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[l'Otters]

I just posted something about that in the antivaxx stupidity thread... link to a much longer article from the bulletin of the atomic scientists. It looks a lot less clear cut than what I’d previously read.

If anyone was of the view that it was appropriate to exclude the possibility that the pandemic origins involved a lab accident, it might be time to reevaluate your stance:

Wuhan lab staff sought hospital care before COVID-19 outbreak disclosed - WSJ

Three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) sought hospital care in November 2019, a month before China reported the first cases of COVID-19, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing a U.S. intelligence report. The Journal said current and former officials...

news.yahoo.com

 

[elbows]

13:23 entry of BBC live updates page:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57225462

The World Health Organization's investigation into the origins of the pandemic needs to "explore all possible theories", Downing Street says, following reports that workers at Wuhan's virology laboratory were treated in hospital as far back as November 2019.

A US intelligence report says three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) sought hospital care a month before China reported the first cases of what became known as Covid-19, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Asked about the report, the prime minister's official spokesman says: "The WHO investigation into the origins of the virus is ongoing and we have been clear throughout that it must be robust, transparent and independent.

"The investigation needs to explore all possible theories on how Covid-19 made that jump from animals to humans and how it spread and that's vital to ensure we learn lessons from this crisis and prevent another global pandemic."

The complex politics and high stakes involved make this a very tricky one to get to the bottom of. There are few matters quite as sensitive as this. I doubt the WHO will have all the tools and space it needs to find all the answers and draw the right conclusion. Not without help from other agencies, and some kind of opening up of limits imposed by 'international diplomacy' and the various balancing acts that are part of the reality of trying to operate a global health agency that needs to work in partnership with nations.

 

[Supine]

Hence my use of language. There is no conclusive proof available. There are just reasons to explore that possibility further and retain an open mind.

I’d go further and say it’s impossible to prove where covid became a human disease. There is no way to go back and find an animal to human transition.

As to it being man made I’m keeping that in the deep conspiracy category. I listened to a world leading virologist who said creating covid was too technically complex based on current science. If she thought that I have no reason to believe Wuhan Institute of Virology achieved it.

 

[elbows]

The 'man made' bit is something of a red herring, that part is not necessary in order for a lab accident to be involved.

People that dont want to keep an open mind about that possibility should probably think about why they feel the need to exclude such possibilities.

Understanding what that particular lab specialised in, and something of the history of accidents of this sort, is all I require in order to entertain the lab accident possibility. Doesnt mean I would bet money that this is certain to have been the cause.

 

[elbows]

There is no way to go back and find an animal to human transition.

There are ways to obtain clues about that and deduce certain things. Its not easy, and I wouldnt expect perfect answers and proof in regards that possibility either. But there are various techniques to do with genomic details and the rate of mutation that have been used in other studies to point in certain directions in the past.

 

[platinumsage]

I listened to a world leading virologist who said creating covid was too technically complex based on current science.

Link? On the face of it sounds like nonsense so would be good to hear the details.

 

[elbows]

Although I said the 'man-made' thing could be a red herring in that it isnt strictly necessary for that side of things to have been in play in order for some lab accident possibilities to be feasible, that doesnt mean I entirely exclude that entire side of things either.

It does open up several additional cans of worms though. We only have to look back to pre-pademic arguments about whether various 'gain of function' experiments were worthwhile or too risky to get some sense of the capabilities already available to specialised scientists, and of the diverse range of opinions on whether that stuff was too risky etc etc. And then there is there is the additional fog that would be expected to shroud any areas where governments may have an interest in weapons research.

This leaves those aspects as largely a black hole in my mind. I would not expect to be able to pick through the publicly available information and be able to paint a picture I was highly confifdent in. And I would not expect experts to all be on the same page as to what is possible or at all likely.

Here is a 2015 article that provides one example of what was possible, what misunderstandings about the detail can result, and the very differing opinions on display. There is plenty of other history that I have not looked into in any depth.

Bat SARS-like coronavirus: It's not SARS 2.0! | Virology Blog

A study on the potential of SARS-virus-like bat coronaviruses to cause human disease has reawakened the debate on the risks and benefits of engineering viru ...

www.virology.ws

 

[elbows]

And 'man made' is a rather simplistic label. If its used to suggest 'made from scratch by humans' then thats probably seriously overstretching our sense of current capabilities. 'Fiddled with a bit by humans' may be closer to the mark in terms of current abilities, but as I already said its also possible to have lab accidents where an unaltered virus collected from animals is involved.

 

[elbows]

And given how sensitive and high-stakes, political etc that sort of stuff is in the current pandemic context, I generally recommend people try to make use of things that were said well before this pandemic, so as to avoid those who want to narrow or close matters in the current pandemic context.

There was a moratorium in the US in regards gain-of-function stuff with viruses in 2014. This is useful when trying to find simple info about whats been done in the past.

Just one 2014 example:

Moratorium on Research Intended To Create Novel Potential Pandemic Pathogens

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Experiments that create the possibility of initiating a pandemic should be subject to a rigorous quantitative risk assessment and a search for safer alternatives before they are approved or performed. Yet a rigorous and transparent risk assessment process for this work has not yet been established. This is why we support the recently announced moratorium on funding new “gain-of-function” (GOF) experiments that enhance mammalian transmissibility or virulence in severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and influenza viruses.

None of this has anything to do with finding 'proof' about whats happened with this virus, except in the sense that paying proper attention to the history enables us to reject the false backdrops that some are keen to promote at this time, no doubt for all manner of reasons.

 

[elbows]

More on sniffer dogs ability to detect the virus:

Faster than a PCR test: dogs detect Covid in under a second

Study in London used six enthusiastic dogs in a double-blind trial

www.theguardian.com

 

[weltweit]

Could do with some of those dogs at Heathrow I think ..

 

[elbows]

More bad news from Japan.

 

[zahir]

If anyone was of the view that it was appropriate to exclude the possibility that the pandemic origins involved a lab accident, it might be time to reevaluate your stance:

Wuhan lab staff sought hospital care before COVID-19 outbreak disclosed - WSJ

Three researchers from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) sought hospital care in November 2019, a month before China reported the first cases of COVID-19, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing a U.S. intelligence report. The Journal said current and former officials...

news.yahoo.com

It's been posted before but this short PR video for Chinese virus research has the unintentional effect of showing how easily bat researchers could have come into contact with the virus. With hindsight the collection of samples looks very risky, whether or not this was actually the source of transmission from bats to humans.

 

[l'Otters]

I just posted something about that in the antivaxx stupidity thread... link to a much longer article from the bulletin of the atomic scientists. It looks a lot less clear cut than what I’d previously read.

It was this article:

The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan?

If the case that SARS2 originated in a lab is so substantial, why isn’t this more widely known? As is now obvious, there are many people who have reason not to talk about it.

thebulletin.org

 

[Badgers]

Is the Olympics really going to happen?

US issues Japan travel warning weeks before Olympics

It comes amid heightened scrutiny and pressure to call off the Tokyo Olympics due to be held soon.

www.bbc.co.uk

Last Friday IOC vice president John Coates said the Olympics will go ahead "even if Tokyo is still under a state of emergency".

That statement did not make him many friends in Japan, where daily deaths from Covid are now higher than at any time during the pandemic, and where the healthcare system in parts of western Japan has been described as "on the verge of collapse".

 

[Yossarian]

Is the Olympics really going to happen?

US issues Japan travel warning weeks before Olympics

It comes amid heightened scrutiny and pressure to call off the Tokyo Olympics due to be held soon.

www.bbc.co.uk

According to the Japan Times story posted earlier, the British variant is really hammering Japan, Osaka in particular - are they going to risk importing more variants?

With public opinion in Japan against holding the Olympics, and with the virus changing faster than the event's Covid protocols, I don't think they're going to be foolhardy enough to go ahead with it.

 

[sideboob]

According to the Japan Times story posted earlier, the British variant is really hammering Japan, Osaka in particular - are they going to risk importing more variants?

With public opinion in Japan against holding the Olympics, and with the virus changing faster than the event's Covid protocols, I don't think they're going to be foolhardy enough to go ahead with it.

Variants Make Up Over 90 Pct of New COVID-19 Cases in Japan

Tokyo, May 13 (Jiji Press)--Variants with the N501Y mutation are now estimated to be responsible for over 90 p…

www.nippon.com

Tokyo, May 13 (Jiji Press)--Variants with the N501Y mutation are now estimated to be responsible for over 90 pct of new cases of novel coronavirus infection in Japan, it has been reported to a meeting of a health ministry advisory panel.

This is strange, considering that the borders have been closed off to most of the world for quite a while, and 3 days quarentine (iirc) required for those who are allowed to enter.

Article expired

News on Japan, Business News, Opinion, Sports, Entertainment and More

www.japantimes.co.jp

It`s just so fucked on so many levels. Almost nobody wants the Olympics, borders are closed except to people involved in the Olympics, and the Olympic atheltes aren`t required to be vaccinated. But I would bet that the Olympics will go ahead, money and politics doesn`t represent the masses.

 

[sideboob]

This is from last December, and doesn`t appear to have been updated since. As the final paragraph suggests, hospitals have been under pressure for a while, it just doesn`t make the news.

 

[elbows]

Well it varies a bit by region. Although I dont pay all that much attention to data from Japan, due to things like severe limits to their testing system, it seems from the most basic national data that they've had two peaks this year. And we often hear the most about terrible hospital situation at the point where admissions etc are at their maximum, hopefully to be followed soon after by a downwards trend.

eg this from worldometer:



There are some English updates describing various details per region on the following site. Updates to the English version dont happen often enough for my liking but are still of some use.

COVID-19

www.niid.go.jp

If they think they are somewhat past the latest peak then this is one reason why they will still be sticking with the idea of the olympics going ahead. But of course there will be plenty of other foolhardy reasons for that too.

 

[2hats]

A study led by Drosten's group at Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, which might prove to be one of if not the definitive viral load study, and which underlines that children are similarly infectious to adults.

The differences we observe in first-positive RT-PCR viral load between groups based on age are minor. Comparisons between adult viral loads and those of children and the relative infectious risks they pose are difficult due to the likely influence of non-viral factors. Nasopharyngeal swab samples, which often carry higher viral loads, are rarely taken from young children due to pain and lack of cooperation, and the sample volume carried by smaller pediatric swab devices is lower than in larger swabs used for adults. Infections in mildly-symptomatic children may be initially missed and only detected later, resulting in lower first-positive viral loads. Our results of similar viral load trajectories for children and adults, and the numeric range of the viral load values in question, suggest that viral load differences between children and adults are too small to alone produce large differences in infectiousness. The relative impact on transmission of general age-related physiological differences, such as different innate immune responses, may be small as compared to the impact of large differences in frequency of close contacts and transmission opportunities.

Further, it confirms that even asymptomatic individuals can have very high viral loads, and that a minority can cause the majority of all transmissions, underlining the importance of NPIs. It also highlights that individuals infected with B.1.1.7 have much higher viral loads on average (compared to a previous widespread variant B.1.177) and are likely more infectious (based on lab estimates).

Press reports

Press release of the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin

www.charite.de

DOI: 10.1126/science.abi5273.

 

[teuchter]

Where did the idea that children are less infectious come from in the first place?

 

[a_chap]

Parents

 

[Teaboy]

Where did the idea that children are less infectious come from in the first place?

The government and indeed government scientists. Its been a bug bear of mine throughout and I've grumbled about it a lot on here because it was obvious bollocks.

The government have been falling over themselves to say that the virus doesn't apply to kids and teens. I know why they did it and there is a certain sense to it but I feel there was a halfway house.

 

[elbows]

Parents

The government, employers, professional bullshitters, wishful thinkers, specialists that are narrow and have a knack for getting it wrong.

Many parents know better, like teachers they are aware via experience that children shed a lot of virus when it comes to other illnesses, even if they dont know anything about the technicalities of it.

But it is true that some parents with a bias for remaining at work may have been willing to engage in doube-think about such matters. After all, professional bullshitters have children too.

 

[emanymton]

Where did the idea that children are less infectious come from in the first place?

People not understanding that being less likely to get serious symptoms doesn't mean you are less likely to infect others.

 

[Yossarian]

Biden has asked intelligence agencies to redouble their investigation of the origin of COVID-19 as the lab leak theory gains wider acceptance - I'm glad this is getting a second look under a less insane US president - might not have happened if China hadn't Streisand Effected the issue by blocking investigators.

Biden asks intel community to ‘redouble’ efforts probing COVID-19 origins

President Biden on Wednesday announced a ramped-up effort to determine the origins of COVID-19, reflecting a new acceptance in U.S. political and public health circles that the virus might have eme…

thehill.com

 

[Yossarian]

Good piece here on why much of the media may have been far too quick to dismiss suggestions of a Wuhan lab leak.

Many mainstream journalists, though not all, dismissed the lab-leak hypothesis out of hand as a conspiracy theory. In part, they were deceived by some especially voluble public-health experts. In part, they simply took Donald Trump’s bait, answering the former president’s dissembling with false certainty of their own.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/05/lab-leak-liberal-media-theory-china-wuhan-lab-cotton-trump.html

 

[elbows]

I havent got time to read that now but I'd expect the sort of expert bullshit they describe to have some strong resemblances the shit that made me think I had to do my own pandemic commentary in the first place.

On a related note when I got quite heavily into debunking conspiracy theorists for a time last decade, I was dismayed at how far some people overcompensated for that kind of deluded shit and ended up in different sort of narrow world that didnt reflect probable reality properly either, eg ended up being hopelessly naive. Its a balancing act where a relatively open mind for as long as possible is a sensible approach.

 

[elbows]

I'd like to thank all the people who managed to resist the urge to jump all over me on the occasions where the lab theory came up and was discussed in the past, back when people were largely encouraged to write it all off as outlandish hogwash and I was at odds with that approach.

I was amused by this BBC analysis of the new era we find ourselves in regarding this theory. The lines redrawn before our very eyes. The new mainstream still has its limits.

Lab leak theory goes mainstream. Analysis by Anthony Zurcher, North America reporter.

In what passes for relative transparency in the US government, the Biden administration has conceded the American intelligence community is split on Covid-19's origins - it could be the lab or animal-to-human contact - and no-one is near certain about it.

That marks a big shift from the derision heaped on the lab theory by many in the media and politics last year, when Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Senator Tom Cotton and others floated the idea.

Mr Trump and Mr Pompeo didn't help the situation, however, as they were coy about the grounds for their suspicion. And their theories floating alongside more far-fetched ones, such as that the disease was manufactured in a Chinese lab. That possibility still seem highly unlikely.

The public may never know the full truth about the virus' origins, particularly if China continues to be unco-operative. Mr Biden is pledging a full investigation, however, and if the US finds conclusive evidence of a lab leak, it will mean more than just a few prominent figures having to eat crow and re-evaluate their trust in authoritative "conclusions". It could place very real strain on US-China relations for years to come.

Covid: Biden orders investigation into virus origin as lab leak theory debated

US intelligence is divided on whether the virus came from a Chinese lab or animal-to-human contact.

www.bbc.co.uk

I dont recommend eating crow, it could lead to new animal->human transfer of viruses with pandemic potential.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

tbf: you're more likely to be eaten by a crow than the other way around