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this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2024
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I think lax saftey when experimenting with highly infectious coronaviruses is very relevant.
Either improve the protocols or don't experiment.
There's a difference between lax safety and conspiracy to engineer a bioweapon. The main motivator of people pushing the Lab Leak conspiracy is that they want some villain to blame all this on.
Not bioweapons. Covid isn't dangerous enough.
The prime conspiracy theory target is Anthony Fauci because some EcoHealth Alliance / NIH coronaviruses bat funding went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
But you don't need to subscribe to the Fauci Supervillan theory to suspect an accidental lab leak. China has already had 3 (2004, 2016, 2020) in this list. Pointing this out is not sino bashing (look at the number of US incidents). Accidental lab leaks happen all too regularly.
Back to an earlier point you made, how is it relevant that it was an accidental lab leak anymore? It's China, they've either made better safe guards against possible break outs or made superficial changes for appearances. The international community can't punish them for an accident that also hurt themselves. Hell, we can't seem to keep their coast guard from ramming other ships.
Accidental lab leaks unfortunately happen. What is still relevant are the implications. The existence of the virus itself and it's cover up are the problem.
The cover up
Mainstream media labeled anyone who mentioned the lab as a racist conspiracy theorists. Commenting on social media resulted in censorship.
WHO "invesigation" and Peter Daszak investigating himself.
Deletion of data from the WIV website.
Chinese closed policy and destruction of evidence.
No questioning science
Nature published a peer review saying that a lab origin was impossible.
Scientists hypothesising about lab origins were ostracised.
Source of the virus
In the wild, the nearest documented virus is 96% similar. Where have the 4% changes in the leaked version come from?
Have these 4% changes come from purposeful gain of function research?
Gain of function research in the US was banned in 2014. Did research stop or did funding just move countries?
Where else is secret GoF research being conducted? Is there sufficient saftey and oversight?
Bioweapon is also a strawman in this case, he did not say that.
In gain of function research more virulent strains are made to study and find cures against. So we have a better understanding of how these viruses mutate, what makes them tick and how we can disrupt that.
Noone would intentionally set something like that loose.
There are definitely people saying that covid was an engineered bioweapon and the people saying that have a huge overlap with the people saying that it was a lab leak. Conspiracy theorists need a villain with a plan to make sense of the work and that's why the lab leak theory keeps coming up.
I'd more think accidentally if anything. And more obvious is just medical research.