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You're right that (American) political discourse is unavoidably toxic, but the article is still covering some interesting and relevant ground. It takes a lens

You're right that (American) political discourse is unavoidably toxic, but the article is still covering some interesting and relevant ground. It takes a lens of China vs. the World Health Organization. China really hampered the investigation. It appears, according to TFA, that they were trying to avoid blame for the zoonotic origin -- not something easily fixed because the "wet markets" are how a lot of Chinese survive. But of course that just makes it look like they were covering up something even worse -- criminally irresponsible behavior by disease researchers. So even if you disregard American political dysfunction, Chinese political dysfunction is a serious issue. It's a place where zoonotic diseases can make the leap to humans, and it's going to happen again.

taeric 3y ago
Totally fair. I did not mean my criticism as a complete dismissal of this story. I mean my criticism to be only scoped to the idea that this is not necessarily unique to COVID. (I don't think this is unique to US, btw. The UK has certainly been showing that they can go crazy with toxic discourse. And most of the dysfunction in this story would be in China's realm?) I still am not clear how to really feel about the COVID story. I never knew what was at stake, as it were. Certainly we should continue to have ever increasing safety in lab procedures. That is true regardless of if this one came from a lab. Similarly, probably wise to not try and build super bugs. But, again, true regardless of this one?