3 ms·
If something very like smallpox, thought eradicated, suddenly showed up in some random town, it might be surmised that maybe some animal reservoir for it someho
by lupusreal 2y ago
If something very like smallpox, thought eradicated, suddenly showed up in some random town, it might be surmised that maybe some animal reservoir for it somehow slipped through the gaps. But if that random town happened to be Atlanta, home of the CDC, known to have some of the few samples of smallpox to still exist, then the relative chance of a lab leak must be thought higher. That's basic Bayesian reasoning. It doesn't prove anything but pretending the proximity to a relevant lab doesn't shift the odds at all is absurd.
- ioulaum 2y agoSmallpox, yes. But another SARS variant (even a somewhat more aggressive one)... Obviously, it's not impossible. But, there were even RNA samples from Covid found in other countries, months before Covid really spread in China. I imagine the main problem with the superspreader event there was more that enough people ended up in the same hospital, and thus it was easier to identify that Covid was a distinct virus. If it was crawling around in a less dense population, its spread would've been meh, and the hospitals might not even notice the spike much.