The P&R Plague Thread (Covid-19)

Archy1221 said:
This is an interestingly worded article apart from the actual interview.   A few thoughts (paragraphs copied from the article fyi)….

The low confidence is correct but she didn’t add the “highly likely” to the DOE report or include the confidence level of the zoonotic origin studies.  
 

Author also tries to imply the DOE conclusion is from “Intelligence Community” and NOT scientifically based when in actuality the DOE has some of the best scientists/labs in the world at their disposal.  

The Department of Energy says COVID-19 was caused by a lab leak. But that doesn’t mean COVID-19 was definitely caused by a lab leak. In fact, the agency’s report, which made headlines last week, states it has “low confidence” in its own conclusion. Scientific evidence, on the other hand, has overwhelmingly pointed toward a natural spillover from animals to humans — the same origin of nearly every other outbreakin history and a growing threat. 
 

With congressional hearings, a federal advisory board and government reports pitting the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community against the conclusions of scientists,

It doesn’t have to be an either/or reason for finding out the origin.   It’s actually a case for both.  The more we all know about the origin (whatever it may be) the better. 
 

 Clearly, a sizable portion of the American political system is engaged with the idea that proving COVID-19 began with a lab leak matters. But whydoes it matter? Is it motivated by the political goal of assigning blame or the public health goal of planning for the future? 
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The reason I posted the article is because it hits on something that I've been thinking for quite some time. I'm all for studying what the origin is.  We need that to help prevent it from happening again, or improve on how to handle it if it happens again.

My fear though is that the political crap around it is going to drown out the practical science side of it all.  Political people are going to scream and holler and over react to the findings.  That part is touched on in the article and I agree with it.  If it's found to come from the labs, there is going to be a huge push to close the labs.  I don't agree with that approach.  We need the research. We also need it to be done in the safest way possible.

 
BigRedBuster said:
The reason I posted the article is because it hits on something that I've been thinking for quite some time. I'm all for studying what the origin is.  We need that to help prevent it from happening again, or improve on how to handle it if it happens again.

My fear though is that the political crap around it is going to drown out the practical science side of it all.  Political people are going to scream and holler and over react to the findings.  That part is touched on in the article and I agree with it.  If it's found to come from the labs, there is going to be a huge push to close the labs.  I don't agree with that approach.  We need the research. We also need it to be done in the safest way possible.
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Agree with you that the reason it’s important to find the origin is to give the world population a better opportunity to prevent a future outbreak of this proportion.  
 

The political aspect is too late to avoid.  It became political when the lab leak was discounted by so many, so early based on politics.  We now know it was based on politics because of all the people coming out now saying they wanted it to be of zoonotic origin to avoid more backlash to people of Asian decent.  I truly understand those people went through some horrible cases of profiling, but it’s not a reason to discount a viable theory of origin. 
Many people were silenced and/or mocked for their belief of a leak and if it’s born true, it will be hard for them to not crow about it for a bit.  That doesn’t help anything going forward, but it’s human nature.  
 

I wouldn’t agree with closing down facilities, but would agree to much more oversight of protocols if they are dealing with extremely dangerous pathogens and shown to be out of compliance. 
I also think whatever gain of function programs are in place, needs to be flushed out and publicly acknowledged to see what the risk/reward profile is for the populace. 

 
Archy1221 said:
Agree with you that the reason it’s important to find the origin is to give the world population a better opportunity to prevent a future outbreak of this proportion.  
 

The political aspect is too late to avoid.  It became political when the lab leak was discounted by so many, so early based on politics.  We now know it was based on politics because of all the people coming out now saying they wanted it to be of zoonotic origin to avoid more backlash to people of Asian decent.  I truly understand those people went through some horrible cases of profiling, but it’s not a reason to discount a viable theory of origin. 
Many people were silenced and/or mocked for their belief of a leak and if it’s born true, it will be hard for them to not crow about it for a bit.  That doesn’t help anything going forward, but it’s human nature.  
 

I wouldn’t agree with closing down facilities, but would agree to much more oversight of protocols if they are dealing with extremely dangerous pathogens and shown to be out of compliance. 
I also think whatever gain of function programs are in place, needs to be flushed out and publicly acknowledged to see what the risk/reward profile is for the populace. 
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Whether it was leaked from a Chinese lab or born out of a Chinese market, Trump chose to make it political based on the geographic origin; not the situational origin.

The violence against Asian Americans is due to the idiocy of Trump and his idiot followers.

Show me where the Chinese Govt intentionally let out the virus and I might feel sorry for calling those folks idiots...

 
Archy1221 said:
Agree with you that the reason it’s important to find the origin is to give the world population a better opportunity to prevent a future outbreak of this proportion.  
 

The political aspect is too late to avoid.  It became political when the lab leak was discounted by so many, so early based on politics.  We now know it was based on politics because of all the people coming out now saying they wanted it to be of zoonotic origin to avoid more backlash to people of Asian decent.  I truly understand those people went through some horrible cases of profiling, but it’s not a reason to discount a viable theory of origin. 
Many people were silenced and/or mocked for their belief of a leak and if it’s born true, it will be hard for them to not crow about it for a bit.  That doesn’t help anything going forward, but it’s human nature.  
 

I wouldn’t agree with closing down facilities, but would agree to much more oversight of protocols if they are dealing with extremely dangerous pathogens and shown to be out of compliance. 
I also think whatever gain of function programs are in place, needs to be flushed out and publicly acknowledged to see what the risk/reward profile is for the populace. 
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Those "lab leak" folks be some sensitive people. And I for one am sorry they are so sensitive. 

That said, i look forward to reading their papers and examining their data on the origin of covid. 

 
Oh good. Now everyone can jump to their own conclusions…..oops, wait a minute, that’s already been happening. But at least now, no matter what “side” of the issue you’re on, you will have some snippets of official government documents to make you even more steadfast in your preferred theory.

Actually I prefer to have the raw information but anybody that thinks this will settle it is likely severely mistaken.

 
JJ Husker said:
Oh good. Now everyone can jump to their own conclusions…..oops, wait a minute, that’s already been happening. But at least now, no matter what “side” of the issue you’re on, you will have some snippets of official government documents to make you even more steadfast in your preferred theory.

Actually I prefer to have the raw information but anybody that thinks this will settle it is likely severely mistaken.
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Real top notch leadership would only release this to Steve Bannon.

 
https://www.science.org/content/article/covid-19-origins-missing-sequences

“The data does point even further to a market origin,” says Kristian Andersen, an evolutionary biologist at Scripps Research who attended the meeting and is one of the scientists analyzing the new data. If so, the findings weaken the view of a vocal minority that a virology lab in Wuhan was the likely origin of SARS-CoV-2
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The analysis presented to the WHO panel this week now suggest that some coronavirus-positive samples collected contained DNA or RNA from raccoon dogs, civets, and other mammals now known to be highly susceptible to SARS-CoV-2.
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Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona who was a lead author of the one of the papers, says he and his collaborators still are analyzing the new genetic information, but it has so far solidified his own view that SARS-CoV-2 had a zoonotic origin. (The two preprints on which he is a coauthor were later published by Science.)

“Flo and I have been traveling the same road of being very open to lab leak ideas, but becoming more and more convinced as more and more evidence comes in that’s just not how it happened, and that it did happen at the Huanan market via the wildlife trade,” Worobey tells ScienceInsider.
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For those postulating that the reason China has been less than open about their investigations into the origins of Covid means they are covering up for a lab leak need to understand how powerful "losing face" is in eastern cultures. It drives nearly every decision.  For the CCP, not being able to control the illegal animal trade in the Wuhan market is enough of a "lose face" situation that they'd try to cover it up and make the claim that the source came from outside the Wuhan wet market.

 
Scarlet said:
https://www.science.org/content/article/covid-19-origins-missing-sequences

For those postulating that the reason China has been less than open about their investigations into the origins of Covid means they are covering up for a lab leak need to understand how powerful "losing face" is in eastern cultures. It drives nearly every decision.  For the CCP, not being able to control the illegal animal trade in the Wuhan market is enough of a "lose face" situation that they'd try to cover it up and make the claim that the source came from outside the Wuhan wet market.
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Couldn’t read the Atlantic article be used of paywall, was able to read this one.  It brings some more evidence to suggest some animals at the Wuhan Seafood market did contract Covid.  The article also states human only Covid samples which could suggest humans brought the virus to the Market.  

CDC and WHO have previously said it much more likely for a human to animal transmission then animal to human transmission.  
 

I don’t think this study really helps push the discussion in one direction or the other.  It would be nice for Congress to release the data from DOE that promotes them to change their decision on origination so more people could compare the data with what’s already in the public.   National Security reasons for not releasing isn’t going to cut with so many people already dead from the virus.  

 
Archy1221 said:
Couldn’t read the Atlantic article be used of paywall, was able to read this one.  It brings some more evidence to suggest some animals at the Wuhan Seafood market did contract Covid.  The article also states human only Covid samples which could suggest humans brought the virus to the Market.  

CDC and WHO have previously said it much more likely for a human to animal transmission then animal to human transmission.  
 

I don’t think this study really helps push the discussion in one direction or the other.  It would be nice for Congress to release the data from DOE that promotes them to change their decision on origination so more people could compare the data with what’s already in the public.   National Security reasons for not releasing isn’t going to cut with so many people already dead from the virus.  
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First, you're misinterpreting what the CDC and WHO is saying about the likelihood of animal to human transmission.  They're talk about all animals not SARS susceptible animals like a Raccoon Dog.  We know coronaviruses have jumped from animals to humans before and not infrequently, MERS and SARS1 being the most recent that made headlines.

The suggestion that this data indicates human to animal transmission is according the former head of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), George Gao.  He has every motivation to toe the CCP party line.  The CCP wants the narrative to be that the virus was brought to the market from outside via human transmission but not from a lab leak.

The group says they reached out to Gao and colleagues to collaborate on analyzing the unearthed market sequences, and soon after that the data disappeared from GISAID. When Science asked Gao why GISAID removed the sequence data, he did not reply, but he indicated that the data did not resolve the question of SARS-CoV-2's origin, which he said is "still scientific and open."
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