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I fear the opportunity to truly get to the bottom of it has passed. Judging by the actions of the Chinese government in stomping all over foreign investigations

I fear the opportunity to truly get to the bottom of it has passed. Judging by the actions of the Chinese government in stomping all over foreign investigations inside China, if it was a lab leak the evidence has long since been destroyed. In the Western world the lab leak hypothesis is largely a distraction, because it's easier to focus on blame than it is to put the work into controlling the pandemic.

listless 5y ago
For those of us who have lost loved ones. Who have lost their business. Who weren’t allowed to see their dying father in the ICU because of COVID restrictions. For the 3M “lost children” who never logged on once for school last year. For the future generations who will have to reckon with the economic disaster we may be kicking down the road. For all of those people and more, we deserve to know the truth. That’s the very least we are owed.
- krsrhe 5y ago
  Why? Will the truth mitigate the prevent or prevent a future one? What matters is the possibility of a leak, not if one happened. The origin leak is nothing compared to the repeated failures hat happened after and are still happening.
  - ctrlp 5y ago
    The leak is one thing, if true. The cover-up (if there was a leak) during a critical window of possible containment is another thing. But we will likely never get the truth.
  - listless 5y ago
    The truth matters a great deal to anyone who has suffered and lost. It’s not unique to the pandemic. The parent who has lost a child. The spouse who has been cheated on. The employee who has been unjustly fired. They want the truth. The not knowing makes it almost unbearable.
- patentatt 5y ago
  But the comment you’re responding to said it’s unknowable, not that it shouldn’t be known. It’s not an argument of merit but of practicality. I’d also add that it’s irrelevant. Let’s hypothesize that we find out tomorrow irrefutable evidence for this theory. What does it change? Are we going to start WWIII over it? I’d hope not. Maybe ‘the powers that be’ came to the same conclusion early on and tried to stem the public outcry, and maybe that’s ok. If you say that the value of finding out it was a lab leak would lead to stricter controls or dissuade similar research, I’d say that that has already happened. So I agree with OP in that it’s a distraction at this point and we should put all effort and mental energy into dealing with the pandemic rather than finding someone to blame.
  - kongin 5y ago
    > I’d also add that it’s irrelevant. Let’s hypothesize that we find out tomorrow irrefutable evidence for this theory. What does it change? Demanding reparations from China for their WMD program going out of control would be a good start. Then criminal cases against everyone involved in the West who approved something so boneheadedly evil and pointless.
    - nso 5y ago
      Research on viruses happens a lot of places, it doesn't mean it's being weaponized.
    - shlant 5y ago
      do you think that live virus research including gain-of-function serves no purpose whatsoever other than for WMD's? It's just "evil and pointless"?
    - GuB-42 5y ago
      That's a good way to start WWIII. WWII started like that. To make things simple, countries who lost WWI were destabilized and reparations were a big reason. It promoted the raise of nationalist, revengeful leaders like Hitler and Mussolini. You know the rest. They carefully avoided making the same mistake after WWII.
- notacoward 5y ago
  Yellow card: appeal to emotion. GP was clearly talking about practicality and practical effects of obsessing over lab-leak theories, not the moral or general desirability of knowing the truth. We can work toward better lab safety and oversight of dangerous research and responses to outbreaks without fueling nationalist/racist paranoia. In fact people are also doing so, while others use lab leaks as a pretext for driving division they sought anyway.
sydthrowaway 5y ago
Is the pandemic not controlled? There are no restrictions in the UK. The stadiums are full and tens of thousands went mad over a football player just this last weekend.
- krsrhe 5y ago
  Some US states are currently experiencing their highest death rates to date.
- Causality1 5y ago
  156 people died of covid in the UK yesterday. Per capita that's more than in the USA.
  - C19is20 5y ago
    I heard Ronaldo played a blinder.
  - aaronmdjones 5y ago
    > 156 people died of covid in the UK yesterday. This may be highly inflated. As far as I understand it, and implied by e.g. [1], UK COVID daily death cases are "if you had a positive result in the last 28 days and you die". So it includes, for example, heart attacks, strokes, and being run over by a bus. [1] https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths
    - Causality1 5y ago
      Even going by the "covid on death certificate" number, it's 109 a day. Adjusted for population it's almost as bad as the science-denying shitshow that is half the US right now. Compare that to countries who actually have it under control like Australia and Taiwan, who had eight and zero deaths yesterday.
      - ctrlp 5y ago
        Hard to catch Covid when you can't leave your house without a visit from the goon squad.
kongin 5y ago
Ask yourself a simple question: if something fell from the sky and exploded in Orlando Florida killing hundreds of thousands and irradiating the area which would be more likely? That an undetected new type of asteroid carrying heavily enriched uranium crashed within 50 miles of Cape Canaveral, or that a nuclear rocket was tested and went out of control? We need to hold funding bodies and scientists accountable for immoral research whose only purpose is weapons of mass destruction.
- nemo44x 5y ago
  The problem is their own institutions incentivize it. Their world is one where you need to be cited for credibility and therefore funding. You do this by making yourself and your work important. If your area of research is epidemiology and there’s not much to worry about then you need to find something worth investing in from the political class and their appointed admins. So you conduct gain of function research, etc to create enough concern that you get further funding and then somewhere in this process a mistake happens and here we are. It’s not a conspiracy or anything tin foil hat related. It’s just pure incentives. No one makes a name for themselves or gets the funding they need to continue to exist because they said “there’s not much to worry about”. You need to convince your benefactors that your research is relevant and should be prioritized.
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  > We need to hold … scientists accountable Precisely how do you suggest that the seven thousand odd million people outside the USA hold the USA accountable for what their scientists get to do in Fort Bragg? The USA, China, and Russia are going to do exactly as they please. You need to make your peace with this.
  - kongin 5y ago
    The same way we stopped nuclear testing.
    - saalweachter 5y ago
      You could accurately scare-quote any word in that sentence.
tomohawk 5y ago
This is not the point of the document dump. The document dump shows that Fauci funded GoF research in Wuhan, and that people involved in the funding pipeline were involved in covering that up. These were the same people who advised the big tech cos to cancel any information about a lab leak. Love the down votes for merely restating what the FOIA'd docs say. All you have to do is read them. It's not that hard.
- ctrlp 5y ago
  Often wondering about the down-votes on HN. Pretty cowardly to down-vote statements of fact without comment.
tim333 5y ago
Maybe we won't get all the details but there is a steady drip of information coming out at the moment including the funding documents referenced in the article. I think the odds of getting data is helped by the US Chinese cooperation. I think the odds are good that US scientists have some of the hidden details that they could be forced to divulge through legal action.

listless 5y ago

For those of us who have lost loved ones. Who have lost their business. Who weren’t allowed to see their dying father in the ICU because of COVID restrictions. For the 3M “lost children” who never logged on once for school last year. For the future generations who will have to reckon with the economic disaster we may be kicking down the road. For all of those people and more, we deserve to know the truth. That’s the very least we are owed.

krsrhe 5y ago
Why? Will the truth mitigate the prevent or prevent a future one? What matters is the possibility of a leak, not if one happened. The origin leak is nothing compared to the repeated failures hat happened after and are still happening.
- ctrlp 5y ago
  The leak is one thing, if true. The cover-up (if there was a leak) during a critical window of possible containment is another thing. But we will likely never get the truth.
- listless 5y ago
  The truth matters a great deal to anyone who has suffered and lost. It’s not unique to the pandemic. The parent who has lost a child. The spouse who has been cheated on. The employee who has been unjustly fired. They want the truth. The not knowing makes it almost unbearable.
patentatt 5y ago
But the comment you’re responding to said it’s unknowable, not that it shouldn’t be known. It’s not an argument of merit but of practicality. I’d also add that it’s irrelevant. Let’s hypothesize that we find out tomorrow irrefutable evidence for this theory. What does it change? Are we going to start WWIII over it? I’d hope not. Maybe ‘the powers that be’ came to the same conclusion early on and tried to stem the public outcry, and maybe that’s ok. If you say that the value of finding out it was a lab leak would lead to stricter controls or dissuade similar research, I’d say that that has already happened. So I agree with OP in that it’s a distraction at this point and we should put all effort and mental energy into dealing with the pandemic rather than finding someone to blame.
- kongin 5y ago
  > I’d also add that it’s irrelevant. Let’s hypothesize that we find out tomorrow irrefutable evidence for this theory. What does it change? Demanding reparations from China for their WMD program going out of control would be a good start. Then criminal cases against everyone involved in the West who approved something so boneheadedly evil and pointless.
  - nso 5y ago
    Research on viruses happens a lot of places, it doesn't mean it's being weaponized.
  - shlant 5y ago
    do you think that live virus research including gain-of-function serves no purpose whatsoever other than for WMD's? It's just "evil and pointless"?
  - GuB-42 5y ago
    That's a good way to start WWIII. WWII started like that. To make things simple, countries who lost WWI were destabilized and reparations were a big reason. It promoted the raise of nationalist, revengeful leaders like Hitler and Mussolini. You know the rest. They carefully avoided making the same mistake after WWII.
notacoward 5y ago
Yellow card: appeal to emotion. GP was clearly talking about practicality and practical effects of obsessing over lab-leak theories, not the moral or general desirability of knowing the truth. We can work toward better lab safety and oversight of dangerous research and responses to outbreaks without fueling nationalist/racist paranoia. In fact people are also doing so, while others use lab leaks as a pretext for driving division they sought anyway.

sydthrowaway 5y ago

Is the pandemic not controlled? There are no restrictions in the UK. The stadiums are full and tens of thousands went mad over a football player just this last weekend.

krsrhe 5y ago
Some US states are currently experiencing their highest death rates to date.
Causality1 5y ago
156 people died of covid in the UK yesterday. Per capita that's more than in the USA.
- C19is20 5y ago
  I heard Ronaldo played a blinder.
- aaronmdjones 5y ago
  > 156 people died of covid in the UK yesterday. This may be highly inflated. As far as I understand it, and implied by e.g. [1], UK COVID daily death cases are "if you had a positive result in the last 28 days and you die". So it includes, for example, heart attacks, strokes, and being run over by a bus. [1] https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths
  - Causality1 5y ago
    Even going by the "covid on death certificate" number, it's 109 a day. Adjusted for population it's almost as bad as the science-denying shitshow that is half the US right now. Compare that to countries who actually have it under control like Australia and Taiwan, who had eight and zero deaths yesterday.
    - ctrlp 5y ago
      Hard to catch Covid when you can't leave your house without a visit from the goon squad.

kongin 5y ago

Ask yourself a simple question: if something fell from the sky and exploded in Orlando Florida killing hundreds of thousands and irradiating the area which would be more likely? That an undetected new type of asteroid carrying heavily enriched uranium crashed within 50 miles of Cape Canaveral, or that a nuclear rocket was tested and went out of control? We need to hold funding bodies and scientists accountable for immoral research whose only purpose is weapons of mass destruction.

nemo44x 5y ago
The problem is their own institutions incentivize it. Their world is one where you need to be cited for credibility and therefore funding. You do this by making yourself and your work important. If your area of research is epidemiology and there’s not much to worry about then you need to find something worth investing in from the political class and their appointed admins. So you conduct gain of function research, etc to create enough concern that you get further funding and then somewhere in this process a mistake happens and here we are. It’s not a conspiracy or anything tin foil hat related. It’s just pure incentives. No one makes a name for themselves or gets the funding they need to continue to exist because they said “there’s not much to worry about”. You need to convince your benefactors that your research is relevant and should be prioritized.
throwaway210222 5y ago
> We need to hold … scientists accountable Precisely how do you suggest that the seven thousand odd million people outside the USA hold the USA accountable for what their scientists get to do in Fort Bragg? The USA, China, and Russia are going to do exactly as they please. You need to make your peace with this.
- kongin 5y ago
  The same way we stopped nuclear testing.
  - saalweachter 5y ago
    You could accurately scare-quote any word in that sentence.

tomohawk 5y ago

This is not the point of the document dump. The document dump shows that Fauci funded GoF research in Wuhan, and that people involved in the funding pipeline were involved in covering that up. These were the same people who advised the big tech cos to cancel any information about a lab leak. Love the down votes for merely restating what the FOIA'd docs say. All you have to do is read them. It's not that hard.

ctrlp 5y ago
Often wondering about the down-votes on HN. Pretty cowardly to down-vote statements of fact without comment.

tim333 5y ago

Maybe we won't get all the details but there is a steady drip of information coming out at the moment including the funding documents referenced in the article. I think the odds of getting data is helped by the US Chinese cooperation. I think the odds are good that US scientists have some of the hidden details that they could be forced to divulge through legal action.