zlacker

In general labs are not both a) bad at safety, and also b) doing gain of function research to make dangerous viruses more infectious to humans. The latter has been banned a few times due to the risk (see below). Both A and B were happening in Wuhan.

"In 2014, after a series of accidents involving mishandled pathogens at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the NIH announced that it would stop funding gain-of-function research into certain viruses — including influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) — that have the potential to unleash a pandemic or epidemic if they escaped from the lab. Some researchers said the broad ban threatened necessary flu-surveillance and vaccine research."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00210-5

p.s. The US NIH did ultimately stop funding that research locally, but continued funding it in Wuhan. Including the exact type of virus we're dealing with now.

>>esja+(OP)
You don't even have to be bad at safety, just less than completely perfect.

There is also the matter of biosafety levels. Something like smallpox is studied at biosafety level 4, which is very intrusive and difficult. The alleged gain of function research would have been BSL 3 or even 2, meaning a lot fewer precautions are taken, and a leak is correspondingly more likely.

>>samatm+1p
I agree. In this context “bad at safety” basically means less than perfect.