zlacker

If the virus was a product of gain of function research, the primary purpose of which is to reduce the risk of pandemics, then the research becomes much more difficult to justify. The argument I guess becomes then, yeah, periodically we’ll cause a pandemic, and millions of people will die, but we’ll be so much better at dealing with diseases that arise naturally, as SARS and MERS did, that on balance it will be worth the extra pandemics...

Whatever you think about this, it seems unbelievably foolish to locate these labs in the middle of metropolises.

>>ckw+(OP)
OK, so what. What can we do to make China stop doing this research if they want to? Are we going to go to war over this? No. Are we going to have an embargo with China? No?

So effectively this becomes a situation of "oh yeah they should've not had that accident, oh well." In the USA we've had the same problem ourselves (lab accidents with pathogens), and we banned gain of function research and ended up removing the ban a few years later.

The entire exercise is meaningless. Note - I'm not even saying we shouldn't research the origins of COVID, what I'm saying is, the result doesn't really matter.

>>endisn+Z91
Why does it have to be a "we" vs "China" discussion at all? Why don't we think non-politically about it for a minute and recognize that as a global species we have a chance to learn as much as we can from a pandemic that affected us globally so that we can try to do better when the next one inevitably comes along?

And yeah, maybe China doesn't wanna think that way, but let's find out first, and second find out why.

On the other hand there are some great ways to think about this politically. If by "we" you mean the U.S. we don't really have a leg to stand on as far as respect from the international community right now anyway, so any fight we bring to China is basically one on one.

Other countries besides the U.S. would be able to wring significant concessions from China if they chose to a) believe collectively that it was China's malfeasance that caused the pandemic, and b) stood together to demand a response.

>>troyvi+wh1
There’s nothing to learn though:

It’s either from wild animals, it was an accident, or it was spread with malice. In all scenarios we already have procedures around gain of function research, limiting interaction with animals in markets and biological weapons, respectively.

If the prevailing theory was that it came from an asteroid that would be interesting.

I personally doubt China would pay anything even if it was a lab accident. I guess we’ll see.

>>endisn+Z91
We conduct this sort of research, and in fact the NIH funded gain of function research taking place at WIV. So first we could reinstate the moratorium that was lifted in 2017, and we can stop funding it elsewhere. If the ultimate conclusion is that this research is too dangerous, we can create something analogous to the Biological Weapons Convention, to which China has acceded. I see no reason China wouldn't sign and abide by such a treaty.

>>ckw+(OP)
> Whatever you think about this, it seems unbelievably foolish to locate these labs in the middle of metropolises.

Is there a viable other option?

Don't these facilities require large numbers of extremely highly educated staff?

>>boring+TA1
Rocky Mountain Labs is located in Hamilton, Montana, population 5080.

https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/rocky-mountain-overview

>>ckw+DK1
Touché, didn't know that. I've actually been to Bitter Root Brewing, just a block or two away, but somehow completely missed it. Oh well, I guess they probably don't give tours anyway.