4 ms·

> 1. It was definitely zoonotic, and suggestions otherwise are racist conspiracy theories. How is the zoonotic hypothesis (“virus originated in Chinese wet mar

by danhak 5y ago

> 1. It was definitely zoonotic, and suggestions otherwise are racist conspiracy theories. How is the zoonotic hypothesis (“virus originated in Chinese wet market” / “due to Chinese dietary practices”) any less racist?

raphlinus 5y ago
Racism is, I guess, technically orthogonal to one's belief on the lab leak issue, but correlates pretty strongly. I bring it up because it is having an effect, especially in the US - attacks against Asian Americans are way up - and we might be able to do something about it. By contrast, knowing the origins of Covid doesn't, in fact, have a lot of relevance to preparedness against the next pandemic. Both spillover and biosecurity incidents happen regularly enough that we really need to protect against both. If the CCP is lying about lab leak and covering it up, that has political implications but not really public health. It's also, I think, digging deeper into this to explore trustworthiness of news sources. Mainstream sources haven't done a good job, mostly parroting conventional wisdom (as they will do). Social media has been worse, often a source of plain misinformation (in either direction). Real science journalists have done a good job, but people don't pay much attention to them, and in many cases what they write has been distorted and misrepresented (see [1] for a recent and relevant example). [1]: https://twitter.com/amymaxmen/status/1400648773169156097 https://twitter.com/amymaxmen/status/1400648773169156097
rovolo 5y ago
It depends on how you characterize the zoonotic transfer: - "Came from bats": "People in China ate bats" vs "Bats poop on things livestock/humans eat" - "Came from the wetmarket": "Chinese wetmarkets are uniquely disgusting" vs "most wetmarkets are scaled up farmer's markets"

4 ms·

> 1. It was definitely zoonotic, and suggestions otherwise are racist conspiracy theories. How is the zoonotic hypothesis (“virus originated in Chinese wet mar

by danhak 5y ago

raphlinus 5y ago
Racism is, I guess, technically orthogonal to one's belief on the lab leak issue, but correlates pretty strongly. I bring it up because it is having an effect, especially in the US - attacks against Asian Americans are way up - and we might be able to do something about it. By contrast, knowing the origins of Covid doesn't, in fact, have a lot of relevance to preparedness against the next pandemic. Both spillover and biosecurity incidents happen regularly enough that we really need to protect against both. If the CCP is lying about lab leak and covering it up, that has political implications but not really public health. It's also, I think, digging deeper into this to explore trustworthiness of news sources. Mainstream sources haven't done a good job, mostly parroting conventional wisdom (as they will do). Social media has been worse, often a source of plain misinformation (in either direction). Real science journalists have done a good job, but people don't pay much attention to them, and in many cases what they write has been distorted and misrepresented (see [1] for a recent and relevant example). [1]: https://twitter.com/amymaxmen/status/1400648773169156097 https://twitter.com/amymaxmen/status/1400648773169156097
rovolo 5y ago
It depends on how you characterize the zoonotic transfer: - "Came from bats": "People in China ate bats" vs "Bats poop on things livestock/humans eat" - "Came from the wetmarket": "Chinese wetmarkets are uniquely disgusting" vs "most wetmarkets are scaled up farmer's markets"