>The lab leak would have to be covered up by the Chinese authorities and the WHO would some how have had to be in on it.

Indeed. There's another important bit that you seem to be missing.

Did you know that Peter Daszak, one of the "reputable international scientists" you speak of who helped investigate and author that report was himself the project lead for the US funded gain of function research at the WIV?

Who would be more inclined or in a better position to cover that up than him?

There were around 20 scientist who went to Wuhan with WHO. From all over the world, with actual relevant qualifications, specialised enough in virology to form a meaningful opinion on this subject.

Today they are all being harrassed by anonymous internet users because their conclusion didn't follow some conspiratorial paranoid anti-China story. What does that tell you?

There are people out there who happily make up stuff to fit a certain story. And people who will happily repeat it.

You can bury your head in ignorance and let yourself be manipulated by the likes of Steve Bannon or you can choose to listen to people, who actually have qualifications in the field and who have a meaningful reputation to loose.

> You are missing the important bit: The lab leak would have to be covered up by the Chinese authorities and the WHO would some how have had to be in on it.

Is that so inconceivable? The Chinese government has historically obfuscated facts and runs one of the largest media control operations in modern history. The WHO is also an organization of questionable trustworthiness and with suspicious subservience to China[1]. But the WHO wouldn't necessarily had to have been complicit. This could've easily been covered up by Chinese authorities during the many months of blocking external researchers into the country[2]. The research in the report you linked to started in January 2021.

As for the report itself, I skimmed a few pages and noticed some issues. My understanding is limited in this area, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

0. First of all, the conflict of interest of it being reported by WHO and Chinese researchers should be a factor in judging the validity of any of its claims.

1. From the arguments in favour of the intermediate host scenario (p. 115):

   > Although the closest related viruses have been found in bats, the
   > evolutionary distance between these bat viruses and SARS-CoV-2 is estimated
   > to be several decades, suggesting a missing link (either a missing progenitor
   > virus, or evolution of a progenitor virus in an intermediate host).

Why would this suggest a missing link? Couldn't gain of function research accelerate the mutations of the virus to make it seem far distant genetically from the ones found in bats?

2. From the arguments against the intermediate host scenario (p. 116):

   > There was no genetic or serological evidence for SARS-CoV-2 in a wide
   > range of domestic and wild animals tested to date.

And immediately after:

   > Screening of farmed wildlife was limited but did not provide conclusive
   > evidence for the existence of circulation.

So only major livestock species were screened, and wildlife screening was "limited", yet it concludes that there was no evidence. This scenario is "likely to very likely" based on a faulty missing link argument and dismissing the point that the research was limited.

3. From the arguments against the laboratory incident scenario (p. 119):

   > There is no record of viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 in any
   > laboratory before December 2019, or genomes that in combination could
   > provide a SARS-CoV-2 genome.

"There is no record" doesn't exclude the possibility of records being deleted before January 2021.

The rest of the arguments that all labs complied with high safety standards, with no reports of illnesses or disruption are also coming from Chinese authorities, and should be taken with a grain of salt. Yet this is enough to consider this scenario "extremely unlikely".

4. China is praised multiple times for its "near-elimination of SARS-CoV-2", but the official data is comically suspicious[3]. A total of 4,851 deaths in a country of 1.4 billion people. That week of April 13, 2020 was rough.

Apologies if I sound inflammatory and conspiratorial, my disinformation senses are tingling.

Ugh and apologies for the formatting. HN please adopt Markdown.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCYFh8U2xM

[2]: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/05/china/china-blocks-who-te...

[3]: https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/cn

Thanks for the detailed criticisms, you raise some good points.

>4. China is praised multiple times for its "near-elimination of SARS-CoV-2", but the official data is comically suspicious[3]. A total of 4,851 deaths in a country of 1.4 billion people. That week of April 13, 2020 was rough.

Indeed, the same day China decided to censor all covid death counts was the same day Chinese activists who were reporting on covid deaths using Github were dissappeared.

https://github.com/Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/07/22/silenced-china-archivist...

To think that China couldn't or wouldn't carefully control this situation and what information is available to external parties is being credulous to the point of this sounding like propaganda. They did everything they could to downplay the severity of the issue for months while they had people in hazmat suits trying to decon Wuhan.

Why didn't they do the same for the SARS-CoV-1 leaks that happened in Beijing over a decade ago, then?

Is everyone forgetting china tried to sweep that under the rug initially?

Source?

As far as I know, the government may have tried, but the scientists themselves were not down with it.

This sort of culture of the openness of science is why the Chinese government distrusts scientists inherently. And also why Shi Zhengli has maintained an extremely consistent story with the pandemic despite the government's changing its story like 3 times. Also why they've since silenced her. They don't trust their own citizens, and definitely not their own scientists.

It's common knowledge that the CCP tried to cover up the SARS outbreak initially, and then later changed course. Just like they tried to fly under the radar with covid-19, the WHO changed the timeline last year admitting China never informed them. Then China tried to silence anyone who spoke out about it. It makes you wonder what would have happened if Taiwan never requested information from the WHO, effectively informing the WHO to begin with.

You can't break the site guidelines like this regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. We ban accounts that do it, so please don't do it again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Hey you can literally look up my name in the post I linked and find all the evidence in the world that I am who I say I am.

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did...

James Duehr, PhD

Here's my google scholar page: https://scholar.google.com.co/citations?user=8wCwbNUAAAAJ&hl...

Here's my PhD thesis: https://search.proquest.com/openview/8e7e18ee1e41133ae74a719...

Sorry I'm a green account but I forgot the password to the HN account I made like 10 years ago. I mostly lurk so I haven't logged in in a looong time. Since before password managers became convenient or commonplace. Like 3 email addresses ago.

I also wrote a pre-formed response to the criticism that I shouldn't be trusted in my original post, you can find it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did...

and the associated in-depth footnote (For the really hardcore sticklers among you) here (#10): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vRbACWf90iBC35xNOwlI5bWcUq0...

Hi I'm not "coming to China's defense" here. I am no fan of the Chinese government I literally find them horrifically oppressive and a place I would /never/ want to live. I am no fan of China. I also anticipated this exact criticism and wrote a whole response to it. See here (#4): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vRbACWf90iBC35xNOwlI5bWcUq0...

Hi again jeduehr,

I want to apologize for some of my attitude in my comments to you here. Some of what I said I regret. Some of what I said was probably incorrect, and a lot of it was rude. Other parts, I still believe I would stand by, but I have to admit I haven't yet worked my way fully through your document, and it was poor form of me to give you that much grief especially given that fact, and, whether I agree with you or not, my way of expressing disagreement could have been less bad. Thank you for all your contributions on this.

While I do have my doubts reading some of your responses (which do not always seem to address concerns head on, especially responses to questions about lab leaks of natural viruses, which I've seen you respond to with something about engineered viruses, which wasn't the question), I believe you may be sincere, and I understand the value of extending the benefit of the doubt. I hope this discussion doesn't color your experience in a bad way.

I'll say one thing about China… it will surprise you (general "you") and defy your assumptions. Jaw-dropping moments are a daily occurrence. Of course we could say the same thing about most countries though.

You have repeatedly been an asshole in this thread. That's seriously not cool, regardless of how wrong other commenters are or you feel they are.

Attacking users for being new is particularly bad. Do we want HN to be a smug, insular community or welcoming to newcomers? Obviously the latter. Please don't poison it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sorry! I'll reexamine myself on the comments in this thread. I suppose I was kind of triggered by certain aspects, which may not be a good excuse. And I realize this is only part of it, but I definitely don't want to attack someone for being new.

Hey,

Let me know what proof you would want to show I am who I say I am.

Thanks

I'm too ignorant of this field to form any opinion on it, but I'm curious how much you would wager with even odds that COVID-19 didn't originate from a virology lab?

Not with me, because as I said I'm too ignorant of this field to form any opinion on it, but with some of the people who are pushing back against your posts.

I don't really have a lot of money (I'm 300k in debt from medical school and PhD school and undergrad combined) but sure...

if Yuri Deigin or Alina Chan wagered with me, I would probably bet like.... idk $2,000 that it was a natural zoonotic event? Like I said I don't have a lot of money in my bank account. That would be about how much I spend out of my student loans for rent, food, utilities, bills, etc. in a given month.

The problem with a wager like that is that we will probably /never/ be truly 100% sure either way. The thing I would push on, though, is that we would need to set forward exactly the criteria we would use to reassess our positions or give up the bet.

I set out exactly what that criteria is for me in this last section of my original writeup: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did...