[wschfdkbrmcdf]

That comment on that page from Kristian G. Andersen is mildly disturbing (http://archive.is/O1vhN)... As Associate Professor, Scripps Research, Director of Infectious Disease Genomics, SRTI etc etc I assume he knows what he's talking about when he states:

"That means that the outbreak was detected almost immediately after the first case, which - given that this is flu season in China - is just amazing. Detecting an outbreak of pneumonia (similar to flu) of a novel coronavirus that fast is truly impressive."

I'm not sure I really want to wear this tin-foil hat, but it would certainly be easier to identify a novel coronavirus if it came directly from your own BSL-4 lab in Wuhan https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to...

[giarc]

It could be the result of having the lab in the same city that they could detect it so quickly. Not because the original sample (or any samples) would be tested in the BSL4, but simply because having that lab would attract talent, funding and equipment to reference labs in the same city. The index patient would likely have had a nasopharyngeal swab taken and run against the regular panel of respiratory viruses (influenza, parainfluenza, enterovirus, rhinovirus, metapneumovirus, and coronaviruses). I suspect there would have been a light signal on the coronavirus (perhaps some cross reactivity) and they would have done more investigation to determine what is was.

[segfaultbuserr]

No, the BSL-4 lab in Wuhan contributed absolutely nothing to help during the outbreak of the disease. The analysis on the samples and the gene sequencing were all performed in Shanghai, by various institutions such as Institut Pasteur of Shanghai, or the Chinese Academy of Science (e.g. see the list of authors in paper [0]), not in Wuhan at all - Which was an already huge surprise to everyone following the news in China, considering the fact that it has one of the best labs.

Although the exact reason is unknown, it is already known that the Wuhan government has successfully implemented the maximum level of incompetence during its early response. There is no much reporting in English yet, but a now-deleted government report in Chinese [1] said the first victims of the viral infection were already been hospitalized on as early as December 8th, 2019. In other words, they were given a time of three weeks to get useful things done. Yet, the Wuhan government took no actions whatsoever other than covering up the outbreak.

It had been going on like that, until the last week in December, when the news about a new type of unknown pneumonia started to leak out. At this time, someone at a higher position probably realized a serious investigation was warranted. On December 26th, researchers from Shanghai arrived, collected samples, and brought the samples to Shanghai for analysis [4].

Meanwhile, on December 30th, the case was escalated and put under increased supervision of the national government. And On December 31th, a Wuhan government official was interviewed [2]. He was asked for whether a laboratory analysis will be started, and the reply was,

> With regarding to the pathogen determination of the unknown pneumonia, currently, the BSL-4 Lab was not activated, we are still following conventional procedures to verify the cases of infection. We are always prepared to active the Lab accordingly when it is necessary.

> So far, it is not in our considerations.

So Wuhan, still, wasn't doing any analysis at this point. Well, they have other things to do. On January 1st, Wuhan police arrested 8 citizens for spreading the "false rumor" of outbreak of a mysterious pneumonia in Wuhan to the social media online.

Later on January 7th, 2020, the first laboratory observation [3] of the virus sample under the electron microscope came out from Shanghai. And the gene sequencing was only completed in the second week of the month. [0] I guess the Shanghai labs were probably working on a 24x7 basis.

Meanwhile, Wuhan ordered a partial travel ban, only at this point - without any preparation work, Wuhan suddenly suspended the public transport for everyone, including medical workers, creating a massive chaos.

The popular belief is: The fact the analysis was performed in Shanghai is another indicator of the Beijing government's effort to bypass the provincial government to obtain real information. According to what Wuhan has done, it's possible that the Wuhan government was intentionally withholding medical samples and hampering the BSL-4 lab to do any useful work, and that Beijing didn't even receive prompt information until the last moment.

What is the lesson to learn as a citizen? Never overestimate the effectiveness of an authoritarian government, and never underestimate its incompetence. In an authoritarian government, the best interests of the ruler at a higher level is not always served by the ruler at the lower level. Sometimes, it's Nineteen Eighty-Four, other times, it's Brazil.

[0] http://engine.scichina.com/publisher/scp/journal/SCLS/doi/10...

[1] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Cq9-K5...

[2] https://m.yicai.com/news/100452355.html

[3] https://news.sina.cn/gn/2020-01-09/detail-iihnzhha1262297.d....

[4] https://cfcnews.com/277356/%E8%AF%95%E5%89%82%E7%9B%92%E4%BE...

[Fomite]

This is sort of my reaction.

It's a little like being astonished that a microbe could be identified so quickly in Boston or Atlanta.

[threeseed]

Maybe it's different in China but in most countries the labs that handle common blood tests are generic, commercial entities that follow a standard process for things to test.

They aren't doing infectious disease research and they definitely aren't checking for anything exotic.

[wschfdkbrmcdf]

I'd be surprised if geographical proximity to a BLS4 made much a of a difference to what would otherwise be a rudimentary swab & routine inspection (if that was even done at all).

As Kristian Andersen notes, the background noise of flu season would surely drown out the weak signal of an unknown novel virus. Then to not only notice the weak signal but act on it so quickly to do primary research and characterise it as a novel virus within such a short timeframe?

Seems far less likely than simply the effect of poor operational standards.

[Symmetry]

Who the heck would want to be using a coronavirus as a biological weapon? Generally you want your bioweapons to have limited or zero human-to-human transmissibility - think anthrax or tularemia or y-pestis. And if you're evil and want to burn down the world you want something that's lethal to people who are conscription age, not just the young and old.

This[1] is what I'd expect a bioweapon accident to look like or maybe a multiply drug resistant outbreak of plague.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak

[voldacar]

I think the implication was that the virus may have escaped due to an error, and was later covered up by authorities and blamed on the local meat market.

You are totally right about how insane it would be to use a coronavirus as a bioweapon

[kube-system]

Who suggested bio weapon? Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

[vatueil]

I don't think it's the most likely explanation, far from it, but it wouldn't have to be a bioweapon to have been released from a lab.

The reemergence of H1N1 in 1977 is believed to have been the result of a lab accident or vaccine trial gone awry, for example: http://www.virology.ws/2009/03/02/origin-of-current-influenz...

[sdinsn]

Note that the Chinese government has admitted they are trying to research bio weapons with high human-to-human transmissibility but engineered to only affect certain groups (like races).

[yellow_lead]

I was going to dismiss this as a conspiracy theory, but then I remembered how everything in China is built. Looks good on the outside, but if you look closely, you see terrible design flaws or materials that were cheaped out on.

There is another option though, which has nearly been proven by people that have talked to physicians in Wuhan. That is the theory that this virus has been around much longer than initially reported by China. I find this a bit more likely given China's history of censoring things like this.

[hristov]

It could be that their hospitals were just well prepared. Remember we had the SARS outbreak in Africa a couple of years ago and that was a terrible tragic virus, and the hospitals in the entire world were supposed to be prepared to deal with something like this.

Well, guess what -- SARS is also a type of corona virus, and perhaps the hospitals in China had ready corona virus tests and used them on everybody that came in with pneumonia symptoms. So perhaps they were just doing their jobs?

[platinumrad]

Absolutely amazing that a completely unsubstantiated conspiracy theory is the top comment.

[perf1]

There is also "Institute of Military Medicine Nanjing Command" that submitted an identical envelope protein 2 years ago [1]. They adapt quickly to avoid detection of the immune system [2]. People argue it would have evolved and not be the same if it didn't came fresh from a lab.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/protein/AVP78033.1 (Click "Identical Proteins")

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_envelope

[fsh]

This seems to be a pattern in echo-chamber sites such as hn or reddit. If there is no reliable information, the most outrageous speculation makes it to the top.

[LorenPechtel]

I don't think you're in tinfoil hat territory here at all. While it wouldn't be anything amazing for a BL-4 lab to quickly identify that it's novel what is amazing is that the samples would get sent to the lab that fast in the first place. Zebras, not horses! That's going to take the frontline docs realizing that they're dealing with something novel. (This is not at all the same thing as the CDC jumping in very quickly when Ebola landed in the US--that wasn't novel.)

Now, I don't think it would have been a weapon. China isn't so stupid as to try to weaponize a coronavirus. However, it does make sense that this might be a leak from studying it. The genetic study really only shows when the population was one, not where it came from.

[codingslave]

I have been wondering the same. It's a bit of a conspiracy theory, but for the last few years different people have called for the lab to be shutdown. There have been confirmed reports of SARS breaks from a lab in Beijing, none of which turned into anything big.

[est31]

Don't forget the H1N1 influenza break of 1977. It first appeared in China and is genetically identical to the strains of 1957, while the wild influenza usually mutates year after year. The best explanation is an accidental leak from a Chinese laboratory.

[sneak]

The immediately preceding sentence is quite important: “Since I believe ~ 50% of the diversity in the tree comes from sequencing errors, the TMRCAs would likely be even more recent - possibly pushing the interval towards the end of December.“

The models to which they were replying put the date range of the most common recent ancestor potentially as far back as October.

Please don’t compound the error bars.

[rorykoehler]

It's the only reason I can think of for why they would arrest journalists for reporting on it in the early days.

[fsh]

Totalitarian governments routinely arrest journalists for all kinds of reasons.