zlacker

For anyone who wants to set their Bayesian priors to estimate the probability of a lab leak I recommend this list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...

For example, the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1) escaped from the lab twice, both in 2003 and 2004.

>>0-_-0+(OP)
And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology is one of only two BSL–4 labs in China.

>>0-_-0+(OP)
Lab 257 is an amazing book about germ research labs. It fascinated me both with how hard it is to contain diseases under ideal conditions (lab 257 was on an island miles from anything inhabited) and how poor of a job people who should have known better, the actual virologists and people with MDs, did at containing diseases they were researching.

https://www.amazon.com/Lab-257-Disturbing-Governments-Labora...

Warning: this book is non-fiction and is scary.

>>AdamJa+mm1
> Warning: this book is non-fiction and is scary.

It may be scary, but it's not non-fiction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_257#Discredited_consp...

> A discredited 2004 book entitled Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory fueled the conspiracy theories. Archived specimens show that Lyme disease was endemic well before the establishment of Plum Island laboratory. Additionally, Lyme disease was never a topic of research at Plum Island, according to the US Department of Homeland Security and Department of Agriculture.

>>0-_-0+(OP)
Also important to remember that the WIV had ongoing research in bat coronaviruses. Now that isn't unusual after SARS, but it does slightly make the theory more plausible.

>>0-_-0+(OP)
Also, the Obama administration banned gain of function research broadly due to "biosafety incidents" at federal research labs in the US. The announcement explicitly called out research on SARS: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/10/17/doing-d...

>>offby3+4h1
> BSL-4 level lab put into operation in January 2018

And only 2 years later we have an outbreak

>>0-_-0+(OP)
further priors-updating: SARS escaped from the lab 4 times - Once each in Singapore and Taiwan, and yes twice in Beijing:

https://twitter.com/mattwridley/status/1351198664950128641?s...

https://gillesdemaneuf.medium.com/the-good-the-bad-and-the-u...

>>AdamJa+mm1
That book is a work of fiction. The summary on Amazon itself is incredibly laughable (Plum island is not "unmarked on most maps").