zlacker

>>delbar+(OP)
Peter Daszak, the president of the EcoHealth Alliance researching the origins of pandemics, pointed out in April that nearly 3% of the population in China's rural farming regions near wild animals already had antibodies to coronaviruses similar to SARS. "We're finding 1 to 7 million people exposed to these viruses every year in Southeast Asia; that's the pathway. It's just so obvious to all of us working in the field..."

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/8417296...

>>Milner+nJ
Yeah, I initially thought having a big bio lab in the city where the pandemic started, in a country with a history of managing security in their bio labs poorly, in a lab known for studying sars like coronaviruses, including gain of function research to better bind to human ace2 receptors was just too many coincidences. You have to admit it's believable. But then when you realize how many people in rural China have been infected with sars like viruses, you start to understand that the whole country is like the ideal breeding ground for a bat virus to adapt to spreading in humans.

>>eloff+4K
The whole lab thing is people getting cause and effect mixed up, the lab is there because novel coronaviruses keep happening in that region, but because all people know is that COVID-19 is new (and none of the history) they immediately jump to that the lab specializing in this type of disease at the epicenter is too big of a coincidence to ignore (rather than it being there exactly because it is a common epicenter).

It is like putting an earthquake lab in the middle of a seismically active area, then blaming the lab when an earthquake occurs.

>>Someon+EK
> It is like putting an earthquake lab in the middle of a seismically active area, then blaming the lab when an earthquake occurs.

This is a really bad analogy, though.

Seismic lab doesn't contain self propagating "seismic seed" that has the danger of being let loose and spread across the world, whilst virology lab _regularly_ handle dangerous pathogen.

The major reason people suspecting lab origin is not simply due to the existence of WIV next door. It is due to how the ccp purge information on WIV[1], have the lab taken over by the military[2], and the sentencing/disappearance of numerous civil journalists (陈秋实 Chen Qiushi, 李泽华 Li Zehua, 张展 Zhang Zhan are the ones that come to mind).

- [1](https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6181529370001)

- [2, Chinese](https://sa.sogou.com/sgsearch/sgs_tc_news.php?req=gNWjMh9kjp...)