Claim:Natural Covid-19 broke out of Wuhan lab (not man-made)

[Oystein]

Why was the lab in Wuhan studying a form of the virus in the first place? ...

Because that is, what a virus-studying institute does. Obviously, ever since SARS-1, SARS and SARS-like viruses would have been a hot concern.

that's another thing that's bewildering me, because "8 miles" to me is like "4 villages over", as relates to the older WIV campus (the newer campus is 18 miles away).

it's only "right around" if your scale is Texas, not a densely populated city. In NYC terms, it's like saying the Upper West Side is right around Brooklyn.
... .

Cities and city dwellers work quite differently from villages and villagers.

It is probably not too uncommon for residents of Brooklyn to work in the Upper West Side, or otherwise frequent the Upper West Side.
All you need is a one-off event. Regardless of prior likelihood, once it has occurred, it has occurred. It's certainly more likely for someone in Brooklin / the neighborhood of the wet market to mingle with and be infected by someone working in the Upper West Side / WIV than for two people from two different greater metropolitan areas to do the same.

 

[deirdre]

Not really. People don't regularly travel (and thus carry infections) greater distances just because they're in a larger country.

i know that's why people are eyeballing the lab as an origin, because that's where the cases first showed up. (and maybe why CHina has suggested a traveler from another country brought it in). No?

 

[Mendel]

It is probably not too uncommon for residents of Brooklyn to work in the Upper West Side, or otherwise frequent the Upper West Side.

My point is that the chance for a specific person from the Upper West Side to have had close contact with any person from a specific block in Brooklyn last week is quite small.

But that's the kind of chance the lab leak scenario requires: the infectious lab worker must have infected a market worker (and nobody else). That's already improbable if they live in the same village, but it's virtually impossible in a city the size of NYC or Wuhan. If there are 400 people working at that market, the chance is worse than 1:20,000 or 0.005%, about the same as flipping a coin to come up heads 14 times in a row, or throwing 6 dice and coming up all sixes or all ones on the first throw.

 

[deirdre]

My point is that the chance for a specific (random) person from the Upper West Side to have had close contact with any person from a specific block in Brooklyn last week is quite small.

actually it's really not. i get the analogy you are going for, but in real life your analogy doesnt work. It is highly likely that Manhattan offices have workers both from the Upper East side and from Brooklyn. just saying.

note: not that im fully backing your wet market focus, the wet market as origin is still debated.

 

[Mendel]

actually it's really not. i get the analogy you are going for, but in real life your analogy doesnt work. It is highly likely that Manhattan offices have workers both from the Upper East side and from Brooklyn. just saying.

that's not the same scenario, statistically

to get the same chance, you need to
• pick a person from the Upper West Side at random (the lab worker)
• pick a city block in Brooklyn at random (the market workers)
• check if they've had close contact in the past week (while infectious)

If you start by choosing a place of contact, and have both be the same profession, you're skewing the odds considerably.

It's much more likely that the Upper West Sider infects an actual neighbor.

 

[deirdre]

• pick a person from the Upper West Side at random (the lab worker)
• pick a city block in Brooklyn at random (the market workers)

ok i had your analogy backwards. thanks for clearing it up.

pick a person from the Upper West Side at random (the lab worker)

maybe the lab worker, whose lab is in the Upper West side, lives in Brooklyn a train stop away from the market and likes to shop at that market because people do go out of their way to shop at big box stores like Costco or BJs.

or maybe since only like 1% of non retired people actually go to hospital for covid (back then)..and hospital entry was how we were tracking it back then.. the lab worker actually infected 100 other people, who infected 200 people and one of those 200 people lives in Brooklyn. maybe one even lives in the same apartment building as the market worker.

I'm not arguing as much as you may think, but "what are the chances i run into an infected person" was the whole philosophy of anti-lockdown/anti-mask "conservatives" and the NY mayor, and Pelosi etc early in the pandemic. That philosophy didnt work out too well for us.

 

[FatPhil]

i know that's why people are eyeballing the lab as an origin, because that's where the cases first showed up. (and maybe why CHina has suggested a traveler from another country brought it in). No?

My fuzzy memory is that initially the fastest jumpers to conclusions had mixed up two different bio labs in Wuhan, one of which was much closer to the wet market, but that one had nothing to do with Shi and her mutant virus strain creation exploits.

 

[Mendel]

I'm not arguing as much as you may think, but "what are the chances i run into an infected person" was the whole philosophy of anti-lockdown/anti-mask "conservatives" and the NY mayor, and Pelosi etc early in the pandemic. That philosophy didnt work out too well for us.

it's different when you consider population dynamics, because then any R-value >1 is bad—an individual "pretty unlikely" eventually overwhelms the population if left to grow.

the wuhan problem is that the lab worker living next to the market is statistically unlikely, and that a customer (without symptoms) infects a seller over a sales contact is also unlikely. I've not claimed it's impossible, same as I wouldn't claim it's impossible to flip heads 14 times in a row, it's just very much unlikely—much more unlikely than a wild infected pangolin ending up in Wuhan and not elsewhere.

 

[deirdre]

the wuhan problem is that the lab worker living next to the market is statistically unlikely, and that a customer (without symptoms) infects a seller over a sales contact is also unlikely. I've not claimed it's impossible, same as I wouldn't claim it's impossible to flip heads 14 times in a row, it's just very much unlikely—much more unlikely than a wild infected pangolin ending up in Wuhan and not elsewhere.

it's just those seem like alot of speculations too.
There's nothing to say the lab worker immediately infected a stall worker.
There's nothing to say the alleged infector was asymptomatic (although i dont know what cold, allergy and flu season is like in China).
There's also nothing to say the alleged market worker was infected at the wet market.

(Either way, hopefully China is cracking down on ALL the possibilities, including if the lab workers who went to collect bats hire local help. Maybe their day hire had it and gave it to a lab worker. Lots of possibilities. )

 

[Mendel]

it's just those seem like alot of speculations too.
There's nothing to say the lab worker immediately infected a stall worker.

no, but having an infection chain end up at the wet market is actually more unlikely

There's nothing to say the alleged infector was asymptomatic (although i dont know what cold, allergy and flu season is like in China).

a person whose job choice is medicine was involved in a possible biosecurity breach involving SARS is likely to isolate once they see symptoms, because they realize what it means if they don't, and that runs counter to their life choice. I could see them not knowing about asymptomatic infectiousness because that's been atypical about Covid.

There's also nothing to say the alleged market worker was infected at the wet market.

Agreed, that's why I'm not assuming that. In fact, I think it's rather unlikely that it happened that way.

(Either way, hopefully China is cracking down on ALL the possibilities, including if the lab workers who went to collect bats hire local help. Maybe their day hire had it and gave it to a lab worker. Lots of possibilities. )

"local help" means people down in Yunnan where the bat caves are. the thing is that these bats don't have viruses close enough to SARS-CoV-2. I think they did screen the people there. But the time frame wouldn't fit anyway.

 

[deirdre]

a person whose job choice is medicine was involved in a possible biosecurity breach involving SARS is likely to isolate once they see symptoms, because they realize what it means if they don't, and that runs counter to their life choice. I could see them not knowing about asymptomatic infectiousness because that's been atypical about Covid.

true. but not if he (asymptomatic) infected his friend. That's what i was referring to. I doubt either of them would be too concerned if the friend developed a cold. which is what coronavirus is...a cold. [add: COvid 19 and SARS just happen to be very nasty versions]

 

[deirdre]

(Either way, hopefully China is cracking down on ALL the possibilities, including if the lab workers who went to collect bats hire local help. Maybe their day hire had it and gave it to a lab worker. Lots of possibilities. )

so they are aware of the possibility, so that's good.

Fauchi 0:12
"a lab leak could be that someone was out in the wild, maybe looking for different types of viruses in bats, got infected, went into a lab and was being studied in the lab and then came out of the lab. But if that is the definition of a lab leak then it is still a natural occurrence"

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r5zapwKzyI




original interview source
Source: https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2023/03/11/fauci-responds-to-covid-lab-leak-theory-acostanr-vpx.cnn

 

[Ann K]

There is now speculation of the involvement of another species, a wild canid called a raccoon dog, in the Covid infection. But the question of a lab leak has not been settled.

The World Health Organization has obtained information pointing to the presence of raccoon dogs—a species suspected by some of initially spreading COVID-19 to humans—at the Wuhan market tied to the virus’s early days, officials said Friday.
Raccoon dogs—known to be susceptible to COVID-19, and to spread viruses to humans—are thought to have been sold illegally at the market. They could be the missing link in the chain of transmission from bats, presumably, to people, experts in the zoonotic transmission camp say.
But WHO officials Friday cautioned against assumptions, saying that while the information is an important piece of the proverbial jigsaw puzzle, “it does not determine what the picture shows”—and that a lab leak can’t be ruled out.

Content from External Source

https://fortune.com/well/2023/03/17...t-covid-people-humans-wuhan-wet-market-china/

More information about raccoon dogs:

Have they been linked to other diseases?​

Yes. Raccoon dogs and related mammals sold for food at a a live animal market in China in 2003 were found to carry a coronavirus similar to the virus found in humans during a SARS coronavirus outbreak at the time. In 2004, Chinese health officials ordered the slaughter of 10,000 animals set to be sold at market, including raccoon dogs, after a man tested positive for a novel strain of the SARS virus and raised fears of another outbreak.

Content from External Source

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/18/1164527523/raccoon-dogs-coronavirus-wuhan-market