[boomboomsubban]

I also don't care for either party, but also don't really care where the virus originated. Both possibilities seem plausible, and rather than waste time figuring out which one was responsible we should try to limit the possibility of either happening in the future.

[ALittleLight]

If it was a lab leak that's a strong signal that humanity in general and China in particular is not doing enough to keep labs safe. I think it would be entirely reasonable for the international community to pressure China to document their disease research, problems, and expand safety protocols.

If this has a zoonotic origin then we don't really have the evidence that our current methods are as terribly insufficient. We do have a record of occasional lab leaks, but nothing disastrous as a result.

If it wasn't a lab leak then we should be asking questions along the lines of how to reduce future zoonotic transfer. Should we be pressuring China and others to curtail "wet markets"?

Either way, it's interesting as a scientific question. To look at the origins of one of the most impactful global events of the last year and just shrug strikes me as strangely incurious.

Of course, in reality I don't expect the US government will do anything productive and even if we knew the origins of the virus conclusively I doubt they'd do anything.

[boomboomsubban]

>I think it would be entirely reasonable for the international community to pressure China to document their disease research, problems, and expand safety protocols.

And then the next time the source is India. There's plenty of examples worldwide of biological research being handled poorly, if China was responsible for the worst result it doesn't mean they were less responsible.

>Should we be pressuring China and others to curtail "wet markets"?

Should we stop eating pigs? As swine flu had the potential to be comparatively catastrophic.

Your entire post is filled with "blame China" when everything involved is an international issue. This is exactly why I don't care about where it came from, too many people will push for that information to be used to "punish those responsible" rather than actually try to limit future outbreaks.

[ALittleLight]

It seems like you're saying we shouldn't "punish those responsible" which is odd.

Obviously, if we have evidence that we need better safety protocols in labs then we should expect India, as well as every other country on Earth, to follow them. What coronavirus may mean though is that China is demonstrably dangerously lacking and cannot be trusted to implement sufficient safety protocols. We have no such evidence about India or other countries.

Why shouldn't hold accountable the people responsible for killing millions with dangerous research and substandard safety protocols? (Assuming the truth of the lab leak hypothesis)

[boomboomsubban]

>Obviously, if we have evidence that we need better safety protocols in labs then we should expect India, as well as every other country on Earth, to follow them

From another post, the US had 1100 reported incidents in a four year period involving biologically risky agents. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/17/report... I don't assume the US is particularly bad about this, so I expect other countries have similar rates, I only picked India to escape claims of "whataboutism."

Dangerous research with a sketchy safety record happens worldwide. That the worst outcome potentially came from a Chinese incident does not mean they're the only ones at fault, and punishing them does little to prevent future outbreaks.

[tengbretson]

You don't think there's anything we could possibly learn that would help inform us on how to operate labs and what sort of things are safe to study going forward?

I don't believe that.

[javagram]

We already know that non-SARS coronaviruses were being studied under BSL-2 conditions that are equivalent to a dental office.

Even if there’s only a 5 or 10% chance that this led to the covid-19 pandemic, it calls for action to update safety standards globally.

[boomboomsubban]

If it's a lab breach, the most likely cause is someone breaking protocol. If we somehow determined that everything in place was handled correctly yet the virus leaked through some before unimagined method, the research would be useful. I find it very unlikely that is the case, and even more doubtful that we would ever be able to determine it.

More useful research would just be additional studies testing various breach scenarios.

[jchw]

That is literally the stated goal of determining the source of the virus.

[boomboomsubban]

No, the stated goal of determining the source of the virus is "determining the source of the virus."

[jchw]

Okay. And then what?

Answer: use this information to guide policy changes. This is how incident response works. You don’t just ignore what happened and spray a bunch of bruteforce measures that miss the point; you root cause it.

D.R.A.S.T.I.C. and others working towards this effort are definitely interested in it because of its value for guiding prevention.

Example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/30/scientist...

[boomboomsubban]

>use this information to guide policy changes.

I see it as more likely they use this information to punish the responsible source and ignore all other potential sources.

[jchw]

OK... so basically, we should work to prevent future pandemics:

> we should try to limit the possibility of either happening in the future.

And scientists and researchers claim that to do this, we need to determine the root cause of the initial spread:

> [Peter Hotez, a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine and a leading expert on the virus,] said coming to firm conclusions about how the virus emerged was “absolutely essential” in preventing future pandemics.

But we shouldn't do that, because China might suffer political consequences if it turns out that negligence or irresponsible behavior lead to the outbreak.

In other words: We should try to limit the possibility of this happening in the future. But, the search for the source of the pandemic, that scientists and researchers suggest are needed to prevent future pandemics, and indeed would follow standard incident response protocol in virtually any situation, is "political." But, the notion that we shouldn't do that because it might harm China from a political standpoint is not political.

On the other hand, it sounds a lot like doing the wrong thing in order to avoid causing an unwanted political outcome, such as creating justification for actions that a political adversary might want taken. It comes off a bit like this tweet:

> David Hogg @davidhogg111

> I feel the need to continue wearing my mask outside even though I’m fully vaccinated because the inconvenience of having to wear a mask is more than worth it to have people not think I’m a conservative

This is absolutely benign since wearing a mask is actually not a bad idea and stops the spread of flus and common colds. However, consider the reverse of not wearing a mask despite not being fully vaccinated, because you don't want to appear liberal. This is not making a decision because it is the right or logical thing to do. This is making a decision out of fear that it might come to a conclusion, or have optics that don't support your political causes.

This is, of course, hot garbage, and if we wind up with another serious viral outbreak, I'm sure we can all be glad that at least China didn't face unfair political retribution while huge portions of the population are dying.

[boomboomsubban]

I believe you edited in that link, or I just somehow missed it, but I agree with Holtz that we should do serious research to prevent a lab leak from occurring, I just don't see how determining if COVID was a lab leak accomplishes that. As I still view research on lab leaks as necessary even if the outbreak ultimately is found to have a zoological origin.

[_y5hn]

Threats and intimidation works counterproductively on China. Nobody says don't research this, except maybe CCP, but to progress we need diplomacy.