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Straw man arguments in this essay

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Does WP:NOLABLEAK say we should remove these mentions?

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I will say this essay is more WP:PAG-based and succinct than other recent pro-leak essays, which is obviously a great thing. I appreciate the effort put into it for that reason. But I will also say, it appears to be making a straw man argument (relevant WP policy)...

WP:NOLABLEAK doesn't say we shouldn't cover the lab leak theories, it says we should contextualize these theories in the mainstream scholarly view, which is that they are "unlikely."This is directly in line with WP:NPOV, WP:FRINGE, WP:DUE, and WP:SOURCETYPES. This essay portrays NOLABLEAK as a deletionist argument, when that isn't really what it is. It may have been used for such arguments at some point in the past, but that A) isn't how it's used today, and B) isn't what it actually says. No one is currently arguing that we should "remove" mentions of the lab leak, far from it. The issue is more about how we describe the lab leak, and what words we use. We should be careful not to misrepresent the views of other user essays like this.--Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 13:05, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Shibbolethink, before being a misapplication of our WP:MEDRS and WP:SCHOLARSHIP policies, WP:NOLABLEAK’s statement we should contextualize these theories in the mainstream scholarly view is a logical fallacy. We should not have to apply the scientific process such as peer review to matters of Law, and the International Health Regulations in specific. This was very clearly stated by Ebright from very early on in this whole thing [1]. This was also explained to you by DGG here [2], Colin here [3]. DGG and Colin probably never even read that Ebright’s quote. It's just intuitive and logical.
I’d like to be able to work with you, but I am constantly finding that you are unable to stop your personal POV from interfering with your ability to make neutral editorial decisions on Wikipedia. I initially welcomed the discussion on your POV and your reddit post - in order to elevate the discourse - but in the end it became like Colin described, a forum discussion. You just wrote that you support a rewrite of Investigations_into_the_origin_of_COVID-19#Reactions [4], even though the President of the USA, the Group of Seven, the U.S. National Academies, the US Senate, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and leaders of thirteen other nations, as well as the European Union and the Director-General of the World Health Organization himself (the guy who actually commissioned the study) have reacted very critically to the report. You really think this rewrite will pass the scrutiny of our colleagues on WP:NPOV/N?
As a first step, I think we should be allowed to talk about our POVs in less accusatory terms, because there is nothing wrong with you having a POV, and you can’t deny it isn’t a factor in your editorial decision making. As soon you saw this essay, you were over in WP:FT/N talking about nominating the shortcut for RfD [5]. Please strike the term malfeasance from this message of yours [6], and we’ll continue the discussion there. I never accused you of malfeasance. CutePeach (talk) 13:19, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

How mainstream is the view that coronaviruses are very commonly zoonotic?

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Here is another misleading argument in this essay: "Some virologists have argued that something about Sarbecoviruses and SARS-like viruses gives them the ability to jump the species barrier and become human transmissible, like a super giant magnet attracting our analogous meteorites from outer space."

This isn't just an off-hand hypothesis of "some virologists," it's the mainstream accepted view among coronavirus experts, and it's supported by lots of evidence.[1] It has nothing to do with humans being "magnetic" for coronaviruses or anything like that. It's because coronaviruses (especially sarsbecoviruses) are known to circulate so heavily and in such a distributed way across bats and other wild animals.[2][3][4] (Animals, I might add, whose habitats we are continually eroding,[5] using for bushmeat and traditional chinese medicine,[6][7] and thereby bringing the animal in repeatedly closer contact with the human population).[8][9]

This is also not new. This is a decades old idea. Virologists have known for years that bats are some of the best at transmitting zoonotic viruses.[10][11][12] We also know that all seven known human-tropic coronaviruses have a zoonotic origin,[13] and have crossed over between us and related species (and back and forth) numerous times.[14][15] This could be due to the similarity between human ACE2 receptors and that of many similar mammalian species (bats, ferrets, minks, dogs, etc),[16] or the fact that these coronaviruses are so easily transmitted period (via droplets, fomites, etc.)[17]

The 4 "common cold" coronaviruses circulate extremely well in humans, but are not very pathogenic.[18] SARS-1 and MERS transmit well, but don't sustain transmission, and are not very adapted to humans (they burn out).[19] They are also both extremely pathogenic. SARS-2 is a mix of these two types of coronaviruses.[1] It's not an absurd scientific conclusion to see that coronaviruses appear to have a spectrum of pathogenicity inversely related to their "adaptation" to humans, and this is part of why they cross over into humans so readily.

This is all what most relevant experts think, and hence what wikipedia is supposed to say. Influenza viruses are also the same way with regards to: plentiful zoonotic reservoirs,[20] wide and varied circulation,[21][22] and high and low pathogenicity species relating to propensity for sustained and abruptive transmission.[23][24][25] Importantly, before this pandemic many experts were warning about the possibility of a zoonotic pandemic from coronaviruses and other similar zoonotic highly-cross-species transmissible diseases![26]

Globally speaking, and in the frame of history, this is not an unusual event, virologists expected this. We know that such pandemics happen every 20-30 years,[27][28] and they appear to be increasing in frequency.[29][30][31] The global "virome" of circulating and zoonotic viruses is massive and interwoven with the human race via our animal friends, causing tons of zoonotic infections every day. Coronaviruses are just the ones everybody's talking about lately.--Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 14:13, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Shibbolethink I don’t disagree on your main points, but I would point out to you that there is significant diversity in the other zoonotic viruses that have managed to make the jump to humans, and become human transmissible - like SARS-CoV-1 and 2. If a MERS-like CoV emerged in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, right after a new lab was set up there to collect and study exactly that exact species of CoVs, then we’d certainly be wanting to take a good look at that lab to see if its a case of reemergence of MERS, or something similar. Were it to be found that the lab or the Saudi government was truing to conceal data - such as an unknown sister clade of the novel virus - the more weight we’d give our lab origins hypothesis, and the more we’d press the WHO to investigate it. You would not expect a civilization-ending meteorite to hit earth in the same spot another meteorite hit twenty years earlier, and that analogy is very apt for this puzzle. Currently we don’t have enough data on SARS-like viruses or Sarbecoviruses to find any matches for the features we see in SARS-CoV-2, such as the FCS and double CGG sequence, which remain anomalous. CutePeach (talk) 22:23, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sources

  1. ^ a b Ye, Zi-Wei; Yuan, Shuofeng; Yuen, Kit-San; Fung, Sin-Yee; Chan, Chi-Ping; Jin, Dong-Yan (15 March 2020). "Zoonotic origins of human coronaviruses". International Journal of Biological Sciences. 16 (10): 1686–1697. doi:10.7150/ijbs.45472. ISSN 1449-2288. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
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  5. ^ Mills, James N.; Gage, Kenneth L.; Khan, Ali S. (November 2010). "Potential Influence of Climate Change on Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases: A Review and Proposed Research Plan". Environmental Health Perspectives. 118 (11): 1507–1514. doi:10.1289/ehp.0901389. ISSN 0091-6765. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
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  11. ^ Calisher, Charles H.; Childs, James E.; Field, Hume E.; Holmes, Kathryn V.; Schountz, Tony (2006-7). "Bats: Important Reservoir Hosts of Emerging Viruses". Clinical Microbiology Reviews. 19 (3): 531–545. doi:10.1128/CMR.00017-06. ISSN 0893-8512. Retrieved 18 July 2021. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ KupferschmidtJun. 21, Kai (21 June 2017). "Bats really do harbor more dangerous viruses than other species". Science. Retrieved 18 July 2021. {{cite journal}}: Text "AAAS" ignored (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  13. ^ Su, Shuo; Wong, Gary; Shi, Weifeng; Liu, Jun; Lai, Alexander C. K.; Zhou, Jiyong; Liu, Wenjun; Bi, Yuhai; Gao, George F. (June 2016). "Epidemiology, Genetic Recombination, and Pathogenesis of Coronaviruses". Trends in Microbiology. 24 (6): 490–502. doi:10.1016/j.tim.2016.03.003. ISSN 1878-4380. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  14. ^ Huynh, Jeremy; Li, Shimena; Yount, Boyd; Smith, Alexander; Sturges, Leslie; Olsen, John C.; Nagel, Juliet; Johnson, Joshua B.; Agnihothram, Sudhakar; Gates, J. Edward; Frieman, Matthew B.; Baric, Ralph S.; Donaldson, Eric F. (December 2012). "Evidence Supporting a Zoonotic Origin of Human Coronavirus Strain NL63". Journal of Virology. 86 (23): 12816–12825. doi:10.1128/JVI.00906-12. ISSN 0022-538X. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  15. ^ Goraichuk, Iryna V.; Arefiev, Vasiliy; Stegniy, Borys T.; Gerilovych, Anton P. (9 June 2021). "Zoonotic and Reverse Zoonotic Transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2". Virus Research. 302: 198473. doi:10.1016/j.virusres.2021.198473. ISSN 1872-7492.
  16. ^ Dróżdż, Mateusz; Krzyżek, Paweł; Dudek, Barbara; Makuch, Sebastian; Janczura, Adriana; Paluch, Emil (16 June 2021). "Current State of Knowledge about Role of Pets in Zoonotic Transmission of SARS-CoV-2". Viruses. 13 (6). doi:10.3390/v13061149. ISSN 1999-4915. Retrieved 18 July 2021.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  17. ^ Tiwari, Ruchi; Dhama, Kuldeep; Sharun, Khan; Yatoo, Mohd Iqbal; Malik, Yashpal Singh; Singh, Rajendra; Michalak, Izabela; Sah, Ranjit; Bonilla-Aldana, D. Katterine; Rodriguez-Morales, Alfonso J. (1 January 2020). "COVID-19: animals, veterinary and zoonotic links". Veterinary Quarterly. 40 (1): 169–182. doi:10.1080/01652176.2020.1766725. ISSN 0165-2176. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  18. ^ Su, Shuo; Wong, Gary; Shi, Weifeng; Liu, Jun; Lai, Alexander C.K.; Zhou, Jiyong; Liu, Wenjun; Bi, Yuhai; Gao, George F. (2016-6). "Epidemiology, Genetic Recombination, and Pathogenesis of Coronaviruses". Trends in Microbiology. 24 (6): 490–502. doi:10.1016/j.tim.2016.03.003. ISSN 0966-842X. Retrieved 18 July 2021. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  19. ^ de Wit, Emmie; van Doremalen, Neeltje; Falzarano, Darryl; Munster, Vincent J. (2016). "SARS and MERS: recent insights into emerging coronaviruses". Nature Reviews. Microbiology. 14 (8): 523–534. doi:10.1038/nrmicro.2016.81. ISSN 1740-1526. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  20. ^ Ramirez, Alejandro; Capuano, Ana W.; Wellman, Debbie A.; Lesher, Kelly A.; Setterquist, Sharon F.; Gray, Gregory C. (June 2006). "Preventing Zoonotic Influenza Virus Infection". Emerging Infectious Diseases. 12 (6): 997–1000. doi:10.3201/eid1206.051576. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  21. ^ Mostafa, Ahmed; Abdelwhab, Elsayed M.; Mettenleiter, Thomas C.; Pleschka, Stephan (13 September 2018). "Zoonotic Potential of Influenza A Viruses: A Comprehensive Overview". Viruses. 10 (9). doi:10.3390/v10090497. ISSN 1999-4915. Retrieved 18 July 2021.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  22. ^ Dorjee, S.; Poljak, Z.; Revie, C. W.; Bridgland, J.; McNab, B.; Leger, E.; Sanchez, J. (September 2013). "A Review of Simulation Modelling Approaches Used for the Spread of Zoonotic Influenza Viruses in Animal and Human Populations: Approaches to Modelling Influenza". Zoonoses and Public Health. 60 (6): 383–411. doi:10.1111/zph.12010. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  23. ^ Reperant, Leslie A.; Moesker, Fleur M.; Osterhaus, Albert D.M.E. (January 2016). "Influenza: from zoonosis to pandemic". ERJ Open Research. 2 (1): 00013–2016. doi:10.1183/23120541.00013-2016. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  24. ^ Herfst, S.; Imai, M.; Kawaoka, Y.; Fouchier, R. A. M. (2014). "Avian Influenza Virus Transmission to Mammals". Influenza Pathogenesis and Control - Volume I. 385: 137–155. doi:10.1007/82_2014_387. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  25. ^ Palese, P; Hayden, FG (2009). Clinical virology (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: ASM Press. pp. 891–920. ISBN 1555814255.
  26. ^
    • Ferguson, Neil M.; Cummings, Derek A. T.; Fraser, Christophe; Cajka, James C.; Cooley, Philip C.; Burke, Donald S. (July 2006). "Strategies for mitigating an influenza pandemic". Nature. 442 (7101): 448–452. doi:10.1038/nature04795. ISSN 1476-4687. The transmissibility of a future pandemic virus is uncertain, so we explored a number of scenarios here. It is also uncertain whether the generation time of a future pandemic strain would resemble that of typical human influenza, given the greater disease severity and more protracted course seen in patients infected with the avian H5N1 virus. Paradoxically, a virus that caused more severe and extended disease might be easier to control so long as R0 was still comparable with previous pandemic strains
    • Eifan, Saleh A.; Nour, Islam; Hanif, Atif; Zamzam, Abdelrahman M.M.; AlJohani, Sameera Mohammed (November 2017). "A pandemic risk assessment of middle east respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in Saudi Arabia". Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences. 24 (7): 1631–1638. doi:10.1016/j.sjbs.2017.06.001. A study in South Korea (Kucharski and Althaus, 2015) highlighted the risk of super-spreading events of MERS-CoV infection with relatively low basic reproductive number (R = 0.47) and should be considered as warning for future outbreak events in Saudi Arabia with the prediction of relatively higher R value
    • Ge, Xing-Yi; Li, Jia-Lu; Yang, Xing-Lou; Chmura, Aleksei A.; Zhu, Guangjian; Epstein, Jonathan H.; Mazet, Jonna K.; Hu, Ben; Zhang, Wei; Peng, Cheng; Zhang, Yu-Ji; Luo, Chu-Ming; Tan, Bing; Wang, Ning; Zhu, Yan; Crameri, Gary; Zhang, Shu-Yi; Wang, Lin-Fa; Daszak, Peter; Shi, Zheng-Li (November 2013). "Isolation and characterization of a bat SARS-like coronavirus that uses the ACE2 receptor". Nature. 503 (7477): 535–538. doi:10.1038/nature12711. ISSN 1476-4687. The 2002–3 pandemic of SARS1 and the ongoing emergence of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)2 demonstrate that CoVs are a significant public health threat. SARS-CoV was shown to use the human ACE2 molecule as its entry receptor, and this is considered a hallmark of its cross-species transmissibility
    • Bush, Robin M. (29 July 2004). "Influenza as a model system for studying the cross–species transfer and evolution of the SARS coronavirus". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences. 359 (1447): 1067–1073. doi:10.1098/rstb.2004.1481.
    • Zumla, A. I.; Memish, Z. A. (1 May 2014). "Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus: epidemic potential or a storm in a teacup?". European Respiratory Journal. 43 (5): 1243–1248. doi:10.1183/09031936.00227213.
    • Loh, Elizabeth H.; Zambrana-Torrelio, Carlos; Olival, Kevin J.; Bogich, Tiffany L.; Johnson, Christine K.; Mazet, Jonna A. K.; Karesh, William; Daszak, Peter (July 2015). "Targeting Transmission Pathways for Emerging Zoonotic Disease Surveillance and Control". Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases. 15 (7): 432–437. doi:10.1089/vbz.2013.1563. However, it is likely that many more novel transmission pathways remain undescribed for pathogens that pose a potential human health risk. The recent emergence of a number of pandemic zoonoses (e.g., severe acute respiratory syndrome [SARS], pandemic influenza H1N1), zoonotic viruses of pandemic potential (e.g., Middle East respiratory syndrome [MERS] coronavirus), and those of regional concern (e.g., Ebola virus), in addition to the increasing frequency of EID events (Jones et al. 2008), make the targeting of surveillance programs to early stages of emergence a crucial tool for combating pandemics (Morse et al. 2012).
    • Morse, Stephen S; Mazet, Jonna AK; Woolhouse, Mark; Parrish, Colin R; Carroll, Dennis; Karesh, William B; Zambrana-Torrelio, Carlos; Lipkin, W Ian; Daszak, Peter (December 2012). "Prediction and prevention of the next pandemic zoonosis". The Lancet. 380 (9857): 1956–1965. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61684-5. The emergence of novel pandemic agents often seems to be inherently unpredictable.2 Indeed, no pathogens have been predicted before their first appearance. However, patterns in the origins and spread of new pathogens can be noted and are an intrinsic, albeit ad-hoc, part of surveillance strategy. For example, more than 60% of the roughly 400 emerging infectious diseases that have been identified since 1940 are zoonotic,3 and these pathogens are the focus of particular public health interest.4, 5 Similarly, specific geographical regions or interfaces between people, wildlife, livestock, and the environment have been identified as the origins of recent emerging infectious diseases, and thus are targets for intense surveillance.
    • Kreuder Johnson, Christine; Hitchens, Peta L.; Smiley Evans, Tierra; Goldstein, Tracey; Thomas, Kate; Clements, Andrew; Joly, Damien O.; Wolfe, Nathan D.; Daszak, Peter; Karesh, William B.; Mazet, Jonna K. (7 October 2015). "Spillover and pandemic properties of zoonotic viruses with high host plasticity". Scientific Reports. 5 (1): 14830. doi:10.1038/srep14830. ISSN 2045-2322. Among viruses from wildlife, we found higher host plasticity in viruses transmitted at high-risk interfaces involving wild animals kept as pets, maintained in sanctuaries or zoos and sold at markets.
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  31. ^ Gates, Bill (30 April 2020). "Responding to Covid-19 - A Once-in-a-Century Pandemic?". The New England Journal of Medicine. 382 (18): 1677–1679. doi:10.1056/NEJMp2003762. ISSN 1533-4406. Retrieved 18 July 2021.

Shibbolethink, what is also true, globally speaking, is that even the best current secure facilities for cultivation and study of dangerous microorganisms have had accidents, and research that deliberately increases the danger of the organisms studied there makes such accidents inherently more dangerous to an unknowable extent--whether or not this particular pandemic had its origin in such an event. It's the mere possibility of such a causation which has made this clearer to those who may not have realized the danger previously. DGG ( talk ) 07:20, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@DGG: That's why you have stuff like "Despite the unlikelihood of the event, and although definitive answers are likely to take years of research, biosecurity experts have called for a review of global biosecurity policies, citing known gaps in international standards for biosafety." But that doesn't justify any of the provably false statements above (the claims about the furin-cleavage site [FCS] and the "double CGG sequence" have been debunked, notably, see here for an in-depth overview of the FCS or here for a rebuttal of the more common claims about deliberate engineering, including the "anomalous" codons), nor the sometimes openly hostile attitude from some proponents of the idea... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:43, 22 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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