So that is interesting, but it assumes that random things should happen about the same way twice. In the case of CoV-1, it looks like the infected animal(s) were traded a lot – so held in one market, moved to a different one, etc., over an extended time and over an extended range. But are animals in this system always traded a lot and transported over some range? We don’t know. And the infected animal(s) in the Wuhan market could have been collected nearby, and after all hell broke loose they of course were purged. Infections are highly stochastic. Hit or miss.
So I don’t see that this interpretation has much weight, given that we don’t know the consistency of the animal trade.
And we are still waiting for dispositive evidence for a lab leak.
Based on economics, we can surmise that this would be the exception rather than the rule. The more markets an animal is traded through, and the more hands it passes through, the higher the costs (transport, feeding, etc), the more middle-men that would be adding their own mark-up, the higher the probability that the animal will die before final sale, and the lower the condition of the animal (and therefore sale price).
All things being equal, its in the financial interests of those involved to try to minimise this aspect. The purpose of this “highly connected network” is to get the animals to their point of final sale as cheaply as possible, and in the best condition possible – thus maximising profits.
Two outbreaks in a live-animal market, of all places. Imagine that.
For the people freaking out over the apparent coincidence of an outbreak occurring in a city with a virus research lab, this coincidence should be making them apoplectic. But, no, they don’t even notice it.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s clear or only a possibility. Washburne shouldn’t state there was a singular event immediately after stating that it was proposed that there were two events.
Except that he didn’t say that SARS-CoV-2 emerged as a singular event. Rather, he said that for the lab-origin theory, the lack of a geographic trail has a clear explanation: SARS-CoV-2 emerged as a singular, research-related event in Wuhan. Do you see the difference ?
I don’t tend to pay much attention to his blogs where the person running it can proclaim anything he wants. He should submit his work for peer review, but the thing is he already tried and we both saw a few years ago how bad his preprint was.
This has already been pointed out. This actually makes sense since, in contrast to SARS1, the market were quickly shut down and the animals were rapidly disposed of in the case of SARS2.
The first cases of SARS2 were detected in 12th of December 2019 . After it became clear that of the 41 people hospitalized, 27 (66%) had contact with the Huanan market, the market was shut down and sanitized on the 1st of January 2020. That’s 20 days post 1st case. The animals on farms were also rapidly released, sold, or killed.
In the case of SARS1, the first case was detected on the 16th of November 2002 in the Foshan prefecture (Guangdong), but the markets and animal trade continued to operate as normal. This is clearly apparent since the first infected animals (masked palm civets) were detected in May 2003 and these were still being sold in the Dongmen Market in the Shenzhen… a different prefecture that is 68.20 miles away from Foshan. That’s over 4 months post 1st case. Then SARS reemerged in the winter of 2003 in the Xinyuan animal market (Guangzhou prefecture) where again live masked palm civets were still being sold. Finally, strict measurements were taken on the 5th of January 2004 (almost 14 months post 1st first case) to get rid of any animal that might harbor SARS1 in farms and in animal food markets. They imposed quarantine on all civets reared for human consumption in farms all over China. Since these measurements, no additional community-acquired SARS1 cases have been reported. (source here and here)
In short, SARS1 was able to spillover into humans at different points in time spanning many months because living and infectious animals continued to be traded and sold at markets for over a year. This did not happen in the case of SARS2. Any comparison that does not take this factor into account is completely nonsensical.
Oh great, another Washburne preprint. It was posted on October 13, 2022… drum roll please… still not published. Alex Crits-Christoph wrote a thorough take-down in the comments. I will just refer to him.
The censorship of the Chinese government being best explained under the lab leak than under the natural zoonosis hypothesis, it belongs to the list of evidence that enhance the plausibility of the former.
What are the existing evidence for zoonosis?
Is it the ones given by the proximal origin paper?
Here what virologist Simon Wain-Hobson said in an interview for a German newspaper:
Should “The Proximal Origin of Sars-CoV-2” be retracted?
Yes. Absolutely. The same goes for the Lancet article (Calisher et al., 2020). These papers weren’t genuine scientific contributions. They served a narrative, not the data. But retractions are rare because they seem like an admission of guilt. Authors usually retract their articles voluntarily—almost no one is forced to do so. And these papers were published in Nature Medicine and The Lancet—you don’t want that to be lost from your resume.
It’s not about punishment. It’s about responsibility. Anyone who has misled the world during a pandemic shouldn’t be allowed to simply disappear quietly. You have to retract. And admit mistakes.
What role did the major journals—Nature, Science, The Lancet—play?
They are part of the scientific establishment. They want to stay close to NIH directors and major funders. They haven’t published lab-theory articles, supposedly because of a lack of hard data—but they were quick to publish weak papers supporting the natural hypothesis.
One attribute of conspiracy theories is an infinite number of undetermined degrees of freedom. If some detail is unknown, unimportant, unrecorded, or simply never existed, there are infinite theories for why that might be, and no way to contradict any of them. That detail can be magnified to any level of importance with no consequences to those making the unfounded speculation, at least not until some idiot attacks a pizzeria looking for a secret basement that doesn’t exist. Demands for confirmatory evidence are met with another round of unfounded suspicion, and around we go.
Or it is explained by simple CCP paranoia and attempts to suppress any information that may be the least bit embarrassing. Given the wide range of information that they already suppress – it does not take something as extreme as a lab leak to explain it.
That is more than countered by the unhinged propaganda in favour of the Lab Leak Conspiracy Theory being released by the rabidly anti-Chinese US government.
What people say is not the evidence. Have you looked at any of the evidence, Gil?
Another is that their advocates avoid direct analysis of the evidence, instead quoting what people say about the evidence, with no fact-checking involved.
Why? The fact that you think a lab leak is the only reason why the Chinese government would want to maintain control of the narrative? You can’t be serious. The Chinese government would also not be keen to admit responsibility for failing to stop the illegal wildlife trade, a lesson they should’ve learned from SARS1.
In fact, the Chinese government first claimed no illegal animals were being sold at the Huanan market. We quickly learned that this was not true and the Chinese government were probably aware of it. Furthermore, they also (nefariously motivated or not) destroyed a lot of potential evidence by cleaning the wet market and culling the animals, even at wildlife farms.
Could you imagine if this applied to WIV? What if the Chinese government initially claimed the lab did not have (or sequenced) any SARS2-like viruses like RaTG13 before we quickly learned that they did? What if after the outbreak the Chinese government quickly went to WIV for a thorough clean-up, and disposed of cultures and stored vials? Without a single shred of doubt, lab leak proponents would hail this as absolute proof for SARS2 having originating from the lab. Yet, when they cleaned-up the wet market shortly after the outbreak and then lie about the presence of illegal wildlife… lab leak proponents don’t bat an eye, because this doesn’t fit their narrative. Government shenanigans are always interpreted in favor of their claims. It’s just plain confirmation bias.
See every single one of my previous comments.
From reading the parts you quoted, Simon provides no reason for why the contents of these papers are wrong. He just asserts they are wrong, and accusing them of malicious intent (also with no evidence to back up that statement). All you have right here is just an appeal to his authority. Sorry, you need to do better.
Okay… I don’t have the time to dive deep into this paper. I will just leave the link to a preprint response by the authors. Would be good to read that too when I have the time. Perhaps I will have more to say after that. As of now, I am already alarmed by the title:
“Statistics did not prove…”
Well of course, statistics never deals with proof. It deals with probabilities and degrees of confidence. I have no idea why a statistician of all disciplines would use a title like that except for the purpose of click bait.