Comment by mikem170 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikem170 | Hacker News Reader

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I was replying to a post that said "Some people think it's relevant that a new coronavirus emerged next door to a lab working on new coronaviruses".

There's that word "emerged" (in reference to Wuhan) that you pointed out that I also used in my post. I was replying, with a supporting source, that this is not a certainty.

From the source I quoted earlier [0]:

> "I would be a bit careful about pinpointing a place (of origin), because we don't have many samples from the early phase," he says. "But it seems to me we shouldn't restrict ourselves to Wuhan when looking for the origin."

> Asked if his ongoing research should quash speculation that the virus leaked from the Wuhan lab, Forster is circumspect. "It's not black and white. All I can say is it doesn't look to me as if Wuhan is the prime candidate, because A exists in other regions of China at that time at possibly a higher frequency."

I've repeated this because it seems to be a common misconception that the virus first appeared in Wuhan when in fact there is some evidence to the contrary.

[0] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-05-...

Hmm, I’m looking at the Forster paper and I don’t see where they wrote that the origin might not be Wuhan.

Unless it’s peer-reviewed and published, I’m not going to count it as evidence. As far as I can see, you’re citing one dude’s speculations. Unless somebody’s followed up on those speculations in the past year, I’m not sure there’s a case here.

I wasn't just citing one dude's speculation, I was attempting to refute some other dude's speculation, the following statement from the original parent post I was replying to:

> Some people think it's relevant that a new coronavirus emerged next door to a lab working on new coronaviruses

I don't know thing the above statement has been proven yet, and there are competing theories.

I wasn't trying to prove that the virus came from somewhere else, I was simply casting doubt on the statement that the virus came from Wuhan.

Because nobody knows for sure. Right?

>I've repeated this because it seems to be a common misconception that the virus first appeared in Wuhan when in fact there is some evidence to the contrary.

To be frank, that article is speculation, because they assume a certain variant to be the "founding variant" because of its similarity to existing/known virus. It looks like a bit of circular reasoning to me.

So how come you didn't reply to the original parent's statement that:

> Some people think it's relevant that a new coronavirus emerged next door to a lab working on new coronaviruses

There's no definitive proof of this, either!

Forster admits that his research is not definitive. The comparison of his A and B strains to the nearest known relative, the bat virus, as a founding variant may be wrong. I understand that the main objection is that there were probably intermediary hosts, and that evolutionary mutations and geography don't always line up.

So does that mean it's 50/50 at this point, he may be wrong, but he may be right?

It's enough for me to question Wuhan as the site of the first human infections. It might be. It might not. I think that's the general scientific consensus at this point. We don't know for certain yet, right? That was my point. Perhaps I could have stated it better.

>There's no definitive proof of this, either!

I really don't understand what you are saying. Weren't all the first cases identified around Wuhan?

Just because some other variant was found to be dominant elsewhere a later point in time does not appear to suggest anything contradictory to me.

> Just because some other variant was found to be dominant elsewhere a later point in time does not appear to suggest anything contradictory to me.

That's the thing, the early variants Forster identified could have migrated in either direction. Nobody is questioning the differences between his identified A and B variants, just the directionality. The expert consensus seems to be "too early to know for sure".

That's what I'm saying. Forster might be right, and this came from south of Wuhan. Even his critics say that he may not be right, they don't say he's wrong. We don't know for sure.

Can you appreciate the difference? You seem to be saying "this definitely started in Wuhan" when it appears that is not certain.

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