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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

#661

Post by TurkishPoptart »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #401
mwbajor wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter if they understand the nuance. The lab leak theory takes a back seat for the following reason: Lets say it is found out with definite proof that it was a lab leak. Then what? Grandma's dead, china killed her and there is nothing you can do. We are not going to let this ruin trade relations even more ($$$ LOL) so you're just going to have to forget about it. Every American touched by covid knows this in…

If lab leak is confirmed the correct course of action is to design new systems and protocols to prevent such a thing from happening again in the future. Failure to do so will result in more issues down the line. It's basic engineering. If this kind of research is so important then maybe the nations of the world should buy a cruise ship and implement extreme isolation protocols between interactions, if that's the only…

The issue involves misplaced incentives. Scientists have an incentive to apply for certain grants, and the National Science Foundation and NIH have an incentive to spend their federal funding. Scientists are thus incentivized to draw attention to "black swan" events and ask for funding to prevent these events. And they are incentivized to conduct riskier and riskier research until, let's say, a "human error event" occurs, and here we are.*

*Assuming the lab leak was accidental, rather than intentional

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

#662

Post by jandrese »

unicornmama wrote: post #215
goolulusaurs wrote: post #192

IMO, it seems obvious from the behavior of China's government that they know it is a lab leak. If it wasn't a lab leak, then presumably there is an animal reservoir of the virus somewhere in China, but as far as I know they haven't claimed to have found it. But if there is an animal reservoir of the virus in China, then how could the Chinese government ever expect a lockdown to work? A lockdown on travel would only r…

Lockdowns serve a purpose: to slow the spread of the virus.

Also to give people time to develop the vaccine for the virus. Lockdown until the vaccine is administered to the community is a sound policy.

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

#663

Post by kodah »

JoBrad wrote: post #643
kodah wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lab leak involves bio-engineering because it involves gain of function research. Bio-engineering can be used in a testing setting but it could also be used to make a weapon. I highly doubt China was stupid enough to make a bioweapon and not immunize its citizens first. The significance of getting people to investigate, and if all things are true, confirm lab leak is that it puts an impetus on the importance of contro…

A lab leak doesn’t mean gain of function, bio-engineered virus, or other engineering. It just means that the virus was spread via a lab leak. > The October 2021 report said that there was a consensus that Covid-19 wasn’t the result of a Chinese biological-weapons program. But it didn’t settle the debate over whether it resulted from a lab leak or came from an animal, saying that more information was needed from the C…

In what way is gain of function not bio-engineering? You're modifying a virus and subjecting it to human-like tissue to observe the results. Lab leak and gain of function are inexplicably tied.

I don't know what point the quote is getting to. I already said it wasn't a bioweapon.

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

#664

Post by notfed »

than3 wrote: post #635
pessimizer wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The headline is absolutely, literally true. I also don't understand the nuance that anyone could miss here. The astounding thing is that the Energy Dept. can say that a lab leak is the most likely cause of the pandemic, and people jump out in front of them to say that what they somehow still mean is that a lab leak wasn't the cause of the pandemic. They have "low confidence" that it was a lab leak ( there might not e…

It seems like you are misunderstanding the nuance of what they are saying. Its best understood after watching and grokking this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNv2PlqmsAc Putting what is being said in the correct context, outlined in that video, which is how government typically operates. Its pretty clear what they mean to any educated rational reader what was meant. The characterization you made is poor and…

The point is that the headline is clickbait. As you have said, you have to read the article to determine the radically different meaning of the headline. That's how clickbait works.

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

#665

Post by jaharios »

fwungy wrote: post #539

On the upside, we advanced mRNA vaccine technology faster than it ever could have been done under the normal overly cautious test protocols. This technology is going to save countless lives and healtcare dollars in the future, so it was for the best, even if it was an accident.

Yeah I am also glad the WW2 happened so we can sent a man to the moon.

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

#666

Post by philliphaydon »

awb wrote: post #363
cdolan wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I just read this correctly? “janitor steals a highly modified and virulent bat and sells it for $10 in a wet market” Why reach so hard to link this to a Wuhan wet market vs a generic leak? They didn’t sell bats at the market as far as I have read, and what’s the difference? Lab leak is a lab leak.

> Lab leak is a lab leak. It’s an interesting question though. Working off of a lab leak theory, how did the first known cases all come from the wet market? Is it just coincidence that an infected scientist traveled to the outdoor market and infected others? With human to human transmission, you’d think it would have spread more rapidly among a scientist’s friends & family in an indoor setting. When the US was doing…

We are told that they visited the market. But in reality it doesn’t make much sense why a busy wet market produced only a couple of covid patients.

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

#667

Post by ss108 »

walkhour wrote: post #626
ss108 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we had a racist president who said stuff like "China virus" in a stupid and demeaning way--i.e. what may have been a valid and reasonable argument or position had its credibility ruined by being taken up by Trump and his ilk for their own ends.

Naming something by its origin it's not racist. The tone you're talking about is a completely subjective statement, and it has no place in a serious discussion. Using that name should've never been controversial and making it controversial was creating drama where there was none. The fact that people are still hurt about Trump saying that years ago shows how unprepared we are to have a discussion about anything.

This just willfully tone deaf as to what was going on and being implied then. The other component of it was this kind of "blame China" attitude he was trying to engender to deflect blame, and that's another reason why the theory never caught on.

(Also to be clear, it's not even that the China stuff made him racist; he clearly established himself as a racist, and then he said that stuff, which I agree wasn't necessarily racist. But of course, he wasn't speaking in a vacuum, he was speaking in the context of himself and his whole presidency, which led everyone to naturally assume the worst of it.)

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

#668

Post by fallingknife »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #554
dqpb wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can parse fine, can you? From the article: > The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak People used to be called racist for saying this!

I think it's different in that I think when the lab leak strategy was first introduced, it was introduced in an explicitly political manner, i.e. by a politician vs an (arguably) apolitical institution. There wasn't evidence presented to support this theory beyond the political pundits footballing the theory around, who were most certainly not medical research experts about this. At least this is how I saw it as a la…

It was not introduced with any political intent. It was introduced by people noticing that, wait a minute, that wet market you say the virus came from is right next to a huge virus lab, and you expect me to believe that it's a coincidence? The idea that this was a political statement is itself a piece of political propaganda.

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

#669

Post by plutonorm »

mliker wrote: post #639
pessimizer wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The headline is absolutely, literally true. I also don't understand the nuance that anyone could miss here. The astounding thing is that the Energy Dept. can say that a lab leak is the most likely cause of the pandemic, and people jump out in front of them to say that what they somehow still mean is that a lab leak wasn't the cause of the pandemic. They have "low confidence" that it was a lab leak ( there might not e…

Yes, but the point is the headline is clickbaity, and for the uninformed masses, it sounds like it's highly likely it's from the lab, when that judgment was made with "low confidence"

That you think it's a coincidence that a novel coronavirus pops up in the only place in china working on coronaviruses blows my mind. Any sane, rational human thought it likely a lab leak from the moment this thing started.

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

#670

Post by wkat4242 »

dangwhy wrote: post #544
axxto wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "sightly-less-shitty-than-other-theories" theory is still a shitty theory. Low-confidence means exactly what it sounds like.

then why even propose any theory ? why not let it remain a mystery.

That's what China wants yes.

But while this helps the CCP party save face, it doesn't help to move on with the investigation. It's not even about the blame. We investigate air crashes in such detail so we can prevent them from happening again. Of course with an even bigger event like this we should do the same.

The pandemic has happened and no kind of blame or money can revert it. But we can try to learn everything about it that we can to stop the next one. I'm sure it was an accident but we need to know what happened.

For this reason I really think China should cooperate with the investigators.

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