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Developing effective preventive solutions require that you understand the problem. If the problem is a lab leak, then policies that address insufficient lab saf

Developing effective preventive solutions require that you understand the problem. If the problem is a lab leak, then policies that address insufficient lab safety standards are warranted. Frankly, the Chinese government should feel ashamed and discredited if it was a lab leak under its responsibility. Any US involvement in the lab leak should be investigated and uncovered as well. China would have no qualms pointing fingers at the US if the roles were reversed, and they'd be right to do so. Being sensitive to shame has never been a reasonable excuse for covering up the truth. Coddling China is not only unjust, it damages our ability to prevent this from happening again.

henearkr 5y ago
This is also one thing that I dispute: knowing the origin will not make the world better, because a lab leak is theoretically impossible anyway, given the lab safety standards. So I doubt that knowing the leak would change the outcome in the future or prevent the mistakes. It is also highly plausible that China has already taken steps, internally. Like, the Wuhan lab is closed now. So, in the light of this fact, too, calling out China will not make them do more than they already did to address the issue. If the problem is the lack of enforcement of security (maybe because of deeper lingering problems, like the fact that local authorities are too much autonomous, behave like little tyrants themselves, etc), then adding even more security policy will not do anything. If the answer is to change the whole way China is administered, this will just not happen (unfortunately).
- themacguffinman 5y ago
  > because a lab leak is theoretically impossible anyway, given the lab safety standards It's obviously not impossible because we're seeing evidence that it is possibly a lab leak, that's the whole point of the Vanity Fair article. This reasoning works backwards from a theory where a lab leak is "theoretically impossible" but obviously if a fair and impartial investigation revealed that it was a lab leak, then logically that theory is wrong. If theories about lab safety are wrong, that's very important information. > It is also highly plausible that China has already taken steps, internally. Like, the Wuhan lab is closed now. That doesn't help other labs overseas. Other countries also perform bio-research in labs and any safety discoveries can prevent similarly bad outcomes internationally as well. If a fair and impartial investigation reveals that foreign labs are susceptible to the same lab leak that caused this pandemic, that's really valuable and essential information in preventing the next pandemic. Whether or not the origin is a direct consequence of Chinese government carelessness or whether it's an accident that could happen to other labs or whether it's not a lab leak at all, we need to know the truth. > If the answer is to change the whole way China is administered, this will just not happen (unfortunately). Not with that attitude. If your only response to bullies and bad actors is absolutely nothing, of course they won't change, they have no reason to change. The international community should impose punishments for China's bad behavior and non-cooperation.
  - henearkr 5y ago
    You would be correct if there was something that could be done internationally, but nobody was able to do anything for the repression of Hong-Kong protests (and in this case it was a very voluntary thing, not a lab mistake). China has bazillions of elite scientists (heck, they even consider that Harvard is low-ball compared to the entrance level of their top-notch national universities), so if anything, I would advocate to get them to cooperate in the global fight against the virus (medications, vaccines, mechanisms of illness, variants, etc).

henearkr 5y ago

This is also one thing that I dispute: knowing the origin will not make the world better, because a lab leak is theoretically impossible anyway, given the lab safety standards. So I doubt that knowing the leak would change the outcome in the future or prevent the mistakes. It is also highly plausible that China has already taken steps, internally. Like, the Wuhan lab is closed now. So, in the light of this fact, too, calling out China will not make them do more than they already did to address the issue. If the problem is the lack of enforcement of security (maybe because of deeper lingering problems, like the fact that local authorities are too much autonomous, behave like little tyrants themselves, etc), then adding even more security policy will not do anything. If the answer is to change the whole way China is administered, this will just not happen (unfortunately).

themacguffinman 5y ago
> because a lab leak is theoretically impossible anyway, given the lab safety standards It's obviously not impossible because we're seeing evidence that it is possibly a lab leak, that's the whole point of the Vanity Fair article. This reasoning works backwards from a theory where a lab leak is "theoretically impossible" but obviously if a fair and impartial investigation revealed that it was a lab leak, then logically that theory is wrong. If theories about lab safety are wrong, that's very important information. > It is also highly plausible that China has already taken steps, internally. Like, the Wuhan lab is closed now. That doesn't help other labs overseas. Other countries also perform bio-research in labs and any safety discoveries can prevent similarly bad outcomes internationally as well. If a fair and impartial investigation reveals that foreign labs are susceptible to the same lab leak that caused this pandemic, that's really valuable and essential information in preventing the next pandemic. Whether or not the origin is a direct consequence of Chinese government carelessness or whether it's an accident that could happen to other labs or whether it's not a lab leak at all, we need to know the truth. > If the answer is to change the whole way China is administered, this will just not happen (unfortunately). Not with that attitude. If your only response to bullies and bad actors is absolutely nothing, of course they won't change, they have no reason to change. The international community should impose punishments for China's bad behavior and non-cooperation.
- henearkr 5y ago
  You would be correct if there was something that could be done internationally, but nobody was able to do anything for the repression of Hong-Kong protests (and in this case it was a very voluntary thing, not a lab mistake). China has bazillions of elite scientists (heck, they even consider that Harvard is low-ball compared to the entrance level of their top-notch national universities), so if anything, I would advocate to get them to cooperate in the global fight against the virus (medications, vaccines, mechanisms of illness, variants, etc).