This is the best assessment to date I've seen.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/06/29/1027290/gain-of-...
The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
41–50 of 233 posts
Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
#42As someone who is out of the loop on this and only a basic understanding, it seems very peculiar that scientists were so quickly to just jump on the "it must be bats and a wet market" thing so early on despite the Wuhan lab being right there. It's like when some out-of-control company creates a superfund site through gross negligence of industrial byproduct handling and then goes "idk cancer gonna cancer. you can't l…
“When HIV/AIDS emerged in the 1980s, it was alleged, with a little Soviet help, that the virus had been developed in an American lab. Between Washington’s inaction on the epidemic and its sordid past of shady experiments, proponents said the theory couldn’t be dismissed out of hand. After many early cases of tick-borne Lyme disease were first identified around Long Island Sound, it was deemed too much of a coincidenc…
It is not that lab leaks in general are unheard of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak
Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
#43As far as I'm concerned it's largely irrelevant, because the real question is how the governments all handled the Covid crisis, once it was out in the open.
I wouldn't go as far as to say it's completely irrelevant. If it was a leak, we will want guarantees that another leak is not possible (ie. better safety, or downright stop dangerous research, such as gain of function). It's all about reducing risks.
Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> especially if we believe SARS 2 was created by humans instead of being just another natural disease Here's the thing: if we knew the answer definitively to the lab-leak question, how would it change the pandemic response? The things we need to do to combat the virus remain the same.
For the current pandemic yes, but we could start banning all gain of function research to make another one less likely. And increase lab safety measures.
That's not necessarily the best response even in that case. We know for a fact that animal to human transmission happens, and that it will happen again. I don't know the ins and outs but it's possible that gain of function research could be crucial in preventing or fighting future natural outbreaks. That's a judgement that we should consider carefully.
If you're fighting a shooting war and you have an explosion in a munitions factory, you don't necessarily decide to stop making munitions, or perhaps even that type of munition because it's too dangerous. You make a judgement that balances the risks.
Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
#45As someone who is out of the loop on this and only a basic understanding, it seems very peculiar that scientists were so quickly to just jump on the "it must be bats and a wet market" thing so early on despite the Wuhan lab being right there. It's like when some out-of-control company creates a superfund site through gross negligence of industrial byproduct handling and then goes "idk cancer gonna cancer. you can't l…
Shouldn't the next step not be "I wonder what the scientists consider that my basic understanding doesn't cover", not "scientists are lying"?
Being a scientist myself, I did that. But it could simply not understand how - in early 2020! - "the scientist" could be so sure and demonized the lab leak theory so fervently.
And now in mid-2021, one of the few things that we know for sure is that some of the key scientists in the "It must be natural" camp have ties with the WIV and thus a strong conflict of interest that they did not disclose.
And then of course, there is the fact that China is blocking all research. Is that only China being China?
Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
#46"Ever since the SARS outbreak of 2002-03, after all, paper after paper and countless popular pieces have warned that, sooner or later, nature would produce the next big SARS." In 1995 Laurie Garrett warned about how the world could be brought to its knees by another airborne flu-like illness in "The Coming Plague" .[1] The first SARS and avian flu and swine flu, and CJD and mad cow disease were just more warnings tha…
> The first SARS and avian flu and swine flu, and CJD and mad cow disease were just more warnings that humans were continuing to play russian roulette with the way they were living with an using animals. How do we live with and use bats that makes viruses crossing over more likely, though?
Both the Ebola and Marburg viruses both seem to live in bats in Africa and periodically transfer to humans - given it's happening in one place means it's not surprising it happens elsewhere
Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
#47"Bats being bats..."
What about the undeniable fact that China (the government) is blocking all international research into the origin of Covid.
Is that only China being China?
Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
#48The authors of the original Lancet letter (Daszak included) just came out with a similarly-toned new one in the same publication - with 3 of their co-signers from last year now having dropped out of it:
https://twitter.com/franciscodeasis/status/14122249205375139...
Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
#49The authors of the original Lancet letter (Daszak included) just came out with a similarly-toned new one in the same publication - with 3 of their co-signers from last year now having dropped out of it: https://twitter.com/franciscodeasis/status/14122249205375139...
Link to the new letter in the lancet:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory
#50As far as I'm concerned it's largely irrelevant, because the real question is how the governments all handled the Covid crisis, once it was out in the open.
Not really. Once thing the lab leak theory would explain is that why the virus was so unexpectedly infective right from the start (adapted to human tissue e. g. via passage in humanized mice).
In that sense, I hope that it was a lab leak. It will be better for us humans.