zlacker

>>ruarai+(OP)
Like, so what?

Should we care a lot about the safety and security of places where dangerous infectious diseases are studied? sure!

I think we should care A LOT MORE about our [apparent total lack of] ability to quickly deploy effective public health responses to new infectious diseases (regardless of their source).

Maybe it was an accident at a sloppy lab, ok, so labs on the other side of the planet in sovereign countries we do not control might make mistakes. We should get better at responding fast to save lives.

Maybe it was a sinister bio-terrorism plot. We should get better at responding fast to save lives. Bio-terror/warfare plan looks a whole lot like a good public health plan IMO.

Maybe gasp it really was from bats or something. We should get better at responding fast to save lives. This stuff DOES happen.

Maybe s/.*/I don't care where it came from/g. We should get better at responding fast and saving lives (my opinion).

>>hospad+aK1
Worrying about where it came from is misdirection to distract us from the real issue that you pointed out: That nearly all countries totally failed to effectively deal with it and contain the spread, resulting in a body count that should be totally unacceptable. We got extraordinarily lucky that it wasn't super deadly. Imagine if the next COVID is 20X deadlier and hits uniformly across age ranges. We're doomed if we take the approach we took this time around.

>>ryandr+WM1
Yes and no. The response would have been far greater if the virus was more deadly. This virus was not that deadly (relatively), so ended up getting half measures.