frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Nearly 200 People Under Observation After Irkutsk Lab Worker Dies from Plague

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/10/02/nearly-200-people-under-observation-after-irkutsk-lab-worker-dies-from-plague-a93857
54•ericmay•1h ago

Comments

abnry•52m ago
How often does this sort of thing happen? I'm guessing more than we think, either because we forget the news stories we read or because it isn't reported.
jmyeet•47m ago
Janet Parker was the last person to die of smallpox and, yes, she caught it in a lab [1].

[1]: https://whyy.org/segments/the-tragic-case-of-smallpoxs-final...

dnautics•36m ago
There was a COVID 19 lab leak in Taiwan about a year into the pandemic.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/4374289

Six errors contributed to this leak.

breadzeppelin__•34m ago
Bubonic plague is known to be active in Colorado, I think there are a handful of cases each year
dreamcompiler•6m ago
If you live in the Rocky Mountains try to avoid close contact with prairie dogs or animal carcasses and you'll be fine. If you catch it, get to a hospital quickly and take the antibiotics and you'll probably be fine. If you delay treatment you should use that time to get your affairs in order.
helsinkiandrew•47m ago
So breaks a test tube of live bacteria at an “anti-plague institute”, possible infects 100 colleagues, then when she developed plague like symptoms is taken to hospital and possibly infects 100 patients.

I think they need to investigate their safety protocols

> She reportedly told medical staff that she had accidentally broken a test tube containing live bacteria while collecting samples for testing.

> At least 197 people who may have had contact with her were reportedly placed under medical isolation, including more than 100 in hospital wards.

hliyan•30m ago
Was this a glass test tube? I understand why glass is probably the best material for the inner lining of containers that hold biological material, but I'm surprised that there aren't better solutions for hazardous material (e.g. an unbreakable, transparent polymer outer coating).
robmusial•45m ago
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.
DJBunnies•33m ago
How’d it turn out, are we boned?
Betelbuddy•31m ago
Netflix ends up the series after Season 1, just after your are emotionally invested...
robmusial•28m ago
No spoilers but Jacobsen's scenario books don't end with "and society came together, acted rationally, and solved the problem!"
petcat•25m ago
> 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.

mvlipwig•21m ago
It's difficult to say for sure, but the consensus is leaning towards zoonotic origin from a bat or pangolin in a wet market. (I'm not very well researched on this topic and don't have any formal background in it, so hedge accordingly)
hn_throwaway_99•44m ago
> The woman was identified as Daria Sh., a 27- or 28-year-old employee of the Irkutsk anti-plague institute, by the exiled news outlet Lyudi Baikala (People of Baikal) and pro-Kremlin broadcaster REN TV.

> She reportedly told medical staff that she had accidentally broken a test tube containing live bacteria while collecting samples for testing.

This is just weird. Plague is easily treated if antibiotics are given right away. I'm shocked that an anti-plague institute wouldn't have detailed and proactive plans in case of mishaps. Obviously I think it's likely that there is more to it than what's reported in the article, but I would find it truly baffling if within 60 seconds of her breaking that test tube that protocols weren't initiated to protect her, her colleagues and the community.

Of course, Russia...

mrkstu•6m ago
I'm assuming if its a bio-lab that its a gain of function version that may be immune to conventional antibiotics.

Actually went to a scout camp as a teenager (in the 80s) and one of our scouts got the plauge. Took a long while for the hospital to identify it and get him on heavy antibiotics because no one had seen it in real life before.

hansvm•20m ago
Last I saw, plausible, unconfirmed, nobody is willing/able to provide enough information to be able to confirm one way or another.
lumost•19m ago
I recently heard a scientist use a phrase something along the lines of “when two extraordinarily improbably events occur together, there is probably a connection”.

We’ll never know if the lab in Wuhan originated the virus. But it is awfully strange that the first patients of a novel pandemic coronavirus were workers at a lab conducting gain of function research on coronavirus.

chihuahua•16m ago
All the evidence was destroyed (probably just a coincidence, LOL), so it can't be proved either way.
felixg3•15m ago
Pretty much confirmed by western intelligence including the German BND
gruez•9m ago
Source?
alexnewman•14m ago
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

Powerless F1 drivers frustrated by Bahrain F1 software glitch

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/horrible-totally-unacceptable-powerless-f1-drivers-frustrated-...
99•llm_nerd•1h ago•46 comments

Run Qwen 3.8 Flash Next (125B) on consumer hardware (RTX 4090) at 100T/s

https://github.com/Niko1221/Strata
650•snehesht•14h ago•304 comments

In the wake of closure, a digital archive of animated materials appears online

https://filmstories.co.uk/news/tippett-studios-in-the-wake-of-its-closure-a-digital-archive-of-an...
57•rdmuser•6h ago•5 comments

Nearly 200 People Under Observation After Irkutsk Lab Worker Dies from Plague

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/10/02/nearly-200-people-under-observation-after-irkutsk-lab-w...
57•ericmay•1h ago•22 comments

Quantitative Finance with OCaml

https://qcaml.com/index.html
31•leonry•2d ago•2 comments

Infidel goes wild

https://blog.zarfhome.com/2026/10/infidel-goes-wild
93•tobr•1d ago•14 comments

A tribute to one of the best games on the Atari 2600

https://plicerin.github.io/riverraid-rom-port/
15•plicerin•1h ago•5 comments

The Tao of Backup

http://www.taobackup.com/index.html
56•vntok•2d ago•13 comments

A browser-native classic Visual Basic VB6 IDE

https://wieslawsoltes.github.io/VB6/
114•wiso•9h ago•46 comments

Turn off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 and get its disk space back

https://github.com/omlahore/RemoveMacAI
425•privacyisntdead•8h ago•270 comments

Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and electricity usage

https://www.1011now.com/2026/09/30/more-questions-than-answers-about-lincolns-google-data-center-...
282•sensanaty•8h ago•398 comments

Self-hosted HTTP tunnels with SSH and Nginx

https://vincent.bernat.ch/en/blog/2026-http-over-ssh
89•renehsz•5h ago•23 comments

Fixed Points and Strike Mandates

https://pvk.ca/Blog/2012/02/19/fixed-points-and-strike-mandates/
5•luu•4d ago•1 comments

Tell HN: Bob Cringely has died

833•paveworld•1d ago•179 comments

Homa: The end of TCP for AI clusters [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ8WWZzoaR0
62•signa11•8h ago•27 comments

Xray-core concealed a certificate verification bypass vulnerability

https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/672
62•timbill•10h ago•3 comments

Show HN: Glashütte Trash Clock – A 30-minute pendulum clock made from trash

https://niklasroy.com/gtc/
172•r0r0•2d ago•25 comments

How to scale intent, quality, and artistry with AI [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLvFTMtw4Jk
60•simonjgreen•19h ago•16 comments

Demystifying Tufte's data-ink ratio

https://tuftesrazor.scienceux.org/
16•s4074433•2d ago•4 comments

Results from the ASIC puzzle

https://blog.janestreet.com/asic-puzzle-results/
78•eru•2d ago•38 comments

A map of every lighthouse

https://mapped.earth/lighthouses/world
171•karakoram•2d ago•76 comments

Incentives in Academic Research

https://www.msoos.org/2026/10/incentives-in-academic-research/
42•zero_k•10h ago•39 comments

What is going on with ceiling fans

https://mcmansionhell.com/post/829127919552151552/what-is-going-on-with-ceiling-fans
246•colinprince•3d ago•218 comments

Show HN: AI search for every photo and every frame of video on macOS

https://github.com/allenv0/SCM
144•allenleee•18h ago•66 comments

Bill Draper has died

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/technology/william-draper-dead.html
92•bookofjoe•15h ago•21 comments

A 40ms Go garbage collector pause caused by swap

https://frn.sh/go-gc/
7•shellpipe•2h ago•0 comments

Why don't more developers “use the platform”?

https://nolanlawson.com/2026/10/03/why-dont-more-developers-use-the-platform/
284•vinhnx•23h ago•295 comments

Interview with Chicken Scheme Maintainer Sjamaan/Peter Bex

https://alexalejandre.com/interviews/peter-bex/
21•veqq•2d ago•4 comments

Page Table Memory Consumption

https://frn.sh/pagetables/
50•shellpipe•4d ago•10 comments

Surely you have ultra-wideband radios on your bins too?

https://sjg.io/writing/binrange-have-you-actually-put-the-bins-out/
142•simonjgreen•1d ago•73 comments