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Comment by PhantomGremlin | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, we have no idea where the source is.

But we do know that China is a country 9,596,961 square km in size.

We also know that China's National Biosafety Laboratory, their only Level 4 microbiology lab, is located at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is 278 meters away (as the crow flies) from the Huanan Seafood Market. Said market has previously been speculated to be the source.

Is it simply coincidence that in a country of nearly 10 million square km the outbreak may have started less than 300 meters away from this laboratory?

Fortunately the esteemed New York Times has assured me that this is a "Fringe Theory of Coronavirus Origins". https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/business/media/coronaviru...

Here are a few articles that speculate further about this "fringe theory":

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8009669/Did-coronav...

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dont-buy-chinas-story-the-...

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> Is it simply coincidence that in a country of nearly 10 million square km the outbreak may have started less than 300 meters away from this laboratory?

Sure, why not? Coincidences happen all the time, we only pay attention to the significant ones or ones that can be used to push some agenda.

Circumstantial speculation only gets you so far, eventually you need some objective evidence.

I’m not saying coincidence or conspiracy, but this 2017 Nature article mentions some concerns:

https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to...

> But worries surround the Chinese lab, too. The SARS virus has escaped from high-level containment facilities in Beijing multiple times, notes Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. Tim Trevan, founder of CHROME Biosafety and Biosecurity Consulting in Damascus, Maryland, says that an open culture is important to keeping BSL-4 labs safe, and he questions how easy this will be in China, where society emphasizes hierarchy. “Diversity of viewpoint, flat structures where everyone feels free to speak up and openness of information are important,” he says.

https://goo.gl/maps/9dzPVq8XBtChHRxJA

You got me curious and I did a little digging. It seems like there are two facilities and it's not clear to me which one actually houses the samples in question.

This facility "Wuhan Jianghan Disease Prevention and Control Center" is actually very close to the market.

There's no street view there - seems probable this is just a normal office (there are restaurants in the same building)

https://www.google.com/maps/search/Wuhan+Jianghan+Disease+Pr...

Interesting.

It is about 14 km by car between the Market and the Institute of Virology.

What do you think about the Daily Mail article which says that the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention (WHCDC, not the Institute of Virology, my mistake) is 278 meters away? They state that virus research is being done there. From what I see on the map there are some Union Hospital buildings, but nothing specifically identified as the WHCDC.

Edit: part of the problem seems to be in searching for the exact names of the facilities.

https://map.baidu.com/dir/%E6%AD%A6%E6%B1%89%E5%B8%82%E7%96%...

I think Baidu Maps places WHCDC in the same complex identified in that Daily Mail article, directly across the street from the Huanan Seafood Market. (I'm a bit uncertain because I don't read Chinese, so please let me know if I've made a mistake here.)

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