Origin of the Coronavirus

[Fuzz]

Firebot, those names you point out "before Trump said it" were wrong to use, and it should be pretty obvious that once the media caught on that it was leading to racist attacks, they stopped doing it. Trump continued, because he is racist. Just because the media and others used it in the past, it doesn't mean that we should use it now, because duh. Honestly, what is your point here? You want to be able to continue perpetuating racist usage because it others did it in the past? Do you see how wrong that sounds?

[pseudoreality]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

We see the some media refer to these as 'the Covid variant first discovered in xxxxxxxx'
Is this acceptable?
The variant first discovered in India instead of the India variant?

I'm on a call on SARS-CoV-2 variants right now, working with scientists across Canada tracking the development and prevalence. Even for professionals, it is just easier to say the UK variant than B.1.1.7. There are way too many variants on the go right now to remember all the numbers offhand. We try, and some people are better than others, but the origin does keep getting used for shorthand. However, it is never used to disparage that country.

[PaperBagger'14]

I always wonder why some people can call out something named the Wuhan Coronavirus (which isn't derogatory in the slightest) but be ok with the naming of the British variant, South African variant and such. It really makes me believe those people are unknowing bigots.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by pseudoreality

I'm on a call on SARS-CoV-2 variants right now, working with scientists across Canada tracking the development and prevalence. Even for professionals, it is just easier to say the UK variant than B.1.1.7. There are way too many variants on the go right now to remember all the numbers offhand. We try, and some people are better than others, but the origin does keep getting used for shorthand. However, it is never used to disparage that country.

Thank you.
This was my thought.
I think it's pretty easy to differentiate between the usage of names, in context. It was pretty obvious how some/most/all were using 'China virus'.

[stampsx2]

I didn’t know the covid virus originated in bats in a mine in 2012 then was sent to the wuhan lab for testing.

Pretty good article from the washington post on the timeline of where the covid virus originated from. Not sure how to embed but here’s a piece of the article.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.wash...outputType=amp

The intelligence community weighs in

March 27:
A Defense Intelligence Agency assessment on the origin of the coronavirus is updated to include the possibility that the new coronavirus emerged “accidentally” due to “unsafe laboratory practices.”

April 2:
David Ignatius, writing in The Washington Post, notes: “The prime suspect is ‘natural’ transmission from bats to humans, perhaps through unsanitary markets. But scientists don’t rule out that an accident at a research laboratory in Wuhan might have spread a deadly bat virus that had been collected for scientific study.”

April 14:
Josh Rogin, writing in The Post, reveals that in 2018, State Department officials visited the WIV and “sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats. The cables have fueled discussions inside the U.S. government about whether this or another Wuhan lab was the source of the virus — even though conclusive proof has yet to emerge.”

April 22:
Yuri Deigin, a biotech entrepreneur, in a long and detailed post on Medium, reviews “gain-of-function” research undertaken at the lab and concludes that “from a technical standpoint, it would not be difficult for a modern virologist to create such a strain” as the new coronavirus. He adds: “The opposite point is worth repeating too: the inverse hypothesis about the exclusively natural origin of the virus does not yet have strong evidence either.”

April 24:
Under pressure from the White House, the National Institutes of Health terminates the grant to EcoHealth Alliance that funded study of bat coronaviruses at WIV.

April 30:
President Donald Trump tells reporters: “You had the theory from the lab. … There’s a lot of theories. But, yeah, we have people looking at it very, very strongly.”

April 30:
In a rare statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence says: "The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified....The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.”

May 3:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says in an interview with ABC News: “There’s enormous evidence that that’s where this began. … Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories. These are not the first times that we have had the world exposed to viruses as a result of failures in a Chinese lab.”

May 18:
The Seeker, an anonymous Twitter user, posts a medical thesis describing a mine in Mojiang, Yunnan, where miners fell ill with a viral-induced pneumonia in 2012.

June 4:
Milton Leitenberg, writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, reviews the history of lab safety and the type of research conducted at WIV and argues that the lab-leak theory cannot be easily dismissed. “The pros and cons regarding the two alternative possibilities—first, that it arose in the field as a natural evolution, as many virologists maintain, or second, that it may have been the consequence of bat coronavirus research in one of the two virology research institutes located in Wuhan that led to the infection of a laboratory researcher and subsequent escape—are equally based on inference and conjecture,” he says.
New evidence emerges

July 4:
The Times of London reports that a virus 96 percent identical to the coronavirus that causes covid-19 was found in an abandoned copper mine in China in 2012. The bat-infested copper mine in southwestern China was home to a coronavirus that left six men sick with pneumonia, with three eventually dying, after they had been tasked with shoveling bat guano out of the mine. This virus was collected in 2013 and then stored and studied at WIV.

July 28:
Jamie Metzl, a former Clinton administration national security official, writes in The Wall Street Journal that “suggesting that an outbreak of a deadly bat coronavirus coincidentally occurred near the only level 4 virology institute in all of China—which happened to be studying the closest known relative of that exact virus—strains credulity.” He calls for a “comprehensive forensic investigation must include full access to all of the scientists, biological samples, laboratory records and other materials from the Wuhan virology institutes and other relevant Chinese organizations. Denying that access should be considered an admission of guilt by Beijing.”

Further reading at:
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.wash...outputType=amp

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Firebot, those names you point out "before Trump said it" were wrong to use, and it should be pretty obvious that once the media caught on that it was leading to racist attacks, they stopped doing it. Trump continued, because he is racist. Just because the media and others used it in the past, it doesn't mean that we should use it now, because duh. Honestly, what is your point here? You want to be able to continue perpetuating racist usage because it others did it in the past? Do you see how wrong that sounds?

What is wrong is branding the OP as racist a year later as has been done for using a term that was perfectly fine to use two months prior to his post, while we currently are using terms such as british variant, brazil variant, indian variant today.

Wuhan coronavirus was used without issues in several medical articles and media without prejudice as a normal and accepted terminology (much in the same way the variant origins are used today)

"Wuhan coronavirus" been branded as racist simply because Trump used "china virus", and racists started using similar terms. That still doesn't make the term "Wuhan coronavirus" itself racist as it was perfectly acceptable in Feb 2020 and would be today much like how using variant origins are currently readily accepted, and the title is in no way 'embarrassing'.

OP did not make a racist term, much like how the Ebola virus name is not racist, yet can be used as a tool for racism. We still use words like Ebola and Zika today (and the WHO could easily rename them if they chose).

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-29714657

A Texas college sends out letters to prospective students from disease-free Nigeria informing them that they are no longer accepting applications from countries with "confirmed Ebola cases". A Pennsylvania high school football player is met by chants of "Ebola" from the opposing team. A middle school principal goes to a funeral in Zambia, also with no cases of Ebola, and is put on paid administrative leave for a week.

Some writers think they've found a theme that energises these fears, tying many of these incidents together: racism.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14

I always wonder why some people can call out something named the Wuhan Coronavirus (which isn't derogatory in the slightest) but be ok with the naming of the British variant, South African variant and such. It really makes me believe those people are unknowing bigots.

Probably has something to do with the naming and shaming that has gone on with the insistence on the Wuhan or China naming has resulted in hundreds of anti-Asian incidents around the world in the last year, including dozens of violent attacks.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Probably has something to do with the naming and shaming that has gone on with the insistence on the Wuhan or China naming has resulted in hundreds of anti-Asian incidents around the world in the last year, including dozens of violent attacks.

I mean, not for nothing, the body counts of China’s actions over the last 10, 20, 30, 40 (you see where I’m going with this) 50, 60 years put any Covid related violence to shame.

And obviously anyone who accosts an Asian person because of this is a goddamn fool. There’s no way any random you encounter on the street in North America has anything to do with Covid in Wuhan.

But just some of China’s more famous recent atrocities:

The Great Leap Forward

One Child policy

Tiananmen Square

Tibet

Uyghur genocide

We haven’t even gotten to the currency manipulation or Hong Kong or Covid (if they accidentally allowed it to escape).

An ethnically Asian human being you encounter in the world deserves the benefit of the doubt.

China does not.

[Firebot]

On the origin itself. If people haven't noticed, the media has shifted heavily on the Wuhan lab theory, something that was initially dismissed as a conspiracy nut theory.

Here is an article from CNN on the lab theory back in March 2020, completely dismissing it as a fringe right wing conspiracy theory

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/01/asia/...hnk/index.html

Almost as soon as the outbreak spiraled into a public health crisis in late January, a dubious fringe theory started to spread: that the virus did not come from nature, but was man-made in a lab.
The conspiracy has been widely dismissed by scientists in China and the West, who point to research indicating that the virus is likely to have originated in bats and jumped to humans from an intermediate host -- just like its cousin that caused the SARS epidemic.
The scientific findings, however, did not prevent the rumor mill from spinning, nor did the repeated attempts by authorities to stamp out the wholly groundless accusations.
As the virus continued to spread and kill, conspiracy theories became more elaborate, with many pointing to a high-level virology lab known to study bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, the ground-zero of the outbreak.

What is CNN saying today?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/26/china...hnk/index.html

Chinese state media is turning on Fauci amid Wuhan lab controversy

Uh oh, CNN used the term "Wuhan lab controversy" that is so racist by naming the lab origin...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/25/polit...ory/index.html

Why scientists are suddenly more interested in the lab-leak theory of Covid's origin

Clearly the media has shifted on it.

I bought into the wet market origin. It's most certainly plausible, considering SARS was naturally occurring and came from such a market as well. When it was noted that no bats were sold at this particular wet market, the Pengolin theory came to fruition. That's great, except all the information about the origins came from Chinese researchers (who are currently on state watch prior to releasing any information)

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00364-2

Researchers in Guangzhou, China, have suggested that pangolins — long-snouted, ant-eating mammals often used in traditional Chinese medicine — are the probable animal source of the coronavirus outbreak that has infected more than 30,000 people and is wreaking havoc worldwide.

Meanwhile, the Global Times, the state media for the Chinese government released that Pengolins for sure were the cause, not the lab today (if you want to have fun, browse through the site)

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1224394.shtml

CHINA / SOCIETY
Latest report of China's bat woman shows novel coronavirus closer to pangolins, ‘unlikely from Wuhan lab’

Latest research again indicates that it was unlikely the novel coronavirus was leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), experts said, amid US media's recent hyping of the lab leak theory ahead of the World Health Assembly (WHA).

US politicians and media outlets have been pursuing the lab leak theory as the origin of COVID-19, despite scientists from the WHO-China joint study team concluding, in a full report after their field study in Wuhan, that a lab leak is extremely unlikely.

Hours before the WHA began on Monday, the Wall Street Journal ran a story, citing an undisclosed US intelligence report, indicating that three researchers from the WIV became sick in November 2019 with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses.

Yuan Zhiming, director of the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory of the WIV, refuted the report, calling the story "an outright lie that came from nowhere."

The Global Times found that the claims of three WIV researchers getting sick had been spread by Australian media as early as March by Australian journalist Sharri Markson, an active disseminator of conspiracy theories and lies that smear China.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1224597.shtml

Yeah, these guys sound totally credible...

That people chose to so easily accept China's explanation that the wet market was the originating source without any evidence, a country that literally erased Tiananmen Square from history and initially tried to cover up the pandemic, is what is most concerning.

People seriously underestimate the power of state propaganda and censorship.

Unfortunately, politics became the controlling factor.

It's ironic, that now it's suddenly ok to talk of the lab origin possibility as the media and new articles have picked up on the possibility, but a year ago OP was vilified for even mentioning it and people called him a bigot and conspiracy nut. We also can't currently cannot say "wuhan coronavirus", but we can say "indian variant".

That's CP for you (as Manhanttanboy pointed out early in the thread), cancel any opposing views and even cancel a fricking post title, unless they become mainstream. Months or years from now, we could be talking of the "Wuhan lab engineered coronavirus" if proven and picked up by the media.

Then it's ok again.

[pseudoreality]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Thank you.
This was my thought.
I think it's pretty easy to differentiate between the usage of names, in context. It was pretty obvious how some/most/all were using 'China virus'.

The other thing to keep in mind is there are numerous variants. If someone says the variant, you don't know which one they are talking about and therefore additional qualifications are needed. However, today, if you say the coronavirus, everyone assumes you are talking about SARS-CoV-2. Calling it the Trump Virus or the China Virus is just putting your political spin on it.

[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by Firebot

It's ironic, that now it's suddenly ok to talk of the lab origin possibility as the media and new articles have picked up on the possibility, but a year ago OP was vilified for even mentioning it and people called him a bigot and conspiracy nut. We also can't currently cannot say "wuhan coronavirus", but we can say "indian variant".

That's CP for you (as Manhanttanboy pointed out early in the thread), cancel any opposing views and even cancel a fricking post title, unless they become mainstream. Months or years from now, we could be talking of the "Wuhan lab engineered coronavirus" if proven and picked up by the media.

Then it's ok again.

The number 1 aspect of this overall story to me is the proliferation of gain of function that needs to be cracked down on, as the risk vs reward balance seems way off.

But the number 2 aspect is how dishonest and anti-intellectual news and opinion journalism has become, and how so many people are taken along for the ride. The "fact checking industry" has completely lost all credibility. The side by sides from CNN and other news agencies claiming this was debunked and fully disproven vs today are jarring. Politico gave Sen Tom Cotton 4 Pinocchio's for putting this out there, and then had to pivot back recently. Of course nothing was debunked, nothing was proven, it was simply a lever for these organizations to pull against people they disliked politically, namely Trump and a few other Republicans that espoused this theory. How could you have trust in any of these organizations when they claim something is 100% untrue just to change course a few months later? The really scary part is how many people get taken along for the ride for whatever reason, overlooking the mountain of circumstantial evidence pointing towards a lab leak stating with full confidence that there's no way it could be true, and castigating anyone who disagrees. The early pages of this thread are a gold mine of absolute clown takes from a lot of posters, some of whom are actually smart. If a small selection of real journalists hadn't kept pushing then the conclusion I'm forced to reach is that a very significant discovery for all the global ramifications involved (that this was a man-made, lab leak virus) would not have been made simply because the bulk of the news media was too interested in "debunking" this to dunk on politicians they don't like. That should be concerning to everyone who has a brain and isn't a rabid ideologue.

[Cappy]

People say "China Virus" to be racist and political. Everyone knows the person is referring to COVID-19. Trump calling it "China Virus" or "Kung-Flu" is overt racism or some level of superiority. People who call it that are almost all MAGA dorks. Regardless of whether it's just a term, a term can be offensive depending on how and what purpose it is used for.

The variant names are an easy way to describe the different variants and is done without any racist or superiority attempt. We don't say the UK variant as a way to score political points or insult a country. We could certainly change the names of the variants, but at this point, no one is attacking Brits, South Africans, or Indians for spreading variants

[Cappy]

I think the lab-origin conspriracy has always been traced to ulterior motives of China. Anytime I had previously heard the lab-origin story, it had to do with the chinese government creating COVID-19 virus. Then, it either knowingly spread it around the globe or unknowingly had it spread.

The argument against that was always that the virus did not have the characteristics of a man-made virus. It's characteristics are similar to other naturally-occurring coronaviruses.

If the idea is now bring pushed that the lab was part of the outbreak due to the study of a naturally occurring virus that was unknowingly released due to unsanitary conditions in the lab or improper safety/sanitary conditions, then that certainly seems plausible.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Firebot

People seriously underestimate the power of state propaganda and censorship.

Unfortunately, politics became the controlling factor.

At the same time, I think you're underestimating how US government and intelligence community propaganda emanates from CNN and other mainstream American media. The CNN examples you quote are a great example. Last year it was a conspiracy theory, but now after the US intelligence community "leaked" some information of extremely dubious quality and accuracy (that had already been reported on months ago), they're happy to change their tune because they act as an uncritical mouthpiece for the intelligence apparatus.

We saw it with Russia where evidence of questionable veracity from "anonymous intelligence sources" was used to concoct some of the more ridiculous stories about Russia stealing the election for Trump. And now that tensions between the US and China are continuing to ramp up, things that were labeled as wacko conspiracy theories are all of the sudden more acceptable to mainstream US news organizations because they help support American hegemony.

As for the origins itself, I think this article lays it out fairly well though it obviously suffers from some of the same weaknesses mentioned above:

https://donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.c...y-f4f88446b04d

The lab theory is absolutely plausible and would explain some missing evidence and the lack of closer relatives of SARS-COV-2 being found in nature. But at the same time, there is absolutely no credible direct evidence behind that theory and no one has suggested that there's any clear evidence of the virus showing signs of manipulation. So what are we left with?

[activeStick]

It sucks that I've told my mom to no longer go out for her after-lunch walks at work with her co-workers in Chinatown, fearing that she'll be attacked for being Chinese.

It sucks that my 70-year old Dad brushes off the same pleads and warnings to him to be careful when going out for his walks, because he is insistent that it won't happen to him.

It sucks that Asian people are being spit on, punched, pushed and attacked because they've been demonized as a group thanks to irresponsible messaging.

And it sucks for me that what seems like a minor ask - to stop using the terms China flu or Wuhan virus to hopefully reduce the hate - is met with so much resistance.

[Fuzz]

DiracSpike, I went back and re-read the article you linked that re-started this discussion:

https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-...-box-at-wuhan/

He refers to Andersen, which is what I had posted last year, and explains why it is mostly likely not man made:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/...nalysis-nature

Now, Wade is a science writer. Andersen is a Professor Department of Immunology and Microbiology. So just off the bat, I'm going to have to but more weight in Andersen, for obvious reasons. He sounds imminently more qualified to discuss the complexities:
https://www.scripps.edu/faculty/andersen/

So I'm not prepared to figure out who is correct. But this guy was:

https://medium.com/woodworkers-of-th...y-e68dafba96fd

Now, I'm not sure who he is, but he seems to know what he is talking about. Big big caveat there, though, since he is anonymous. So if you have another source from a person who identifies their qualifications, I'd be happy to read it. In the mean time, before you take the word of the science writer over the immunologist, I suggest reading through this post, as it seems to point out that Wade doesn't really understand most of what he is saying.

[opendoor]

There's a pretty egregious error in that Wade article:

In any case, the first cases of the COVID-19 pandemic probably occurred in September, when temperatures in Hubei province are already cold enough to send bats into hibernation.

Now Hubei is a diverse region so it gets colder in the mountain regions, but in Wuhan and the surrounding area the average temperature range in September is 21-29º. Nothing is hibernating in those temperatures. Even in the mountain region of Shennongjia, September lows are still 14º and they don't reach hibernation temperatures for bats until October/November (and it's more like December before Wuhan hits those temperatures).

[Fuzz]

From the Medium post it appears there are a whole pile of errors.

[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

DiracSpike, I went back and re-read the article you linked that re-started this discussion:

https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-...-box-at-wuhan/

He refers to Andersen, which is what I had posted last year, and explains why it is mostly likely not man made:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/...nalysis-nature

Now, Wade is a science writer. Andersen is a Professor Department of Immunology and Microbiology. So just off the bat, I'm going to have to but more weight in Andersen, for obvious reasons. He sounds imminently more qualified to discuss the complexities:
https://www.scripps.edu/faculty/andersen/

So I'm not prepared to figure out who is correct. But this guy was:

https://medium.com/woodworkers-of-th...y-e68dafba96fd

Now, I'm not sure who he is, but he seems to know what he is talking about. Big big caveat there, though, since he is anonymous. So if you have another source from a person who identifies their qualifications, I'd be happy to read it. In the mean time, before you take the word of the science writer over the immunologist, I suggest reading through this post, as it seems to point out that Wade doesn't really understand most of what he is saying.

Hey so I read that Medium article. On the nitty gritty virology stuff I'm really struggling to understand what this guy is disproving about what Wade said.

Then Wade tried to falsely characterize one of Anderson’s arguments:
…they [Anderson et al] say that the spike protein of SARS2 binds very well to its target, the human ACE2 receptor, but does so in a different way from that which physical calculations suggest would be the best fit. Therefore the virus must have arisen by natural selection, not manipulation…
This is a major misrepresentation and oversimplification of Anderson’s argument. The S protein shows strong binding affinity for the human ACE2 protein, but ALSO to ACE2 proteins from other species. The viral S protein evolved in a way that bound well, but not optimally to human ACE2. Any synthetic S protein would have been engineered specific to human ACE2, and the binding would have been much more “tailored”.
What Anderson actually said was:

…SARS-CoV-2 …binds with high affinity to ACE2 from humans, ferrets, cats and other species with high receptor homology… SARS-CoV-2 may bind human ACE2 with high affinity, computational analyses predict that the interaction is not ideal7 and that the RBD sequence is different from those shown in SARS-CoV to be optimal for receptor binding7,11. Thus, the high-affinity binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human ACE2 is most likely the result of natural selection on a human or human-like ACE2 that permits another optimal binding solution to arise. This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation…

What Anderson meant was that computational calculations show that the binding between the viral S (spike) protein and the human ACE2 protein are not “ideal” — ideal being what we expect from an engineered S protein.

He claims that Wade is "oversimplifying" Anderson's argument that the virus could not have been man-made because the binding isn't 100% ideal, but then what I bolded are his words where he states that exact same thing. This guy's argument is what Wade was showing as specious reasoning, the assumption that if this was engineered it would have been 100% ideal. Says who? He also goes on in that article to talk about how this research was to progressively search for the threshold of spillover in the infectiousness of viruses...which is pretty consistent with engineering a non-ideal spike protein.

Wade's point are that the two assumptions virologists trotted out to disprove that this could be human made (non-perfect binding and the lack of one of the industry standard DNA backbones) are in fact, not proof positive of anything. Which I agree with. If this virus DID have a recognized DNA backbone then that would be conclusive proof that was engineered, but that flow of logic doesn't work vice versa.

[Fuzz]

I think there are some subtitles to the specific discussion I'm not prepare dot understand, or argue, which is why I was deferring to sources to explain it. Since we don't have specialists here(that I know of) you are probably best to pose to the question to the guy who wrote the Medium article. As is, I'm prepared to accept his explanation and that of Andersen's over Wards, for obvious reasons.

Are there other experts(not journalists) repeating what Ward is suggesting that could provide better insight? I'm sorry but I just have trouble accepting a journalist in such a complicated subject, without backing of experts, and when it appears he made numerous mistakes.