EPTIf it was a lab leak and the news did get out to every Chinese person we would have much bigger problems at hand than what the origin of covid was.
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Sermokala
United States14041 Posts
If it was a lab leak and the news did get out to every Chinese person we would have much bigger problems at hand than what the origin of covid was. | ||
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King_Charles_III
24 Posts
I don't doubt that China keeps info bottled up inside the country and really the people I blame are the US scientists, not China. WIV was partnering with US institutions and the whole thing was just an extension of the US gain of function research system. They got this going as a positive value proposition. Step 1 make a virus more deadly Step 2 make a vaccine Step 1 is extremely risky and was always recognized as such by the scientists involved. All that virus needs to do is infect one scientist and you risk a worldwide pandemic, because of how transmissible you've made it. At least that's true if your lab is in the middle of a city with 15 million people. But yeah its a radioactive topic I guess, not least because of how it got politicized in the US. I could see an argument that it's actually best to put the world's head in the sand on something like this. On the other hand if we do that, GOF goes on and im not sure if reforms happen on it. | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria4478 Posts
Nature itself is many times faster at performing gain-of-function, and people who don't work at labs are far less likely to adhere to practices of good hygienic safety. An example would be the origin of the most recent monkeypox outbreak. The virus was circulating in one region for many years before it went global. It was way overdue. And yet when faced with examples like that one, somehow we should think a lab is a better explanation for the covid-19 outbreak? It's a plausible alternative, but it only warrants serious consideration because it came from a lab under the CCP administration, as they're well known for cover-ups. Overall the odds that it was a lab leak that caused covid-19 are fairly low. The explanation that the virus sprung over from bats or some other animal due to poor human hygiene is currently far better. One reason why it's a better explanation is that we know of SARS-CoV-2 genomes being present in the local population prior to the outbreak. With that knowledge we can draw parallels to other natural outbreaks like that of monkeypox. Why does this matter? Because improved hygiene is among the best ways to combat viruses. While bio labs should obviously follow strict safety guidelines, it's far more important that the general population learns to abandon unhygienic practices. If we put the blame squarely on bio labs, then people won't see the need to change their ways. In regards to viruses that's the wrong approach. | ||
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King_Charles_III
24 Posts
BTW they were operating at bio safety level 2 at the Wuhan lab at least for some work, which isn't safe for this research. That's a matter of documentary proof, as is the biosafety emergency in mid Nov 2019 and the genome similarity and the spike protein anomalies. They were doing this specific gain of function work as a means of accelerating or substituting for (in the case of splicing) evolution. In the face of all that evidence that's so specifically consistent with lab leak, it doesn't make sense to say "we should apply a presumption in favor of natural origin." Especially when, unlike with the monkeypox example, there is no evidence that the virus was circulating anywhere before the sudden outbreak. One would expect the virus to leave traces in that manner if it was a natural origin. Instead it simply exploded in a form that was already optimized. If you have a source for the claim that sars2 genome were in the population before the outbreak that would be interesting because what I've read is that that's not the case. Back around 2005 they found that villagers near certain bat caves had sars1 antibodies, and that's partly how they identified the sars1 source. So they've sought similar evidence for sars2, but they haven't found it. | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria4478 Posts
But I still think it's better to keep the investigation open-ended. A lab leak is plausible, but natural mutation must be considered likely. There's a high chance that introduction and mishandling of certain wild animals led to a much more potent version of SARS-CoV. | ||
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Slydie
1926 Posts
Step 1 is extremely risky and was always recognized as such by the scientists involved. All that virus needs to do is infect one scientist and you risk a worldwide pandemic, because of how transmissible you've made it. At least that's true if your lab is in the middle of a city with 15 million people. How do you know how transmissable a virus is without testing on thousands of real humans living their normal lives? It sounds like a very silly thing to spend resources on in a lab, and you haven't cited any sources that that kind of resesarch actually takes place. As mentioned, the real world is just much better at that kind of evolution. You have billions of virus mutations every day, in actual conditions. Remember how many strains of COV-2 we have already, and multiple versions of the Spanish flu are still coming back every year. Good luck even coming close to that in a lab. | ||
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King_Charles_III
24 Posts
On August 07 2023 00:50 Slydie wrote: How do you know how transmissable a virus is without testing on thousands of real humans living their normal lives? It sounds like a very silly thing to spend resources on in a lab, and you haven't cited any sources that that kind of resesarch actually takes place. As mentioned, the real world is just much better at that kind of evolution. You have billions of virus mutations every day, in actual conditions. Remember how many strains of COV-2 we have already, and multiple versions of the Spanish flu are still coming back every year. Good luck even coming close to that in a lab. It's tested by genetically engineering lab mice so that their respiratory cells are the same as human respiratory cells. An individual lab may have $1M worth of those mice - a population used for this purpose. This is all an established part of gain of function research, as is the super optimized spike protein that covid has. As shown in the paper I linked, covid is the only known betacoronavirus ("lineage B") with the super optimized spike protein, thus suggesting that a super optimized spike protein doesn't evolve naturally. On the other hand, the super optimized spike protein is well established in the scientific literature and its a proven goal of WIV's pre-pandemic work. That is why its a fallacy to rely on generalized assumptions that evolution does this or that natural evolution is more likely. It's documented proof that they were adding the super optimized spike protein to bat coronaviruses in a lab in the city of the outbreak. US intel says multiple lab workers got pneumonia-level sick in mid Nov 2019, propublica says there was a documented biosafefy emergency in mid Nov 2019, etc etc. | ||
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Lmui
Canada6214 Posts
In hindsight, if it was more severe, we might've seen a stronger response, but it just didn't affect people enough. We can't eradicate covid the same way, because it has natural reservoirs, but how we respond to diseases deserves some reflection. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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iPlaY.NettleS
Australia4352 Posts
but it is strange that there is 0 outrage about the lying, from anyone who was not already against DeSantis. Not sure if the average joe even cares about that much anymore dude.Too busy dealing with the insane cost of living and inflation which was in large part created by the Covid lockdowns, restrictions and supply chain issues that have destabilized the economy. | ||
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