
Wuhan lab did research on bat viruses, but no evidence of accidental release - chaostheory
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/chinese-lab-conducted-extensive-research-on-deadly-bat-viruses-but-there-is-no-evidence-of-accidental-release/2020/04/30/3e5d12a0-8b0d-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html
======
prirun
From Wikipedia:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_market#China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_market#China)

"In 2018, wet markets were noted to have remained the most prevalent food
outlet in urban regions of China despite the rise of supermarket chains since
the 1990s.[66]"

Later in the article, about Hong Kong, they say "Most neighbourhoods contain
at least one wet market.[12]"

So there are hundreds / thousands / tens of thousands of wet markets in China.

How many level 4 bio labs are in China? 1, in Wuhan.

It seems incredibly naive to me for anyone to believe that a virus just
happened to naturally jump from animals to humans at a wet market in Wuhan,
when that event could have happened in thousands of other wet markets. But it
didn't; it happened in Wuhan. The unique thing about Wuhan is the level 4 bio
lab.

~~~
baybal2
Few points.

That strain is said to be characteristic to large horseshoe bats from Yunnan

Bats in China don't seem to live so far north, and away from the coast. More
so, for larger species.

The very few bats known to live near cities, are all small insectivorous
species. SARS carrying bat species don't normally like living near humans.

Bats are not considered food, even by nouveau riche weird meat eaters in
China.

The above mean that there should be no bats sold on wet markets. First
responder reports confirm that.

1\. So, out of where did the SARS strain very close to the wild virus came out
from in the middle of a 10 million people megalopolis?

2\. From where did the story about bats came out from to begin with?

3\. It is now near certain that first reports of influx of respiratory
patients happened as early as November, and it had nothing to do with the
seafood market. If so, how media were first able to connect the dots to the
market, and do it so quickly, and confidently?

4\. The first report incriminating the market came out few weeks after first
evidence of the government sending censorship directives, and instructions on
outbreak handling to provincial authorities.

5\. It means that a low key regional newspaper broke out a report at the same
time when even a squeak about sars outbreak got people into trouble.

6\. The amazing synchronicity with which top tier national medias republished
the story of an obscure regional newspaper is clearly unnatural.

7\. The way how zealously Chinese media came out to blast earliest reports
doubting this outbreak originating from the seafood market even before that
became news in the West stands out. Are all of them subscribed to the same
obscure American academic journal?

8\. Chinese government is no stranger to manufacturing bizarre hoaxes

Normally, this is not what Chinese government would cover up. The concealment
of original SARS outbreak only happened after the fact of its existence
becoming public.

What was covered up in 2003 was not its existence, but the lacklustre
emergency response after it became clear that they completely screwed up.

Similarly, other natural disaster coverups only happened after it becoming
clear that somebody screwed up.

I.E.: the Wenzhou train collision. The cover up was made not for screwup of
signalling system designers, but to make the emergency response look
"adequate." The guy wanted to render it a "small, manageable derailment
accident," and not to show hundreds people dying on his hands while he did
nothing.

~~~
watertom
I want to know how they identified a new viral pneumonia back in late November
with just a handful of cases.

Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but since the initial symptoms are flu
like wouldn’t it require a statistically significant number of additional
cases, deaths or symptoms in order to alert the health officials that
something new was taking place, and an investigation was warranted?

In late November they had less than 15 cases but they had already identified
it as a new virus. How would they know to look for a new virus with so few
cases? Unless they had prior knowledge about a new virus that was accidental
released, which prompted them to start looking.

~~~
baybal2
Taiwan is a good calibration point. There, they managed to trace all cases
down to a single arrival from the mainland.

From that, it looks quite believable that it would've taken 3-4 full
generations of reinfections to take the count to 200 hospitalisations.

I think, 200 hospitalisations should've been around the same number for the
signal to attract attention by Chinese disease surveillance, if it wasn't
picked up by the purpose made SARS screening network.

If we believe the news that Hubei already saw hundred extra deaths in January,
and that hospitals were already near full in mid January, then the number of
infections should've been already above 1000 at Jan 1.

------
jonny_eh
We just don't know yet either way. We shouldn't discount that it was leaked by
a lab.

------
mensetmanusman
Would love a good Bayesian statistical analysis with different priors. Of all
the places covid could have arisen, what are the chances it was randomly so
close to this lab? 10%?

Are we throwing out statistics and common sense because we don’t have a
YouTube video showing a researcher physically transferring it out of a lab? No
idea...

------
maest
It's dissapointing to see how people's stance wrt to this is heavily affected
by which political line they follow.

~~~
gridlockd
It's disappointing to see that, no matter how this virus emerged, we don't see
universal condemnation of the CCP handling the outbreak.

It's also disappointing that the WHO isn't being harshly criticized by either
sides, despite the fact that it was instrumental in downplaying the outbreak
in line with CCP interests.

A view is not refuted by the fact that it happens to have been shared by
Donald Trump.

------
Tarlox
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU)

The sources listed in the description of this video seem somewhat reliable.
While I'm not completely sold on the lab being the source I think the odds
that it was are still pretty high for me.

------
whateveracct
All this lab talk lacks nuance and is being abused as propaganda. You say "it
came from a lab" and imply that it's some manufactured bio terrorism thing.

------
jbirer
"Man stabs someone, no evidence of murder"

------
valerij
so intentional release?

~~~
maest
What makes you say that?

------
s_y_n_t_a_x
The majority of US spy agencies think it escaped from the lab across the
street from the Wuhan wet market.

[https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/majority-of-us-
spy-a...](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/majority-of-us-spy-agencies-
believe-coronavirus-escaped-from-wuhan-lab)

The UK is no longer discounting this theory:

[https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/25214/20200406/uk-
fear...](https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/25214/20200406/uk-fears-
coronavirus-actually-leaked-china-lab.htm)

Similar to the Russian DNC hacking, I trust our intelligence agencies over the
CPC state media in this case.

~~~
ntsplnkv2
What's more believable? The CPC state media, or the right-wing media complex
that both of your articles was churned out from?

From the first article: > The Daily Caller cited a senior intelligence
official earlier Saturday who stated the majority view among U.S. spy agencies
is that COVID-19 is natural and that it was accidentally leaked out of a Wuhan
lab.

The Daily Caller: "The Daily Caller is a right-wing news and opinion website
based in Washington, D.C. It was founded by now Fox News host Tucker Carlson
and political pundit Neil Patel in 2010."

The second article references the Daily Mail.

Until an official report comes out from the government, I'd be cautious with
your reading of "journalism."

~~~
s_y_n_t_a_x
Fox was the one to confirm this:
[https://twitter.com/johnrobertsFox/status/125657685892307353...](https://twitter.com/johnrobertsFox/status/1256576858923073539?s=20)

Yes Fox and more so The Daily Caller are right leaning, but you're attacking
the source not the substance.

China runs hard labor camps, they're not on the same level of trust of even
the most right-wing/liberal media sources.

It seems like a very confident report, citing an exact 17 agencies. I'm sure
you'll see confirmation soon.

Funny that anonymous sources are attacked when it's a "right-wing" journalist.

Read up on John Roberts and see if you trust him based on his previous
reporting:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts_(journalist)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts_\(journalist\))

Remember to do this for all news sources! Pay attention to their sources,
follow-up when they are anonymous.

~~~
ntsplnkv2
Yes, if you read your articles instead of just the titles they referenced John
Roberts as well. Basically, they all just reference each other, almost as if
they are pushing a narrative or something.

There is no substance. It's an anonymous guy saying something. Misinformation
is dangerous regardless of who it comes from - including China and far left or
far right media. Such a confident report would likely have other sources that
aren't from the right wing mill machine - but if you actually look at the
other sources, they all say a completely different take, I'll let you look
yourself.

I'm very anti-China, especially with regards to how they run their country and
treat their people. I hope that all of the world's governments, when THIS IS
CONTAINED, investigate the cause. It may be that it did leak from a lab. Or it
didn't. I wish our government and media would focus instead on containing it
first and then figure out the cause.

~~~
s_y_n_t_a_x
You can do both. Like I also mentioned, UK isn't ruling it out. I simply
posted those sources to bring awareness to the other side to the theory, it
was lacking in OP's article. One reason it was lacking is because my links are
newer. I was providing developing information, we'll see if it's real, but it
looks interesting.

Are you arguing that we can't talk about the origin at the same time as
figuring out solutions to the virus?

The article is about the origin, it seems appropriate to mention these things.

Interesting DHS report: [https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/05/03/intelligence-
report-c...](https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/05/03/intelligence-report-
china/)

