
Evidence SARS-CoV-2 Emerged from a Biological Laboratory in Wuhan, China - Allezxandre
https://project-evidence.github.io/#%28part._the-end%29
======
nicolas_t
Haven't read much yet. But the first point already doesn't inspire much
confidence. "This market is less than 9 miles away from The Wuhan Institute of
Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences". 9 miles away means that it's at the
opposite of the city.

I mean, that text is trying to make it seem like they are close to each other
when actually it just means that both are in the same city. 9 miles is not a
small distance in a big city like wuhan.

It's like saying that Queens is next to the Statue of Liberty.

~~~
Allezxandre
It might be my fault as I linked to the conclusion, but you are reducing the
whole article to a part of the 9 miles distance argument

------
pjdorrell
The author appears to have the honest intention of analysing this question as
thoroughly as possible.

If there is some other website or paper that goes through this in more detail,
it would be good if someone could post a link to that website.

It could be that next week someone discovers the intermediate host (like the
civet cat was for SARS), and the whole discussion becomes moot. But for the
moment I think we are still in "don't know either way" territory.

Also we may eventually come to a deeper understanding of the nature of
zoonotic events, and whether it is at all possible that a scientific
laboratory could accidentally become part of the chain of transfer.

For example, it might be that a coronavirus only rarely and temporarily exists
in a state where it infects the source host and is capable of infecting the
destination host. In which case such a transfer will only ever occur in a
situation where large numbers of indidivuals from both source and destination
species exist, ie in rural areas where wildlife mixes with people, or in
farms, or some combination of those two.

Another thing I would note is that all the examples of laboratory accidents
were of organisms already known to be dangerous human diseases. Those types of
accidents can and do happen. Whether it is at all probable that such an
accident could generate a _new_ dangerous human disease is not so obvious.
This comes back to the question of what probabilities are involved in the
events leading up to a typical zoonotic event.

------
aaron695
The alternative to me will be a rural farmer caught the disease through
extensive farming. Contamination from a wild animal, directly or through
livestock.

It then kicked around for months in a rural location, a lower R perhaps, with
better weather conditions and less networked people. People died and family's
moved on.

Until someone on a trip to the city passed it on.

Perhaps selling at the markets or perhaps to family there who then took it to
the market through work or just shopping.

I would not write off the Lab theory, it's better than bats at a market, but
there are other logical theories as well.

------
1hakr
While I was building the my covid 19 tracker
[https://visalist.io/emergency/coronavirus](https://visalist.io/emergency/coronavirus)
, I stumbled upon this and was taken aback. These are some hard hitting
evidence. What does it mean, what repercussions this can have on the World? So
china has finally won the world war 3?

~~~
Allezxandre
The article states that while the virus could have escaped from a lab, there
is no evidence this was intentional.

~~~
rasz
Closing china internally while allowing outgoing international flights, and
somehow convincing WHO to pressure outside world away from closing borders was
intentional.

~~~
DiogenesKynikos
> Closing china internally while allowing outgoing international flights

That didn't happen. When China shut down Wuhan, they shut down all transit,
including international flights. The airport was completely closed. Even
foreign nationals needed special permission and special chartered flights
organized by their governments to leave.

> WHO to pressure outside world away from closing borders was intentional.

The WHO has always been against closing borders during an epidemic. This
wasn't a new recommendation. Just look up the WHO recommendations for every
Public Health Emergency of International Concern. They discouraged travel bans
in every single case.

------
jacquesm
Hacker News has officially lost the plot. Instead of flagging this and moving
on we are now debating not whether or not to ban project-evidence on sight but
whether or not the release was intentional or not.

Can we all come to our senses please? What are the chances that you'd find out
about this from some github.io pages instead of from _all the intelligence
services in the West_ who would have been on this like flies if it had a
snowball's chance in hell of being true.

A large amount of evidence collected to make a certain narrative look
plausible is not worth to be debated on its merits. There is evidence that
Martians created our moon because gravity is real. Try refuting that.

~~~
tomohawk
Are we really at the point where we know for certain how this pandemic came
about? Is there really only one true view?

There's basically 3 theories that have been put out:

1: The US military developed it. This theory from some CCP higher ups was
quickly discredited.

2: It originated in a wet market in Wuhan

This theory does not account for a few things, such as (a) how did the bats
end up there? (b) Is there any proof that there were every any bats there? (c)
What about the early patients who had no connection to the market?

3: It originated from a lab in Wuhan

The report shows that there are 2 labs in Wuhan, and both of these labs dealt
with bats that have a high probability of having this virus. They show this
through the published research from the labs as well as other items such as
job announcements, etc.

This at least puts the bats (and virus) in Wuhan, explaining how they ended up
being there from so far away.

The report goes to great pains to state that no conspiracy is needed, or tie
in to bio weapons, or whatever. We simply have some labs dealing with these
bats and viruses, in the location where the pandemic started, and there are
many possible avenues as to how the virus could have got out.

I don't see how the report delves into conspiracy theories.

~~~
DiogenesKynikos
You left out theory 4, which is what the vast majority of virologists believe:

4\. The virus transferred from an infected animal (not necessarily a bat) to a
human, either at the Wuhan South China Seafood market or somewhere else,
possibly in the countryside. The market might have just been the site of the
first superspreading event. In a big country like China, millions of people
come into contact with infected animals all the time. There's no need to
invent a Hollywood-style theory about the virus escaping from a lab to explain
how it got into humans.

------
dwd
They present this as a conspiracy, but whether it escaped from the lab is a
bit of a whatever in comparison to the coverup and the damage of suppressing
the initial epidemic and playing it down after they were found out.

No one is really saying it was intentional; and while risky, the research into
coronavirii that could trigger a future pandemic was valuable. But it was a
screw-up; someone made a mistake or took a shortcut and here we are.

China is going to be under pressure regardless to either open up that research
facility, or shut it down so it doesn't happen again there, or anywhere else
in the world.

~~~
DoingIsLearning
> whether it escaped from the lab is a bit of a whatever

It's actually a big difference:

It's the scenario of accepting a statiscal misfortune from mother nature
versus the scenario of a lack of duty-of-care from a public institution,
closely followed by having to pay reparations to a very long list of
countries.

~~~
dwd
Duty-of-care is usually interpreted as what would a reasonable person expect
them to do in that situation. As long as they took all reasonable precautions
and followed the safety protocols required for handling a pathogen of that
type, then there shouldn't be any liability.

My point is that they failed in their disclosure whether it came from the lab
or not, and more likely where foreign governments would pursue them for any
repatriations.

It's the same situation if there was a nuclear accident - once it has occurred
the expectation is to be upfront with the facts so other nations can prepare
and deal with any damage. The circumstances of why are only important as far
as preventing it happening again.

------
downshun
Evidence is of two types: circumstantial or direct. This thing only has the
first, and doesn't try looking for evidence of the contrary.

At least they acknowledge this inconclusiveness at the end.

~~~
DoingIsLearning
I would argue the same exercise could be made against the 'wet market theory',
no?

What direct evidence do we have for the 'wet market' theory that is currently
most widely accepted?

Looking from a distance, it appears that the volume of circunstancial evidence
for this 'laboratory accident/negligence' theory is far larger.

~~~
krageon
Circumstantial evidence is what you use to support a theory you really want to
be true but cannot prove. Direct evidence is what you use when you want to
actually figure out what happened.

~~~
DoingIsLearning
> What direct evidence do we have for the 'wet market' theory that is
> currently most widely accepted?

~~~
jacquesm
A couple of million years of Zoonotic events should count as pretty good
evidence that that is how these things happen.

~~~
DoingIsLearning
True, but then for that to be consistent, the epicenter around patient zero
should have been next to a habitat where a large pool of this virus exist.
However the closest matched virus seems to be carried by a species of bat that
doesn't exist anywhere near the region of Wuhan. But coincidentally, if we
trust the facts brought forward by this repo, was a species that was studied
in these virology labs.

------
tomohawk
An interesting read.

They present evidence of 2 labs in Wuhan, and each lab was doing work with
bats with a high degree of likelihood of having this virus.

This puts the virus at the scene of the crime, so to speak.

This is opposed to the wet market theory which has no evidence of said bats at
the market, or explanation for how bats from 1000 miles away ended up there.

------
sk0g
Writing standards for conspiracy theories are on the rise, huh?

Didn't read all of it, but I'm not sure what a GPG key is doing there.

~~~
DoingIsLearning
I am sure it was not your intention but dismissing (what appears to be)
factual information with references, as a conspiracy, is a common strategy of
autocratic states when dealing with information that generates a lot of
difficult questions. Is there a particular part of the text that you found
innacurate?

The key is probably to allow for people to share encrypted data with the
author/contributor? Although to me it feels that github is not exactly the
best medium for anonymous info leaks.

~~~
krageon
Maybe it's just the fact that this theory perfectly aligns with the current
west-based propaganda effort that seeks to demonise China? Dismissing
information as a conspiracy is a common strategy of autocratic states, as is
seeding the internet with lies that align with their own interests.

~~~
DoingIsLearning
An extremely good point, we are all at risk of being vehicles of information
wars.

However, information spinners still need to spread info based on reality or
partial truth in order to be effective in their spinning.

To me the current volume of evidence for a 'lab accident/negligence' theory
versus the volume of evidence for a 'wet market' theory sticks out like a sore
thumb even if we account for information war effects.

~~~
downshun
I eagerly await for the James Bond movie sequel where instead of evil villain
you have a control-freak trying to cover up their incompetence.

------
dopylitty
I have my own conspiracy theory that some group with a financial stake in wet
markets or the general trade in wildlife meat/products is manipulating right
wing racists to push the theory that the virus originated in a lab rather than
due to unsafe handling of wild game meat so that the Chinese government won't
feel pressure to further curtail wild game markets.

My hard hitting github of evidence will include the fact that wet markets
exist in China and also that racists exist in the US and other western
countries. QED.

