are there any articles interviewing relevant staff from the wuhan lab, in the last 12 months? have they issued any statements?
Yes, they said it’s not them /s
Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt
191–200 of 833 posts
Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt
#192Is there a way, outside full transparency from China in some "perestroika" type situation which seems highly unlikely, we will ever really know for sure?
We will know for sure after CCP falls, just like we learned many of USSR secrets after it fell (for example it’s anthrax leak in the 70ies)
Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Facts are facts. The fact is in 2019 there were 39,397 wet markets in China. How many virology labs were there in China handling Corona-viruses? TWO. One of which was TWO BLOCKS from where the wet market from where the original Covid-19 virus which started the pandemic has been traced to. One might be forgiven for being curious as to the likelihood of the virus emerging from this particular wet market as opposed to a…
> One of which was TWO BLOCKS from where the wet market from where the original Covid-19 virus which started the pandemic has been traced to TWO BLOCKS? Or a 40min drive? This is why the lab leak theory feels conspiracy-adjacent. Too much exaggeration. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/D961/production/... > The institute is a 40-minute drive from the Huanan wet market where the first cluster of infections e…
There are multiple labs in Wuhan. Wuhan institute of virology is the main on people like to talk about but there was indeed another lab a block or two away from the wet market. I don't know if both were doing virology experiments.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Center_For_Disease_Con...
Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are all kinds of forms of cooperation between countries: economic, political, financial, scientific, legal, regulatory, transportation, trade, military, etc. One option instead of full scale invasion is to cut back or attach strings to some of those forms of cooperation. This happens all the time. In this specific scenario, it might look like: Spend $100M upgrading Wuhan lab security and we won’t indefinitely b…
> There are all kinds of forms of cooperation between countries: economic, political, financial, scientific, legal, regulatory, transportation, trade, military, etc. Oh, for sure. Those are certainly the broad categories of foreign policy and cooperative (and coercive ) action. I appreciate the specific ideas. I really am just curious what others’ ideas are on specific actions that could be taken if there was suddenl…
The world is so incredible dependent on China for just about everything from the simplest tools to cars, computers and medical equipment. My guess is that it would change nothing, we would still be letting them produce everything for us because it is so much cheaper, and keep letting them grow their economy at record speeds.
Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt
#195No post body was provided.
Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not how the world or mathematics (game theory) works
Can you think of a scenario where science has ever benefited from censorship? Correct me if I am wrong, but respectfully that is the argument you are making, right?
Not that science benefits from censorship, but that game theory sometimes necessitates it.
Imagine a scientist with significant political cachet. This allows them to receive more funding, do more science. They cannot optimize their behavior only for truth-seeking, because that fails to maximize their political capital. If they optimize for the former, they will be replaced by someone who is better at the latter.
Any scientist that relies on external funding must balance science with politics to continue to do science, sometimes this involves censorship.
Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt
#197And we have research now that hypothesizes that Omicron incubated in mice and then jumped back to humans. If that hypothesis is true, then we have a fine example of something running in the background in a reservoir and then Hey, Presto! suddenly appearing to be mutated specifically for humans. If that's true, then all manner of "weird" things suddenly become both plausible and probable without any human intervention…
There is another hypothesis that an immunocompromised patient who took some type of drug that induces DNA mutations in the coronavirus, similar to what Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics offers. If COVID-19 stayed in the patient's body for a long time, it would have time to cause many mutations before transmission.
There’s no shortage of people regularly inhaling carcinogens either.
Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt
#198Dear HNers, please consult the post history of OPs account. It is a newish account which has been used daily to post controversial ideological and political flame baits, mostly related to COVID conspiracies, pandemic denialism and low-key misinformation.
If I'm not mistaken, this comment of yours is itself a violation of HN guidelines.
Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt
#199What really raises the most suspicion of the lab leak theory in my mind was how the Chinese government acted towards the rest of the scientific community...well before it was a theory at all. Not allowing foreign scientists in, destroying evidence, arresting journalists, etc. That just screams cover-up, even if there was none (in terms of a lab leak.) Then Western scientists that rely on grants with Chinese ties, etc…
It does feel like there hasn't been a proper airing of exactly what gain of function research has been going on (whether or not it led to this particular virus) and how governments have supported it. I suspect it's because, despite being a "hindsight is 2020" moment, a lot of people would be angry, and at a lot of public policy scientists involved in the response.
Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that it’s not inactionable. If it happened once (accidentally, I’m presuming), it can happen again. It’s not like the Wuhan lab is the only source of such research. So it’s entirely legitimate to question the value of such research, especially if a leak could result in a global pandemic.
That doesn't answer the question about what the West is supposed to do to China should the lab-leak hypothesis be true.
Well, politically speaking, sanctions would certainly be possible - if not for the virus they (hypothetically) created, then for what would in retrospect look like (in this hypothetical) a clear attempt at a cover-up.
That said: it doesn’t even need to go that far - whether the response should be punitive, it doesn’t need to be. The scientific communities in China and the west are collaborative and could negotiate agreements not to do GoF research. US groups were funneling money into China to do GoF research on coronaviruses, which could be stopped.