[Fomite]

Tons of people have been doing work on SARS-like viruses from bats for years now. That's what happens when you go from "No one gets infected by cornaviruses" to...SARS.

Accidental releases almost always involve people with direct links to the lab in question first. That's a really obvious epidemiological link.

"A coronavirus emerged in China and got detected quickly because of solid medical infrastructure" is a way more parsimonious explanation than "Accidental release from a BSL-4 lab."

[ColanR]

> solid medical infrastructure

From what I've read, "solid medical infrastructure" doesn't exist in Wuhan.

[Fomite]

Where "solid" = not Liberia or the Congo.

For emerging infectious diseases, Wuhan is perfectly functional, and the Chinese have the necessary resources. Motorbikes with samples aren't getting stuck as roads turn into mud during the rainy season.

[1_over_n]

How many people commenting on here have actually worked in a lab doing this kind of research? or any lab for that matter? From experience, i will say that researchers are humans too and make mistakes. Things get dropped, spilled, mislablled all the time. Mistakes may be compounded by people collaborating - i.e. researcher A makes mistake at earlier stage in the protocol and researcher B does everything correct but is building on top of that error. Also, people share work spaces where some people are more careful than others.

[Fomite]

My first advisor in graduate school was someone working on SARS.

I'm currently an Assistant Professor of Computational Epidemiology, and my research is on healthcare-associated infections and emerging pathogens.

[1_over_n]

My comment was not a personal attack or even directed at you per se (sorry if it appeared that way). I do still feel that your level of exertise is in the minority of people browsing HN and it is also a valued contribution. I have experience working in labs like this too. I would also say from experience sometimes peoples professors never step a foot in the lab and only direct people from afar and are disconnected from what the troops on the ground are doing. Like any organisation leadership can be disconnected from the day to day or even encourage peverse incentives.