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The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

technologyreview.com

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Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#221

Post by __m »

jkingsbery wrote: post #210
towergratis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I used to think the lab accident theory was crazy Accidents happen. Even if it was a lab accident, it's not a reason to be outraged with the Chinese government. I think in parallel to searching for the origin, they should also look into the reports that Chinese government tried to hid it under the carpet and only admitting that it couldn't control it after it was already spread all over the world. That's the real c…

> Accidents happen. Even if it was a lab accident, it's not a reason to be outraged with the Chinese government. Agreed! Whatever did cause COVID-19, the outbreak was made worse by a lack of transparency by the CCP. It seems like no matter what, the WHO report is unlikely to discuss that much. Which is a shame, because with more transparency into what happened we would be better able to stop the next COVID-19 from ha…

I don’t think it was made worse, once the news was out the world didn’t implement any meaningful measures until it was deeply infected

Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#222

Post by __m »

jariel wrote: post #192
towergratis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I used to think the lab accident theory was crazy Accidents happen. Even if it was a lab accident, it's not a reason to be outraged with the Chinese government. I think in parallel to searching for the origin, they should also look into the reports that Chinese government tried to hid it under the carpet and only admitting that it couldn't control it after it was already spread all over the world. That's the real c…

"Even if it was a lab accident, it's not a reason to be outraged with the Chinese government." Oh, yes it is. It would be 'manslaughter' on a mass scale. The largest ever seen. If this were due to their negligence, then millions of dead, 10's of millions out of work, Trillions in lost productivity is unavoidably consequential. It would be the worst 'accident' in human history and the responsibility would be squarely…

Well the the US funded the lab, it shares the responsibility

Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#223

Post by jariel »

__m wrote: post #222
jariel wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Even if it was a lab accident, it's not a reason to be outraged with the Chinese government." Oh, yes it is. It would be 'manslaughter' on a mass scale. The largest ever seen. If this were due to their negligence, then millions of dead, 10's of millions out of work, Trillions in lost productivity is unavoidably consequential. It would be the worst 'accident' in human history and the responsibility would be squarely…

Well the the US funded the lab, it shares the responsibility

There is no moral or legal connection I think, your employer is not responsible if you go into a frenzy and mow peaple down with a car 'because they pay you'.

If the US was directly involved in establishing safety procedures, then yes, that would be something.

But by and large, this is a China problem.

I doubt we will never know the answer.

If Trump had any kind of material evidence, he would have used it. Team Biden would be super strategic about it, I have no idea how they would communicate the intelligence. They would be wary of the populist consequences.

In a weird way, it might be better if we never found out that was true.

Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#224

Post by neuronic »

effie wrote: post #216
slightwinder wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should china be held liable when it was the labs fails? Or even more specific someone in the lab? Would the USA be held liable when some lab fails? Is USA or even the company itself held liable for tech-companies fails on security or protecting privacy? I doubt there is some legal paragraph which would work here, even in International Law.

Evidence points to China government trying to cover up details. https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-chinas-coro...

And smartly so. Why would they not do it if everything that would happen is the kind of discussion like OP started.

"Shouldn't they be held liable?"

There's a lot of accidents that happened in the West, specifically the US. Some known, some not.

The West just got lucky but would never admit it either.

Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#225

Post by curryst »

towergratis wrote: post #81
jkingsbery wrote: post #75

So, to summarize-the-summary: there are four possible theories: 1. Direct-jump from bat population 2. Started in bats, came to humans through intermediate animal 3. Came from frozen food outside of China 4. Lab accident. I used to think the lab accident theory was crazy, because it sounds like a science fiction movie. Not an impossible theory, just a crazy one. But according to this article, despite a year of investi…

> I used to think the lab accident theory was crazy Accidents happen. Even if it was a lab accident, it's not a reason to be outraged with the Chinese government. I think in parallel to searching for the origin, they should also look into the reports that Chinese government tried to hid it under the carpet and only admitting that it couldn't control it after it was already spread all over the world. That's the real c…

> Accidents happen. Even if it was a lab accident, it's not a reason to be outraged with the Chinese government.

It really is though. If you're going to experiment with viruses that can be lethal to humans, you'd better have a damn good set of safety protocols so they don't get out. If you can't do that, don't experiment on the viruses. Given the infectiousness, there are even theories they were experimenting with making it more virulent.

There are almost 3,000,000 deaths globally. That's equivalent to launching a Little Boy at a city the size of Hiroshima every day for 42 days. It's a third of the number of soldiers who died in WW1.

There is no conceivable way that this could be declared an "oopsie" moment. This is a colossal fuck up, even by international scales.

It has nothing to do with it specifically being China. If it was the EU, I'd be pissed at them too. Lab leaks aren't particularly uncommon, which is a problem basically everywhere. I'm concerned that Russia is allegedly messing around with anthrax, but at least they seem to be able to keep it in their labs. I would prefer that no-one in the world was working on biological weapons, but I think that's a pipedream.

Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#226

Post by peytn »

gred wrote: post #125
peytn wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The initial outbreak was literally covered up. Conditioning on that fact, common sense would place more belief on “lab leak” and less on “natural origin.” Thus, in the Bayesian sense, one might describe a lab leak as “likely” relatively speaking despite lacking direct evidence such as lab notebooks for or against that hypothesis.

Partly agree, but also keep in mind that the CCP is by nature secretive and authoritarian. IMO the cover-up still shifts the probability, but less than it might in another country where cover-ups are less "business as usual".

Devil’s advocate: the CCP seems quite proud of its pandemic response and appears to have had procedures in place to deal with SARS-like disease outbreaks. Their tone is triumphant. Given its past history with SARS and the fact that the WIV was specifically tasked with research on mitigation strategies for SARS-like illnesses, the CCP must have developed a playbook for outbreaks of natural SARS-like illnesses. Given their current tone, it’s very unlikely that playbook started with “first, cover up.” To me, it’s much more likely an accident happened given their behavior.

Re: The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus

#227

Post by temp8964 »

towergratis wrote: post #81
jkingsbery wrote: post #75

So, to summarize-the-summary: there are four possible theories: 1. Direct-jump from bat population 2. Started in bats, came to humans through intermediate animal 3. Came from frozen food outside of China 4. Lab accident. I used to think the lab accident theory was crazy, because it sounds like a science fiction movie. Not an impossible theory, just a crazy one. But according to this article, despite a year of investi…

> I used to think the lab accident theory was crazy Accidents happen. Even if it was a lab accident, it's not a reason to be outraged with the Chinese government. I think in parallel to searching for the origin, they should also look into the reports that Chinese government tried to hid it under the carpet and only admitting that it couldn't control it after it was already spread all over the world. That's the real c…

Lab accident theory is not crazy at all.

SARS escaped Beijing lab twice

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7096887/

The diplomats and scientists were worried about the safety of the lab's research on coronaviruses in animals like bats as early as January 2018.

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-officials-raised-alarms-a...

We are living in a strange world where a very plausible theory is considered as conspiracy.

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