6 ms·

WHO experts who are investigating the origin of the virus visit Wuhan lab

7 points by georgecmu 6y ago

throwawaysea 6y ago
Is this anything but political theater at this point? Site visits should have been allowed immediately when the virus was reported. Instead China suppressed reports, and avoided investigations by third parties until a year later. By now any signs of a potential leak of the virus from this lab could have been erased. The failure to hold China accountable here (for keeping the world in the dark, for not shutting their ports early, for previously denying visits) is remarkable. I think it is a direct result of the politicization of the virus in America, where partisans fixated on Trump kept trying to disassociate the virus from China and tried to prevent any blame from being directed in that direction. Somehow no one seems to mind naming all COVID variants based on their locations however.
- Mountain_Skies 6y ago
  Not to refute any of your theories but an addition factor in the world not holding China accountable might be fear that it would set a precedent for when a different virus causes a future pandemic and is traced back to some other country. What if a virus comes from a US CAFO that does similar or worse damage than COVID19 has? Even if it wasn't from a lab, would the US be held responsible for the industry practices that created the conditions for the virus to come into being? Obviously if China intentionally unleashed the current pandemic on the world for their own purposes, some sort of response will have to be made, but short of that, it's hard to know where to draw the line that doesn't have a probability of burning some other country in the future.
  - davismwfl 6y ago
    I don't think it would be unfair for any Country to allow immediate international experts to come in, see for themselves, and/or help aid the host country if need be to get to the bottom of it, even if it happened in the U.S. I agree that is probably naive to think but being arrogant with something like this just seems so dangerous. Even if it happened accidentally because of poor protocols, at least then it is known and can be addressed. I can see if this happened as like USAMRID the chances of them allowing just anyone in is likely somewhere around 0%, and I doubt they'd be super forthcoming publicly either. That said, my hope is they would react better to containing it immediately versus denying it and spending their time trying to quiet physicians and jail people who spoke out about it.
    - ammo1662 6y ago
      totally agreed, so when will U.S. allow WHO experts to investigate Fort Detrick and those EVALI cases?
- davismwfl 6y ago
  I do love the irony every variant is named based on the location, which people should understand has been a long standing tradition/pattern. Yet if anyone says the wuhan virus or china virus people freak and call you a racist. I had someone just yesterday try to argue with me about this, and I don't call it the china/wuhan virus it is just COVID to me but we both heard someone say it. But they were saying how racist it was to call it the wuhan/china virus but literally in the next sentence discussed the UK and South African variant and how they hope the SA variant stays there (of course probably too late on that one). And yet they couldn't see my point that they were talking out both sides of their mouth. Just kinda made me laugh and shows how people use emotion and depends on what others tell them to think instead of logic and thinking for themselves.
- bediger4000 6y ago
  I thought the attempts to deflect blame from Trump's obvious mishandling of the pandemic by saying "China caused it" were the thing that got deflected. Sure, China should be investigated, but let's not give anyone an excuse. Lab grown, wet market sparked, or something else, the US government totally mishandled the pandemic response. Also, if you call covid the "china virus", you're definitely endangering asian americans. As it stands, there's plenty of stories of asian americans getting harassed because of covid prejudices. But is trying to find a root cause "political theatre"? Serious IT companies try to find a root cause no matter what the boardroom politics are, right?
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    > Also, if you call covid the "china virus", you're definitely endangering asian americans. As it stands, there's plenty of stories of asian americans getting harassed because of covid prejudices. I disagree with this framing. Calling it the China virus is simply being factual, just like naming all the recent variants of COVID for their location is (like “the UK variant”). It would have been an important way to highlight that the ultimate responsibility for this fiasco lies with the Chinese government, who delayed the world’s reaction by 4-6 weeks while they strategized, acquired PPE, and so forth. What China should have done is shutdown all their ports in mid December. Instead they exported the virus to the rest of the world while they knew better. This strategy, whether malicious or not, resulted in other economies being decimated instead of just china’s being impacted. Let’s not forget the virus entered the US through Seattle, a major hub for travelers from China. The only reason to value the proximal issues of how the Trump administration handled their response above the root issues with the Chinese government, is to leverage the pandemic as a useful crisis to undermine Trump. And that is exactly why the political left rejected naming the virus for its location, because it was ultimately a significant part of their 2020 election strategy. > But is trying to find a root cause "political theatre"? Finding the root cause is important. I’m just saying it is theater now a year later, when the Chinese government has had all this time to wipe clean any traces of the virus accidentally leaking from this lab, which was specifically studying bats and coronaviruses. We still don’t know if this was the source of course - but it seems clearly like an important possibility to verify. With permission for a visit being denied until early this month they have removed any legitimacy an actual search for a root cause might have had.
LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
Related, but already gone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26012589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26012589 Anyway https://chinamediaproject.org/2020/01/27/dramatic-actions/ https://chinamediaproject.org/2020/01/27/dramatic-actions/ still there! GOOD!

7 points by georgecmu 6y ago

Is this anything but political theater at this point? Site visits should have been allowed immediately when the virus was reported. Instead China suppressed reports, and avoided investigations by third parties until a year later. By now any signs of a potential leak of the virus from this lab could have been erased. The failure to hold China accountable here (for keeping the world in the dark, for not shutting their ports early, for previously denying visits) is remarkable. I think it is a direct result of the politicization of the virus in America, where partisans fixated on Trump kept trying to disassociate the virus from China and tried to prevent any blame from being directed in that direction. Somehow no one seems to mind naming all COVID variants based on their locations however.

Mountain_Skies 6y ago
Not to refute any of your theories but an addition factor in the world not holding China accountable might be fear that it would set a precedent for when a different virus causes a future pandemic and is traced back to some other country. What if a virus comes from a US CAFO that does similar or worse damage than COVID19 has? Even if it wasn't from a lab, would the US be held responsible for the industry practices that created the conditions for the virus to come into being? Obviously if China intentionally unleashed the current pandemic on the world for their own purposes, some sort of response will have to be made, but short of that, it's hard to know where to draw the line that doesn't have a probability of burning some other country in the future.
- davismwfl 6y ago
  I don't think it would be unfair for any Country to allow immediate international experts to come in, see for themselves, and/or help aid the host country if need be to get to the bottom of it, even if it happened in the U.S. I agree that is probably naive to think but being arrogant with something like this just seems so dangerous. Even if it happened accidentally because of poor protocols, at least then it is known and can be addressed. I can see if this happened as like USAMRID the chances of them allowing just anyone in is likely somewhere around 0%, and I doubt they'd be super forthcoming publicly either. That said, my hope is they would react better to containing it immediately versus denying it and spending their time trying to quiet physicians and jail people who spoke out about it.
  - ammo1662 6y ago
    totally agreed, so when will U.S. allow WHO experts to investigate Fort Detrick and those EVALI cases?
davismwfl 6y ago
I do love the irony every variant is named based on the location, which people should understand has been a long standing tradition/pattern. Yet if anyone says the wuhan virus or china virus people freak and call you a racist. I had someone just yesterday try to argue with me about this, and I don't call it the china/wuhan virus it is just COVID to me but we both heard someone say it. But they were saying how racist it was to call it the wuhan/china virus but literally in the next sentence discussed the UK and South African variant and how they hope the SA variant stays there (of course probably too late on that one). And yet they couldn't see my point that they were talking out both sides of their mouth. Just kinda made me laugh and shows how people use emotion and depends on what others tell them to think instead of logic and thinking for themselves.
bediger4000 6y ago
I thought the attempts to deflect blame from Trump's obvious mishandling of the pandemic by saying "China caused it" were the thing that got deflected. Sure, China should be investigated, but let's not give anyone an excuse. Lab grown, wet market sparked, or something else, the US government totally mishandled the pandemic response. Also, if you call covid the "china virus", you're definitely endangering asian americans. As it stands, there's plenty of stories of asian americans getting harassed because of covid prejudices. But is trying to find a root cause "political theatre"? Serious IT companies try to find a root cause no matter what the boardroom politics are, right?
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  > Also, if you call covid the "china virus", you're definitely endangering asian americans. As it stands, there's plenty of stories of asian americans getting harassed because of covid prejudices. I disagree with this framing. Calling it the China virus is simply being factual, just like naming all the recent variants of COVID for their location is (like “the UK variant”). It would have been an important way to highlight that the ultimate responsibility for this fiasco lies with the Chinese government, who delayed the world’s reaction by 4-6 weeks while they strategized, acquired PPE, and so forth. What China should have done is shutdown all their ports in mid December. Instead they exported the virus to the rest of the world while they knew better. This strategy, whether malicious or not, resulted in other economies being decimated instead of just china’s being impacted. Let’s not forget the virus entered the US through Seattle, a major hub for travelers from China. The only reason to value the proximal issues of how the Trump administration handled their response above the root issues with the Chinese government, is to leverage the pandemic as a useful crisis to undermine Trump. And that is exactly why the political left rejected naming the virus for its location, because it was ultimately a significant part of their 2020 election strategy. > But is trying to find a root cause "political theatre"? Finding the root cause is important. I’m just saying it is theater now a year later, when the Chinese government has had all this time to wipe clean any traces of the virus accidentally leaking from this lab, which was specifically studying bats and coronaviruses. We still don’t know if this was the source of course - but it seems clearly like an important possibility to verify. With permission for a visit being denied until early this month they have removed any legitimacy an actual search for a root cause might have had.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago

Related, but already gone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26012589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26012589 Anyway https://chinamediaproject.org/2020/01/27/dramatic-actions/ https://chinamediaproject.org/2020/01/27/dramatic-actions/ still there! GOOD!