
Covid-19 coronavirus epidemic has a natural origin - ____Sash---701_
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200317175442.htm
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CoffeeDregs
Any comments on the following? Serious? useful? Garbage?
[https://harvardtothebighouse.com/2020/03/19/china-owns-
natur...](https://harvardtothebighouse.com/2020/03/19/china-owns-nature-
magazines-ass-debunking-the-proximal-origin-of-sars-cov-2-claiming-
covid-19-wasnt-from-a-lab/)

~~~
burfog
That is serious and useful, unlike the groundless claim of natural origin. The
lab in Wuhan has been publishing coronavirus research for many years. In some
of the research, they cause bat viruses to replicate in human cells by using
the ACE2 receptor... exactly as this pandemic does.

Here is China making a virus like this one, 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)

When an outbreak of _exactly that type of virus_ happens right next to the
lab, the only reasonable assumption is that it came from the lab. If there
were a sudden outbreak of smallpox next to the CDC lab in Atlanta, we wouldn't
just shrug it off as a natural occurrence. The same applies here.

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

"Playing with" as in "identifying and sequencing the virus in wild bats". The
editorial notes say "The results provide the strongest evidence to date that
horseshoe bats are natural reservoirs of SARS-CoV."

The location is... interesting, but it's also near a large wet market with a
wild life section in a big city, pretty much exactly the circumstances you'd
imagine to see natural transmission.

It kindles the imagination but it's not really a smoking gun.

~~~
burfog
We won't have a smoking gun unless somebody from the lab tells all, which
would involve going to prison in China or claiming asylum in a different
country. Such a person might even be ignored unless he provides wikileaks with
a hard disk full of lab data.

They were definitely doing more than just "identifying and sequencing the
virus in wild bats". They purposely caused bat coronaviruses to become more
capable of infecting human cells. It's a cool experiment, but far too
dangerous to attempt. One of the modifications was to use the ACE2 receptor.
This receptor is found in humans, not bats. The pandemic uses that receptor.

------
MR4D
“ we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural
processes”

All that means is that they didn’t use a gene editor.

In all likelihood, they were experimenting with something in animals in a lab
and it accidentally got released.

If you were trying to research transmissibility, then this is probably the
most likely scenario.

=====

EDIT - if you downvoted me, please explain why. I ascribe no malice in my
post, and if I am misunderstanding the process, then correct me before
downvoting me.

~~~
runawaybottle
How many animals would it take to get the exact kind of mutation needed to
make something like the coronavirus? It feels like you’d need thousands in a
lab, right?

~~~
MR4D
No idea.

But if you had animals with weakened immune systems and eight years or more of
testing (since SARS), then it seems you have enough time for _some_ mutations
to happen.

------
scarmig
As far as conspiracy theories go, lab-made coronavirus is one of the more
interesting and plausible ones.

I still have to reject it. Reasons:

1\. If the Chinese national leadership had designed it as a bioweapon, they
would also have foreknowledge of its characteristics. Once it was clear it was
a new coronavirus in late December/early January, they would have just shut
things down instead of waiting three more weeks.

2\. No nation has attempted to weaponize a coronavirus before, because it
makes a terribly non-specific bioweapon. It will almost inevitably come and
cripple your economy if you ever did use it on someone else. And it is also
very dangerous if one of your labs releases it accidentally.

~~~
burfog
Those are arguments against "designed as a bioweapon" and "intentional release
by government". They are not arguments against "created in a lab", "lab
containment accident", or "intentional release by crazy employee".

We know for a fact, based on research published in Nature and in Journal of
Virology, that the lab in Wuhan was modifying bat coronaviruses to replicate
well in human cells. Some of these modified viruses were changed to use the
ACE2 receptor found in humans, just as the pandemic virus uses.

