Independent Science News publishes investigative articles on science and agriculture, including Covid-19 origins, gain-of-function research, and GMO regulation.
HN links it for its detailed post on a proposed lab origin of SARS-CoV-2; commenters discuss it and challenge parts of its epidemiology.
Why do you think it's very, very unlikely?
Accidental releases of viruses from labs have happened quite regularly. It's a serious concern.
The UK was first introduced to the uselessness of Imperial College and their epidemiological modelling by an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 2001 amongst livestock. It resulted in mass killing (by humans) of animals. Eventually the epidemic disappeared, amongst great acrimony and disaster for farmers.
In 2007 foot and mouth appeared again. This time, the virus was traced to the source of the outbreak. It came from a lab in Pirbright where the virus had been stored for research. Two government orgs were connected by pipes, and the pipes had been allowed to rust due to a budget dispute over which org should pay for repairs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_Kingdom_foot-and-mouth_outbreak
There's a long history of biolabs leaking and being found to be dangerous. It's not at all unlikely given this shoddy history.
https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/the-long-history-of-accidental-laboratory-releases-of-potential-pandemic-pathogens/
the New York Times (8/5/19) reported: “Deadly Germ Research Is Shut Down at Army Lab Over Safety Concerns”
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/17/reports-of-incidents-at-bioterror-select-agent-labs/14140483/
"Hundreds of bioterror lab mishaps cloaked in secrecy"
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/06/23/undisclosed-cdc-lab-incidents/86305700/
Officials at the…
> Is some of the funding tied to entities that are under the control of the CCP?
Per Sam Husseni's reporting[0]:
"""
Meticulous investigation of U.S. government databases reveals that Pentagon funding for the EcoHealth Alliance from 2013 to 2020, including contracts, grants and subcontracts, was just under $39 million. Most, $34.6 million, was from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which is a branch of the DOD which states it is tasked to “counter and deter weapons of mass destruction and improvised threat networks.”
Most of the remaining money to EHA was from USAID (State Dept.), comprising at least $64,700,000 (1). These two sources thus total over $103 million. (See Fig).
Another $20 million came from Health and Human Services ($13 million, which includes National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control), National Science Foundation ($2.6 million), Department of Homeland Security ($2.3 million), Department of Commerce ($1.2 million), Department of Agriculture ($0.6 million), and Department of Interior ($0.3 million). So, total U.S. government funding for EHA to-date stands at $123 million, approximately one third of which comes from the Pentagon directly. The full funding breakdown is available here and is summarized by year, source, and type, in a spreadsheet format.
"""
If this was a lab leak, it's an international issue caused by the hubris of at least two countries working together on a footgun (e.g. at Wuhan lab, and Ralph Baric's…
On the other hand, the submission headline here is simply the original article headline, "Africa developing its first supercomputer outside South Africa," with its subtitle (too long to be added to a headline on HN by the eighty-character rule) "The first 24-node HPC cluster should launch at iHub in Nairobi this summer." That is consistent with the Hacker News guidelines,
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
which say, "You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it." I generally find it is helpful for submitters on HN to submit original article titles. Then if we disagree with the original article title, as you evidently do here, we can agree to hold the person who kindly submitted the article harmless, and blame the editors of Ars Technica this time for a less than ideal title.
(For what it's worth, I have observed one case where an HN submitter submitted an original article title, which was then changed by the curators when commenters howled about it. The title changed from
http://independentsciencenews.org/news/23andme-disproves-its-own-business-model/
to
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2813270
I still think it was correct for the article to be submitted here on HN with the original title that time and this time, even if the title is subject to legitimate disagreement.)
I agree with your basic geographic point, hence an upvote from me for your comment.
The last section quotes the most promising bit of epidemiology I've seen on the origin of the epidemic, but alters the explanation of what happened a bit.
The article suggests that the gain of function was accomplished via passaging of the samples that the miners obtained, but the key point in the paper that is being cited is that the gain of function happened entirely inside the miner's lungs.
How did WIV get samples of this virus? Well, they harvested the thymuses of at least one of the miners, which then contained the fully passaged virus, no laboratory passaging necessary.
Why didn't this cause an outbreak in 2013? Initially, the virus was not infectious to humans without the kind of megadose that the miners received, and by the time it had evolved enough affinity for human ACE2 receptors, all of the medical staff involved in the care of the patients were extremely careful.
I'm just paraphrasing the paper that is cited in the articles conclusion. It's worth a read, and NYmag gets some of the details wrong. https://www.independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/a-proposed-origin-for-sars-cov-2-and-the-covid-19-pandemic/
It is close to my degree, and it was always the most likely explanation. I am not saying there was purpose, I am not saying there was gain of function, but the connection to the Wuhan lab was obvious.
Don't suspect maliciousness if something can be explained by stupidity!
This was a likely source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8490156/
There was a Chinese master thesis found on the web about this incident that was translated. I can't find any sources now anymore. Maybe it was this one: https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/a-chinese-phd-thesis-sheds-important-new-light-on-the-origin-of-the-covid-19-coronavirus/
Nope. This one: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/masters-thesis-analysisofsixpatientswithunknownviruses2/243430501
There is even a girl that worked in the Wuhan lab and has likely died from this Virus. https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-mail-on-sunday/20210117/281651077754920
Maybe this URL makes it seem more legit than it is, but the linked article below has a "2.5" version of events that proposed that samples taken from a group with who'd been infected by a coronavirus from bats may have been released accidentally. In other words that the lab was the point of release, but that they didn't construct or alter the virus as it already had adapted to humans in an earlier time.
I've done some separate reading that this is a legitimate way that viruses can adapt to a new species, but I don't have any background to evaluate the argument much beyond face value.
Some of the adjacent comments shed some doubt there as it sounds like bats aren't a plausible source because of the spike protein genetics.
https://www.independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/a-proposed-origin-for-sars-cov-2-and-the-covid-19-pandemic/