So again, I ask - even if it's true, so what? It's impossible to conclusively prove, and even if proven what exactly is proven? That an accident occurred? OK, so what?
The article attempts to answer this:
> The vitriol also obscures a broader imperative, Relman says, which is that uncovering the virus’s origins is crucial to stopping the next pandemic. Threats from both lab accidents and natural spillovers are growing simultaneously as humans move steadily into wild places and new biosafety labs grow in number around the world. “This is why the origins question is so important,” Relman says.
However the reality is from the perspective of the USA it doesn't even matter. Even if China was malicious and deliberately sent it off to us, it could've been easily stopped but we didn't do it. Unless we're going to go to war over this it seems like a pointless exercise as conclusive evidence will never emerge as it requires cooperation from China.
We're worrying about whether it was created from labs in China, meanwhile we couldn't even prevent a massive superspreader event in Boston via the Biogen conference, filled with people who already has an awareness of the virus to begin with.
Even now as I type this cases of the variant are increasing and the amount of people taking the vaccine is decreasing and silly accidents like the J&J fiasco are occurring. Not to say that we can't explore both things simultaneously, but it's pretty obvious that the return on investment will differ - one will do... what exactly? And another will prevent more cases.
Aside from that, though, we can consider international treaties against gain of function research? International inspections? Have a debate on whether this type of research is allowed? Create improved international procedure standards for Biolab safety?
I mean, it has killed more people than American killed in WW2. Maybe a root cause analysis and better procedures are justified?
edit: corrected stat
Total deaths in WW2 estimated at approx 70 million. [1]
Johns Hopkins estimates COVID-19 deaths are approaching 3 million. [2]
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/03/9628119...