Wuhan Lab - Covid

[BoroMart]

Educate me, you say you have work experience in the field. Is the possibility that a virus can escape a lab by accident true?

Come on @Randy you guys have it all figured out, he's just asking you to explain your workings. He/she doesn't claim to have worked it all out, but is simply asking you to clarify your stance and why. So debate with honesty, answer those questions, and I'm sure @boringblock_21 will respond in kind

 

[boringblock_21]

Educate me, you say you have work experience in the field. Is the possibility that a virus can escape a lab by accident true?

Hi Randy,

Just to clarify I’m not trying to educate anybody. I’m not qualified! And I work in life science which is a huge field.

To answer your question - yes, I imagine a virus could “escape” a lab.

 

[Alvez_48]

Hi Alvez,

I’m not asking for long posts. I’m just genuinely trying to engage with you. Totally up to you of course. And I’m not dismissive of you btw, I’m intrigued as to how you answer the questions posed, because those are the questions I ask myself when I think about the origin of this virus. And I think as a scientist I have a responsibility to understand how the public perceives science.

On the virus specifically - My thoughts as a scientist are that if this virus came from a lab, there would be three giveaways:

The first would be some kind of molecular signature or predictable mutation that I don’t think we have in this viral genome. The mutations in the receptor binding domain of the spike don’t obviously predict a more virulent virus so it could have been “designed”. That points away from deliberate manipulation but leaves open the idea this virus escaped from GOF experiements. BUT what GOF experiment would allow a virus to evolve a bulky mutation (in terms of the protein) to avoid the immune system? An experiment where there’s an immune system present as a selection pressure. So an in vivo, or animal experiment. But then how would the spike protein become so specific for its human receptor? For this it must have been pushed through in vitro, or cell culture experiments with human cells. But why would it then maintain the earlier modification to help it avoid the immune system when no immune system is present in vitro?

The second sign it came from a lab for me would be if the virus had little (<80-90%) or no shared sequence identity with wild coronaviruses, which is not the case.

The third and final sign is that as a scientist, we trade on publications. There’s no way scientists would have tried to publish this data WAY WAY WAY before they got a virus with both of the mutations described in point 1.

So with that said, I also want to say that just because experiments don’t immediately protect us or provide obvious benefits doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be done.

Again I’m happy to discuss further with you if you are willing to engage.

Give me the other side, where does the nature theory fit better? Because everything you've stated about the lab theory could and likely was being attempted in the GOF (as you put it) research at the lab as covered in videos you didn't watch

 

[Lefty]

Thanks Alvez.

I appreciate your willingness to state what you think. I should be honest, I do work in the life science field, so I was trying to get to the bottom of what you and others thought had happened that led to the evolution of this virus in a lab.

Based on what you’ve told me, I’d pose the following questions to you:

1 - what was the “starting virus” or material used in the lab?
2 - How have the gain of function experiments led from that starting material to a virus with approximately 96% similarity to the Rhinolophus affinis bat coronavirus?
3 - How did the gain of function experiments lead to the virus evolving mutations (glycosylations sites on spike protein) that provide it an advantage when encountering an immune system?
4 - Following on from that, what selection pressure allowed the virus to maintain this mutation in the lab?
5 - Why wouldn’t the scientists want to publish this incredible finding about how the SARS virus might become more virulent and gain an incredible amount of respect in their field?

Happy to discuss further.

To a layman like me, these appear to be excellent questions, the answers to which are going to emphasise the findings of the report I linked to on the SGU podcast and the Science Based Medicine blog.

Would I be right, Mr boringblock?

 

[Randy]

Hi Randy,

Just to clarify I’m not trying to educate anybody. I’m not qualified! And I work in life science which is a huge field.

To answer your question - yes, I imagine a virus could “escape” a lab.

I wasn't trying to be an ****

 

[Randy]

Come on @Randy you guys have it all figured out, he's just asking you to explain your workings. He/she doesn't claim to have worked it all out, but is simply asking you to clarify your stance and why. So debate with honesty, answer those questions, and I'm sure @boringblock_21 will respond in kind

Where have I ever said I had it all figured out? I'm not the one instantly dismissing the theory that virus could have come from a lab just because orange man once alluded to it.

The educate me comment wasn't a snidey one it was a genuine request from someone who says they work in the field of life science.

 

[BoroMart]

Where have I ever said I had it all figured out? I'm not the one instantly dismissing the theory that virus could have come from a lab just because orange man once alluded to it.

I haven't dismissed it, I've said it's a wild theory without any hard evidence, there is no hard evidence. I'm not dismissing it as being possible, I'm dismissing the opening post that alluded that everyone excepts this hypothesis.

If you have hard evidence, and can disprove what @boringblock_21 has posted then I'm happy to objectively review.

 

[Scrote]

That's essentially saying 'Im going to discard everything you said because of a grammar mistake'. It's absurd.

It wasn't a grammar mistake.

It was a numbered point in your post expressing certainty that the virus escaped from a lab and it was incorrect. Whether through lack of understading, lack of research, or lack of attention to detail. Any of which leaves your theory a tad underwhelming.

"Here's a load of information that misses crucial detail. But it proves something significant. Honest."

 

[Alvez_48]

It wasn't a grammar mistake.

It was a numbered point in your post expressing certainty that the virus escaped from a lab and it was incorrect. Whether through lack of understading, lack of research, or lack of attention to detail. Any of which leaves your theory a tad underwhelming.

"Here's a load of information that misses crucial detail. But it proves something significant. Honest."

I didn't state it definitely came from a lab, I'm stating it's the opinion of high profile scientists that it came from the lab I then asked other people's opinions. Also b***ks the point still stands it has been confirmed by further articles I posted but you just want to nitpick so crack on.

What's your opinion, where do you think it came from?

I'm a self-confessed idiot just trying to find out truth, what's your excuse?

 

[boringblock_21]

Give me the other side, where does the nature theory fit better? Because everything you've stated about the lab theory could and likely was being attempted in the GOF (as you put it) research at the lab as covered in videos you didn't watch

Of course. I think that’s a legitimate request.

The virus has 96% sequence identity with known bat coronaviruses. Additionally, some of the mutations in the spike receptor binding site are also seen in, for example, pangolin coronaviruses. These are recently discovered because of the effort to understand the origin of the virus. So this knowledge wasn’t known before COVID. This is NOT to say the virus jumped from bats or pangolins to humans. I don’t have a conclusive answer as to how the virus transferred into human. But science doesn’t always have all the answers immediately. HIV, for example, took decades for scientist to discover the cause and understand how it came to be. I do however know that scientists are competitive creatures and publications are important. This kind of work e.g. GOF evolution of Coronavirus mutations, would take many steps to accomplish and the intermediate steps would probably have been published in some very good scientific journals. Because very few scientists would be willing to let such work go unnoticed.

So for me, on balance, the lab escape theory is virtually impossible from a science and social point of view. I’m not calling anybody with opposing views crazy, or racist, or anything like that. But I do hope my points are convincing because I worry that the belief in the lab escape hypothesis also means people believe in the malfeasance of thousands of people involved in covering something like that up. And I do think that is dangerous.

 

[Lefty]

Hi Alvez,

I’m not asking for long posts. I’m just genuinely trying to engage with you. Totally up to you of course. And I’m not dismissive of you btw, I’m intrigued as to how you answer the questions posed, because those are the questions I ask myself when I think about the origin of this virus. And I think as a scientist I have a responsibility to understand how the public perceives science.

On the virus specifically - My thoughts as a scientist are that if this virus came from a lab, there would be three giveaways:

The first would be some kind of molecular signature or predictable mutation that I don’t think we have in this viral genome. The mutations in the receptor binding domain of the spike don’t obviously predict a more virulent virus so it could have been “designed”. That points away from deliberate manipulation but leaves open the idea this virus escaped from GOF experiements. BUT what GOF experiment would allow a virus to evolve a bulky mutation (in terms of the protein) to avoid the immune system? An experiment where there’s an immune system present as a selection pressure. So an in vivo, or animal experiment. But then how would the spike protein become so specific for its human receptor? For this it must have been pushed through in vitro, or cell culture experiments with human cells. But why would it then maintain the earlier modification to help it avoid the immune system when no immune system is present in vitro?

The second sign it came from a lab for me would be if the virus had little (<80-90%) or no shared sequence identity with wild coronaviruses, which is not the case.

The third and final sign is that as a scientist, we trade on publications. There’s no way scientists would have tried to publish this data WAY WAY WAY before they got a virus with both of the mutations described in point 1.

So with that said, I also want to say that just because experiments don’t immediately protect us or provide obvious benefits doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be done.

Again I’m happy to discuss further with you if you are willing to engage.

This is basically reiterating the blog which said 'science is often a matter of probability..... there was no smoking gun proving a specific origin, and the team has had to rely on scientific inference', is it not?

Then the investigation, tracking the emergence of covid-19 couldn't nail it's origin via the epidemiological evidence, had to look at the molecular evidence and then combine all the evidence and knowledge they had to ascribe probabilities?

They can't say for sure it wasn't something that escaped from a lab, since they can't nail it down, but knowing how these things progress and mutate and analysing at a molecular lever, they can say it is very very unlikely. By far the most likely is a natural zoonotic pathway, probably via intermediates, with a small chance it could have come through the food chain. Scientists can't definitively rule the lab origin theory out until the actual origin is found, because that is how they work. The rest of us probably could, though and the bookies would snap your hand off on the odds of anyone putting their money on the lab theory.

 

[boringblock_21]

To a layman like me, these appear to be excellent questions, the answers to which are going to emphasise the findings of the report I linked to on the SGU podcast and the Science Based Medicine blog.

Would I be right, Mr boringblock?

Hi lefty,

Sorry I’ve not had chance to read the full thing but I intend to so thanks for sharing.

 

[boringblock_21]

This is basically reiterating the blog which said 'science is often a matter of probability..... there was no smoking gun proving a specific origin, and the team has had to rely on scientific inference', is it not?

Then the investigation, tracking the emergence of covid-19 couldn't nail it's origin via the epidemiological evidence, had to look at the molecular evidence and then combine all the evidence and knowledge they had to ascribe probabilities?

They can't say for sure it wasn't something that escaped from a lab, since they can't nail it down, but knowing how these things progress and mutate and analysing at a molecular lever, they can say it is very very unlikely. By far the most likely is a natural zoonotic pathway, probably via intermediates, with a small chance it could have come through the food chain. Scientists can't definitively rule the lab origin theory out until the actual origin is found, because that is how they work. The rest of us probably could, though and the bookies would snap your hand off on the odds of anyone putting their money on the lab theory.

Lefty - I think I agree with this succinct summary.

 

[Alvez_48]

Of course. I think that’s a legitimate request.

The virus has 96% sequence identity with known bat coronaviruses. Additionally, some of the mutations in the spike receptor binding site are also seen in, for example, pangolin coronaviruses. These are recently discovered because of the effort to understand the origin of the virus. So this knowledge wasn’t known before COVID. This is NOT to say the virus jumped from bats or pangolins to humans. I don’t have a conclusive answer as to how the virus transferred into human. But science doesn’t always have all the answers immediately. HIV, for example, took decades for scientist to discover the cause and understand how it came to be. I do however know that scientists are competitive creatures and publications are important. This kind of work e.g. GOF evolution of Coronavirus mutations, would take many steps to accomplish and the intermediate steps would probably have been published in some very good scientific journals. Because very few scientists would be willing to let such work go unnoticed.

So for me, on balance, the lab escape theory is virtually impossible from a science and social point of view. I’m not calling anybody with opposing views crazy, or racist, or anything like that. But I do hope my points are convincing because I worry that the belief in the lab escape hypothesis also means people believe in the malfeasance of thousands of people involved in covering something like that up. And I do think that is dangerous.

On balance it's virtually impossible because the GOF research hadn't been published.. fair enough, yet no amount of testing on pangolins or any other species has shown the evolution.

Please point me to where I can find out about any GOF research published by the Wuhan Institute I would like to learn more.

 

[Muttley]

Any other subscribers on here?

 

[boringblock_21]

On balance it's virtually impossible because the GOF research hadn't been published.. fair enough, yet no amount of testing on pangolins or any other species has shown the evolution.

Please point me to where I can find out about any GOF research published by the Wuhan Institute I would like to learn more.

I wouldn’t say it’s just the publication aspect, but definitely don’t underestimate the ego of scientists! There are highly similar viruses in other species, and that shouldn’t be tossed aside because the matches aren’t perfect. It can take time to root these things out.

Regarding studies from the Wuhan institute, I can try to look. But as I said life science is a huge field. I’m a biochemist, not a virologist, so I’m not immediately familiar with the work of the Wuhan Institute.

 

[boringblock_21]

@Alvez_48

please see link for papers listing authors affiliated with the Wuhan institute of virology and mentioning gain of function:

(wuhan institute of virology[Affiliation]) AND (Gain of function) - Search Results - PubMed

(wuhan institute of virology[Affiliation]) AND (Gain of function) - Search Results - PubMed

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Lefty]

This reminds me of the God of the Gaps reasoning.

Science can't explain something fully, yet?

Therefore God.

Sometimes it can be the Aliens of the Gaps, if the puzzle relates to a new discovery in space.

In this case it's Lab of the Gaps.

People are entitled to think what they like, but the best way in the long run is to employ as high a level of critical thinking as you can, always. Always isn't possible for us humans, but setting out with that principle is going to see you make fewer and less horrendous mistakes.

 

[Randy]

I haven't dismissed it, I've said it's a wild theory without any hard evidence, there is no hard evidence. I'm not dismissing it as being possible, I'm dismissing the opening post that alluded that everyone excepts this hypothesis.

If you have hard evidence, and can disprove what @boringblock_21 has posted then I'm happy to objectively review.

I know you haven't Mart.

Like I said I'm open to discussions from all viewpoints. Science hasn't definitely proven that the virus came from animals so the lab theory amongst others is still open for discussion and discussion only. Nobody is saying it came from a lab for definite.

 

[Alvez_48]

@Alvez_48

please see link for papers listing authors affiliated with the Wuhan institute of virology and mentioning gain of function:

(wuhan institute of virology[Affiliation]) AND (Gain of function) - Search Results - PubMed

(wuhan institute of virology[Affiliation]) AND (Gain of function) - Search Results - PubMed

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Thanks, so from my idiots perspective I don't actually see anything from work done within the institute but from people affiliated with it which makes sense.

Why do you think people like the CDC director and the chief virologist would make statements saying they think it's a lab leak? It seems mad to me to be so irresponsible with idiots like me around.