Covid - the result a (accidental) lab leak - don't shoot me down, genuine concerns

[questioningalways]

I can't be the only one worrying about the weird coincidence that the Wuhan lab was so close to the mass spreader event of the Wuhan wet market.

What about the gain-of-function research that has focused on a number of viruses and looking at how they can become more transmissible i.e. in 2011 when two studies were suppressed involving H5N1 viruses that had been modified to allow airborne transmission from ferret to ferret.

I'm surprised main media are not focusing more on this...too many coincidences and given that the 1977/78 Russian flu was most likely due to an (accidental?) lab leak it's not inconceivable that Covid was too:

nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html

www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext

@NeverDropYourMoonCup

If you want a new conspiracy theory, have a look at the number of reports of people in hospital and/or dying from a lung condition/pneumonia that was attributed to vaping over the year and months immediately prior to this.

'Commonly reported symptoms include shortness of breath, cough, fatigue, body aches, fever, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Additional symptoms may include chest pain, abdominal pain, chills, or weight loss.'

'Pulmonary infiltrate, such as opacities on plain film chest radiograph or ground-glass opacities on chest computed tomography '

'patients in narratives including the following:

Dehydration from nausea, multifocal pneumonia, sepsis, acute respiratory failure with hypoxemia, and blood clots, necessitating a medically induced coma and removal of fluid from the lungs'

Have fun.

Why would you call the lab leak a conspiracy theory? It's an easy way to try to brush someone off.

I'm scientifically trained, I'm not an imbecile!

I'm scientifically trained, I'm not an imbecile!

Okay then, why not put your scientific training towards looking at something nobody sciency has apparently done yet?

@orangenasturtium

This is a good paper on why it is unlikely that the virus was genetically engineered:

www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

In summary, the mutation that makes the virus good at binding to ACE2 receptors is new and was not predicted. However, there are already existing ways to modify the virus to do that, so why not use them? Why reinvent the wheel?

That doesn't mean that they didn't have the virus at the lab and it was accidentally released, of course, just that it is more likely it evolved through natural selection.

I've never claimed it's deliberate but the chance of a virus leaking from the lab, modified or not (as part of legitimate research, even though I personally don't agree with GOF research), cannot be dismissed entirely.

So what really.

@NeverDropYourMoonCup

I'm scientifically trained, I'm not an imbecile!

Okay then, why not put your scientific training towards looking at something nobody sciency has apparently done yet?

??? Because at the moment, there is very little access to labs due to Covid and lockdown! Science is not always about investigating new, frontier areas you know....

It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s something WHO are actively seeking to investigate

Just hold your breath. Somewhen 3-5 years from now we'll have a better idea of how it started.

Patience...

@Haffiana

Yes, of course I'm aware of the WHO but you may not be aware that some key figures involved with this 'trip', were heavily involved with the funding of the research at the Wuhan institute.

That is a conspiracy theory, right there. Classic.

It is a never-ending rabbit hole, OP. It seems oh so reasonable at first, and you are only questioning as you should, and then suddenly the 'big pharma' klaxon is going off wherever you look and then you are stuck in it and don't know it.

I work with big pharma. It's very easy to brush people of with saying they're 'conspiracy theorists'. Bet that's what the people said back in the day when people were told that the earth wasn't flat...honestly. Lots of highly regarded scientists are also keeping an open mind about this.

"The term "conspiracy theory" is itself the subject of a conspiracy theory, which claims the term was popularized by the CIA in order to discredit conspiratorial believers, particularly critics of the Warren Commission, by making them a target of ridicule." So there...

Come on. No one really believed the earth was flat. It’s been well established for millennia. Only a few fringe nutcases, now and in the past, thought otherwise

It’s do silly to keep holding up ‘scientists used to beleive the earth was flat’ because no they didn’t

I was exaggerating, obvs, but the point is that to use the term conspiracy theory about something that may actually be viable and true is just lazy and sloppy.

Humans are not infallible, lab leaks happen - many scientists do not discount a lab leak as a possibility.

www.cnet.com/features/the-lab-leak-theory-and-the-twisted-messy-hunt-for-covid-19s-origin/

Occam's Razor.

Of course it was the ineptly run high level biolab right up the road. Even moderate politicians have hinted (angrily) that there is a suspicion this is the case.

When The West is no longer weakened, we'll hear much more about this.

I work with big pharma. It's very easy to brush people of with saying they're 'conspiracy theorists'. Bet that's what the people said back in the day when people were told that the earth wasn't flat...honestly. Lots of highly regarded scientists are also keeping an open mind about this.

There are also lots of scientists on that Who commission investigating Wuhan whom you have just accused of having big pharma reasons for not doing their job properly.

You can't have it both ways. Not unless what you are really telling us is how specially open your mind is and only you can see The Truth.

People in the rabbit hole often do not know they are there, I find.

Someone definitely dropped a vial the whole thing reminds me of the film ‘contagion’.

But why are you 'worrying' OP? Because even if we find out that Covid came from a lab, it doesn't change anything. Either way, a novel pathogen has caused a global pandemic.

It is of course possible and in some ways it would be more reassuring as within human control for it not to happen again

Even the professor / doctor who worked in the lab studying viruses thought when she first heard that it could have come from her lab. She then checked and it hadn’t but she did think it was a possibility at first which implies it could have been I guess.

That doesn't mean that they didn't have the virus at the lab and it was accidentally released, of course, just that it is more likely it evolved through natural selection.

Can't the lab have had samples of the virus/species infected with the virus and it was passed on via a trace contact handling the sample/species with appropriate PPE jumping species to a visitor without, who then became patient zero?

The long read about smallpox in 1978 is heart breaking but fascinating. Janet Parker died of smallpox. The university was defended successfully against it having been a leak but the head of the lab killed himself when this was rumoured - the actual transmission has not been established (the airborne theory that it ended up in the phone room via the air vent was successfully defended in court) but one theory was direct contact between the photographer and the department when collecting orders.
www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/21/it-was-a-total-invasion-the-virus-that-came-back-from-the-dead

Seems to be a very likely run-of-the-mill explanation and not a “conspiracy theory” at all. Accidents happen. Humans screw up. The lab was noted for having lax security previously according to whistleblowers. They study viruses and bring them in to the lab. Nothing outlandish there.

Obviously it changes nothing, but I don’t see how it’s in any way controversial to think a lab mistake could’ve released a virus without meaning to.

@sashagabadon exactly!
@Ethelfromnumber73 because we need to prevent something like this happening again; it has been a genuine concern for some time that this might happen, and of course even more concerning in cases where gain-of-function research takes place. Maybe GOF should be outlawed?
@HomeschooIerRockthemicrophone this! exactly
@LacyEdge totally agree

'So there'

How old are you?

Sigh. I am torn between "it was released by aliens wanting to colonise the planet" and "I wish I could be abducted by aliens providing they agree never to bring me back".

I've only been using MN for a month of so and I'm still surprised at some of the comments. Guess I need to get used to the rather nasty tone of some of these....I just wonder what kind of people write these kind of comments? What kind of lives do they have to be so unkind? I honestly never would write comments like these to anyone, but with the veil of anonymity people feel they can address you in a way they'd never do to your face.

Anyhow, you can't say it's a conspiracy theory, that's just a lazy and uneducated brush off.

@questioningalways

I agree with your post

I'm inclined to believe it was an accident, but I think this type of research should be banned or very strictly controlled (don't know how it could be effectively done on a global level though)

Covid-19 may be a doddle compared to all that could go wrong in these settings if scientists are allowed to carry on with very little actual oversight.

Much more focus should be placed on these issues, for sure