zlacker

>>alwill+(OP)
Working closely to the issue on a couple of fronts, I think debate about the disease origin is a distraction from the real debate everyone has a stake in, which has been the policy response and the legitimacy of lockdowns, vax passports, mandates for health status disclosure, and discrimination based on health information.

Who cares if it came from a lab, there are zero consequences to anyone whether it did or not, and it's the least impactful detail of what has happened. "Allowing," debate on the disease origin is a cynical switcheroo.

>>motoha+5l1
The origin matters for two major reasons:

1) So we can learn and mitigate the risks of something similar happening again.

and

2) In the event that the virus was leaked from a laboratory, the world would like to send the lab a small invoice for costs incurred and damages.

>>ISL+wl1
So literally, nothing different. Labs are all hypersensitive about their processes right now, so they're doing 1) already, and the recipient of that invoice is the US NIH, or the CCP, neither of whom have either the willingness or ability to pay.

It's window dressing, and I'm becoming even more suspicious that the disease origin is just another managed narrative, as everybody who believes it came from a lab believed it last year, and nobody who rejected the lab leak view last year is going to have their mind changed to where they accept institutions they believe in are culpable.

It's an issue designed to politically neutralize people, so that we will be just like people arguing about jet fuel burning temperatures on the internet instead of confronting our governments about surveillance and state overreach and the patriot act. The whole so-called "debate" is a honeypot tarpit for useful idiots.

>>motoha+Jm1
I think the reasonable question in the lab breakout case is "was the risk assessment used to determine the Biohazard Safety Level the work in the lab was carried out under sufficient, and do we need to change processes to reduce the risk of such a breakout in future (e.g., by increasing the BSL needed for such work)".

That, to me, is the interesting part of the lab breakout case. Are we regularly underestimating the risk of novel viruses in research laboratories?