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Lab leak theory - reverse engineering attempts

Apparently one of the reasons this is now being taken more seriously is that evidence has emerged that at the Wuhan Virus Lab attempts have been made during the pandemic to reverse engineer the virus to demonstrate that it is zoonotic because of the lack of evidence that it is has jumped from an animal to a human, from a wet market or otherwise... 

Was reading that this is not as unfeasible as everyone thought when the orange gibbon was beating his chest.

I was readinn that a few labs around the world actually engage in upscalling natural virus just for shits and giggles and it’s actually a fairly serious problem.

There was a lab in like Belgium or Norway which created a very transmissible version of H5N1 - they argue it has research benefits (but others say these are limited and the risk of a world ending leak massively outweighs these benefits).

it’s not very plausible 

the novel coronavuvu shows no discernible signs of having been designed or engineered

accidental leak from a lab is still not impossible ofc but the idea that it was created is patent BS being milked by american politicians for drum beating purposes

remember also that US “intelligence” are mostly incompetent psychos who, when they’re not coming up with batshit conspiracy theories and fake threats to entrench their political power, spend most of their time devising implausible false flag operations and engaging in internecine power struggles

This gain of function research is highly concerning. For example even though it wasn't developed as a biological weapon, this pandemic has clearly demonstrated what a biological weapon could potentially do. Furthermore although we could have entirely plausibly predicted how a totalitarian communist state would react (tightly policed blanket secrecy) we now know in actual fact this is also true. 

That is before we even get into the domino effect through the rest of the world ecosystem and economy...

Understatement of the year - not good. 

one good thing tho is that the shot in the arm (ho ho) this has given to vaccine research means a universal, everlasting antiviral jab is now in medium term prospect

There were a lot of people last year, including various academics and scientists, who were actively promoting the 'accidental escape from lab due to poor biosecurity' as the most likely origin of all of this.

They were, predictably, silenced / cancelled / dismissed as some sort of alt-right conspiracy theory.

Anyway it now seems this theory could well be odds-on to the point that even Sleepy Joe and the mainstream left-wing media are on board with it.  

Good to know it can now be safely discussed without risk of having our social media accounts deleted by Facebook / Twitter.  

 

Even if it were true that it were engineered, which I don’t think it is, I would not favour that fact being discovered or disclosed, as it would just give the jihadis of the American Right the excuse they need to beat the drum of confrontation even harder.

In just interested in the various academics and scientists who were, predictably, silenced / cancelled / dismissed as some sort of alt-right conspiracy theorists (excluding, obviously, those who are actual alt-right conspiracy theorists).

They were, predictably, silenced / cancelled / dismissed as some sort of alt-right conspiracy theory.

AS SOON AS I HEARD SOMEONE SAY “CHINA” LAST YEAR I KNEW IMMEDIATELY THAT IT HAD TO BE THE WORK OF THE DIABOLICAL DR FU MANCHU; ANOTHER SINISTER ORIENTAL PLOT TO BRING DOWN THE FREE NATIONS OF THE WEST!

WELL IT’S GOOD TO SEE THAT THE MAINSTREAM IS FINALLY TAKING MY THEORY SERIOUSLY!!

Yes, never forget that what the US state machine is telling you is plausible is driven by what is helpful to the US state machine. There is no truth in American politics

@ Jelly.  The fact Facebook and Twitter are now openly and actively removing any content that goes against the official approved narrative pretty much tells you all you need to know.

 

Fantastic to hear your thoughts Nish.

appreciate we're not actually treated to your opinion just your parroted shtick, but always welcome to see your amazing bantz 

@EP, if you think Facebook / Twitter is the only way to communicate news, that kinda explains a LOT. 

 

Perhaps these credible scientists and academics can communicate via other means? Link me up to anyone who's not a frothing fúcking toolbag. 

My take on the science is that it was highly doubtful that it was engineered. But tbh I wouldnt profess to understand the science and that may or may not be true.

However it seems to me that there is a very significant chance it was leaked. Wuhan has Chinas key BSL 4 lab which was very likely working on Coronavirus. U dont need to be an expert in anything to see the high risk that it was a leak.

I assumed that it was in everyone’s interest however for it not to be a leak - as a leak has huge ramifications for politics and national security. Not to mention the reputation of science, scientists and budgets. So the speed at which it was dismissed was likely driven by politics.

It is notable that its now back on the table; notwithstanding that it is hard to avoid it given the factual matrix, it does suggest a change in policy and potentially a more belligerent approach to China. Which is quite worrying tbh.

There are different ways that gain of function can be done - one is to "engineer" a virus, ie to directly alter it to deliberately change a characteristic, ie to make it more transmissable, or more deadly.  The other is to allow it to mutate naturally, in animal subjects, or outside a subject, or to do that using AI, or to do both to see if the AI accurately predicts how it will mutate/evolve and then to refine the algorithm if it doesn't.  "Engineering" this virus is unlikely and it looks much more like something that has evolved naturally, but that doesn't exclude the possibility that it was either found in nature in this form and escaped a lab, or mutated in a lab and then escaped. 

The reason to do gain of function research is to work out how viruses mutate and the pathways mutations are likely to take.  Apart from the genetic sequencing and the way in which vaccines are now produced, gain of function is one of the reasons why the vaccine producers have been able to be so successful in producing multiple effective vaccine candidates, because it has allowed virologists to understand in much more detail how viruses work and how they are likely to evolve.  There is though a lot of concern that it is a very risky approach (to deliberately allow viruses to evolve, potentially in more dangerous ways), which would be amplified if this turned out to be true.

It would also surely be a sign of the impending apocalypse if the ginger racist was proven correct and Fauci ended up being wrong. 

I think it is entirely plausible that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab, but it's being downplayed because western governments don't want to face the consequences, i.e. that they are too weak and lacking the political will to punish China if it turns out to be true.

Tbh gain of function etc is terrifying tech. We’re basically getting very close to putting a WMD more powerful and dangerous than an arsenal of nukes into the hands of pretty much anyone who can get through a biology degree.

Covid, if not natural, was very probably an accident. God knows what happens when some group of nutters wants to do something serious on purpose? It won’t take much funding. I suspect there is a fairly high chance of some horrific engineered pandemic happening within our lifetimes.

(If in fact it is not already happening; albeit the evidence does not support that at the moment).

 

Apparently part of the gene sequence is extremely unusual and has never been found naturally in any coronavirus, but is consistent with the standard laboratory technique.  Also, the virus emerged as a highly contagious variant, rather than evolving to increase transmissibility over time.  

Nah, I don't claim to understand it all, but this article certainly raises questions:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-science-suggests-a-wuhan-lab-leak-11622995184

The Wuhan lab stuff was poopooed at the time because it was just baseless speculation being seized on by alt right loons, and was almost entirely irrelevant to the real business of dealing with the virus.

Since then its clear that actual evidence has emerged making it a credible possibility that the virus escaped from a lab.  Changing one's views in response to changing evidence is not a sign of incompetence but of strength and integrity.  Those idiots now saying "see I was right all along" were not right at all - their conclusions at the time are still just as stupid as they were then.     

Well a paper from Feb 2020 noted the rare gene combo - so there was evidence to support an inference then.  99% of internet keyboard warriors arguing one way or another would have had no idea of course.  But doubtless there was some informed speculation even way back then.

When the lab’s Shi Zhengli and colleagues published a paper in February 2020 with the virus’s partial genome, they omitted any mention of the special sequence that supercharges the virus or the rare double CGG section. Yet the fingerprint is easily identified in the data that accompanied the paper. Was it omitted in the hope that nobody would notice this evidence of the gain-of-function origin?

But in a matter of weeks virologists Bruno Coutard and colleagues published their discovery of the sequence in CoV-2 and its novel supercharged site. Double CGG is there; you only have to look. They comment in their paper that the protein that held it “may provide a gain-of-function” capability to the virus, “for efficient spreading” to humans.

Unless you're genuinely trying to bring about the End Times, a virus really isn't the ideal WMD (note - a considerable portion of the religious fanatics - christian, jewish, or muslim really want this to happen and are quite confused as to why all of their prophecies of the impending apocalypse haven't materialised over the last 2000+ years).  Something like Ebola, or other hemorrhagic viruses might be a candidate, if you could engineer it to be a bit more transmissable, because it kills enough people to eventually burn itself out.  If something like Covid had a mortality rate even half that of the weakest strain of Ebola, we would have lost a (very) significant chunk of the world population in the last year.  Unless you're trying to commit suicide, that's not an ideal choice of weapon, because you can't control it.

That's why all the really nasty WMD's are chemical, or biological (in the form of poisons, or toxins, rather than viral).  Those have been used (including by us) many times in warfare, but have also been used by amateurs/terrorists.  Anthrax is naturally occurring and can be processed relatively easily - it's been used in attempted attacks in the US (by various right wing nutters and militias).  Ricin can be manufactured pretty easily and was used in the attack in Tokyo in 1995, which killed 14 people and injured over 5500.  Al-Qaeda in the early 2000's was apparently developing the idea of using ricin or cyanide attacks via terrorist cells across the middle east and Europe.  

A lot of people are talking on here about engineering a virus, whereas the issue of the thread is reverse engineering, so a couple of thoughts on all that.

On the engineering side best to look up the 'gain of function' research undertaken at Wuhan funded by the US directed by Peter Daszak.

The reverse engineering is different. It's in reverse. Point being to after the event play around with genome sequences in the lab to try to make it look like COVD 19 had a zoonautic ancestor. The US says it now has evidence of this. 

 

 

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