Origins of Covid

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by lomiller

So you want to stop studying viruses with pandemic potential in the hopes that will somehow make you safer? Do you realize how ridiculous that is?

What’s even more ridiculous is attacking the distinctions of different kinds of gain of function as if it were of no importance. The specific definition that paused certain types of gain of function was to allay fears that viruses studied in labs could escape and cause a pandemic. But if you remove all distinctions and say that no viral or bacterial gain of function experiments could be done then you presumably could not even make vaccines which clearly involve gain and/or loss of function to work.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Just an FYI: My comments were about the fruitless distraction arguing the semantics of what GoF was.

As for we needed that research, we don't have an irony meter big enough to address that comment.

And if the evidence was addressed without all the political interference, some of you might have noticed there were safety measures not followed in the research so far, and not just in Wuhan labs.

From memory those included things like providing a number of barriers between a potential lab leak and a dense population center. That was objected to as not feasible given the scientists at the labs would want to live in those urban population centers. And to that I say the internet could easily accommodate connections to said urban center. We have scientists now who spend months in Antartica and on the International Space Station. I'm sure we could recruit researchers willing to spend a few months away from home as they studied PPPs.

But we can't accomplish that without an honest evaluation of just how COVID 19 got out.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Just an FYI: My comments were about the fruitless distraction arguing the semantics of what GoF was.
...
And if the evidence was addressed without all the political interference, some of you might have noticed there were safety measures not followed in the research so far, and not just in Wuhan labs....

Skeptic Ginger's usual misinformation.
The discussion of what GoF is not semantics. The funding of GoF research at the WIV was based on a specific definition of GoF, apparently including the target of making the virus both more infectious and transmittable. WIV only researched making making the virus both more infectious.
We have no actual evidence that there were safety measures not followed at the Wuhan labs.
A fantasy that PPP's (potential pandemic pathogens) need to be studied in labs in Antarctica or the ISS.
A fantasy that there is no honest evaluation of just how COVID 19 got out. There are scientists honestly evaluating all of the evidence for the origin of COVID 19 such as whether the virus got out of a animal population or out of a lab. Currently the best evidence is still for a bat origin (such as the Laos bats with the closest match to the virus), an intermediate animal vector, and those animals ending up at the Wuhan market(s). This does not eliminate a lab leak.

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

What’s even more ridiculous is attacking the distinctions of different kinds of gain of function as if it were of no importance. The specific definition that paused certain types of gain of function was to allay fears that viruses studied in labs could escape and cause a pandemic. But if you remove all distinctions and say that no viral or bacterial gain of function experiments could be done then you presumably could not even make vaccines which clearly involve gain and/or loss of function to work.

Note that even for real GoF work, some of the most dangerous is considered essential in understanding what viruses present a pandemic risk to humans. The moratorium on it wasn't because the research isn't essential it was because some countries (but primarily the US) had no regulation or controls around it whatsoever.

GoF is really just a red herring that plays into the whole right wing "never trust science, scientists are evil" sentiment.

[No Other]

Originally Posted by lomiller

GoF is really just a red herring that plays into the whole right wing "never trust science, scientists are evil" sentiment.

It is not a red herring created by the whole right wing... I agree with you that GOF can be quite useful and Researchers have proven that; where the rub comes is transparency. When GOF was initially restricted we were in a different environment (no virus, China vs USA was not as polarized and we had a President that was pretty sharp)... today, Wuhan will not allow independent bodies to review procedures, we have a virus of unknown origin already spread around the world, and it is a completely politicized disease.

Doing GOF in this environment is suicidal more suicidal than re-electing Trump. We know how to conduct GOF, that will never go away; having said that...

Would you want a Republican Administration overseeing GOF?

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by No Other

It is not a red herring created by the whole right wing... I agree with you that GOF can be quite useful and Researchers have proven that; where the rub comes is transparency. When GOF was initially restricted we were in a different environment (no virus, China vs USA was not as polarized and we had a President that was pretty sharp)... today, Wuhan will not allow independent bodies to review procedures, we have a virus of unknown origin already spread around the world, and it is a completely politicized disease.

Doing GOF in this environment is suicidal more suicidal than re-electing Trump. We know how to conduct GOF, that will never go away; having said that...

Would you want a Republican Administration overseeing GOF?

The US doesn't allow the Chinese to inspect it's BSL4 labs, why would China allow the US to inspect it's labs?

The real threat from GoF was always mainly unregulated private labs primarily located in the US. This is where anyone could perform whatever GoF experiments they wanted with no oversight whatsoever. China on the other hand doesn't have a problem with lack of oversight, just the opposite in fact their government wants it's fingers in everything.

[lionking]

Have the Chinese released the Delta and Omicron variants, or has evolution done the job? If it’s the latter, isn’t it reasonable that evolution came up with the original variant?

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by lionking

Have the Chinese released the Delta and Omicron variants, or has evolution done the job? If it’s the latter, isn’t it reasonable that evolution came up with the original variant?

Funny you should say that because some lab leak theorists do indeed claim that Omicron came from a lab as well. I have seen Yuri Deigin float that idea (though not for Delta). Bret Weinstein and Jordan Peterson have been showing how completely bat **** they have become by suggesting that the variants are some kind of Big Pharma ruse (honestly, people used to think they were smart dudes but the pandemic has turned them into Alex Jones).

Interestingly, the Proximal Origins paper by Andersen, Lipkin, Garry, Rambault and Holmes argued that one of the strongest pieces of evidence for considering the virus to be a result of natural spillover was that it wasn’t as good a fit to the human ACE-2 receptor as a lab-produced virus would likely to be. I think the continued increase in fitness that we are seeing of the virus variations seem to vindicate them in this way.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by No Other

It is not a red herring created by the whole right wing... I agree with you that GOF can be quite useful and Researchers have proven that; where the rub comes is transparency. When GOF was initially restricted we were in a different environment (no virus, China vs USA was not as polarized and we had a President that was pretty sharp)... today, Wuhan will not allow independent bodies to review procedures, we have a virus of unknown origin already spread around the world, and it is a completely politicized disease.

Doing GOF in this environment is suicidal more suicidal than re-electing Trump. We know how to conduct GOF, that will never go away; having said that...

Would you want a Republican Administration overseeing GOF?

Seems a red herring as political administrations don’t usually oversee the lab experiments themselves. Despite Trump’s claims about knowing loads about science because of his uncle being a professor for a record-breaking amount of time, he probably did not spend any time in a BSL-4 lab recreating the days when his uncle got him a chemistry set for Christmas.

[lomiller]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Funny you should say that because some lab leak theorists do indeed claim that Omicron came from a lab as well. I have seen Yuri Deigin float that idea (though not for Delta). Bret Weinstein and Jordan Peterson have been showing how completely bat **** they have become by suggesting that the variants are some kind of Big Pharma ruse (honestly, people used to think they were smart dudes but the pandemic has turned them into Alex Jones).

I pointed out earlier this thread that you can find accusations of a lab leak surrounding virtually every major virus outbreak. The only difference is that this time some people are taking it seriously and even promoting it for reasons of politics and propaganda.

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Interestingly, the Proximal Origins paper by Andersen, Lipkin, Garry, Rambault and Holmes argued that one of the strongest pieces of evidence for considering the virus to be a result of natural spillover was that it wasn’t as good a fit to the human ACE-2 receptor as a lab-produced virus would likely to be. I think the continued increase in fitness that we are seeing of the virus variations seem to vindicate them in this way.

Another thing they pointed out is that the RBD is out of frame, something that would never happen if it were designed by humans but does occur from time to time in evolution.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by lionking

Have the Chinese released the Delta and Omicron variants, or has evolution done the job? If it’s the latter, isn’t it reasonable that evolution came up with the original variant?

Not sure what you mean but the lack of variability in the first batches of the COVID genomes was evidence it appeared on the spot there in Wuhan in late 2019. And the evidence supported the conclusion it was a one-time event of the virus' entering the human population.

Evidence of lineages A and B can be explained by an error in the way genomes are processed. But even if that isn't what happened, the two lineages are only a couple mutations apart, again not evidence the virus was circulating in any significant numbers prior to the one time release in Wuhan.

From there on mutations and the resulting variants demonstrate what one would have seen had the virus been circulating for very long before or within Wuhan.

Passing a virus through a host multiple times can lead to it becoming more contagious and/or deadly.

Researchers pass viruses repeatedly through cell cultures or animal hosts to create versions adapted to whatever they are studying.

Researchers in N. Carolina and at the WIV have been doing that with SARS CoV related viruses for years.

PNAS 2016: SARS-like WIV1-CoV poised for human emergence

Quote:

This manuscript describes efforts to extend surveillance beyond sequence analysis, constructing chimeric and full-length zoonotic coronaviruses to evaluate emergence potential. Focusing on SARS-like virus sequences isolated from Chinese horseshoe bats, the results indicate a significant threat posed by WIV1-CoV. Both full-length and chimeric WIV1-CoV readily replicated efficiently in human airway cultures and in vivo, ...

... we developed a framework to examine circulating CoVs using reverse genetic systems to construct full-length and chimeric viruses. The results indicate that viruses using WIV1-CoV spike are poised to emerge in human populations due to efficient replication in primary human airway epithelial cell cultures. However, additional adaptation, potentially independent of the spike protein receptor-binding domain, is required for pathogenesis and epidemic disease.

Quote:

Primary human airway epithelial cell cultures derived from human donors and grown at an air–liquid interface represent the closest model to the human lung. Therefore, the ability of both WIV1-CoV and WIV1-MA15 to grow equivalently to the epidemic SARS-CoV in these cultures is a major concern for emergence. However, pathogenesis studies in mice suggest that further adaptation may be required for epidemic disease..

Know what the SARS CoV viruses needed to make them spread more readily in humans?

LEAKED GRANT PROPOSAL DETAILS HIGH-RISK CORONAVIRUS RESEARCH
The proposal, rejected by U.S. military research agency DARPA, describes the insertion of human-specific cleavage sites into SARS-related bat coronaviruses.

Quote:

... the proposal describes the process of looking for novel furin cleavage sites in bat coronaviruses the scientists had sampled and inserting them into the spikes of SARS-related viruses in the laboratory.

“We will introduce appropriate human-specific cleavage sites and evaluate growth potential in [a type of mammalian cell commonly used in microbiology] and HAE cultures,” referring to cells found in the lining of the human airway, the proposal states.

The grant was denied but said grant was not the WIV's only source of funding.

You know the saying, 'if you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras'?

You have a virus that appeared abruptly, in Wuhan where they were not just studying SARS CoVs, they were manipulating the viruses to make them more dangerous for humans. And there is no evidence of any spillover, no evidence of bats infected with the close progenitor of COVID, no evidence of any intermediate species of animal, no evidence where or when a naturally occurring precursor virus to COVID evolved.

Horses or zebras?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Funny you should say that because some lab leak theorists do indeed claim that Omicron came from a lab as well.....

Irrelevant red herring. There are many such red herring claims. China says omicron was introduced to Beijing on incoming mail from Canada. It couldn't live long enough mail packaging to do so.

You post this crap to try to mislead away from the science and toward CTs. If you had better arguments for a natural spillover you wouldn't need to do this.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Irrelevant red herring. There are many such red herring claims. China says omicron was introduced to Beijing on incoming mail from Canada. It couldn't live long enough mail packaging to do so.

You post this crap to try to mislead away from the science and toward CTs. If you had better arguments for a natural spillover you wouldn't need to do this.

I'm just posting facts. Lionking asked, and I answered. Literally some of the most prominent lab leak theorists ARE claiming Omicron came from a lab.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

I'm just posting facts. Lionking asked, and I answered. Literally some of the most prominent lab leak theorists ARE claiming Omicron came from a lab.

"Prominent lab leak theorists"?

You mean the ones you read about on the CT sites?

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Nothing about the cases resembled a "fungal infection". To claim otherwise is to imagine you know more than the doctors treating the patients.

Again you claim to know more than the doctors treating the patients. I assure you you do not.

But as for what the miners had that Shi seems to not fully address:

The genetic structure of SARS‐CoV‐2 does not rule out a laboratory originNote the invitation to take samples from the mine came because the miners contracted a severe pneumonia. They were not diagnosed with a fungal infection as both histoplasmosis and aspergillosis would not have been a mystery infection. And a cluster of 6 cases of undiagnosed pneumonia in miners working where SARS likely originated would raise a big red flag which resulted in contacting the WIV.

Add to that what was the presumptive diagnoses the physician taking care of these patients stated in the master's thesis and you have a likely SARS CoV-like viral pneumonia.

Of course this is that paper by Segreto and Deigin that has been hand-waved away because of some reason over their hypothesis on the furin cleavage sites.


You all can spin your wheels over this all you want, it doesn't change the evidence based facts.

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

"Prominent lab leak theorists"?

You mean the ones you read about on the CT sites?

No, ones YOU have quoted…

[Skeptic Ginger]

There's no link there to get a bit more context so I've gone looking for myself. I cannot find where you got that thumbnail from but regardless, this is what I did find:

NPR: The mystery of where omicron came from — and why it matters

Omicron has a slew of genetic changes and it is unclear how those accumulated. There are a number of hypotheses.

Quote:

The discovery of the omicron variant of the coronavirus — which has a high number of concerning mutations — has kicked off a frenzy of research. Scientists are racing to figure out how transmissible this variant is and how resistant to vaccines it is.

They're also grappling with a mystery: How did omicron get created? ...

But Bedford says that when you look at the family tree for this omicron variant, there's something surprising: "With omicron, your closest sequences are back from mid-2020 — so over a year ago. That is very rare to see."

In other words, while scientists can tell that this variant evolved from a strain that was circulating in mid-2020, in the intervening months there has been no trace of all the intermediate versions that scientists would have expected to find as it morphed into its current form.

"It doesn't tie into anything that was circulating more recently," says Bedford." Yet its mutations put it a long way from that 2020 strain.

Three hypotheses are discussed.

Deigin's relevant Twitter thread

Quote:

If you hear anyone claim “we know the virus didn’t come from a lab”, don’t buy it — it may well have. Labs around the globe have been creating synthetic viruses for years:

He merely posits it as a fourth hypothesis. This is completely different from your dismissal:

Originally Posted by asoba

Funny you should say that because some lab leak theorists do indeed claim that Omicron came from a lab as well. I have seen Yuri Deigin float that idea (though not for Delta). Bret Weinstein and Jordan Peterson have been showing how completely bat **** they have become by suggesting that the variants are some kind of Big Pharma ruse (honestly, people used to think they were smart dudes but the pandemic has turned them into Alex Jones).

Serious researchers discussing the lab leak hypotheses are not bat **** crazy. And I don't see anything on Deigin's Twitter suggesting some Big Pharma CT.

Feel free to post the actual link in context and I'll take another look.

Evidence for a mouse origin of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant

Quote:

The rapid accumulation of mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant that enabled its outbreak raises questions as to whether its proximal origin occurred in humans or another mammalian host. Here, we identified 45 point mutations that Omicron acquired since divergence from the B.1.1 lineage. We found that the Omicron spike protein sequence was subjected to stronger positive selection than that of any reported SARS-CoV-2 variants known to evolve persistently in human hosts, suggesting a possibility of host-jumping. The molecular spectrum of mutations (i.e., the relative frequency of the 12 types of base substitutions) acquired by the progenitor of Omicron was significantly different from the spectrum for viruses that evolved in human patients but resembled the spectra associated with virus evolution in a mouse cellular environment. Furthermore, mutations in the Omicron spike protein significantly overlapped with SARS-CoV-2 mutations known to promote adaptation to mouse hosts, particularly through enhanced spike protein binding affinity for the mouse cell entry receptor. Collectively, our results suggest that the progenitor of Omicron jumped from humans to mice, rapidly accumulated mutations conducive to infecting that host, then jumped back into humans, indicating an inter-species evolutionary trajectory for the Omicron outbreak.

You make little effort to look at the bigger picture or have a serious discussion of the evidence, opting instead to cherry pick what suits your dismissive narrative.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Omicron has a slew of genetic changes and it is unclear how those accumulated. There are a number of hypotheses.

Three hypotheses are discussed.

Deigin's relevant Twitter thread


He merely posits it as a fourth hypothesis. This is completely different from your dismissal:

Quote:

Funny you should say that because some lab leak theorists do indeed claim that Omicron came from a lab as well. I have seen Yuri Deigin float that idea (though not for Delta). Bret Weinstein and Jordan Peterson have been showing how completely bat **** they have become by suggesting that the variants are some kind of Big Pharma ruse (honestly, people used to think they were smart dudes but the pandemic has turned them into Alex Jones).

Serious researchers discussing the lab leak hypotheses are not bat **** crazy. And I don't see anything on Deigin's Twitter suggesting some Big Pharma CT.

Feel free to post the actual link in context and I'll take another look.

Evidence for a mouse origin of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant



You make little effort to look at the bigger picture or have a serious discussion of the evidence, opting instead to cherry pick what suits your dismissive narrative.

Please try to read my posts properly.

First of all, I pointed out that Yuri Deigin "floated the idea". I am colour-coding my quote so you can see that I am distinguishing what he says from what Bret Weinstein and Jordan Peterson have said.

I have actually had some correspondence with Yuri Deigin and I have a bit more respect for him than I do for Weinstein and Peterson, and it is the latter who I dismiss as ******* crazy.

[angrysoba]

LOL!

Also, looks like Dr John Campbell is also floating the theory a little bit, although you have to love his "Hey, I just read the letters face!"

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

...
Deigin's relevant Twitter thread

Actually a lack of reading comprehension from Skeptic Ginger .

Quote:

If you hear anyone claim “we know the virus didn’t come from a lab”, don’t buy it — it may well have. Labs around the globe have been creating synthetic viruses for years:
...
5:37 AM · Apr 26, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

This is a comment about the original variant of the virus and irrelevant to NPR: The mystery of where omicron came from — and why it matters published December 1, 2021.

It is the twitter posted by angrysoba that has Yuri Deigin's actual hypothesis of "a lab leak origin of Omicon".

That post was in reply to Skeptic Ginger lying again about the irrelevant cases of miners who became ill and some died from what could have been fungal infections. Everything about the cases resembled fungal infections. The symptoms also match an unknown viral infection probably from the bats in the caves they worked in. We do not know what they got. The cases are irrelevant to a discussion on the origin of COVID. Shi stating her opinion that it was fungal infection is irrelevant to this thread.

Before this post there is her repeated idiocy about a proposal for research funding by the EcoHealth Alliance (not the WIV) that was refused in 2018 ! To connect this refused funding to COVID-19 we need some bits of conspiracy theory.

1. The EcoHealth Alliance got secret (as in no one has found it) funding for the insertion of a novel furin cleavage site into bat coronaviruses.
   The proposal says they wanted §14.209,245 for the entire DEFUSE project. So a few millions of dollars have mysteriously appeared.
2. The EcoHealth Alliance secretly got the WIV to do that research.
3. The WIV secretly did that research and there was a lab leak.
4. A conspiracy to cover that research up, e.g. no one working on it has come forward.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Please try to read my posts properly.

First of all, I pointed out that Yuri Deigin "floated the idea". I am colour-coding my quote so you can see that I am distinguishing what he says from what Bret Weinstein and Jordan Peterson have said.

I have actually had some correspondence with Yuri Deigin and I have a bit more respect for him than I do for Weinstein and Peterson, and it is the latter who I dismiss as ******* crazy.

And yet you brought up Deigin directly followed by your "bat **** crazy" accusation.

I know how to read. Maybe you need a grammar lesson in antecedents.

And you brought up my citing Deigin. Have you seen me bring the other two up because I don't recognize their names.

Bottom line, I would appreciate if you would address the issues and arguments and stop dismissing the facts based on your accusations against the sources of the information. But I have asked you multiple times and you keep doing it.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

And yet you brought up Deigin directly followed by your "bat **** crazy" accusation.

I know how to read. Maybe you need a grammar lesson in antecedents.

And you brought up my citing Deigin. Have you seen me bring the other two up because I don't recognize their names.

[

Not for the first time you are arguing that I should only talk about things that YOU bring up. Yet at other times you get annoyed if I make any posts about you.

When it comes to lab leak, I am talking about various lab leak theories including ones that you don’t endorse. Because it is not about you.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Not for the first time you are arguing that I should only talk about things that YOU bring up. Yet at other times you get annoyed if I make any posts about you.

When it comes to lab leak, I am talking about various lab leak theories including ones that you don’t endorse. Because it is not about you.

Oh for pity's sake!

I said no such thing. Please reread the exchange. You started with an attempt to drag the discussion into the CT realm. I called you on it. Then you said Deigin, your example of bat **** crazy, was your source. I showed he was not in the bat **** crazy category. Then you denied saying it, pointing out you only meant the other two were bat **** crazy. And I said I don't recognize the names.

And now you come up with this nonsense.

Could you please get back to discussing the evidence and facts in the case and stop discussing CTs, stop dismissing valid sources as too right-wing, or too [fill in the blank], stop implying I buy into CTs on the origin debate.

The only place the CT matter belongs in this thread is when discussing Daszak's temporary success getting the scientific community to buy into the falsehood the lab hypothesis was a CT. If you have something else relevant feel free to bring it up, otherwise PLEASE get over it. Regardless of which origin hypothesis you feel the evidence favors, the lab leak hypothesis is a valid, evidence supported hypothesis and it isn't a CT.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Oh for pity's sake!

I said no such thing. Please reread the exchange. You started with an attempt to drag the discussion into the CT realm. I called you on it. Then you said Deigin, your example of bat **** crazy, was your source. I showed he was not in the bat **** crazy category. Then you denied saying it, pointing out you only meant the other two were bat **** crazy. And I said I don't recognize the names.

What I wrote was perfectly clear. Not to you, maybe, because you seem to be insistent on acting hard done by.

[carlitos]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Oh for pity's sake!

I said no such thing. Please reread the exchange. You started with an attempt to drag the discussion into the CT realm. I called you on it. Then you said Deigin, your example of bat **** crazy, was your source. I showed he was not in the bat **** crazy category. Then you denied saying it, pointing out you only meant the other two were bat **** crazy. And I said I don't recognize the names.

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

And yet you brought up Deigin directly followed by your "bat **** crazy" accusation.

I know how to read. Maybe you need a grammar lesson in antecedents.

Hey SG, as someone who is reading and following the thread, this really doesn't do what you describe. The only "antecedents" to these comments were Bret and Jordan.

Quote:

Funny you should say that because some lab leak theorists do indeed claim that Omicron came from a lab as well. I have seen Yuri Deigin float that idea (though not for Delta).[new sentence starts here-carlito] Bret Weinstein and Jordan Peterson have been showing how completely bat **** they have become by suggesting that the variants are some kind of Big Pharma ruse (honestly, people used to think they were smart dudes but the pandemic has turned them into Alex Jones).

"They" is not referring to Yuri. "They" are the two guys who are appearing on News and podcasts with audiences in the millions - Fox News, Joe Rogan etc.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by carlitos

Hey SG, as someone who is reading and following the thread, this really doesn't do what you describe. The only "antecedents" to these comments were Bret and Jordan.

Sure in hindsight. Once angrysoba pointed out putting the three names in the same paragraph, with one sentence following the other OK fine he technically didn't call Diegin bat **** crazy.

Not to mention in the past that angrysoba has dismissed Diegin's comments on the origin of COVID.

But this is now a stupid off-topic discussion.

Originally Posted by carlitos

"They" is not referring to Yuri. "They" are the two guys who are appearing on News and podcasts with audiences in the millions - Fox News, Joe Rogan etc.

Your point? How does dragging CTers and crazy people out there into this discussion move the evidence based debate forward?

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

Sure in hindsight. Once angrysoba pointed out putting the three names in the same paragraph, with one sentence following the other OK fine he technically didn't call Diegin bat **** crazy.

Not to mention in the past that angrysoba has dismissed Diegin's comments on the origin of COVID.

But this is now a stupid off-topic discussion.


Your point? How does dragging CTers and crazy people out there into this discussion move the evidence based debate forward?

SG, but please. This whole digression happened as an aside when lionking asked if anyone considers Delta or Omicron to be lab releases. I point out that some have suggested that.

Then you repeatedly questioned me on various points and told me I was wrong while misreading me. Carlitos and I have tried to correct those mistakes and while doing so you criticize us for a pointless off-topic discussion. The off-ramp has been there for you from the beginning.

[carlitos]

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger

How does dragging CTers and crazy people out there into this discussion move the evidence based debate forward?

I don't know; it's an awkward topic. Most of the people who hear about a lab leak hypothesis are going to hear about it from "a crazy conspiracy theorist," aren't they?

Twice as many Americans believe that this thing leaked from a lab as believe in the wet market hypothesis.

[michaelsuede]

My letter to the Senate explains exactly where it came from. In fact, I even have a link to the NIH report showing how the gain of function research was conducted.

https://www.scribd.com/document/5536...DA-Malfeasance

Quote:

3.1 In vivo infection of Human ACE2 (hACE2) expressing mice with SARSr-CoV S protein variants

In Year 5, we continued with in vivo infection experiments of diverse bat SARSr-CoVs on transgenic mice expressing human ACE2. Mice were infected with 4 strains of SARSr-CoVs with different S protein, including the full-length recombinant virus of SARSr-CoV WIV1 and three chimeric viruses with the backbone of WIV1 and S proteins of SHC014, WIV16 and Rs4231, respectively. Pathogenicity of the 4 SARSr-CoVs was evaluated by recording the survival rate of challenged mice in a 2-week course. All of the 4 SARSr-CoVs caused lethal infection in hACE2 transgenic mice, but the mortality rate vary among 4 groups of infected mice (Fig. 13a). 14 days post infection, 5 out of 7 mice infected with WIV1 remained alive (71.4%), while only 2 of 8 mice infected with rWIV1-SHC014 S survived (25%). The survival rate of mice infected with rWIV1-WIV16S and rWIV1-4231S were 50%. Viral replication was confirmed by quantitative PCR in spleen, lung, intestine and brain of infected mice. In brain, rWIV1, rWIV1- WIV16S and rWIV1-4231S cannot be detected 2 days or 4 days post infection. However, rWIV1-SHC014 was detected at all time points and showed an increasing viral titer after infection. The viral load reached more than 109 genome copies/g at the dead point (Fig. 13b). We also conducted histopathological section examination in infected mice. Tissue lesion and lymphocytes infiltration can be observed in lung, which is more significant in mice infected with rWIV1-SHC014 S (Fig. 13d) than those infected with rWIV1 (Fig. 13c). These results suggest that the pathogenicity of SHC014 is higher than other tested bat SARSr-CoVs in transgenic mice that express hACE2.

Quote:

In Vivo Infection of Human ACE2 (hACE2) Expressing Mice with SARSr-CoV S Protein variants

Using the reverse genetic methods we previously developed, infectious clones with the WIV1 backbone and the spike protein of SHC014, WIV16 and Rs4231, respectively, were constructed and recombinant viruses were successfully rescued. In Year 4, we performed preliminary in vivo infection of SARSr-CoVs on transgenic mice that express hACE2. Mice were infected with 105 pfu of full-length recombinant virus of WIV1 (rWIV1) and the three chimeric viruses with different spikes. Pathogenesis of the 4 SARSr-CoVs was then determined in a 2-week course. Mice challenged with rWIV1-SHC014S have experienced about 20% body weight loss by the 6th day post infection, while rWIV1 and rWIV-4231S produced less body weight loss. In the mice infected with rWIV1-WIV16S, no body weight loss was observed (Fig. 35a). 2 and 4 days post infection, the viral load in lung tissues of mice challenged with rWIV1-SHC014S, rWIV1-WIV16S and rWIV1-Rs4231S reached more than 106 genome copies/g and were significantly higher than that in rWIV1-infected mice (Fig. 35b). These results demonstrate varying pathogenicity of SARSr-CoVs with different spike proteins in humanized mice.

Here's the reason the NIH investigative team gave for saying it could not have come from a lab:

Quote:

“subsequent generation of a polybasic cleavage site would have then required repeated passage in cell culture or animals with ACE2 receptors similar to those of humans, but such work has also not previously been described.”

Check out this paper on it.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...bies.202000240

[The Atheist]

Originally Posted by michaelsuede

My letter to the Senate explains exactly where it came from.

Glad that's settled then. I'll ask for the thread to be closed.

[michaelsuede]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

Glad that's settled then. I'll ask for the thread to be closed.

I'm glad I could help out. I see you guys were spinning your wheels here for a bit.

Not sure if I mentioned it, but those quotes come from the EcoHealth Alliance NIH grant report on the research they were conducting at the Wuhan Lab.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by carlitos

I don't know; it's an awkward topic. Most of the people who hear about a lab leak hypothesis are going to hear about it from "a crazy conspiracy theorist," aren't they?

Twice as many Americans believe that this thing leaked from a lab as believe in the wet market hypothesis.

Honestly, Bret Weinstein was one of the first people to promote the idea of the lab leak, and he did so when Yuri Deigin went on his show to discuss it.

Then they fell out when Weinstein became obviously anti-vax and promoted ivermectin as a prophylactic.

So I don't think that Weinstein is just some rando.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by carlitos

I don't know; it's an awkward topic. Most of the people who hear about a lab leak hypothesis are going to hear about it from "a crazy conspiracy theorist," aren't they?

Twice as many Americans believe that this thing leaked from a lab as believe in the wet market hypothesis.

Everything that follows in this post is well documented in this thread:

You have Daskin who was very influential, injecting himself into the debate as an expert, who steered the whole science/medical communities into believing the lab leak origin was a CT. He did this, as noted by Tedros, the head of the WHO, before any information on a potential lab origin was ever investigated. Daszak also manipulated some researchers into signing a letter dismissing the lab leak hypothesis by disguising the fact he was the author of the letter.

He kept that CT myth going despite the incriminating problem that had the origin been the lab, Daszak was in it up to his eyeballs. He's been caught lying and hiding the grant proposal which he wanted to make a SARS CoV more deadly in order to develop a universal coronavirus vaccine.

There was pressure on the scientific community not to discuss/investigate the lab leak hypothesis as they had concerns it might be a career killer.

On top of that you have Dump and the right wingers mucking up everything. When I've posted evidence/facts in this thread it's often hand-waved away, not based on the merits of the evidence, but based on the fact (oh the horror) that the information came from a right-wing source.

THERE IS A THREAD IN THE CT SUB-FORUM to discuss any and everything related to the nonsense that suggesting a lab origin is purely a CT. I will continue to resist having this thread dragged into a CT discussion.

I know it's difficult boys and girls but there actually is plenty of science to be discussed on this topic. How easy it is to dismiss the possible lab leak origin by denigrating it to a CT.

This is not a 9/11-like discussion. This is not a QAnon-like discussion. Too many people on this forum, especially in this discussion, have categorized the COVID origin debate into black and white categories of CT vs science.


Who cares what nut-jobs have appeared in Rogan's podcast? Who cares that they believe CTs about the omicron variant? That discussion does not belong in this thread.

There's nothing scientifically relevant about the omicron variant when it comes to the COVID origin debate. It really only serves to muddy the discussion about the lab origin hypothesis. There's absolutely no evidence China, the WIV or Daszak had anything to do with that even if omicron had anything to do with a lab. It's just another attempt to drag this discussion into CT territory.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by michaelsuede

My letter to the Senate explains exactly where it came from. In fact, I even have a link to the NIH report showing how the gain of function research was conducted.

https://www.scribd.com/document/5536...DA-Malfeasance






Here's the reason the NIH investigative team gave for saying it could not have come from a lab:




Check out this paper on it.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...bies.202000240

Yeah, I think we know that the genetic structure does not rule out a lab leak.

Almost nothing can ever rule it out.

The point is what is the likeliest origin?

At first, the structure was indeed considered unique, and some parts such as the furin cleavage do seem unusual. But that was also said about the receptor binding domain. Given that at the time of the paper being written by Segreto and Deigin, RaTG13 was the closest known coronavirus, the theory that SARS-CoV2 might have come from the same place when Zhengli-Shi and the WIV sampled viruses from the Mojiang Mine had a certain superficial plausibility.

However, looking at their claims now....

Quote:

We here describe how the two main SARS-CoV-2 features, (1) the presence of a furin cleavage site missing in other CoVs of the same group and (2) an receptor binding domain (RBD) optimized to bind to human cells[[2] might be the result of lab manipulation techniques such as site-directed mutagenesis.

Well, the RBD has turned up more recently in a bat coronavirus found in Laos, known as BANAl-52.

Link

Quote:

Scientists have found three viruses in bats in Laos that are more similar to SARS-CoV-2 than any known viruses. Researchers say that parts of their genetic code bolster claims that the virus behind COVID-19 has a natural origin — but their discovery also raises fears that there are numerous coronaviruses with the potential to infect people.

...The results, which are not peer reviewed, have been posted on the preprint server Research Square1. Particularly concerning is that the new viruses contain receptor binding domains that are almost identical to that of SARS-CoV-2, and can therefore infect human cells. The receptor binding domain allows SARS-CoV-2 to attach to a receptor called ACE2 on the surface of human cells to enter them.

...

“When SARS-CoV-2 was first sequenced, the receptor binding domain didn’t really look like anything we’d seen before,” says Edward Holmes, a virologist at the University of Sydney in Australia. This caused some people to speculate that the virus had been created in a laboratory. But the Laos coronaviruses confirm these parts of SARS-CoV-2 exist in nature, he says.

...

Last year, researchers described another close relative of SARS-CoV-2, called RaTG13, which was found in bats in Yunnan5. It is 96.1% identical to SARS-CoV-2 overall and the two viruses probably shared a common ancestor 40–70 years ago6. BANAL-52 is 96.8% identical to SARS-CoV-2, says Eloit — and all three newly discovered viruses have individual sections that are more similar to sections of SARS-CoV-2 than seen in any other viruses.

So this discovery removes ONE of the two main claims from Segreto and Deigin's paper, and also shows a virus closer to SARS-CoV2 than RaTG13. ETA: Even Deigin was surprised by this discovery and said he hadn't expected an RBD to turn up in a natural coronavirus.

Now, if a furin-cleavage site is also found in a new coronavirus from the wild (and the EcoHealth Alliance clearly expect that such a virus exists in nature judging by the grant proposal that some are using to argue that it was a lab leak), then both of the main planks of Segreto and Deigin's argument would be taken out.

[michaelsuede]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Yeah, I think we know that the genetic structure does not rule out a lab leak.

Almost nothing can ever rule it out.

The point is what is the likeliest origin?

At first, the structure was indeed considered unique, and some parts such as the furin cleavage do seem unusual. But that was also said about the receptor binding domain. Given that at the time of the paper being written by Segreto and Deigin, RaTG13 was the closest known coronavirus, the theory that SARS-CoV2 might have come from the same place when Zhengli-Shi and the WIV sampled viruses from the Mojiang Mine had a certain superficial plausibility.

However, looking at their claims now....



Well, the RBD has turned up more recently in a bat coronavirus found in Laos, known as BANAl-52.

Link



So this discovery removes ONE of the two main claims from Segreto and Deigin's paper, and also shows a virus closer to SARS-CoV2 than RaTG13. ETA: Even Deigin was surprised by this discovery and said he hadn't expected an RBD to turn up in a natural coronavirus.

Now, if a furin-cleavage site is also found in a new coronavirus from the wild (and the EcoHealth Alliance clearly expect that such a virus exists in nature judging by the grant proposal that some are using to argue that it was a lab leak), then both of the main planks of Segreto and Deigin's argument would be taken out.

So.... a bunch of guys at the Wuhan lab that are explicitly writing reports about how they are infecting humanized mice with engineered SARS-CoV-2 viruses saying things like, "we will assess potential for each isolated virus and those with receptor binding site sequence, to spill over. We will do this by sequencing the spike (or other receptor binding/fusion) protein genes from all our bat-CoVs, creating mutants to identify how significantly each would need to evolve to use ACE2, CD26/DPP4 (MERS-CoV receptor) or other potential CoV receptors. We will then use receptor-mutant pseudovirus binding assays, in vitro studies in bat, primate, human and other species’ cell lines, and with humanized mice where particularly interesting viruses are identified phylogenetically, or isolated." - is clearly not the most likely place it came from.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by michaelsuede

So.... a bunch of guys at the Wuhan lab that are explicitly writing reports about how they are infecting humanized mice with engineered SARS-CoV-2 viruses saying things like, "we will assess potential for each isolated virus and those with receptor binding site sequence, to spill over. We will do this by sequencing the spike (or other receptor binding/fusion) protein genes from all our bat-CoVs, creating mutants to identify how significantly each would need to evolve to use ACE2, CD26/DPP4 (MERS-CoV receptor) or other potential CoV receptors. We will then use receptor-mutant pseudovirus binding assays, in vitro studies in bat, primate, human and other species’ cell lines, and with humanized mice where particularly interesting viruses are identified phylogenetically, or isolated." - is clearly not the most likely place it came from.

Could you show me the source of where that quote comes from?

I tried to Google it but nothing came up.

[michaelsuede]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Could you show me the source of where that quote comes from?

I tried to Google it but nothing came up.

I told you, it comes from the EcoHealth Alliance NIH grant report they are obligated to do annually. It's linked in my letter.

Here's a link from the House Energy and Commerce Committee's host. https://republicans-energycommerce.h...Year-5-EHA.pdf

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by michaelsuede

I told you, it comes from the EcoHealth Alliance NIH grant report they are obligated to do annually. It's linked in my letter.

Here's a link from the House Energy and Commerce Committee's host. https://republicans-energycommerce.h...Year-5-EHA.pdf

You can look at this in two different ways:

1.) It appears the very thing they were looking for and warning about turned up in China.

OR...

2.) iT appeArs ThE very tHINg ThEY wERE LOokING fOr And wARNIng ABoUt turneD uP IN cHIna.

[michaelsuede]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Could you show me the source of where that quote comes from?

I tried to Google it but nothing came up.

Oh one more thing, you're not going to find anything using Google. It's heavily censored. It came right up for me using DuckDuckGo. Never use Google. It's evil.

[michaelsuede]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

You can look at this in two different ways:

1.) It appears the very thing they were looking for and warning about turned up in China.

OR...

2.) iT appeArs ThE very tHINg ThEY wERE LOokING fOr And wARNIng ABoUt turneD uP IN cHIna.

They weren't "looking" for it, they were engineering it. They made those virus bind to ACE2, they didn't dig them up from a bat cave. They explicitly tell you how they made them.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by michaelsuede

They weren't "looking" for it, they were engineering it. They made those virus bind to ACE2, they didn't dig them up from a bat cave. They explicitly tell you how they made them.

They absolutely were:

Quote:

Specific Aim 1: Assessment of CoV spillover potential at high risk human-wildlife interfaces. We will examine if: 1) wildlife
markets in China provide enhanced capacity for bat-CoVs to infect other hosts, either via evolutionary adaptation or
recombination; 2) the import of animals from throughout Southeast Asia introduces a higher genetic diversity of mammalian
CoVs in market systems compared to within intact ecosystems of China and Southeast Asia; We will interview people about
the nature and frequency of contact with bats and other wildlife; collect blood samples from people highly exposed to wildlife;
and collect a full range of clinical samples from bats and other mammals in the wild and in wetmarkets; and screen these for
CoVs using serological and molecular assays.

Note also the mention of wet markets!

What about these references to virus surveillance?