5 ms·

What's the point? Regardless if it leaked from the lab or not we have to prepare for the future the same way.

btilly 5y ago
The question is whether the type of research that might have lead to this result should be shut down to prevent similar accidents in the future. If COVID-19 was, in fact, a lab release then that's a strong argument for shutting the research down.
- bko 5y ago
  And maybe liability on the offending party?
  - CamouflagedKiwi 5y ago
    There's no possibility to get that kind of money paid back if a party was found responsible. At this point it must be trillions.
    - noofen 5y ago
      Liable in the hundreds of billions? Too big to fail. Liable in the trillions? Too big to speak about.
  - JohnWhigham 5y ago
    I agree. We should start looking at Anthony Fauci himself, who most likely pushed for this type of research via his influence at the NIAID/NIH [0]. [0] https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...
    - JadeNB 5y ago
      > We should start looking at Anthony Fauci himself, who most likely pushed for this type of research via his influence at the NIAID/NIH [0]. This seems like a reach. There's a big difference in liability between "mismanaged deadly pathogens, caused a pandemic" and "said that someone should study deadly pathogens".
      - fffawe 5y ago
        It isn't a reach - it was funded by the NIAID/NIH: https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_R01AI110964_7529 https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_R01AI110964_7529
      - Izkata 5y ago
        > and "said that someone should study deadly pathogens". In 2014 when the US stopped gain-of-function research for being too risky, Fauci started funding it in Wuhan through EcoHealth. That's a lot more than just "said someone should study deadly pathogens".
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  Even if it was a lab release, it's still a natural virus and could have happened without the lab release. Without previous studies of related viruses, it would have taken multiple years to produce a vaccine.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    > Even if it was a lab release, it's still a natural virus and could have happened without the lab release. This is disputed.
  - saas_sam 5y ago
    >Even if it was a lab release, it's still a natural virus and could have happened without the lab release. That is not the assertion being made by the scientists pushing for the investigation. The assertion is that this is a chimeric virus that very much does NOT show up in nature and its lab-made qualities are precisely why it became a global pandemic. Or would you take it as pure coincidence that the first truly global pandemic in however many decades you'd like just happened to be lab made?
    - mirekrusin 5y ago
      It still doesn't change anything, this type of research is getting too easy/too cheap to say that policy can save us from it. Somewhere someone will be doing it knowing the goal is to invoke genocide like final solution.
    - feanaro 5y ago
      Was the Spanish flu also manufactured? Clearly there is such a thing as natural pandemics.
      - saas_sam 5y ago
        OP: "This virus was natural therefore any investigations into its artificiality are moot." Me: "This virus has unique qualities that made it especially contagious, so its artificiality is not moot." You: "Other viruses in the past were also bad." Me, now: Yes, other viruses in the past were also bad. If you meant that to relate to the previous comments I think you left out the important bits. It's like if we were discussing whether we should investigate if someone caused a deadly landslide. Why would you argue that we shouldn't look into it simply because landslides also happen naturally? If there are empty crates of TNT on the top of the hill, shouldn't we look into it?
- mirekrusin 5y ago
  Adorable and naive, it's becoming too easy to do it, regardless of policies there will be somebody somewhere working on it as a weapon. [0] gives a good perspective. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY
  - dang 5y ago
    Please don't post snarky putdowns to HN, especially not on flamewar topics. Your comment would be fine without that opening swipe. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
AndrewBissell 5y ago
If this virus indeed came from a lab, then: a.) It was covered up, b.) The people responsible hid crucial information which could have helped contain the spread in the early days and find treatments, c.) The people assuring us that lab creation was an impossible "conspiracy theory" at the very least have egg on their face, and at worst have no credibility or were engaged in a campaign of mis/disinformation. And that's without getting into questions of whether the "leak" story is being used to cover for "intentional release."
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  Ok, those are 3 very different points, so: > It was covered up This is not actionable. > The people responsible hid crucial information which could have helped contain the spread in the early days and find treatments You imply in punishing those people? In the case it was a leak, the people interested in punishing them don't have that power, the people with that power were the same suppressing the information, so no, that won't happen. > The people assuring us that lab creation was an impossible "conspiracy theory" at the very least have egg on their face, and at worst have no credibility or were engaged in a campaign of mis/disinformation You should already remove any credibility from anybody claiming it was impossible, as well as from anybody claiming any other kind of certainty. What actually happened won't change that. What we should do is take a good new look at the containment procedures of those labs, reevaluate them, verify if they are followed and fix what is not. We should also press uncooperative countries, like China, to open those up for inspection. Again, whether this one virus came from a lab leak or not is not relevant, we know that best practices are still leaky, and we have seen how problematic a leak would be. All this politics game of "did | did not" is very counterproductive.
  - AndrewBissell 5y ago
    > What we should do is take a good new look at the containment procedures of those labs, reevaluate them, verify if they are followed and fix what is not. Who should do that, exactly? The same people you seem to think we should not to attempt to investigate or hold accountable in any way? > We should also press uncooperative countries, like China, to open those up for inspection. If China was demanding to have a bunch of their inspectors let into Fort Detrick to poke around, we wouldn't be any more welcoming than they have been. It's silly to allow imperial powers to engage in bioweapons research and then expect them to show each other all their cards.
tomjen3 5y ago
If it leaked from a lap we need to hold China responsible and ensure that no scientists ever do similar research, under pain of life in any country on earth. Whomever leaked this murdered over 1/2 the holocaust, and the total death count is only going to keep going up. The leak is a crime against humanity and should be prosecuted as one.
- dang 5y ago
  Please stop posting flamewar comments. You've done it repeatedly in this thread already—that's seriously not cool. If you're posting inflamed, denunciatory rhetoric about a divisive topic, you're not using HN as intended. "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
jjtheblunt 5y ago
I've asked myself the same, and can only think of two reasons why they focus on if it came from a lab. (1) people like dramatic scandalous stories, in general. (2) knowing such might drive some prevention of whatever mistake lead to such from recurring.
- lovemenot 5y ago
  It is certain that some series of events led to the pandemic. There exists a class of people who, without necessarily being driven by other motivations, generally try to find out what is really going on. We call such people scientists. No need to focus on motivation. Curiosity should be enough.
  - jjtheblunt 5y ago
    well said: i'm one of the class you mentioned!
johncena33 5y ago
I see this argument pop up quite frequently on HN with good amount of upvotes. I am guessing this type of arguments are motivated by and upvoted because of poltical and ideological ulterior motives. I think there's also something more insidious at play. In western countries lot of people have become rich by exporting manufacturing to China. If somehow it is found that COVID was a lab-leak, there'd be a huge amount of backlash against China. It will harm the business, who are doing their manufacturing in China. There's a lot of money involved if lab-leak hypothesis turned out true.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
loudmax 5y ago
I tend to sympathize with this attitude, and while it is absolutely true that the world needs to be better prepared for pandemics regardless of origin, I don't think it's correct that the origin of the disease doesn't matter. Just from a scientific perspective, we should know where covid-19 came from. If it hopped from bats to people in a wet market, that tells us something about the likelihood of this type of virus spreading from contact with wild animals. If it was accidentally released from a lab, that tells us something different. In a healthy geopolitical environment, an impartial investigative team that's able to pinpoint the source of the original transmission could make this information public so that everyone can learn how to avoid this happening again. If the pandemic happened because policy enforcement at the virus lab in Wuhan was weak, this is worth knowing. Not to to lay blame and point fingers, but to help labs worldwide identify potential weak points in their own procedures. The danger is that if evidence points to an accidental lab release, some Western politicians will seize on the opportunity to shame China just for the sake of national chauvinism. This will accomplish nothing positive. The Chinese Communist Party is very thin skinned and essentially amoral so they'll have no compunctions about covering up any evidence of a lab leak in order to save face. All of this political stuff risks getting in the way of helping the scientific community understand where covid-19 came from so we'll have a better understanding of how to reduce the chances of this happening again.
- chasd00 5y ago
  Thin skinned or not if it was a lab leak they’re liable for millions of deaths and trillions in economic devastation world wide. I would say that reason enough to get to the bottom of the origin question.
fullshark 5y ago
I see a lot of these appeals for ignorance in these conversations. There's so many obvious reasons why we'd want to learn to truth, such as learning how to prevent it from happening again and to determine if gain of function research is too risky. The only reason I see why we should want to remain ignorant is it will possibly embarrass China.
dxuh 5y ago
If the lab leak is real, then we should absolutely use this as a reason to stop Gain of Function research or at least establish institutions that ensure the safety of such research, preferably across international borders. The point being that you want to avoid something like this ever happening again.

The question is whether the type of research that might have lead to this result should be shut down to prevent similar accidents in the future. If COVID-19 was, in fact, a lab release then that's a strong argument for shutting the research down.

bko 5y ago
And maybe liability on the offending party?
- CamouflagedKiwi 5y ago
  There's no possibility to get that kind of money paid back if a party was found responsible. At this point it must be trillions.
  - noofen 5y ago
    Liable in the hundreds of billions? Too big to fail. Liable in the trillions? Too big to speak about.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  I agree. We should start looking at Anthony Fauci himself, who most likely pushed for this type of research via his influence at the NIAID/NIH [0]. [0] https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...
  - JadeNB 5y ago
    > We should start looking at Anthony Fauci himself, who most likely pushed for this type of research via his influence at the NIAID/NIH [0]. This seems like a reach. There's a big difference in liability between "mismanaged deadly pathogens, caused a pandemic" and "said that someone should study deadly pathogens".
    - fffawe 5y ago
      It isn't a reach - it was funded by the NIAID/NIH: https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_R01AI110964_7529 https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_R01AI110964_7529
    - Izkata 5y ago
      > and "said that someone should study deadly pathogens". In 2014 when the US stopped gain-of-function research for being too risky, Fauci started funding it in Wuhan through EcoHealth. That's a lot more than just "said someone should study deadly pathogens".
bryanlarsen 5y ago
Even if it was a lab release, it's still a natural virus and could have happened without the lab release. Without previous studies of related viruses, it would have taken multiple years to produce a vaccine.
- dataflow 5y ago
  > Even if it was a lab release, it's still a natural virus and could have happened without the lab release. This is disputed.
- saas_sam 5y ago
  >Even if it was a lab release, it's still a natural virus and could have happened without the lab release. That is not the assertion being made by the scientists pushing for the investigation. The assertion is that this is a chimeric virus that very much does NOT show up in nature and its lab-made qualities are precisely why it became a global pandemic. Or would you take it as pure coincidence that the first truly global pandemic in however many decades you'd like just happened to be lab made?
  - mirekrusin 5y ago
    It still doesn't change anything, this type of research is getting too easy/too cheap to say that policy can save us from it. Somewhere someone will be doing it knowing the goal is to invoke genocide like final solution.
  - feanaro 5y ago
    Was the Spanish flu also manufactured? Clearly there is such a thing as natural pandemics.
    - saas_sam 5y ago
      OP: "This virus was natural therefore any investigations into its artificiality are moot." Me: "This virus has unique qualities that made it especially contagious, so its artificiality is not moot." You: "Other viruses in the past were also bad." Me, now: Yes, other viruses in the past were also bad. If you meant that to relate to the previous comments I think you left out the important bits. It's like if we were discussing whether we should investigate if someone caused a deadly landslide. Why would you argue that we shouldn't look into it simply because landslides also happen naturally? If there are empty crates of TNT on the top of the hill, shouldn't we look into it?
mirekrusin 5y ago
Adorable and naive, it's becoming too easy to do it, regardless of policies there will be somebody somewhere working on it as a weapon. [0] gives a good perspective. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't post snarky putdowns to HN, especially not on flamewar topics. Your comment would be fine without that opening swipe. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

AndrewBissell 5y ago

If this virus indeed came from a lab, then: a.) It was covered up, b.) The people responsible hid crucial information which could have helped contain the spread in the early days and find treatments, c.) The people assuring us that lab creation was an impossible "conspiracy theory" at the very least have egg on their face, and at worst have no credibility or were engaged in a campaign of mis/disinformation. And that's without getting into questions of whether the "leak" story is being used to cover for "intentional release."

marcosdumay 5y ago
Ok, those are 3 very different points, so: > It was covered up This is not actionable. > The people responsible hid crucial information which could have helped contain the spread in the early days and find treatments You imply in punishing those people? In the case it was a leak, the people interested in punishing them don't have that power, the people with that power were the same suppressing the information, so no, that won't happen. > The people assuring us that lab creation was an impossible "conspiracy theory" at the very least have egg on their face, and at worst have no credibility or were engaged in a campaign of mis/disinformation You should already remove any credibility from anybody claiming it was impossible, as well as from anybody claiming any other kind of certainty. What actually happened won't change that. What we should do is take a good new look at the containment procedures of those labs, reevaluate them, verify if they are followed and fix what is not. We should also press uncooperative countries, like China, to open those up for inspection. Again, whether this one virus came from a lab leak or not is not relevant, we know that best practices are still leaky, and we have seen how problematic a leak would be. All this politics game of "did | did not" is very counterproductive.
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  > What we should do is take a good new look at the containment procedures of those labs, reevaluate them, verify if they are followed and fix what is not. Who should do that, exactly? The same people you seem to think we should not to attempt to investigate or hold accountable in any way? > We should also press uncooperative countries, like China, to open those up for inspection. If China was demanding to have a bunch of their inspectors let into Fort Detrick to poke around, we wouldn't be any more welcoming than they have been. It's silly to allow imperial powers to engage in bioweapons research and then expect them to show each other all their cards.

tomjen3 5y ago

If it leaked from a lap we need to hold China responsible and ensure that no scientists ever do similar research, under pain of life in any country on earth. Whomever leaked this murdered over 1/2 the holocaust, and the total death count is only going to keep going up. The leak is a crime against humanity and should be prosecuted as one.

dang 5y ago
Please stop posting flamewar comments. You've done it repeatedly in this thread already—that's seriously not cool. If you're posting inflamed, denunciatory rhetoric about a divisive topic, you're not using HN as intended. "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

jjtheblunt 5y ago

I've asked myself the same, and can only think of two reasons why they focus on if it came from a lab. (1) people like dramatic scandalous stories, in general. (2) knowing such might drive some prevention of whatever mistake lead to such from recurring.

lovemenot 5y ago
It is certain that some series of events led to the pandemic. There exists a class of people who, without necessarily being driven by other motivations, generally try to find out what is really going on. We call such people scientists. No need to focus on motivation. Curiosity should be enough.
- jjtheblunt 5y ago
  well said: i'm one of the class you mentioned!

johncena33 5y ago

I see this argument pop up quite frequently on HN with good amount of upvotes. I am guessing this type of arguments are motivated by and upvoted because of poltical and ideological ulterior motives. I think there's also something more insidious at play. In western countries lot of people have become rich by exporting manufacturing to China. If somehow it is found that COVID was a lab-leak, there'd be a huge amount of backlash against China. It will harm the business, who are doing their manufacturing in China. There's a lot of money involved if lab-leak hypothesis turned out true.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

loudmax 5y ago

I tend to sympathize with this attitude, and while it is absolutely true that the world needs to be better prepared for pandemics regardless of origin, I don't think it's correct that the origin of the disease doesn't matter. Just from a scientific perspective, we should know where covid-19 came from. If it hopped from bats to people in a wet market, that tells us something about the likelihood of this type of virus spreading from contact with wild animals. If it was accidentally released from a lab, that tells us something different. In a healthy geopolitical environment, an impartial investigative team that's able to pinpoint the source of the original transmission could make this information public so that everyone can learn how to avoid this happening again. If the pandemic happened because policy enforcement at the virus lab in Wuhan was weak, this is worth knowing. Not to to lay blame and point fingers, but to help labs worldwide identify potential weak points in their own procedures. The danger is that if evidence points to an accidental lab release, some Western politicians will seize on the opportunity to shame China just for the sake of national chauvinism. This will accomplish nothing positive. The Chinese Communist Party is very thin skinned and essentially amoral so they'll have no compunctions about covering up any evidence of a lab leak in order to save face. All of this political stuff risks getting in the way of helping the scientific community understand where covid-19 came from so we'll have a better understanding of how to reduce the chances of this happening again.

chasd00 5y ago
Thin skinned or not if it was a lab leak they’re liable for millions of deaths and trillions in economic devastation world wide. I would say that reason enough to get to the bottom of the origin question.

fullshark 5y ago

I see a lot of these appeals for ignorance in these conversations. There's so many obvious reasons why we'd want to learn to truth, such as learning how to prevent it from happening again and to determine if gain of function research is too risky. The only reason I see why we should want to remain ignorant is it will possibly embarrass China.

dxuh 5y ago

If the lab leak is real, then we should absolutely use this as a reason to stop Gain of Function research or at least establish institutions that ensure the safety of such research, preferably across international borders. The point being that you want to avoid something like this ever happening again.