come bursting out.
— How the Pandemic Defeated America
I think the concern is…
If this pandemic was a product of habitat destruction or encroaching on previously “wild” areas of china where viruses like SARS originated, what can we do to better test and regulate wet markets and human expansion to avoid future pandemics like bird-flu or SARS.
If the mutation was engineered as part of gain-of-function research, then we should know about that and lobby to stop more gain-of-function research given dangers like a pandemic.
If the mutation was from a collection from a bat somewhere in a cave in rural china, but was able to get out of the lab because of lax protocols, we should lobby for better oversight and protocols to avoid this happening again in the future.
Knowing the root cause of the pandemic can help us prevent another one. It’s not simply about blaming someone, it’s about figuring out how this happened and preventing it! That’s why people care, and why you should care.
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As far as the lab-leak hypothesis is concerned I think it would also implicate the US who was involved in funding of that lab.
But why not all three. There doesn’t have to be any proof that the virus was created in a lab to know that we should probably have the equivalent of an IAEA inspecting all labs or that specific international regulations should be created surrounding GoF research. It doesn’t take finding the poor bat-patient-zero to know that China should probably be doing more to protect habitats and regulating wet markets.
The only reason that knowing what the actual cause is might be important is to justify holding China responsible, in particular, to avoid responsibility for those who decided to reduce pandemic surveillance in other countries.
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Yes. Because they believed it would kill more Democrats, Black people, and Latinx people. That was exactly their thinking. Because once they saw that it was hitting blue states harder early on, they dropped any national plans to help.
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I think the fall of the CCP (if it ever happens) would pretty much definitely answer the question one way or another. We know that the 1979 anthrax outbreak in the USSR was a lab leak (and not from a market selling bad meat as they claimed) because pre-Putin 1990s Russia was very forthcoming about Soviet scandals.
We are seeing an increase in emerging zoonotic diseases, and have been seeing them for decades. Climate change, population increase, other factors are increasing their rate of emergence. Drivers of Zoonotic Diseases - Sustaining Global Surveillance and Response to Emerging Zoonotic Diseases - NCBI Bookshelf
Yes, history is littered with zoonotic diseases (rabies, anthrax, glanders, tuberculosis, plague (Black Death), yellow fever, influenza, HIV, SARS, MERS, Ebola, Marburgvirus… ) so, not sure why another one is news. We will have more in our lifetime, assuming we survive a decade or two. The lack of evidence for zoonosis is emerging, it will likely be less odd in the next decade. Lack of evidence ≠ evidence.
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No, racists don’t need an excuse, Watters has found means to blame the black guy for this now: Jesse Watters: The true origin of COVID | Fox News (the TLDR, Obama’s fault).
I do not believe people here are racist for believing the lab leak hypothesis. I do believe presenting it as a likely alternative will cause more racist attacks. I believe it is an unlikely explanation of a common, natural (well, environmental degradation isn’t natural, but…) event, and so focusing on it will cause science and humanity more harm than good.
ETA: I do know personally know people in the North Eastern US who’ve eaten wild squirrel, rabbit, chipmunk and a lot of deer, (rattlesnake too, but when visiting the Southwest) so it’s not like the Chinese have a patent on eating random local critters. Joy of Cooking doesn’t have a recipe for bat, but back in the day, they weren’t shy about the odd meats:
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I prefer absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence.
I agree, but until there is evidence, the lab leak (and I’m of the they had a sample, and didn’t contain it well camp) is in exactly the same boat, at least while a few points one way or another in terms of probability is the only differentiator. Maybe when we have another happen in the same way, it won’t seem so odd, not having it emerge a few miles from a globally recognized center for research into bat coronaviruses would probably also help.
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