
January 2018 US diplomatic cables warned of coronavirus leaking from Wuhan lab - dmitriy_ko
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/
======
rdtsc
> “The idea that it was just a totally natural occurrence is circumstantial.
> The evidence it leaked from the lab is circumstantial. Right now, the ledger
> on the side of it leaking from the lab is packed with bullet points and
> there’s almost nothing on the other side,” the official said.

That’s how I feel. Isn’t it just the darndest coincidence that the worldwide
deadly pandemic just happened to originate in the backyard of the only BL-4
research center in China. And they just happened to work with bats, and
somehow two years earlier someone bothered to warn US govt. about safety
issues there.

It also interesting to observe the level of coverup here. That page about the
visit was scrubbed, doctors silenced, etc.

How many vendors at the wet market, the alleged source of the virus, even sold
bats or made bat soup and such? How does it compare with other wet market
around the country or the world?

~~~
downerending
Talk like this would have gotten you cancelled two months ago. Now it's on
WaPo. Wonder where we'll be in another two months.

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generatorguy
I saw posts on Reddit months ago pointing out the virology labs in wuhan
studying this exact virus and wasn’t it a coincidence. I am actually quite
surprised that US scientists that twice visited the lab sent strongly worded
official communications back to the US government stating concerns over safety
and the competence of the personnel working at the lab and saying that they
needed more assistance.

Now that China has disappeared people who were speaking out, shut down the
Shanghai lab that originally published the virus’ genome, and is back to
tightly controlling information out of the country, I doubt we’ll ever know
for sure if this pandemic was a preventable accident. Either way it is a major
black eye for China.

~~~
cjbprime
For what it's worth, I saw posts on Reddit saying the opposite: that Bat
coronaviruses are BSL-2, not BSL-4, and so it wouldn't make sense to restrict
yourself as a researcher by studying them in the most stringent lab.

(I'm not saying this to argue that the lab escape theory is wrong, just to
argue that Reddit posts are difficult to appraise.)

~~~
burfog
Research papers, posted in comments on HN just days ago, show that the lab
made hybrid bat-human cells in which to grow viruses. This was BSL-4. Both HIV
and coronaviruses were grown. The idea was to breed the viruses until they
would replicate well in ordinary human cells.

That's some diabolical research.

To put it in DnD terms: The researchers have high intelligence, low wisdom,
and probably low dexterity.

~~~
cjbprime
Want to share some links to them?

~~~
burfog
OK.

Here is China making a coronavirus like the one causing the pandemic, even
acting on the ACE2 receptor and testing it in human cells, publishing it in
early 2008:
[https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899](https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899)

Here they are again, years later, still playing with extremely hazardous
coronaviruses that act on the ACE2 receptor in humans:

[https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12711](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12711)

This one gene-edits the host cells to have both human and bat traits, making
it easier to breed bat viruses into becoming human viruses:

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00705-010-0729-6](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00705-010-0729-6)

There are more. The ASM's virology journal published more of generally the
same kind of stuff. I can't find the link right now.

~~~
_delirium
One summary of the overall findings of those articles is something like: there
sure are a lot of SARS-like bat coronaviruses in natural reservoirs, and a
bunch of them are alarmingly able to spread well in human tissue too, either
unmodified or with tiny edits. That doesn't rule out the theory that a lab
escape was the source, but it also suggests another SARS-like zoonotic
transfer was pretty much a ticking time bomb, and it wouldn't be surprising
for it to have happened through that route either.

~~~
burfog
It's not OK to be actively trying to make those edits, especially after a
history of lab containment failures.

After the USA banned this research because of the danger, some of it moved out
of the country. At least one of the researchers moved from the USA to Wuhan,
China. The ban should have been a clear message: such research is unacceptably
dangerous.

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davvolun
This is a very disappointing thread on Hacker News.

First, the article is title "State Department cables warned of _safety issues_
at Wuhan lab studying bat coronavirus." Immediately sensationalizing the title
to imply _this_ coronavirus leaked from the Wuhan lab is not good.

Did the coronavirus leak from the Wuhan lab? Maybe, there's some evidence to
suggest it's a possibility, but jumping on conspiracy theories, or unproven
claims (e.g. "it was the wet market" \-- it may have been, but many of the
original infectees were not involved with the wet market) is just spreading
fake news. Haven't we had more than enough of that over the last few years?

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troughway
I was downvoted in another thread for pointing out that reporters have failed
to do their jobs here.

Doctors knew about this back in November-December timeframe, maybe even
earlier, and were asking people with cough and chest pains if they had been to
Wuhan recently.

~~~
notechback
You are claiming that doctors (which, were?) were aware of this disease before
its first official case was diagnosed/published?

~~~
mywittyname
This was a public health crisis in China before last Nov/Dec. I would hope
that doctors in large cities were asking about travel to China during this
time.

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hungryhobo
>US diplomatic cables warned of coronavirus leaking from Wuhan lab.

That's not at all what the original title was, matter of fact not even what
the original article was about.

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duxup
It would put an interesting perspective on the reasons behind some Chinese
officials claiming it was released by the US in Wuhan.

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hncensorsnonpc
But how fast they jumped on all these -CIA term used to discredit people with
valid concerns- when they said that. Now ever the MSM writes about it. I won't
read WSJ anyway.

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villgax
WaPo edits the url when loaded to prevent you from pasting into outline

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ThePowerOfFuet
Anyone have an archive link for us non-Americans?

~~~
salawat
Mirror: [http://archive.is/OIguS](http://archive.is/OIguS)

