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Comment by tootie | Hacker News Reader

It seems that lo these many years later all the theories are still full of holes. Lab leak is plausible but there's no public evidence to back it. Somehow the DOE thinks they have something but we haven't seen it. Just based on history, zoonotic remains most likely but no host has been found.

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There’s evidence that it’s more likely than various other theories, but there isn’t a smoking gun. That’s the kind of nuance that’s easy to ignore in favor of your preconceived notions because weak evidence is rarely worth changing your mind over.

At a practical level I don’t think there’s much difference between the lab link being a 7% chance vs a 70% chance. What’s more concerning is the potential of future leaks and what responses they might result in. The possibility that local officials get in CYA mode over a possible lab leak of a more dangerous virus is seriously concerning.

"There’s evidence that it’s more likely than various other theories,"

None that I've seen.

And the possibility of a future leak is probably unrelated to the possibility of this one having been a leak.

“None that I’ve seen.”

Which has little to do with the existence of said evidence. I’ve never seen direct evidence for the year Columbus sailed.

Anyway, many things that would make future leaks less likely also make past leaks less likely. The types of experiments being conducted and the types of labs those experiments are conducted in. Oversight, funding, and systems for reporting safety issues etc etc.

I'm responding to you saying there's evidence. To what were you referring?

The evidence used by the Energy Department in their assessment.

The DOE has not, to my knowledge, published their "low confidence" intelligence. Only their conclusion. Which still disagrees with every other agency. So it doesn't seem we actually have more evidence for lab leak.

> Which still disagrees with every other agency.

But that is a lie. From the article:

“The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory.”

Calling it a lie is a bit uncharitable. It’s gone from “disagrees with every other agency” to “disagrees with the majority of agencies.” I wouldn’t say that dramatically changes the point.

It's also weird to me that the Department of Energy (and not, say, the CDC/DHHS or USAMRIID or what have you) is advancing such hypotheses in the first place. What does the origin of SARS-CoV-2 have to do with American energy policy?

DOE supervises the national labs, which have 1) bio experience 2) high classification 3) supercomputers 4) lots more scientists than CIA or God help us FBI. DOE has organic science resources. The other agencies tend to rely on academic consultants, who are compromised because no one wants to bring virology labs under intense and blaming scrutiny.

That would also imply they were specifically looking at lab protocols to determine if there was a possibility of leak and perhaps not fully evaluating the likelihood of other origins which would be outside their expertise. The CDC/NIH/WHO operate loads more labs and also employ loads of epidemiologists.

As the Post article indicates, DOE has tens of thousands of scientists and has worked on NBC weapons for many decades.

Right, but that still doesn't answer why the DoE is supervising the national labs or otherwise has any significant degree of bio experience in the first place.

Read this. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/02/27/...

There's a paywall.

Because "Department of Energy" is a friendly name for what should really be the Department of Nuclear Weapons, a subsidiary of the Defense Department.

DoE does a lot of civilian stuff now (electrical grid, cybersecurity, etc.) but it's kind of an add-on. The first couple of national labs - places like Los Alamos and Oak Ridge - are historically related to the nuke mission.

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