3 ms·

If this research does help us to understand that, it should be done in the highest level safety protocol labs, which this was not. If it is not able to get fun

If this research does help us to understand that, it should be done in the highest level safety protocol labs, which this was not. If it is not able to get funding for being done in such a lab, that's probably because the potential learning does not justify such $$ cost. Which means it's also not worth the risk. You are correct that the virulence of new variants is hard to predict. That very fact means you shouldn't be making new ones, and assuming you can predict how virulent your new one is going to be (and thus how hard it will be to contain).

bayesian_horse 4y ago
The safety protocols have been deemed satisfactory. You overestimate the risk. New variants are created all the time by natural transmission. Including the recombination of two different strains. So the controlled, artificial recombination is like a grain of sand in a bucket of sand. And even if it "escapes", the escaped variant would still have to evolve and prove itself. Experts don't see this as a risk.