[News] Coronavirus

A place to discuss the now-global coronavirus outbreak.

The end result of this "revelation" will be like the last "revelation:" racist and sometimes fatal assaults on members of the AAPI community.

Podunk wrote:

I still see the lab leak theory pilloried on Twitter as a "racist conspiracy theory," like we're still in June of 2020.

As I was saying. I don't have the time or energy to post an OGS style wall of text and links but the most distilled version of the lab leak theory is really, truly not a conspiracy theory (although clearly many people will very loudly insist that it is), and information keeps emerging to add credibility to it while 3+ years later we're still waiting on that biological smoking gun that proves Covid came from human-animal contact. It frankly seems like more of a leap to me that a uniquely horrible coronavirus spontaneously emerged from nature into a meat market with essentially none of the traceability that's existed with previous viruses that made the leap to humans, when there is a government virology lab *right there* doing gain of function research on coronaviruses. I mean, this ain't exactly the JFK assassination here.

I don't have any personal stake in it one way or the other, but I do find it odd that there is still this much partisan shrieking about it when, as JC astutely observes, it really ultimately doesn't matter at this point.

Podunk wrote:

as JC astutely observes, it really ultimately doesn't matter at this point.

This is where I am at. I don't see how a definitive source helps now. Does it make a cure more likely? Is it just reverse bragging rights?

farley3k wrote:
Podunk wrote:

as JC astutely observes, it really ultimately doesn't matter at this point.

This is where I am at. I don't see how a definitive source helps now. Does it make a cure more likely? Is it just reverse bragging rights?

There's value in knowing how it happened so you can minimize the chances of the NEXT one happening the same way. Particularly if the lab leak hypothesis turns out to be true - "regulations are written in blood" is a trueism.

Jonman wrote:

There's value in knowing how it happened so you can minimize the chances of the NEXT one happening the same way. Particularly if the lab leak hypothesis turns out to be true - "regulations are written in blood" is a trueism.

Well that's an excellent point.

Podunk wrote:

It frankly seems like more of a leap to me that a uniquely horrible coronavirus spontaneously emerged from nature into a meat market with essentially none of the traceability that's existed with previous viruses that made the leap to humans, when there is a government virology lab *right there* doing gain of function research on coronaviruses.

Wet markets and the hunters/growers who supply them are one of the most common ways to find viral transmission from animals to humans. And this was not a "uniquely horrible" coronavirus. The first SARS epidemic was in 2003-2004 and emerged in Guangdong province, jumping from bats to humans via palm civets or raccoon dogs. It killed almost 10% of 8098 people known to have been infected - worse than the current strain - and over 40% of the elderly it infected. But it faded away for reasons that are not understood. No cases recorded since mid-2004.

In 2012, another Coronavirus, MERS-CoV, crossed the barrier from bats and dromedaries (and maybe other animals) to humans in the Middle East (hence the name). It was unrelated to the usual human CoVs, however. (And no one thinks it was bioengineered.) From 2012 to 2020, over 2500 cases with 866 deaths were reported - seems like lower spread but much higher fatality rates, although of course I can't tell just from one paper.

And then the current virus appeared. SARS-CoV-2 was 79.5% sequence-identical with SARS-CoV. 96% of its genome was identical to bat coronavirus, and it used the same ACE 2 cell entry receptor as SARS-CoV.

So there's no reason to assume that it was *created* or engineered in a lab, as some would have it (just to put that out there). But also, it already had the built-in molecular tools to spread far and wide, just like the previous ones; there was no need for an enhancement to make it spread, in its natural form it would have done just fine. And crucially, in gain of function experiments, other (major) functions are lost; there should have been evidence of this relatively large variation from previous coronaviruses, but I don't believe that there is.

So my guess is that this was a natural sample that was carelessly handled, or that it indeed came directly from the Wuhan wet market - or both. But I doubt that it was actually engineered to be more virulent or anything like that because it only had the tools available to its related strains. Making changes like that would have produced a genetic signature that would have showed up clearly (since scientists make known changes for that sort of purpose that can be picked up with sequencing, as I understand it). But I've never heard that we've seen that.

Lab release of a natural virus? Sure. Wet market crossover? Sure - might even be what triggered the lab to collect it, muddying the waters even further. But genetically enhanced, and then escaped/released? I'd want to see a lot more evidence of that.

I still think this is likely to just lead to more of the China-bashing fervor we saw back in the early months of the pandemic. While China is certainly a rival and is on a collision course with us in many ways, laying this pandemic at their feet with any more culpability than the usual influenzas just ignores the fact that the natural reservoirs of coronavirus exist in China and could cross over at any time. We should *hope* the Chinese are studying them, and not blame the lab for the spread unless we can get clear evidence of mishandling. It's entirely possible but it's not like they meant it to blow up across the world.

And the idea that it's gene-crafted as a weapon is just ridiculous. It's a *terrible* virus, as a weapon. That's just right out.

If memory serves the reason SARS didn't spread out of control like SARS-CoV-2 is because people were symptomatic before or as they were contagious. So anyone who showed a fever when travelling were immediately quarantined and tested. This allowed us to quickly shut it down. SARS-CoV-2 was really bad at being contagious without any symptoms.

Robear wrote:

And the idea that it's gene-crafted as a weapon is just ridiculous. It's a *terrible* virus, as a weapon. That's just right out.

If it was a lab leak, it was probably being rapidly replicated to allow for natural evolution paths so we can study what future coronaviruses would look like. It just ended up being bad luck that we released the virus we were trying to get ahead of. I doubt it was a weapon. It would be a really bad weapon (though so was mustard gas in WW1).

Jonman wrote:
farley3k wrote:
Podunk wrote:

as JC astutely observes, it really ultimately doesn't matter at this point.

This is where I am at. I don't see how a definitive source helps now. Does it make a cure more likely? Is it just reverse bragging rights?

There's value in knowing how it happened so you can minimize the chances of the NEXT one happening the same way. Particularly if the lab leak hypothesis turns out to be true - "regulations are written in blood" is a trueism.

An excellent point. I also think that, whether or not it turns out to be a lab leak, there's room for a certain amount of intellectual humility in realizing that it WAS considered such a taboo idea, and then wound up being considered plausible enough to at least consider in respectable circles.

It's one thing to say, "well, there isn't enough evidence to make that a plausible theory at this time" and then re-evaluate that based on new evidence. It's another thing to say, "well, there isn't enough evidence to make that a plausible theory at this time, and you're a bad person for even considering it."

It's possible to disagree with someone without the judgmental moralizing I've seen around the issue.

Robear wrote:

And the idea that it's gene-crafted as a weapon is just ridiculous. It's a *terrible* virus, as a weapon. That's just right out.

Yeah, that *is* conspiracy theory territory. The version of the lab leak theory that I find plausible is, "somebody f*cked up somehow."

hbi2k wrote:

An excellent point. I also think that, whether or not it turns out to be a lab leak, there's room for a certain amount of intellectual humility in realizing that it WAS considered such a taboo idea, and then wound up being considered plausible enough to at least consider in respectable circles.

It's one thing to say, "well, there isn't enough evidence to make that a plausible theory at this time" and then re-evaluate that based on new evidence. It's another thing to say, "well, there isn't enough evidence to make that a plausible theory at this time, and you're a bad person for even considering it."

It's possible to disagree with someone without the judgmental moralizing I've seen around the issue.

Yes to all of this.

Same here, Podunk. Just to be clear. I only put it out there, not because I thought you believed it, but because people will run into that in the wild.

This provides more info.

In particular, scientists published two extensive, peer-reviewed papers in Science in July 2022, offering the strongest evidence to date that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in animals at a market in Wuhan, China. Specifically, they conclude that the coronavirus most likely jumped from a caged wild animal into people at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where a huge COVID-19 outbreak began in December 2019.

Virologist Angela Rasmussen, who contributed to one of the Science papers, says the DOE's "low confident" conclusion doesn't "negate the affirmative evidence for zoonotic [or animal] origin nor do they add any new information in support of lab origin."

"Many other [news] outlets are presenting this as new conclusive proof that the lab origin hypothesis is equally as plausible as the zoonotic origin hypothesis," Rasmussen wrote in an email to NPR, "and that is a misrepresentation of the evidence for either."

So just what is the scientific evidence that the pandemic began at the seafood market?

Neither of the Science papers provide the smoking gun — that is, an animal infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus at a market.

But they come close. They provide photographic evidence of wild animals such as raccoon dogs and a red fox, which can be infected with and shed SARS-CoV-2, sitting in cages in the market in late 2019. What's more, the caged animals are shown in or near a stall where scientists found SARS-CoV-2 virus on a number of surfaces, including on cages, carts and machines that process animals after they are slaughtered at the market.

The data in the 2022 studies paints an incredibly detailed picture of the early days of the pandemic. Photographic and genetic data pinpoint a specific stall at the market where the coronavirus likely was transmitted from an animal into people. And a genetic analysis estimates the time, within weeks, when not just one but two spillovers occurred. It calculates that the coronavirus jumped into people once in late November or early December and then again few weeks later.

At this exact same time, a huge COVID outbreak occurred at the market. Hundreds of people, working and shopping at the market, were likely infected. That outbreak is the first documented one of the pandemic, and it then spilled over into the community, as one of the Science papers shows.

At the same time, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention found two variants of the coronavirus inside the market. And an independent study, led by virologists at the University of California, San Diego, suggests these two variants didn't evolve in people, because throughout the entire pandemic, scientists have never detected a variant linking the two together. Altogether, the new studies suggest that, most likely, the two variants evolved inside animals.

Well this is super depressing - long covid

Physics Girl is really sick

Working link below

That's terrible.

Your link doesnt work Farley, this should

Didn't make it through that video. Super depressing is an understatement when you start wondering how many folks don't have a super supportive network of friends and family.

farley3k wrote:

Well this is super depressing - long covid

Physics Girl is really sick

Working link below

I was just coming here to post this too. Hope she gets better soon.

Mental-health crisis from Covid pandemic was minimal - study

The review did not look at lower-income countries, or specifically focus on children, young people and those with existing problems, the groups most likely affected, experts say, and risks hiding important effects among disadvantaged groups.

IMAGE(https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2J9KH1F/handsome-black-male-chef-in-uniform-kissing-fingers-standing-over-blue-background-2J9KH1F.jpg)

"COVID effect minimal on otherwise healthy 22 year-olds"

Rezzy wrote:

Didn't make it through that video. Super depressing is an understatement when you start wondering how many folks don't have a super supportive network of friends and family.

Even more depressing is that Long Covid is at least recognized. There’s a whole constellation of long term illnesses where the individuals dealing with it don’t even have institutional support from the medical community.

DSGamer wrote:

There’s a whole constellation of long term illnesses where the individuals dealing with it don’t even have institutional support from the medical community.

sh*t, so they're treating everyone like women now?

That article brought to you by the same gaslighting media industrial complex that brought you seven hundred versions of “why remote work sucks: get your f*cking ass back into the office, pleb”

Weird, reading the bit Pendrick highlighted pulled to the fore my memory of the work town hall where our org President talked about how he'd found sometimes in lockdown he needed space, so he went to a different wing of his house, and we should all consider doing the same.

SpacePProtean wrote:

Weird, reading the bit Pendrick highlighted pulled to the fore my memory of the work town hall where our org President talked about how he'd found sometimes in lockdown he needed space, so he went to a different wing of his house, and we should all consider doing the same.

This is how ye shall be known henceforth in British GWJ.

Pendrick Le'Mar?

Another data point in favor of Covid having a natural origin: raccoon dog genetic material found mixed in with virus genetic material in samples taken from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market near the start of the pandemic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...

the most recent episode of the skeptical philosophy and influencer culture podcast Decoding the Gurus hosted 3 virologists who’ve been involved in covid research during the pandemic to talk about the lab leak conspiracy theory since it’s being pushed by a lot of the grifters the podcast regularly covers, and they pretty thoroughly debunk all the major arguments in favor of it. One of the scientists had been investigating the Wuhan wet market prior to the outbreak, and another was one of the first scientists to vocally support lab leak theory but has since changed his mind.

Podunk wrote:

Another data point in favor of Covid having a natural origin: raccoon dog genetic material found mixed in with virus genetic material in samples taken from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market near the start of the pandemic.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/...

Go on…

IMAGE(https://i0.wp.com/bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/reraccoon.jpg)

Did All Those Masks Help with Covid or Not?

that looks like a spam ad.

That's talking about a questionable study put out a bit ago that claimed that mask (and more specifically mask mandates) didn't help with Covid. I say questionable because they seemed to be deliberately misunderstanding the point of the mask mandates, which was to lower the infection rate so hospitals wouldn't be overwhelmed, not eliminate the spread entirely. They primarily looked at data to determine whether wearing masks prevented people from getting covid, but the point of masks were to prevent you from spreading it if you had it, not to completely eliminate the chance of catching it in the first place. It also failed to acknowledge that people weren't wearing masks 100% of the time, so if you wore a mask at work, but didn't wear one at home or out in stores, you could still get covid while outside of work and that would count that against the mask mandate, despite the fact that you caught it while not wearing a mask. They also didn't touch on people deliberately ignoring mask mandates or how many people were wearing them incorrectly and inconsistently.

The authors wouldn't talk to the media about the study, and the primary author made posts during the covid pandemic comparing reporters to Nazi functonaries. He also has ties to the Brownstone Institute, a Libertarian organization that broadly opposed public health restrictions during the pandemic.

Yeah let’s not spread garbage like that.