Well I didn’t know this. And it would seem to suggest that if it did come from a lab, it would have almost certainly had to have been released on purpose. And that seems exceedingly unlikely to me at this time.
The labs must still maintain the original “root stock” virus though, correct? Like in a deep freeze or something?
Sure yeah. But simultaneously every bat and/or pangolin are also sources of mutation. And if it’s in the lab it’s way more contained than those animals are. Like, way way more
Poll needs 0-1%
I need a 0 but not impossible category with respect to escape.
Getting ready to head out.
Should say different receptor or very stronger binding to the same receptor. Idk without doing some lit searching.
I think this is very reasonable. This virus definitely has characteristics that would suggest it was created.
What characteristics?
I just did a quick search and it appears to me that as I suspected different cold viruses use a wide variety of different receptors to gain entry into cells. (Disclaimer: it’s easy for me to misunderstand some of this stuff since I have no formal education in this field, but it seems to be the case.)
Yeah probably in liquid nitrogen where it wouldn’t reproduce or mutate at all
it orchestrates a hostile takeover of their genes unlike any other known viruses do, producing what one leading scientist calls “unique” and “aberrant” changes
The “something” he and his colleagues saw is how SARS-CoV-2 blocks one virus-fighting set of genes but allows another set to launch, a pattern never seen with other viruses.
The result is essentially no brakes on the virus’s replication, but a storm of inflammatory molecules in the lungs, which is what tenOever calls an “unique” and “aberrant” consequence of how SARS-CoV-2 manipulates the genome of its target.
Of course this could just be a unique natural mutation, that’s the vastly more likely scenario.
It’s less that I consider it 0% and more that there’s zero functional purpose to me devoting any of my time to that question
I’d say have adjust the choices to be 0-1% and 2%-25% and leave the rest as is.
I mean, there are only around 50 BSL-4 labs in the entire world. One of them is in Wuhan, and they were known to be studying coronaviruses in bats. That seems like an enormous coincidence.
It obviously wasn’t released purposefully, but an accident is well within the range of possible imo. If anything, Cuse’s estimate seems low to me.
It’s a city larger than NYC. There’s a lot going on including wet markets featuring bats.
If they’re studying bat coronavirus in the lab, then they got the bats from the same places the wet market people get their bats. If it actually did “escape” the lab, it was already out there in the first place.
You’re putting the cart before the horse here. China is studying coronaviruses because they’ve had to deal with SARS, bird flu, etc.
Situation: $10,000 was found on the body of a homeless man
Days earlier, person A (bsl4 lab) placed $10,000 in a safe deposit box. person B (wet market) placed $10,000 on the roof of his car in a walmart parking lot.
You: where did the $10,000 come from? We don’t know!
Me: why am I here wtf there’s online poker going on
If it was studied in a lab, it could have been taken from a bat (or whatever) and studied, having never previously made the jump to humans.
There would not be any evidence of this unless China provided it… But that’s what the lab supposedly did: studied coronaviruses from bats.
There would also be no evidence of it having escaped the lab unless China released said information, and that’s if they even knew.
Dead and alive bats at a wet market have lots of uncontrolled contact with humans. Mutations that would allow the virus to make the cross-species jump would thrive there and would easily spread.
Bsl4 isn’t a notice to the community that mad shit is going on in a particular lab, it’s an international standard for safety, shit isn’t leaking out sorry if I’m ruining your screenplay idea
I thought that lab had been accused of failing to meet those standards? Seems a lot of faith to place in a safety standard that may not have even been properly followed.
I haven’t read that. None of the scientists I speak to think it escaped a lab. None of the papers I’ve read about it had any scientist mention such a possibility, in fact the ones I’ve read that do go into its origin plot sars-cov-2 as a cousin of the original SARS-cov-1 and more distantly related to mers. Not like, “wow! and then this somehow!” You know what I mean?
I’ll ask my advisor for a better explanation monday because I’m obviously not getting my meaning across very well rn