Thread

Nearly 200 people under observation after Irkutsk lab worker dies from plague

187 points · 150 comments · ericmay

robmusial · 1791169542 · focus · HN ↗
I literally just finished Annie Jacobsen's book 'Biological War: A Scenario' last week where the central plot point is an accidental release of modified form of pneumonic plague from a lab in Siberia. Very coincidental timing, especially since it made me wonder how often labs like these have accidents and we never hear about them because it is cleaned up without issue.
1. petcat · 1791170758 · focus · HN ↗
  > made me wonder how often labs like these have accidents and we never hear about them because it is cleaned up without issue.
  Did anyone ever confirm if the lab in Wuhan China was the originator of COVID? I remember that was a rumor but never heard if there was anything to it.
  1. alexnewman · 1791171421 · focus · HN ↗
    I get downvoted every time I say this but the evidence doesn’t even prove it started in wuhan, or even China. It could of easily been brought here by the military games that happened before that
    theoreticalmal · 1791172345 · focus · HN ↗
    Do you have any thoughts as to why the FBI disagrees with your perspective?
    <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64806903" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64806903
    bix6 · 1791172825 · focus · HN ↗
    I don’t but this guy in your article does
    > A natural origin is still the more likely theory, said Professor David Robertson, head of viral genomics and bioinformatics at University of Glasgow.
    ericmay · 1791173092 · focus · HN ↗
    So the suggestion is that it occurred naturally in China and then military games happened near Wuhan which spread the virus? Or did someone from Wuhan with ties/service in the Chinese military contract the virus locally and then spread it throughout China via travel to these military games?
    Is that right, or is your point simply that it naturally occurred in China in the vicinity of Wuhan? I ask since the OP mentioned military games.
    alexnewman · 1791173240 · focus · HN ↗
    They don’t disagree. They don’t know. They just said what’s most likely. They don’t even give a %
    toast0 · 1791174820 · focus · HN ↗
    Is the US FBI a credible investigator for something like this?
    a) I don't know that they have the right skills to track down patient zero of a disease.
    b) They certainly don't have jurisdiction to do such an investigation in a foreign country, unless invited, and there's no way they were invited.
    I strongly doubt we'll ever see a good answer on this, unless we get very lucky and some random research sample is looked at later that shows detection months earlier in a different location or if the Chinese did a good investigation and kept it quiet, but it leaks in a couple decades.
    A timely and thorough investigation might have been able to determine an origin, but the US FBI certainly didn't do one.
    junofan · 1791176665 · focus · HN ↗
    The US can just declare extraterritorial jurisdiction. We do it for bioweapons. Uncle Sam doesn’t need an invite.
    IIRC one of the FBI guys who investigated anthrax was like “yeah, it’s pretty obvious looking at what that lab was up to.”
    ahtihn · 1791181827 · focus · HN ↗
    Anyone can declare anything.
    You think China just lets US law enforcement do investigations on their territory without their consent??
    tzs · 1791176362 · focus · HN ↗
    Your link also says
    >> And other US government agencies have drawn differing conclusions to the FBI's.

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