The main difference from SARS is we know there is a virology lab in Wuhan researching coronaviruses right across from the wet market considered the epicenter.
I don’t know enough about the reaction to SARS to know how similar it was, but my understanding was they were similarly draconian internally, and were trying to keep it relatively quiet, but I am not aware of any arrests of doctors early on in SARS outbreaks.
The plausibility of Covid escaping from a lab does not make all viruses plausibly escaped from labs. The reason it’s more plausible for covid are the initial reactions and the proximity of the epicenter to a virology lab studying covid.
I fail to see how it’s xenophobic to consider the lab leak plausible. If anything a natural spread relies on the assumption that the wet market was engaged in unhygienic practices and that someone foreign may have eaten an infected bat.
It is not true that there are never going to be reasonable motivations to deploy a virus:-
It could be viewed as a tool to alter population demographics in an ageing society.
It might be deployed against an adversary.
It might be used to reduce the human population to avoid a predicted ecological disaster.
There are probably dozens of very reasonable motivations.
I think it’s unreasonable to think there was a motivation to intentionally release Covid.
I don’t think there’s reasonable motivation given when and where the outbreak started, how the virus works, China’s response, etc.
I think the particular scenarios you’re painting are also quite extreme/unlikely, so any claim that a virus was released intentionally would require extraordinary evidence in most cases/I’d rarely entertain that hypothesis. There are less drastic and risky ways with less blowback of dealing with all of those issues, even if you assume a very capable bad actor and ignore the normal and expected amount of incompetence and error.
If you are familiar with Wuhan, you’d know you are talking crap. The virology lab is on the East side of the river in the University sector of the city.
The market is on the west side of the river and is in the cbd sector of the city.
We are talking 10km distance apart, with a huge river between. And there are many other wet markets between that would more likely service the community closer to the lab.
That particular wet market takes a lot of shipments straight off boats and from outside the city.
But sure. If by “right across” you meant “on the other side of the CBD, across the largest river in China, and on the opposite side of the largest University campus in China” then I agree.
https://www.breakingasia.com/wp-content/uploads/Wuhan-Virolo...
A virology lab studying the human transmissibility of bat corona viruses ~10km away from the purported epicenter of the outbreak of a bat related coronavirus is notable.
How come no one at the lab? Or the University got it? How come initially it was Hankou (west side) that was locked down and not Wuchang (east side)?
Surely the folks leaking (given the equivalent of the cdc is in the same location) it would have thought of that and locked it down first?
Sorry that facts keep spoiling the juicy narrative.
