- Most high-end virology labs are doing research on human to human transmission of corona viruses. They're a major emerging type of virus we don't understand, and a Chinese lab working on them is even less surprising.
- If this was a bioweapon, it sucks.
Like, can you spin the theory that we're missing them? Sure. But there's a pretty strong absence of evidence there, despite a field that's actively looking constantly (and where showing that would further the political and scientific careers of a number of people).
Bioweapons aren't all that effective in general for the reasons seen here: they're too slowly acting, to easy to treat, and not as lethal as, say, chemical weapons (which are also not that effective as weapons). Biological weapons are most dangerous as terror weapons.
I hate to say anything more, because we would easily move into wild speculation territory.
But this was mostly to address the terminal version of this particular rumor, which I've also encountered on social media.
I quote/translate: "In the course of these fifteen years, China has several times failed to live up to their engagement, staying relatively vague about the existence of an offensive biological program. Chinese officials had, for example, previously certified they had no other P4 and no plans to build any, but we now know they do have many, some being quite suspicious, a France official said".
The book is "France-Chine, les liaisons dangereuses" by Antoine Izambard, for those curious.
We had incidents where there were system failures eg. Air filtration.
It can just be a simple accident that the China government is covering up because they know their population would turn on them.
Although your content seems very fatalistic ( = we can't understand nature). It seems weird and suspicious
No. From a new, anonymous account where I intend to post my opinions without them being tied to my identity. At least until I post enough for stylometric analysis to work...
I’ll believe it when NIH or CDC publish corroborating evidence.
https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to...
Looks like it’s in both places but wasn’t “moved” like in that link
If that's (kind of) on purpose that's really weird, to suspend somebodies account but leave the article up and remove all the author references. Anybody from medium on hn :)?
The funny thing about that is when you go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology the geocoordinates there lead you into the same forest on all major mapping services, while the pictures are recent or even from this year.
Interesting edit history, 'patriots' proudly performing Psyberwar...
It's probably one of the adjacent buildings.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7922379/Chinas-la...
“BOSTON (CBS) – Three people tied to universities and a hospital in the Boston area were indicted on charges they lied about their ties to China or tried to help the Chinese government. Among them was Dr. Charles Lieber, the chair of Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.
Prosecutors said Lieber had a contract with Wuhan Institute of Technology. He also ran a group that had contracts with the Department of Defense and National Institutes of Health” [2]
[1] https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/122332087916298649...
[2] https://boston.cbslocal.com/2020/01/28/massachusetts-china-i...
What also leads me to believe this may be the case is that there was (according to the article) experiments on bats being run, and in China, people often find random animals, in drainage ditches, etc., and then go on to sell them for meat. It's possible that the bats they were working on were improperly disposed of, and then picked up and sold at the wet market.
> Or at least start with an email: Dr Peng can be reached at [...], and his phone# is [...]
Have they no shame? They've found a bat immunologist (a different one than the virologist in the Medium post upstream; it's almost as if there are many experts on bat viruses), strongly suggest that this makes him the one responsible, and then ask people to contact him? This is basically orchestrating a harassment campaign. I hope they can be sued for that (defamation? IANAL).
No coronavirus was sent to Wuhan from that lab, it was a henipavirus and Ebola. It also wasn't sent by Dr. Qiu.
That doesn't prove the coronavirus didn't escape from the Wuhan lab. But it does debunk this popular theory that it was Dr Qiu.
Even if it did escape from the lab, it doesn't mean it's a bioweapon. Although the CCP are almost certainly working on them, possibly in their only known level 4 lab in Wuhan. I imagine there is a research overlap between bioweapons and treating people. They both require a deep understanding of how the viruses function.
There is an interesting unanswered question: what is the RCMP investigating Dr. Qiu for? They are very vague. It could be nothing, or it could be related to her helping setup the lab in Wuhan. The RCMP is a vain, inept organization IMO.
[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/china-coronavirus-on...
Hmm...
s/biolab/Apollo/
‘Number of suspicious elements’
Even the VOA has came out to classify this as a hoax. Sometimes people just want to believe in conspiracies.
And the mechanism is far less far-fetched, considering that on at least one instance SARS was confirmed as having escaped a research lab much like the one in question.
I’ll believe it when NIH or CDC publish corroborating evidence. Or are they part of the ‘system’ to you?
If that's all real, then why couldn't they land on the moon?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_radiation_belt
Their point being to cross the Belts in tin cans even going fast would have toasted them nicely and afterwards being toasted further by having no protection from cosmic rays or solar winds at all.
Which won't happen if you stay in LEO where every human space flight happened afterwards.
To return back to the current topic, there was a (good!) movie about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capricorn_One from 1978 where they faked it to proactively saving face in case of any real mishaps. Though that was for traveling to Mars, not the Moon.
For example, I definitely trust CDC (the US one). However, I am vary of trusting Chinese authorities and agencies when it comes to this issue, as they have shown before that they are willing to go to extreme lengths to hide the truth when revealing it casts a bad light or reveals some info. I have no strong opinion on the true source of the virus, as there isn't simply enough info and time to do a proper investigation by CDC, but it is easily imaginable how much the reputation of China will get damaged if it gets discovered that the virus was born out of one of their labs.
There's a bio lab there studying Coronaviruses, industrial accidents happen all the time, it's not hard to believe.
Blatantly calling out such an accident with government departments probably wouldn't bode well for relations.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentat...
https://medium.com/@siradrianbond/coronavirus-2019-ncov-part...