Manic of a panic is geopolitical

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

if the lab published the genetic info, at it did not resemble COVID-19, that might calm a lot of jittery nerves.

The sequence for the active infection was published months ago. https://www.asianscientist.com/2020/...ovid-19-study/
January 10 https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/24/...and-mutations/
https://ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.go...l-coronavirus/
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-pers...rus-now-deadly
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20...nsmission.aspx
This one says January 5, just days after Chinese doctors were being told by Wuhan police to stop spreading false rumors to their colleagues of a new pathogen. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/soci...-world-ordered
Later in January, it was being sequenced in various countries around the world to determine mutation rate https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0131114748.htm

For an article displaying actual gene sequence portions, of a version of Covid19, see https://mersenneforum.org/showpost.p...&postcount=505

"In 2015, an international team including two scientists from the Institute published successful research on whether a bat coronavirus could be made to infect HeLa. The team engineered a hybrid virus, combining a bat coronavirus with a SARS virus that had been adapted to grow in mice and mimic human disease. The hybrid virus was able to infect human cells." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_...virus_research
https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985
According to some reports I've seen, the chinese have not made the lab-created virus genetic sequence available for comparison. If anything, information about the lab activity is being suppressed.

Past lab leakage occurred with SARS. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world...ease-virus-spt

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kriesel

The sequence for the active infection was published months ago.

Yes, I know.

What is being alleged here is that the COVID-19 virus is the result of research at a virology lab. So, what I suggested is that the genomes of viruses produced by that lab's research be sequenced for comparison. If those viruses are not similar to the COVID-19 virus, the "escaped research virus" theory goes down in flames.

According to some reports I've seen, the chinese have not made the lab-created virus genetic sequence available for comparison. If anything, information about the lab activity is being suppressed.

Source(s)?

[tServo]

All this hot air and hand wringing to pin this on the Chinese reminds me of the quandary of the dog that chases cars and finally catches one. What does he do with it?

Suppose it is proven that the virus accidentally escaped one of their labs. Then what?
Aside from their losing face and verbal condemnations and UN resolutions,
economic sanctions?
These would probably backfire.
Some military action?
Only in your worst nightmares.

What?

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by tServo

All this hot air and hand wringing to pin this on the Chinese reminds me of the quandary of the dog that chases cars and finally catches one. What does he do with it?

POTUS may be trying to do that, but I hoped by highlighting the partial US funding for the lab in question, people would appreciate the bitter irony inherent in the possibility that the pandemic resulted from an accidental release of a lab-created enhanced-human-infectivity virus hybrid, which was joint China/US research.

Suppose it is proven that the virus accidentally escaped one of their labs. Then what?
Aside from their losing face and verbal condemnations and UN resolutions,
economic sanctions?
These would probably backfire.
Some military action?
Only in your worst nightmares.

What?

I would hope that such a scenario would result in a worldwide re-evaluation of the risks of such lab research, hopefully culminating in some kind of binding worldwide treaty analogous to those governing chemical & biological weapons, that any such research by a signatory to said treaty occur only under the most stringent of safety protocols, and would be subject to regular compliance checks by independent inspections teams.

[ewmayer]

We Found and Tested 47 Old Drugs That Might Treat the Coronavirus: Results Show Promising Leads and a Whole New Way to Fight COVID-19 | The Conversation

The work in question just appeared in form of a paper in Nature, i.e. has survived a much higher standard of scutiny than Gilead Pharma's "science by press release" for its drug Remdesvir. Anthony Fauci's hyping of the the latter drug as "the standard of care" is both patently false - no single person decides such a thing, it's the medical field as a whole, based on lots and lots of data from actual patient treatments and outcomes - and wildly premature, to put it kindly.

[kladner]

There are some interesting candidates based on interactions. Haloperidol, aka Haldol, could provide a double benefit for authoritarian types. "Here. Take this. It will fight coronavirus and help you to stop worrying about things unnecessarily." It can also reduce you to a shuffling shadow of a person.
EDIT: It is one of the drugs used institutionally as a "chemical straitjacket."

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Yes, I know.

What is being alleged here is that the COVID-19 virus is the result of research at a virology lab. So, what I suggested is that the genomes of viruses produced by that lab's research be sequenced for comparison. If those viruses are not similar to the COVID-19 virus, the "escaped research virus" theory goes down in flames.
Source(s)?

Define similar. 80%? 95%? 99? 99.99? (It's only ~30k bases, so 99.998% or higher permits zero mutations. Back in March it was already known there were 8 strains and 11 mutation sites; approx 99.96% self-similar. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...on/5080571002/)

"Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system2, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone. The results indicate that group 2b viruses encoding the SHC014 spike in a wild-type backbone can efficiently use multiple orthologs of the SARS receptor human angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV. Additionally, in vivo experiments demonstrate replication of the chimeric virus in mouse lung with notable pathogenesis." https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985

"Mice share more than 95% of our DNA — and this means that we’re both affected by disease in surprisingly similar ways."
https://www.jax.org/news-and-insight...-a-mouse-model
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_...odel_organisms

Majority of US spy agencies believe the coronavirus escaped from Wuhan lab “Sources say not all 17 intelligence agencies agree that the lab was the source of the virus because there is not yet a definitive ‘smoking gun.’ But confidence is high among 70-75% of the agencies.” https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...from-wuhan-lab
"There is well-documented evidence that China tried to cover up the spread of the coronavirus, muzzle whistleblowers, intimidate doctors, mislead the WHO, and block outside health experts. At least one study indicated that if the Chinese government had acted more quickly, the coronavirus’s global spread would have been greatly reduced." (same link above; several supporting links embedded in that section of the text.)

“All other possible places of the virus’ origin have been proven to be highly unlikely,” than 2 Wuhan labs https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...rus-source-us/
The market was excluded early on as the origin, since many early patients had no link to it https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020...ading-globally

US Secretary of State & former CIA chief Mike Pompeo https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/03/w...#link-6a5b6857
Wuhan Lab as Coronaviurs Source Gains Traction https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapo.../#488cd0366743 "“When you look at their actual behavior with regards to that lab, it looks like a cover up to me”

Let's look at it from the perspective of actions indicating motive that indicates the probability of concealed facts. China stomped down hard on its own doctors early on, with accusations of "spreading false rumors" and threats of arrest, December 31 and Jan 2.
Actively sought to suppress information https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/st...21174142140416
Jan 5 or so they genetically sequence a new pathogen.
They shut down travel from Wuhan to other parts of China. They do not shut down travel from Wuhan to the rest of the world.
(sources already previously posted.)
The lab had previous virus leakage, with the previous SARS in 2004. (sources already previously posted.) It had happened before.
Or was it the Beijing lab https://www.the-scientist.com/news-a...ab-twice-50137 (or Singapore or Taiwan or France or ...)
China could release the RNA sequence they obtained from their lab-created viruses. Apparently they haven't, and choose not to. (I searched at considerable length and could not find evidence of such an information release. If the information had been released, it would have been referenced in multiple places.) If it did not match, it would be an effective defense. Why aren't they doing so? Perhaps because the RNA matches too well for their purposes. They could securely transmit the data, or samples for independent sequencing, or both. They could let experts from other countries in to the Wuhan lab to do forensics and let the evidence exonerate them if it does. Instead they expelled foreign reporters and other personnel. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/b...urnalists.html
“We saw the fact that those who were trying to report on this, medical professionals inside of China, were silenced. They shut down reporting — all the kind of things that authoritarian regimes do, the way Communist parties operate,” Mr. Pompeo said.

“This is a classic Communist disinformation effort.”
If they had nothing to hide, why work so hard to hide it? If the facts are in their favor, why work so hard to hide them?
"China’s initial response to the crisis was less than impressive. The Wuhan government was secretive and self-serving" https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-i...ia-11580773677

Massive post, read it all anyway https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-m...h-f96dd7413748

What are the odds of these 3 coincidences a b and c? https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/0...-globally.html

Why dig into where the source was from? Well, suppose there were errors or deliberate shortcuts made at the Wuhan lab or elsewhere that resulted in the pandemic. It would be good to identify who was responsible, so that they can be properly trained and incentivized to not do that again ever. If it was a systems failure, identifying how and why and doing something about it is literally vital. If they can not identify a person responsible, due to inadequate records, then the responsibility is probably on the management. Or perhaps China will put them between a brick wall and a firing squad to make sure those individuals do not embarrass Xi again. If they haven't already. The pandemic would probably already be the largest body count from negligent homicide ever.

This whole concept of brewing up new pathogens in the lab is a bit like playing Russian roulette, only with the lives of millions you've never met also on the line. You can break even if containment works well enough, or lose big if it does not. The supposed justification that there will be net benefit to society as a whole is yet to be proven. This stuff is much worse than messing with chemical weapons. Chemicals weaken as they dissipate further from the release point whether accidental or otherwise. Biological agents have increasingly greater impact as they spread.

[Dr Sardonicus]

MODERATOR NOTE: This thread is for discussion of COVID-related topics. Political rants are apt to be moved to the Soapbox.

Originally Posted by kriesel

Define similar. 80%? 95%? 99? 99.99?

(stares in disbelief at massive argle-bargle)

Uh, my point was essentially the one you reiterate later in the post:

Originally Posted by kriesel

If it did not match, it would be an effective defense.

And by "Source(s)?" I merely meant the sources for the reports you said you'd read, alleging that the Chinese were concealing the genetic profiles of their lab-created viruses. I'm afraid it's kind of hard to pick those out from your post.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by kriesel

Massive post, read it all anyway https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-m...h-f96dd7413748

Ken, your above-linked post illustrates the problem of "shotgun linking", i.e. massive rambling posts with huge numbers of links (16, no less), and a free mixing of the scientific with the political/tendentious. The above article was open in my browser since I first saw it linked over the weekend on Naked Capitalism, just finished the long wade-through an hour ago. Well, it's of "if you read just on article this week on the purported origins of the 2019 novel coronavirus, this should be it" quality, but "massive post, read it all anyway" is completely nondescriptive-as-to-content and more likely to send would-be-readers scurrying for the exits. Here is what I had prepared about it before doing a last-second check as to whether it was of the links in your laundry list - note the "it helps to include the title along with the url" and "hey, before asking us to read a 'tl:dr'-candidate article, how about to some qords about what's in it?".

----------------------

For those interested in a really deep dive as to kinds of molecular-genetic clues which are most useful in determining whether a novel RNA virus such as SARS-CoV-2 (the one causing the Covid-19 disease) is more likely of natural or lab-made origin, here you go. It took me a good chunk of the weekend to work through this one. Lots of details re. the molecular genetics, recent (last 20-30 years) research in the field and key advances therein, the typical competitive scientific culture which makes such work very fraught with danger, and a detailed debunking of an alleged "not lab made" debunking in Nature, of all places. Worth the effort IMO, but not for the faint of heart:

Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function Research | Yuri Deigin, Medium

[ATH]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

For those interested in a really deep dive as to kinds of molecular-genetic clues which are most useful in determining whether a novel RNA virus such as SARS-CoV-2 (the one causing the Covid-19 disease) is more likely of natural or lab-made origin, here you go. It took me a good chunk of the weekend to work through this one. Lots of details re. the molecular genetics, recent (last 20-30 years) research in the field and key advances therein, the typical competitive scientific culture which makes such work very fraught with danger, and a detailed debunking of an alleged "not lab made" debunking in Nature, of all places. Worth the effort IMO, but not for the faint of heart:

Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function Research | Yuri Deigin, Medium

Let me try to write a summary:


There is no evidence CoV2 was lab made or a lab accident only strange coincidences.

On the other hand there is no strong evidence for the natural origin either. In that case they are missing a intermediate host between bat+pangolin and humans and they are missing an intermediate ancestor virus.

Strange coincidences:
SARS-CoV-2 share 96% of its genomes with a bat virus "RaTG13" which was found in bats in 2013 by the Wuhan lab, but for some reason it was not fully sequenced back then. No one outside the lab knew about it until January 2020 when they suddenly sequenced it fully, and informed that it matched 96% to CoV2.

Another virus "MP789" taken from Pangolins in 2019 "only" share 90% of its genome with CoV2 but at the RBM (Receptor Binding Motif) the exact spot it attaches to human cells, it matches almost 100% with CoV2, better than the bat virus "RaTG13".
So in theory someone could have taken the RBM section from pangolin virus and inserted in the bat virus. They link several papers from the last 15-20 years where they did similar studies to test combinations, and with todays technology even grad students could do this.

SARS-CoV-2 has 4 extra amino acid "inserted" which add an extra "furin cleavage site", which increase its pathogenicity and replication ability and allows it to infect nerve cells.
This is different from other Corona viruses both close and more distant relatives, so it is unlikely to have evolved on its own from them. But they have tried inserting these "furin cleavage sites" manually in viruses in several studies in the last 20 years.


He finishes by saying:

Moreover, even if CoV2 was indeed an unfortunate lab leak, the scientists themselves are not to blame, as they were working within the established international laws and guidelines on such research. Now, those who might be trying to cover up that leak, that’s a different story.

I hope this post is not used to prematurely assign blame or propagate one-sided theories. What I do hope it highlights is the scale of dangerous gain-of-function research that has been and is going on in virology. The Covid-19 pandemic really exposed its huge risks in the face of few benefits: GOF research hasn’t protected us from this outbreak, hasn’t provided us with any effective treatments or vaccines in time to save hundreds of thousands of lives lost to CoV2, and if there is even a 0.1% chance GOF research caused the whole thing, that chance is too high.

[kladner]

I read most of it, but your summary pulls it together far more than I had done on my own. It seems that it ends with a call for a risk-benefit analysis of some types of viral research.
Thanks very much!