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In these circumstances, does it matter to public safety whether it did or didn't? It seems more important to me whether it COULD or COULD NEVER originate like t
by jrootabega 4y ago
In these circumstances, does it matter to public safety whether it did or didn't? It seems more important to me whether it COULD or COULD NEVER originate like this. I think things are tilted pretty heavily towards the COULD side. So if we, as a species, continue research like this (and I think we need to), it needs to be strictly quarantined. If you set foot in a facility like this, you don't get to rejoin the rest of society until you go through a multi-week quarantine site. It's remote work.
- jfengel 4y ago"COULD" is a certainty, so quarantine measures are already in place. The question is, are the quarantine measures sufficient? The answer to that is "we don't know". And the corollary, unfortunately, is "... but we can make a lot of political hay out of taking guesses."
- jrootabega 4y agoThe general impression, which I haven't really seen challenged, is that these lab employees take precautions while in the lab, or maybe while leaving the building. I think the default sensible stance is that they're not sufficient, now that we've seen how the world is capable of reacting to an outbreak.