zlacker

>>ruarai+(OP)
A lot of the discussion I see on this hinges on possibility and not strongly believing the claim is false. Sure, this theory is "possible" in some sense but I rarely see anyone presenting concrete evidence for it and I don't think I've seen anyone who supports it suggest a piece of evidence that would change their mind on it.

If most of the discussion on an idea is about how people dismiss it or how any evidence is being covered up the idea might not be that strong.

>>alephr+pL1
I believe it's quite possible (p ~ 0.5) that the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic originated from a lab accident. If the proximal animal host were identified--as it was for both MERS and the original SARS within about a year--then I'd drop that probability by at least a factor of ten. For references see

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26127197

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26129052

>>triple+Se2
well that's a start, kudos for the probability and evidence that would shift it.

Like most people I haven't looked into any of this much before the last year so I'm far from knowledgeable here but:

.5 is a surprising number without any additional explanation because it suggests you think this is about as likely as a zoonotic origin (or at least not specifically the result of an accident). Does that probably extend to other viral outbreaks or is it specific to something? My baseline probability would be significantly lower (although non zero because I'm not denying the possibility; the article makes the case that lab safety is a concern worldwide) based on my, admittedly limited, understanding of past outbreaks. Is it the case that you think about as many viral outbreaks were due to lab accidents as not? or maybe this is more specific to coronaviruses or this specific virus? I'm curious how you'd model this, even if informal.