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by YeGoblynQueenne 1620 days ago
There's no "when". A natural origin is the default explanation. To look for a different explanation you need to have a reason to look for a different explanation.

The existence of a virology lab in the state where the pandemic began is no such reason. Rather, it is a post-facto attempt at making observations supporting an a-priori hypothesis.
1 comments
varjag 1620 days ago
Not just "in the state" but in minutes distance from first cases. Plenty of reason to look into, it's not like every urban centre has virology labs studying the titular disease.
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YeGoblynQueenne 1620 days ago
The first cases were found in a wet market. The lab is miles away from it:

The first known human infections from SARS‑CoV‑2 were discovered in Wuhan, China.[37] Because many of the early infectees were workers at the Huanan Seafood Market,[50][51] it was originally suggested that the virus might have originated from bats or pangolins sold at the market.[30][33] It was later determined that no bats or pangolins were sold at the market.[52] Bats are not commonly eaten in Central China.[53] The Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Center for Disease Control are located within miles of the original focal point of the pandemic, Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, and this has been used to argue in support of the lab leak theory. However, another explanation for this is a tendency to build virology labs in proximity to outbreak areas.[54]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory#Wuhan...

What's more, the proximity of the first detected cases to anything is a red herring. We don't know where the first transmission happened. We only know where the first cases were detected. For all we know the virus started in Alaska.

Finally the location of the lab was only noticed after people started talking of a lab leak. Some people said "lab leak", some other people said "OMG there's a lab close by!".

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varjag 1620 days ago
Yes, "miles away" is within minutes drive: many lab workers quite likely have a commute longer than that.

> For all we know the virus started in Alaska.

I think we know where the virus have started at this point with reasonable confidence, and it wasn't Alaska. Can't help but notice tho that U.S. origin of virus was a popular CCP media propaganda point last year.

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YeGoblynQueenne 1620 days ago
>> Can't help but notice tho that U.S. origin of virus was a popular CCP media propaganda point last year.

What am I supposed to make of that, now?

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