zlacker

>>ruarai+(OP)
This has honestly been my unbiased opinion since essentially day 1. I believe that the release was almost certainly a complete accident, but there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus. The denialists, including the WHO and CDC and everyone else, need to get real and own up to what happened and figure out how to stop it from happening again. This has nothing to do with the PRC or anyone or anywhere else, it could have happened at any biological facility in the world and will eventually happen again somewhere unless scientific honesty and cooler heads prevail.

>>crx07+ML
> there's just no realistic chance a novel virus coincidentally originates in the same isolated place as a lab that specializes in that exact same type of virus.

I think that it is at least somewhat likely that it was the result of the lab's activities, but your assertion here has a huge dose of selection bias.

If the virology labs studying coronaviruses were placed randomly around the world, you'd be correct - but they're not. They're placed near locations where novel coronaviruses have crossed the species barrier in the past, and where they are likely to do so in the future.

It would be equivalent to say that lighthouses cause ships to run aground, because many teams when ships run aground it's near a lighthouse.

>>Ancapi+231
China is a big country. Wuhan is 900km away from the bat caves that are believed to be the breeding ground for these viruses.

>>gregwe+5L1
...but Wuhan is also 0km away from the wet markets that sell meat sourced x00km away near and around the bat caves.

>>koheri+TO1
I have seen estimates of thousands of wet markets in China and perhaps 10000 in all of Asia. Why the one wet market closest to a lab doing GOF research, and previously questioned on its containment rigor.