If this is Armageddon why are Chinese stocks only 12% off this year's highs?

Cuddles · Mar 21, 2020

elt894 said:
That's the scenario I had in mind when I said their conclusions were a bit too strong. Lab-directed evolution does exist, but it's quite unlikely for a number reasons I can think of off the top of my head.

The process itself is hit or miss depending on how many mutations are necessary and whether they individually confer a partial advantage or if they need to occur simultaneously.

You would do the work in lung cells growing in a dish, but that would only optimize for how effective the virus is at infecting that line of cells. Cell lines have many mutations that allow them to grow in a lab but make them behave quite differently from normal human cells. I'd expect the failure rate moving to actual humans would be high like it is for other drug development.

You also wouldn't be optimizing for how the immune system responds (which effects incubation time and mortality) or transmissibility. There's probably a fairly narrow acceptable range for these parameters. For example, Ebola's spread is limited by how quickly it acts and how lethal it is.

Ultimately you would need several rounds of human testing to get it right. They'd need to be large tests since you can't measure a 1-3% mortality rate with 10 people. I think South Korea is seeing <1% with more widespread testing, so you're probably talking tens of thousands of people across multiple rounds of tests with multiple virus candidates per round.

On top of all that, there still might be a signature in the genome that differs from natural evolution. I'd expect directed evolution to produce a smaller number of mutations with a relatively larger fraction of them being functional. In a natural environment with evolution occuring on a longer timescale, I'd expect a larger accumulation of "passenger" mutations that either have no effect or have some function specifically in the original host species but not humans.
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Thanks for taking the time...always found the stuff fascinating.
https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/covid-19-conspiracy-thread-who-released-it.341316/

themickey · Mar 22, 2020

elt894 said:
That's the scenario I had in mind when I said their conclusions were a bit too strong. Lab-directed evolution does exist, but it's quite unlikely for a number reasons I can think of off the top of my head.

The process itself is hit or miss depending on how many mutations are necessary and whether they individually confer a partial advantage or if they need to occur simultaneously.

You would do the work in lung cells growing in a dish, but that would only optimize for how effective the virus is at infecting that line of cells. Cell lines have many mutations that allow them to grow in a lab but make them behave quite differently from normal human cells. I'd expect the failure rate moving to actual humans would be high like it is for other drug development.

You also wouldn't be optimizing for how the immune system responds (which effects incubation time and mortality) or transmissibility. There's probably a fairly narrow acceptable range for these parameters. For example, Ebola's spread is limited by how quickly it acts and how lethal it is.

Ultimately you would need several rounds of human testing to get it right. They'd need to be large tests since you can't measure a 1-3% mortality rate with 10 people. I think South Korea is seeing <1% with more widespread testing, so you're probably talking tens of thousands of people across multiple rounds of tests with multiple virus candidates per round.

On top of all that, there still might be a signature in the genome that differs from natural evolution. I'd expect directed evolution to produce a smaller number of mutations with a relatively larger fraction of them being functional. In a natural environment with evolution occuring on a longer timescale, I'd expect a larger accumulation of "passenger" mutations that either have no effect or have some function specifically in the original host species but not humans.
More...

What could be a plausible reason a country like Italy has such a very high death rate?
Is it to do with climate, age of the population, their healthcare system or the type strain....?

nooby_mcnoob · Mar 22, 2020

elt894 said:
Here's a recent analysis showing the virus likely arose through evolution. If it's paywalled, there's also a good less technical summary here.

I work in genomics at one of the top US universities. I think the claims in the article I linked are a bit strongly worded (happy to elaborate), but I haven't seen anything to suggest it was engineered, nor is there any more evidence that it escaped from a Chinese lab than there is for the Chinese conspiracy theories that the US military planted it.
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Thank you. Nice to have someone who knows what they're talking about on here for once. I attempted to read this article and I may or may not have succeeded.

This article seems to refer primarily to the spike protein which is unusually effective in humans (right?) There is still supposedly the question of its reproductive effectiveness which is said to be from another virus. This article did not address those claims though it did mention that if it were purposefully engineered it would use a different backbone. This is surprising since that is where most people are getting this info. Now I don't normally listen to crackpot (and this guy looks like one) but he seems to be a polymath who knows what he is talking about. It would be incredibly helpful if you could refute his points. The main points are in the first 15 minutes.

nooby_mcnoob · Mar 22, 2020

themickey said:
What could be a plausible reason a country like Italy has such a very high death rate?
Is it to do with climate, age of the population, their healthcare system or the type strain....?
More...

They're unhealthy to begin with.

nooby_mcnoob · Mar 22, 2020

elt894 said:
That's the scenario I had in mind when I said their conclusions were a bit too strong. Lab-directed evolution does exist, but it's quite unlikely for a number reasons I can think of off the top of my head.

The process itself is hit or miss depending on how many mutations are necessary and whether they individually confer a partial advantage or if they need to occur simultaneously.

You would do the work in lung cells growing in a dish, but that would only optimize for how effective the virus is at infecting that line of cells. Cell lines have many mutations that allow them to grow in a lab but make them behave quite differently from normal human cells. I'd expect the failure rate moving to actual humans would be high like it is for other drug development.

You also wouldn't be optimizing for how the immune system responds (which effects incubation time and mortality) or transmissibility. There's probably a fairly narrow acceptable range for these parameters. For example, Ebola's spread is limited by how quickly it acts and how lethal it is.

Ultimately you would need several rounds of human testing to get it right. They'd need to be large tests since you can't measure a 1-3% mortality rate with 10 people. I think South Korea is seeing <1% with more widespread testing, so you're probably talking tens of thousands of people across multiple rounds of tests with multiple virus candidates per round.

On top of all that, there still might be a signature in the genome that differs from natural evolution. I'd expect directed evolution to produce a smaller number of mutations with a relatively larger fraction of them being functional. In a natural environment with evolution occuring on a longer timescale, I'd expect a larger accumulation of "passenger" mutations that either have no effect or have some function specifically in the original host species but not humans.
More...

Ah, I missed this.

See this is what I'm saying: there is more than just looking at the genome. The probabilities of a specific combination of things are very important as well. They are claiming an engineered virus would look a specific way, but for plausible deniability, wouldn't you engineer... exactly a virus that looked plausibly deniable?

Things that would mean it's natural is stuff like what you're saying: high number of functional mutations to noise. Where are these studies?

Why are people saying there are signatures from multiple viruses (like HIV) in this one?

Trying hard to avoid being tin foil hat on this, but the timing was way too effective for this from China.

Pekelo · Mar 22, 2020

nooby_mcnoob said:
They're unhealthy to begin with.
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With the mediterranean diet? No, they were just old, and they didn't do the social distancing correctly.

tommcginnis · Mar 22, 2020

Buy1Sell2 said:
The Chinese and their agents are shorting The US Market and trying to destroy us. Short selling needs to be banned temporarily.
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You write that as if you had no idea what selling short entails, or as if you had no idea how markets -- especially capital markets -- work.

tommcginnis · Mar 22, 2020

nooby_mcnoob said:
Ah, I missed this.

See this is what I'm saying: there is more than just looking at the genome. The probabilities of a specific combination of things are very important as well. They are claiming an engineered virus would look a specific way, but for plausible deniability, wouldn't you engineer... exactly a virus that looked plausibly deniable?

Things that would mean it's natural is stuff like what you're saying: high number of functional mutations to noise. Where are these studies?

Why are people saying there are signatures from multiple viruses (like HIV) in this one?

Trying hard to avoid being tin foil hat on this, but the timing was way too effective for this from China.
More...

So then, evolution "is just a theory" and "Intelligent Design" is the shit?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

nooby_mcnoob · Mar 22, 2020

tommcginnis said:
So then, evolution "is just a theory" and "Intelligent Design" is the shit?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

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No but you can presumably differentiate between engineered viruses and evolution. For example, evolution could have more garbage attached. Haven't seen a real study on this line.

elt894 · Mar 22, 2020

themickey said:
What could be a plausible reason a country like Italy has such a very high death rate?
Is it to do with climate, age of the population, their healthcare system or the type strain....?
More...

I don't have any particular expertise here, but the age of the population seems plausible. This article seems to cover it pretty well: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-...se/have-many-coronavirus-patients-died-italy/