Wuhan lab leak?

[NotSure]

Article in the Telegraph today:

‘Wuhan lab leak’ may be the biggest economic shock for decades

If intelligence services find a Chinese lab really did create Covid then global trade would collapse, triggering a huge financial crisis

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... k-decades/

Seems to me it's still a pretty big if (regarding the likelihood that Covid was manufactured in a Chinese lab) but the theory seems to be gaining traction, and not just with Trump and his ilk.

https://www.ft.com/content/923e0256-7f7 ... c066b8b70b

But what if it was, even 'on the balance of probability', let alone 'beyond reasonable doubt'? How on earth would politicians and markets react?

From the Telegraph article:

....Here is the important question for the markets, however, and one no one is thinking about yet: what if it is true? It would be the biggest shock to the global economy in decades. Why? Because governments would surely have no choice but to retaliate with sanctions and demands for full-scale reparations.

Chinese goods might suddenly be locked out of the global market, creating shortages and sparking a vicious cycle of inflation. Global trade would collapse. And the financial markets would crash as Chinese money was pulled out.....

All seems a bit dramatic, but with the economy still fragile, yet assets at all time highs regardless, I doubt it would be painless.

[scrumpyjack]

The Chinese would deny it as 'Western Lies', and life would go on. No Chinese leader could possibly admit it, just as Putin brazenly denied the Salisbury poisonings and the Russian missile shooting down the airliner over Ukraine.

I think if the US did reach the conclusion that it did come from the Wuhan facility, they would probably suppress it.

[odysseus2000]

The circumstantial evidence for the Wuhan lab as being the source of Covid-19 has been strong for a long time now.

I expect it will be like the Cummings revelations, totally ignored by most of the population as an already discounted fact with no available remedy and the risk of doing something being far worse than what we have already experienced with the pandemic.

Regards,

[CliffEdge]

What I read somewhere is the Chinese lab created it financed by US business. Don't ask me where. Sounds entirely likely to me.

[ReformedCharacter]

I thought about this a bit before the theory was fairly widely considered unlikely; if the theory grew in acceptance to the point where most credible scientists agreed that the virus escaped from the Wuhan lab then the Chinese would instantly become pariahs and the ramifications of that would be considerable. Therefore, it seems likely that not only would the Chinese wish to deny the theory but so would a great deal of others in power who would wish to avoid those ramifications. The 'truth' might be too painful.

RC

[kempiejon]

The world expert(s) in corona-virus is/are based out of the Wuhan lab.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01 ... -s-origins

[ursaminortaur]

The world expert(s) in corona-virus is/are based out of the Wuhan lab.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01 ... -s-origins

The nearest I could find in the article to that was

The Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is the premier lab in China that studies bat and human coronaviruses, has also come under fire.

And that was in a section about conspiracy theories.

[NotSure]

Never been beyond doubt in my mind. The only question remains, was the human enhanced virus released by accident or by a person deliberately? There has been quite a bit of this in the media the last few days. I expect some interesting books will be published quite soon.

RVF

I think the fact that Trump supported this theory led to it being dismissed by much of the media (and myself). The more I read, the more likely a leak, almost certainly accidental, may have occured.

https://unherd.com/2021/05/what-if-ther ... -lab-leak/

I think this is a different order to Salisbury - literally by 6 orders of magnitude, millions dead, billions affected. It would seem madness to plunge the world into a 'great depression', but Biden will surely be under a great deal of political pressure. The Democrats grip on power in USA is pretty tenuous.

At the least, it is an interesting intellectual exercise to ponder who might be the beneficiaries and victims should this kick off?

[77ss]

The world expert(s) in corona-virus is/are based out of the Wuhan lab.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01 ... -s-origins

Not quite sure what you are trying to say, but its an interesting article.

A couple of snippets:

The viral sequences, most researchers say, also knock down the idea the pathogen came from a virology institute in Wuhan.

“Every time there’s an emerging disease, a new virus, the same story comes out: This is a spillover or the release of an agent or a bioengineered virus,” Daszak says. “It’s just a shame. It seems humans can’t resist controversy and these myths, yet it’s staring us right in the face. There’s this incredible diversity of viruses in wildlife and we’ve just scratched the surface. Within that diversity, there will be some that can infect people and within that group will be some that cause illness.”

[odysseus2000]

The world expert(s) in corona-virus is/are based out of the Wuhan lab.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01 ... -s-origins

Not quite sure what you are trying to say, but its an interesting article.

A couple of snippets:

The viral sequences, most researchers say, also knock down the idea the pathogen came from a virology institute in Wuhan.

“Every time there’s an emerging disease, a new virus, the same story comes out: This is a spillover or the release of an agent or a bioengineered virus,” Daszak says. “It’s just a shame. It seems humans can’t resist controversy and these myths, yet it’s staring us right in the face. There’s this incredible diversity of viruses in wildlife and we’ve just scratched the surface. Within that diversity, there will be some that can infect people and within that group will be some that cause illness.”

It is an old article, Jan, 2020 and things have moved on.

Had the virus not emerged at a site whose job it is to study and engineer such virus one would have no circumstantial evidence pointing towards the Wuhan lab., but that is not the case.

There are also suggestions that the virus structure is unlike anything one finds in nature with amino acids structures that are otherwise not found.

But we have known all of this for a long time now. Dearlove (ex head of MI6) noted he had seen evidence that the virus was not natural many months ago:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/f ... s-22136496

Regards,

[Mike4]

"How Facebook censored the Wuhan lab leak theory"

By Freddie Sayer of UnHerd.com

https://unherd.com/2021/05/how-facebook ... 5f54c62dde

[pje16]

So why dont they just open it up to a proper international investigation?

No hope - it's China !

[SteMiS]

There are also suggestions that the virus structure is unlike anything one finds in nature with amino acids structures that are otherwise not found.

But we have known all of this for a long time now. Dearlove (ex head of MI6) noted he had seen evidence that the virus was not natural many months ago:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/f ... s-22136496

I presume you are referring to the quote

Sir Richard, who was head of MI6 between 1999 and 2004, when he was known as C, said a scientific paper published this week by a Norwegian-British research team suggested key elements in the genetic sequence of the virus were "inserted" and may not have evolved naturally.

This is the Birger Sørensen and Angus Dalgleish paper, poorly reported upon by the Mirror

https://fullfact.org/health/richard-dea ... us-claims/

The paper in its current published and peer-reviewed form doesn’t say this couldn’t have occurred naturally.

Professor Anne Spurkland, an immunologist from the University of Oslo who was not an author on the paper, told NRK, the Norwegian state broadcaster, that this is not evidence that the virus was man-made. Another vaccine researcher, Gunnveig Grødeland, who was also not involved in the paper, told NRK that these sequences can occur when a virus mutates and are found in other viruses including HIV and other coronaviruses.

[odysseus2000]

SteMiS
I presume you are referring to the quote

Sir Richard, who was head of MI6 between 1999 and 2004, when he was known as C, said a scientific paper published this week by a Norwegian-British research team suggested key elements in the genetic sequence of the virus were "inserted" and may not have evolved naturally.

This is the Birger Sørensen and Angus Dalgleish paper, poorly reported upon by the Mirror

https://fullfact.org/health/richard-dea ... us-claims/

The paper in its current published and peer-reviewed form doesn’t say this couldn’t have occurred naturally.

Professor Anne Spurkland, an immunologist from the University of Oslo who was not an author on the paper, told NRK, the Norwegian state broadcaster, that this is not evidence that the virus was man-made. Another vaccine researcher, Gunnveig Grødeland, who was also not involved in the paper, told NRK that these sequences can occur when a virus mutates and are found in other viruses including HIV and other coronaviruses.

I imagine that MI6, including retried head, have direct contact with folk at Portland Down who will almost certainly have analysed this virus in extreme details, but rather than give their measurements, they instead use the voice piece of a retiree and a paper that has come to similar conclusions.

Once one moves into the intelligence/political world it is near impossible to believe anything. We all remember how the CIA were 100% confident that Iraq had hidden its weapons of mass destruction and yet after an invasion, none were found, but they did get rid of Saddam which may have been the whole intension, the WMD, just a convenient excuse.

I have no technical knowledge of how, or if one can infer that this virus is the result of manipulations nor on its origin. However, all the circumstantial evidence points to a Wuhan leak and I doubt Dearlove is making statements to grab media eyeballs, but who knows.

Regards,

[ayshfm1]

Given it's China we'll never know for sure. Show me a member of the Chinese communist party and I'll show you a self serving liar.

However of all the places in the world this terror could have originated it picks the a city where there just happens to be a lab doing this sort of research. I have no technical knowledge or background but neither do I believe in coincidences.

[NotSure]

I have no technical knowledge of how, or if one can infer that this virus is the result of manipulations nor on its origin. However, all the circumstantial evidence points to a Wuhan leak and I doubt Dearlove is making statements to grab media eyeballs, but who knows.

If there was a leak, it may have been a leak of a natural virus. Possibilities range from at one extreme 'genetically engineered and specifically designed to redress the demographics resulting from the one child policy' (i.e. reduce the elderly population but spare the young), to an accidental leak of a natural virus that was being studied at Wuhan (which, if there was a leak at all, seems rather more likely).

[odysseus2000]

NotSure
If there was a leak, it may have been a leak of a natural virus. Possibilities range from at one extreme 'genetically engineered and specifically designed to redress the demographics resulting from the one child policy' (i.e. reduce the elderly population but spare the young), to an accidental leak of a natural virus that was being studied at Wuhan (which, if there was a leak at all, seems rather more likely).

The demographics redress pops up every now and then.

The problem with the demographics argument is that President Xi is 67

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping

and many of the ruling party are of similar age. Releasing some agent to kill a lot of the elderly population would be a suicidal act for many in the Communist party, unless they have some guaranteed antidote that only party members would get, and that seems unlikely imho, plus if lots of common folk died and no Communist party members did it might not sit well with the population, nor a lot of the rest of world experiencing heavy losses of seniors.

Regards,

[NotSure]

NotSure
If there was a leak, it may have been a leak of a natural virus. Possibilities range from at one extreme 'genetically engineered and specifically designed to redress the demographics resulting from the one child policy' (i.e. reduce the elderly population but spare the young), to an accidental leak of a natural virus that was being studied at Wuhan (which, if there was a leak at all, seems rather more likely).

The demographics redress pops up every now and then.

The problem with the demographics argument is that President Xi is 67

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping

and many of the ruling party are of similar age. Releasing some agent to kill a lot of the elderly population would be a suicidal act for many in the Communist party, unless they have some guaranteed antidote that only party members would get, and that seems unlikely imho, plus if lots of common folk died and no Communist party members did it might not sit well with the population, nor a lot of the rest of world experiencing heavy losses of seniors.

Regards,

My suggestion regarding demographics was made with tongue firmly in cheek - my main point was that even if the virus is of natural origin, that does not rule out a leak at Wuhan.

I suspect we'll never know for certain what happened. I also suspect that is just as well.......

[SteMiS]

SteMiS
I presume you are referring to the quote

Sir Richard, who was head of MI6 between 1999 and 2004, when he was known as C, said a scientific paper published this week by a Norwegian-British research team suggested key elements in the genetic sequence of the virus were "inserted" and may not have evolved naturally.

This is the Birger Sørensen and Angus Dalgleish paper, poorly reported upon by the Mirror

https://fullfact.org/health/richard-dea ... us-claims/

The paper in its current published and peer-reviewed form doesn’t say this couldn’t have occurred naturally.

Professor Anne Spurkland, an immunologist from the University of Oslo who was not an author on the paper, told NRK, the Norwegian state broadcaster, that this is not evidence that the virus was man-made. Another vaccine researcher, Gunnveig Grødeland, who was also not involved in the paper, told NRK that these sequences can occur when a virus mutates and are found in other viruses including HIV and other coronaviruses.

I imagine that MI6, including retried head, have direct contact with folk at Portland Down who will almost certainly have analysed this virus in extreme details, but rather than give their measurements, they instead use the voice piece of a retiree and a paper that has come to similar conclusions.

Dearlove retired from MI6 over 15 years before the first SARS-CoV-2 case was reported in Wuhan. I think it's pretty big supposition that he has direct contact with Portland Down or that they would use him to 'leak' the results of their work...

[odysseus2000]

No idea if this is true, but suggests there have been many leaks from Chinese labs:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15126591/ ... rce=pushly

Regards,