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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

#41

Post by credit_guy »

boeingUH60 wrote: post #6

Nothing seems certain at this point, but, let’s say the pandemic was actually caused by a lab leak. That’ll mean the world was brought to an economic standstill and millions of people died because of the errors and carelessness of some people…will there be consequences? What will be the assurance that such deadly mistake won’t occur again? If it was actually a lab leak, then it’ll definitely rank as the most costly a…

The only reason to not say it was a lab leak is to avoid embarrassing those responsible, China first and America second.

But little by little people will start accepting that.

What should the consequences be? At the very least a tightening of the controls around labs doing bio research. Of course, this amounts to nothing if someone is allowed to outsource research to labs in countries that don't follow the stringent procedures. So, anybody who does such outsourcing shares the full responsibility if things go wrong.

What about Covid itself? China and America need to provide reparations. How much? Clearly in the trillions, maybe double digit trillions.

How about those who obstructed the investigations? I think they should face justice, and it's not unreasonable to expect that some would go to prison for their obstructions.

Both in China and America? For sure in America, where the arm of justice has a long reach. In China, if Xi wants a well functioning Party, yes, he should sent those who obstructed to jail, for if he tolerates that, his Party will go in decay.

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

#42

Post by groot2581 »

ttul wrote: post #18
acheron wrote: post #16

[flagged]

What will make this information dangerous is if people misconstrue “lab leak” to mean “human designed”. The report specifically says it was not from a bioweapons program. I’m sure they took pains to verify that because the implications of THAT conclusion would be explosive.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

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

#43

Post by aquarium87 »

tkiolp4 wrote: post #22
boeingUH60 wrote: post #6

Nothing seems certain at this point, but, let’s say the pandemic was actually caused by a lab leak. That’ll mean the world was brought to an economic standstill and millions of people died because of the errors and carelessness of some people…will there be consequences? What will be the assurance that such deadly mistake won’t occur again? If it was actually a lab leak, then it’ll definitely rank as the most costly a…

Let me play the game. If covid was caused by a lab leak, I think the right question to ask is: who benefits (did benefit) by the leak? And remember that number of dead people is something that governments don’t care about (i.e., governments easily go into war every now and then: it’s clear they couldn’t care less about civilians).

It's simpler. Tools x labs x pathogens and funding x risk of escape = risk.

ALL categories are going up. Ergo, risk is going up exponentially.

No need for conspiracies. Just a proper parsing of the words "lab leak"

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

#45

Post by vitus »

denotational wrote: post #24

Without meaning to take a position either way, as a non-American, why does the Energy Department have a position on this? I’m aware that the Energy Department has sone degree of responsibility for the US nuclear arsenal, but even taking that into account, it seems out of scope.

Per the article, it looks like a supporting report came out of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is funded by the DoE.

While LLNL is primarily known for nuclear research, biosecurity is also apparently part of its mission: https://www.llnl.gov/missions/biosecurity

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

#46

Post by aquarium87 »

michaelgrosner2 wrote: post #12
ironyman wrote: post #4

I strongly suspect that the three-letter agencies have good intel to conclusively show that this is the case, but they have decided to hold back on it for the sake of US-China relations. https://www.reuters.com/world/us-intelligence-releases-repor...

I'm not sure what world you're living in but we've been shooting missiles at Chinese military objects and restricting their access to semiconductors. I have little doubt that if the CIA or FBI had information it was actually a Chinese plot they would have released it by now.

Naw. Nobody wins from increased instability. Seems to me the playbook is obvious. You see in politics all the time. Everyone knows the truth but pretends otherwise until the proper time when things have settled down and the truth can be allowed to be free.

We are coming to the time when people are forgetting what lockdown were like and just want to move on with live. The near future is when the lab leak hypothesis can become the de facto default of scientists and intel agencies.

Same applies for the vaccines. 4 months of study for top level review of vaccines as a metastudy. 6 months of journal review for meta analysis of existing papers. 6 months of journal review, 4 months to parse the data.

Already, before the narrative can change, 20 months need to pass since the end of the dataset. If you want relevent data on covid and vaccine outcomes, then it's Jan 2021-Dec 2022.

First two years of preliminary data won't be finalized and combined and analyzed to a sufficient degree to potentially flip the narrative until about September 2024.

Want real data on covid and the vaccine? 5 years worth? You can have it in September 2027.

Why bother having the CIA release shit when you can just have the scientists do your dirty for you and time slide relevent information into 2024+?

Its all coming out. Just a matter of timing.

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

#47

Post by aquarium87 »

ethanbond wrote: post #31
imnotreallynew wrote: post #23

I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I always found it it little odd that the guy who became the de facto pandemic era “leader” in the U.S. was also the same guy that personally approved funding for the lab in Wuhan.

You think it’s weird that one of the top virologists in the world was responsible for finding virus research and for planning virus outbreak response?

[flagged]

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

#48

Post by Overtonwindow »

I thought it was xenophobic and dangerous to suggest that it was a lab leak? does this mean it's OK to talk about it?

Sarcasm aside, this is ridiculously overdue. It was never xenophobic to want inquiry into Covid being a lab leak. The outrageous politicization of finding the source of the outbreak is shameful.

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

#49

Post by mindslight »

joenot443 wrote: post #8

[flagged]

The source of the problem is all the terrible leaders, whether they be the media, politicians, etc. You've focused solely on the "media", but a large part of the anti-science tribalism flowed from the infantile president trying to point the finger at anyone else, rather than accepting the existence of and dealing with the problem. When that much nonsense is being pumped into the zeitgeist, priors get massively screwed up - anything resembling the nonsense is dubious, so anything opposing the nonsense is duvious, and so on.

Also it's not particularly appropriate to use the label "conservative" for those trying to buck societal institutions. The actually conservative position was to follow public health advice.

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

#50

Post by idopmstuff »

michaelgrosner2 wrote: post #12
ironyman wrote: post #4

I strongly suspect that the three-letter agencies have good intel to conclusively show that this is the case, but they have decided to hold back on it for the sake of US-China relations. https://www.reuters.com/world/us-intelligence-releases-repor...

I'm not sure what world you're living in but we've been shooting missiles at Chinese military objects and restricting their access to semiconductors. I have little doubt that if the CIA or FBI had information it was actually a Chinese plot they would have released it by now.

How would that improve anything for the US, though? Shooting down balloons helps us because it gets rid of spy equipment in our skies (and lets us get our hands on it). Restricting access to semiconductors keeps us on better technological footing than China.

If they release evidence of a lab leak, China will deny it and relations will deteriorate. How do either of those things help the US? It's not going to make China a pariah in the world (and even if it did, that may or may not be a good thing) - the world is already very clear on their profound human rights abuses of Uyghurs, but nothing happens because they're too economically important.

We'd maybe gain some theoretical moral high ground, but that doesn't make the world safer or better.

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