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The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

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Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#521

Post by walleeee »

jollybean wrote: post #513
walleeee wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a paper trail establishing joint American-Chinese gain of function research taking place in Wuhan, and if we're going to judge the lab leak hypothesis plausible, I see no good reason not to ascribe similar motivations to cover it up to the US government as well as to the Chinese > It could feasibly lead to a chain of events sparking a war. The American stance as it stands could very well lead to war, with or…

Because Americans were helping to finance something, does not make them directly culpable. More importantly this is raw populism, not details. If there were conclusive evidence that mapped COVID to the lab ... I think literally Chinese people would be murdered the same day in violent outbreaks in Philippines, Malaysia and India for example. There would be anti-Chinese riots literally the world over, every Chinese bus…

> Because Americans were helping to finance something, does not make them directly culpable.

Yes, and the same can surely be said of Chinese- we must consider whether to allow this kind of research in the future however

A conclusive "reveal" is unlikely given the variety and saturation of information channels- and with respect although your description of the risks is overstated imo the level of detail you go into makes your comment read uncomfortably like a threat

I think the global distribution of opinion regarding the U.S. and China portends a very different reaction to a hypothetical reveal than the one you describe

Let's strive neither to put actual facts aside nor to grasp for certainty where little exists

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#522

Post by XorNot »

darkerside wrote: post #301
XorNot wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why couldn't it have been transported into the city on trucks and vehicles coming from sampling sites? Or hitchhiked in bat guano on a worker's boot who visited the wet market? You've generated 2 possible outcomes and gone "yes these are the only possibilities". But why? There was a whole train of transportation bringing things into the city for the lab. Of course, if it was from that timeline, then the whole "lab es…

It could have. There's irony in the tone of your response to a post that started with calling out a false dichotomy. There are many more possibilities and that was my point. On your latter point, I'll just say that the virus likely needed some time to mutate into a human infectious form, and most of what we're talking about is, where and how did that happen?

And yet the only possibilities you managed to generate were variants of "but it definitely somehow escaped from a lab".

You're not taking a logical position, you're starting from one conclusion "it was a Chinese lab!" and iterating around that, for the sole reason that the only reason the lab is being considered was the usual suspects of conspiracy theory began pushing "Chinese bioweapon" from the outset (and we all know bioweapons require labs, so one had to be found).

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#523

Post by roenxi »

yonaguska wrote: post #380
roenxi wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren't interested in whether you were right or not, what matters is the probability you will be right in the future. A body wandering around saying "I was right" is likely to get ignored, because people assume they were unreasonable and lucky, and therefore unlikely to be a good source of information in the future. Besides, it doesn't really matter. Lab accidents were going to happen and are going to happen re…

> Lab accidents were going to happen and are going to happen regardless of where COVID came from. China as a nation isn't exactly responsible and whatever people do next will be more about geopolitics than about details like the virus' genesis. The Wuhan lab where this supposedly originated from was a BSL-4 lab. These aren't accidents, this is negligence. The lab had safety problems and wasn't meeting BSL-4 requireme…

Pandemics are inevitable, we have a near miss every decade or so. Some of them will be near hits whether or not COVID came from a lab. COVID doesn't even seem to be that bad vs. some of the ones that occurred naturally - look at AIDS.

I dunno, what do you think someone outside China can do if it turns out to be a lab leak? If anyone had any ability to influence China's policy, stopping COVID is meaningless compared to efforts promoting peace in the South China Sea which is a much bigger threat. The next big war will be devastating in a way that makes COVID look like the good old days.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#524

Post by VectorLock »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #43
VectorLock wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it can get people to be more cautious in the future, it is absolutely worth it.

If it turns out to have transmitted from a zoological source, does that mean we don't need to worry about biolab security? And the same in reverse? Both sources are capable of being the origin, we should work on reducing the chance that either cause a similar pandemic.

If its origins are from a biolab in China, that means the precautions of at least that biolab in China are inadequate.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#525

Post by didericis »

onethought wrote: post #517
didericis wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this did come from a lab, it was an accident. I think it’s unreasonable to consider the spread in China intentional, as there’s no reasonable motivation to do so. The main difference from SARS is we know there is a virology lab in Wuhan researching coronaviruses right across from the wet market considered the epicenter. I don’t know enough about the reaction to SARS to know how similar it was, but my understanding…

“Right across from”? If you are familiar with Wuhan, you’d know you are talking crap. The virology lab is on the East side of the river in the University sector of the city. The market is on the west side of the river and is in the cbd sector of the city. We are talking 10km distance apart, with a huge river between. And there are many other wet markets between that would more likely service the community closer to t…

Map for others to reference and judge whether “right across” is a reasonable description.

https://www.breakingasia.com/wp-content/uploads/Wuhan-Virolo...

A virology lab studying the human transmissibility of bat corona viruses ~10km away from the purported epicenter of the outbreak of a bat related coronavirus is notable.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#527

Post by smsm42 »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #3

We don't want to know. That may sound a bit glib but I think it's true. What would be the reaction if we could determine the outbreak was due to an unintentional leak? China cannot reimburse the world for the economic damage covid has caused. It cannot be held accountable for all the lives that have been lost. It cannot compensate the world for the diminished quality of life we've all suffered. But there will be plen…

Yes we do. China won't be held accountable anyway, as many major power weren't held accountable for many atrocities they did. But knowing the truth still has value. And telling the truth when we know it also has value - as does lying when we know the truth has a negative effect too.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#528

Post by smsm42 »

verbify wrote: post #121
seymore_12 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"a leading world center for research on coronaviruses" presumes some form of uniqueness amongst potential other similar facilities

Presumably they specialised in coronaviruses because of the proximity to a bat population with coronaviruses, making sample gathering much easier? Are there other areas with significant coronavirus hosts? Are there other labs that specialise in coronaviruses to the same extent? The two seem linked to me, although I have no background in this area. So we'd a priori expect coronavirus to originate in the area with coro…

Is going out with butterfly nets to catch some bats a common routine activity among virologists? I'd say if not then the proximity of the research lab to where any bats can be found is not of much relevance - if needed, any bats can be obtained, but they are likely not the most definite factory for locating a major research center.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#529

Post by strogonoff »

Dah00n wrote: post #481
strogonoff wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is really fairly clear that CCP is the side that prevented WHO team from conducting a thorough investigation at suspected ground zero.

See you picked a side there. The US has done just as bad as PRC. Different turds but still turds.

The US gov obstructed WHO team doing research into the origins of COVID on Chinese soil? How?

There are no good and no bad guys, of course, but the topic is a very specific event and concrete facts, so shades and “what about X?” can go elsewhere as far as I’m concerned.

Re: The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box?

#530

Post by MilnerRoute »

For what it's worth, Peter Daszak responded to this article - but only obliquely.

He retweeted a tweet that pointed out Nicholas Wade has been accused in the past of grossly misrepresenting research.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/08/geneticists-decry-bo...

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