Thread by @michaelzlin

This Nature "explainer" is unfortunately not a very good one. It's better than the previous Nature article, but some poorly conceived arguments are pushed while some data in print are swept under the rug.

My quick thoughts.
nature.com/articles/d4158…

The good things first: there's no begging the question, i.e. no conclusion is presumed that all other theories must definitively rule out before being considered. There's no overeliance on conflicted people with poor track records.

The three problems I see on quick read: 1. It repeats Shi's blanket statement of sarbecoviris seronegativity in the miners without specifying the speaker, while not mentioning the more granular description of positivity by PhD student Huang.

Thus the writer has researched poorly, or has chosen a side but hides the conflict. If the latter, they've sided with the senior figure whose statement was made during the epidemic and is motivated to avoid blame, over the PhD student who wrote his thesis before the epidemic.

2. Wuhan is not in the midst of a region of bats and caves. It's a bigger city than NYC, the surrounding is primarily flat, and it's 1000mi from Yunnan. It's like saying we'd set up an institute in St Louis to study bats from Carlsbad Caverns because it's the same general are.

The author this seems a bit motivated to get rid of this coincidence by declaring there isn't one, but the quick statistical claim made is just wrong. Which is odd since they do bring up he question.

3. Still no allowance made for the possibility that SARSCoV2 was unknowingly transported by lab workers from southern China to Wuhan, which avoids the need for coverup/secrecy regarding a known SARSCoV2 sample. A lab leak does not mandate that there must have been a conspiracy.

Typos: general are = general area, this = thus, he = the

I don't like to do Nature's job, because they aren't paying me, but this was a better explainer:

https://twitter.com/michaelzlin/status/1401928759360458764?s=19

BTW on close inspection one sees the article basically constructed a straw man argument by redefining "near". Q: "Is it a coincidence that the epidemic started near where WIV is?" Answer (paraphrased): New viruses often arise "near" institutes that study that type of virus...

Direct quote: "Virology labs tend to specialize in the viruses around them...influenza labs in Asia, haemorrhagic fever labs in Africa and dengue-fever labs in Latin America"
So WIV and coronaviruses both being in China are not a coincidence!!! 🙄🙄🙄

I don't think people meant the coincidence was that WIV was located in the same country as the caves or mines in Yunnan. Hence the reply was not addressing the question but a perverted silly form of the question, i.e. a straw man argument.