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Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

wsj.com

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Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#341

Post by scotteric »

orlp wrote: post #281
kranke155 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t the FBI also have a large biological analysis team? For bio terror ?

I think if anything COVID has shown us that biological warfare makes as much sense as nuclear: none. In our globally connected world it's mutually assured destruction, and that's without even the need for your enemy to maintain stockpiles of weapons. The virus will find itself within your own borders soon enough.

It still makes sense for things like anthrax that aren't easily communicable. Or botulinum toxin.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#342

Post by nradov »

orlp wrote: post #281
kranke155 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t the FBI also have a large biological analysis team? For bio terror ?

I think if anything COVID has shown us that biological warfare makes as much sense as nuclear: none. In our globally connected world it's mutually assured destruction, and that's without even the need for your enemy to maintain stockpiles of weapons. The virus will find itself within your own borders soon enough.

Terrorists motivated by religion or ideology sometimes use tactics and weapons that make no sense to rational people. The Aum Shinrikyo cult was developing biological weapons.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#344

Post by orlp »

scotteric wrote: post #341
orlp wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if anything COVID has shown us that biological warfare makes as much sense as nuclear: none. In our globally connected world it's mutually assured destruction, and that's without even the need for your enemy to maintain stockpiles of weapons. The virus will find itself within your own borders soon enough.

It still makes sense for things like anthrax that aren't easily communicable. Or botulinum toxin.

Fair enough, I meant viral biowarfare.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#345

Post by afiori »

ss108 wrote: post #326
nradov wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The model wasn't bad , just useless.

Why useless? People have to attempt to predict the outcomes of elections, and have to do their best.

I would guess that the vast majority of the population do not take meaningful actions based on election prediction (other than "I might [not] need to actually vote").

There are good reasons to have polls and predictions but they are far from necessary.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#346

Post by chitowneats »

mikeyouse wrote: post #325
chitowneats wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is not whether the research was worth it overall. They denied there was even a possibility that lab leak was the cause of the pandemic. I'm more than happy to entertain the idea that the research is and was worth it. But we need to have an accurate accounting of recent events. They tried to completely shut that down. Thankfully, lately it seems that they failed.

There’s an immense benefit to being specific with both what you mean by lab leak (natural virus leaked or modified one did) and by “they” when you’re talking about coverups because it gets weirdly racist and conspiratorial in a hurry otherwise.

Unfortunately, you seem fundamentally confused about the position of people who are skeptical of zoonotic origin.

Please explain to me how position A) is more racist than position B)

A) Scientists all over the world, including Chinese, Americans, and others, made a fundamental misjudgement about the safety of the Wuhan virology lab, or perhaps viral experimentation generally, and the result was a global pandemic

Versus

B) Chinese people eating & trading wild and exotic meat unintentionally caused a global pandemic due to their consumption

Of course, neither theory is racist. That's a word that used to mean something (and I wish it still did!), but is mostly used today to shut down debate in Western countries.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#347

Post by baja_blast »

colechristensen wrote: post #290
gremlinsinc wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This supposes way too much intention that can much more easily be explained by incompetence. A lab doing questionable work with inadequate safety measures hiding a major leak to save face makes way more sense than a supervillain story.

And when you add in the fact that virology work on unknown wild SARS like viruses were scheduled for only BSL2. And the vast majority of research published on sampled SARS like viruses was conducted in BSL2 labs it very easy to imagine a researcher unwittingly getting infected from a human mice model carrying a wild virus with a human optimized FCS inserted.

Re: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

#349

Post by barbazoo »

jimbob45 wrote: post #225
2-718-281-828 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Didn’t Trump literally call it the “China virus” for over a year? Almost from the start? I know he got a lot of pushback from the DNC over that.

It didn't seem to be based on evidence at the time rather than a simple minded and racist bit to cover up that he had no idea what he was doing.
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