Without any verifiable evident, it just doesn't make sense. There is a continual exchange of information between Wuhan and other centers of disease control. So it would be very difficult to keep such a secret. Besides, if it was a virus that escaped, then the Chinese would already have the means to create a vaccine and so save the planet. Instead they did nothing and sat on it.
Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
171–180 of 1001 posts
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#172https://project-evidence.github.io/ I found this to be an extremely engaging read and compelling story. TLDR; The likelihood of it being lab related is high. The likelihood of it being directly malicious low. My Take form reading it: The lab in question needed to collect bats for research. A person who collected the bats did so with insufficient safety and is likely patient 0.
I agree that the leak was likely accidental. That said, I think you gloss over the fact that Gain of Function Research (artificial selection) was certainly taking place inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and that US intelligence has concluded that the WIV was engaging in classified research for the Chinese military, unbeknownst to the rest of the world.
So, its not quite as simple as a collection mistake.
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not OP, but I'm assuming he was arguing that, given that the major social media platforms have said they will remove any Covid information that is misleading, would they even allow posts like this "suggesting the possibility of a Wuhan lab leak is plausible". Note Facebook has previously explicitly banned posts "falsely claiming the virus is man-made". Source: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965390755/facebook-widens-…
From FB's policy https://www.facebook.com/help/230764881494641 " Claims that it was created by an individual, government, or country Excluding claims that it was studied in, came from, or leaked from a lab without specifically calling it man-made" So discussing possibility of a lab leak is not a problem, it's the deliberate bioweapon aspect that they're banning. "The goal of this policy is to remove common viral hoax…
> So discussing possibility of a lab leak is not a problem, it's the deliberate bioweapon aspect that they're banning.
And the virus being man-made is not a possibility?
https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debat...
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#174My understanding of the author's central thesis is this: the US, despite its world-class virology and disease study labs, regularly has lapses in procedure that regularly lead to situations in which the public might be exposed. Given that this is happening in our own backyard, we might reasonably expect countries of similar status (like China) to experience similar lapses. That reads as reasonable to me, but raises a…
Lab outbreaks with numerous civilian fatalities are not unprecedented:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak
The official cover-up initially was blaming the outbreak on contaminated meat from a wet market.
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes diplomacy means you smile when you don't want to smile. WHO has to play politics until we get this virus under control (ie, vaccines distributed worldwide). If WHO blames China now, in the thick of things, it would damage the world's ability to further study the origins of the virus and the results of Chinese research. Chinese vaccines are being used and studied in many countries worldwide and that is a goo…
I don't understand why WHO is selling it's creditiblity in trade for politics. What is there to gain? Perhaps I am too short sighted but I cannot believe that this is ever the right compromise to take. I also don't understand why they even had the slighest faith in a reliable investigation. After all these months of pushing back on researching accessing the site, they still bowed to their whims. How does this help th…
I recently read a very good book that was not so much a broad overview, but rather a closer look at the American ambassador and his family in Germany in the 1930s. I can wholeheartedly strongly recommend it.
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#176I have three perspectives here I want to share. (1) Let's address the glass windows in our own house first and tighten the US policies and culture. Secrecy is not a good idea here. Without even reflecting on Covid, it is clear the author has been dealing with this a while, and the US needs to improve. I am reminded of discussions on the old '50s/'60s nuclear culture... (2) A year later, it may not be possible for the…
1. I think this perspective is basically "Whataboutism the US house...", Whataboutism aside, the US does examine and iteratively improve standards...but either way, we aren't talking about that house.
2. I only think a thorough investigation is not possible because the Chinese government is not going to allow that such a honest investigation to occur.
3. If a flowerpot fell from a balcony and killed your loved one, you wouldn't care if it was intentionally thrown, negligently left there, or simply a freak act of god? I think almost everyone cares about the cause of this event. If not for reasons of closure and blame, for reasons of understanding and improving out future actions.
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#177This has honestly been my unbiased opinion since essentially day 1. I believe that the release was almost certainly a complete accident, but there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus. The denialists, including the WHO and CDC and everyone else, need to get real and own up to what happened and figure ou…
I don't really have a stake in this, and no real idea how plausible the lab accident theory is. That said, don't you think that the location of a lab like that would be highly correlated with the location of dangerous natural viral reservoir? Or put another way, if you wanted to study zoonotic viruses, wouldn't you put your lab in a place like that?
The claim I've read is that the bats live thousands of miles away. We shouldn't need to speculate.
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#178I wouldn't dismiss it. I just haven't seen any evidence of it that I think 'proves' it.
The link between the Wuhan lab and the virus is circumstantial, sure it's strange the virus shows up in a city with the only level 4 biolab in China where they research corona viruses, but only if the virus did originate from Wuhan. I don't think we know all the corona viruses in the wild and who was patient zero was.
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
>While I would trust the worldwide scientific community for covid origin theories Which scientific community are you referring to? There are countless scientists who have been arguing against the risks of gain of function research for many years. Why are pro-gain of function scientists deathly silent now about the supposed benefits of their research?
I had the same thought. Maybe it's just the crowd I run with, but criticism of gain-of-function research (certainly including informed speculation of a lab escape for this coronavirus) seem very mainstream to me.
I believe grand-parent was talking about a lab leak, not necessarily with gain of function research being involved, and scientists dismissal.
Which is not a dismissal at all. What scientists are saying is that both zoonotic transfer and lab leak are plausible, but that we don't have evidence for the latter (yet!) and the former is more likely.
In many media articles this simplifies to 'scientists say virus origins are zoonotic'.
Re: Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed
#180Regardless of its origin, what I cannot possibly figure out is why China didn't close its own borders while they were putting travel restrictions within.