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Can someone help me understand why a lab leak looks worse for China than zoonotic spillover? Why would Senator Cotton need it to be a lab leak to give him more

Can someone help me understand why a lab leak looks worse for China than zoonotic spillover? Why would Senator Cotton need it to be a lab leak to give him more leverage? From what I understand, one theory is that China has for decades tolerated unsanitary wet markets that allowed dangerous diseases to evolve, get stronger, and eventually transmit to human hosts. They'd been warned about this over and over again and had failed to implement the required policies, leading to a preventable pandemic. The alternative theory has China accidentally letting a disease leak from a lab. From my perspective, if anything the lab leak theory is the one that makes China look better: at least it emphasizes that it resulted from China's scientific pursuits and not their lack of health codes! Why would the China hawks need a lab leak in order to China hawk?

davesque 2y ago
That's one way to look at it. Another is that a lab leak makes the government seem much more culpable, since they would presumably have more direct control over the activities of government funded scientists. In any case, I think world governments have been reluctant to endorse theories that place more blame on the Chinese government for fear of forcing them into a defensive posture and risking a larger confrontation. But there are also those who desire such a confrontation. That makes it hard to trust the motives that any given party might have for promoting one theory or another. At the end of the day, all that any sane person should care about is preventing another similar pandemic.
- lolinder 2y ago
  It may be true that other states don't want to antagonize them, and that may also be why we don't see enough emphasis placed on how absurd it is that China has allowed these wet markets to exist so long. Imposing a basic set of health codes is a very fundamental task of any government, and their inability or unwillingness to do so does not reflect well on them. If anything, one reason why the China hawks may prefer the lab leak theory is because it makes China look more threatening than the alternative: the we-couldn't-enforce-basic-health-codes version of the story doesn't mesh well with the image we have in the West of the CCP as an all-powerful Big Brother that has complete control over every aspect of their citizens' lives. It instead projects a CCP that can barely perform the minimum functions of a state, which is harder to be afraid of.
downrightmike 2y ago
Same reason Senators claimed American blood was spilled on American soil in ~1835 in the Mexican state of Tejas, which we now call Texas. Notably, Abraham Lincoln demanded proof, but the senate was too happy to see manifest destiny come about even on lies. Fast forward ~200 years and you're starting to hear the same things.
fragmede 2y ago
Lax health codes mean the virus came about through sheer (bad) luck, by a bunch of "dumb hicks". The US doesn't have to do anything to compete with a bunch of yokels with bad hygiene. We have those in the US too. But if it came from a lab, using advanced technology that the west doesn't have, China goes from being more than where shitty knockoffs come from, to a much scarier boogieman that requires us to give more money to the military-industrial complex.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Yeah, I think this hits closer to home: the zoonotic origins story makes the Chinese government look incompetent. They actually are much less competent than Western popular culture likes to paint them, but emphasizing that doesn't provide a very effective external threat to rally the masses against. A lab leak plays into the stereotypical German or Russian mad scientist trope of the 20th century: the incredibly powerful supervillain who in their hubris (nearly) destroys the world.
FeteCommuniste 2y ago
Because a lab leak could imply that China had a direct, active role in cultivating or engineering the virus, as opposed to the “mere” disastrous negligence entailed by the wet market theory.
- Fomite 2y ago
  That this is someone's fault and they can be punished is, I think, the reason people want it to be true. Rather than the world is a terrifying place that sometimes kills millions.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    Failing to enforce basic health codes is not a random act of God, it's a failure to perform the minimum functions of a state. It's not a single individual's fault, true, but these wet markets are not some obscure corner shop that managed to dodge regulation, their existence would not be tolerated in any developed country.
  - KennyBlanken 2y ago
    The zoonotic theory has no evidence to support it whatsoever. It's the viral equivalent of the 'Magic Bullet.' - No samples were ever found, nor were any sick animals, in the market where it supposedly started. Period. Nothing. - No evidence of genetic mutations and variants leading up to crossover, no intermediary host ever found. - It just happened to start infecting people in the city of a lab which had been doing extremely similar experiments AND had issues with releases before. - WHO rushed the investigation, involved Chinese scientists in the investigation, and the Chinese government did not cooperate in any way, shape, or form - no samples, no lab data, nothing. It was just "trust us." And everyone dusted off their hands and said "well, no evidence. Done then!" The world's governments pushed the "zoological crossover" theory because the only alternative would be...what? Accusing the world's largest source of manufactured goods of killing 8 million people? And what would we do, exactly? Level economic sanctions against a country producing most of the world's stuff? That is by and large quite self sufficient, far more so than most nations?
Fomite 2y ago
I wrote this awhile ago on a previous thread about this: To my mind, there are a few reasons why people are so fixated on the lab leak thing 1) It makes the pandemic deterministic (bad lab security means an outbreak) instead of stochastic (wildlife spillover). That is, to be frank, even as an epidemiologist who is very skeptical of the lab leak hypothesis, a comforting thought. 2) It's a popular topic in the Substack/Medium set, because it moves the pandemic back into their wheelhouse of expertise, international relations, policy, etc. It becomes a human problem with human solutions. 3) It appeals to the contrarian mindset. 4) All of the lab leak papers at least attempt to show definitive proof. In contrast, actually finding the source of spillover events is the work of decades (and isn't always or even often successful). "Science is slow and uncertain" is a less compelling narrative.
- dehrmann 2y ago
  There's a greater burden of proof for spillover when there just happens to be a lab doing virus research near the epicenter of the outbreak.
  - jyounker 2y ago
    There have been two other spillover events from coronaviruses in the last 30 years. One of those (SARS) was from Chinese wet markets. Wuhan has a population of 13 million. It would be surprising if the city didn't have a lab doing virus research.
    - dehrmann 2y ago
      There are 42 BSL-4 facilities in the world. I'm too lazy to do the math, but I'm curious what percent of the world's population is near one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#List_of_BSL-4_facilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#List_of_BSL-4_...
      - oneshtein 2y ago
        One of these BSL4 had major incident on Sep 16 2019, just before start of epidemic.
TZubiri 2y ago
[flagged]
- Sporktacular 2y ago
  Why don't you just answer the question? A lab leak makes China look incompetent. It means sick animals infecting lab staff. It doesn't make it look malicious, it doesn't mean engineered bioweaponry, actively playing with fire or any other unsupported conspiracy nonsense.
- morepedantic 2y ago
  >Just think about it This always proceeds a cogent point. >what's the difference between negligence and malice? Wrong, these are both theories of Chinese negligence. Did you mean the difference in culpability for positive and negative action? The lab leak is negative action by the Chinese government, and positive action by some subset of the Chinese citizenry. Zoonosis is positive action by the Chinese government. China (government U citizenry) are 100% culpable either way. Malice only appears in fringe theories about intentional release, which isn't a lab leak by definition.
KPGv2 2y ago
I don't think it's an attack on China. It's a political attack on Fauci, who became public enemy #1 for conservatives early in the pandemic. They've been looking for reasons to blame him (oh, who just incidentally helped protect those dirty gay people during the AIDS crisis), and now our President has stripped him of security detail and announced he wouldn't feel responsible if something bad happened to him.
Izkata 2y ago
The lab in question is BSL-2* while viruses like this are supposed to be researched in BSL-3*. If it was a lab leak, they were using insufficient safety protocols to keep the virus contained. It also implies they're probably still doing the same for much worse viruses. *I think these were the levels, I'm going from memory.
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  There are two campuses in Wuhan. One has BSL-3 facilities, the other BSL-4. Not all work is done at the highest BSL available for cost and practicality reasons though. American rules were that research on agents in the same classification as COVID is BSL-3, but routine diagnostic work is only BSL-2. Chinese researchers classified both at BSL-2.
renewiltord 2y ago
Lab leaks admit the possibility that China was developing a bioweapon. If you're a Chinahawk, this is something you'd be concerned about.
indoordin0saur 2y ago
It's the difference between burning down the house because you were playing with fire indoors vs burning down the house because some cheaply bought electric appliance malfunctioned.

davesque 2y ago

That's one way to look at it. Another is that a lab leak makes the government seem much more culpable, since they would presumably have more direct control over the activities of government funded scientists. In any case, I think world governments have been reluctant to endorse theories that place more blame on the Chinese government for fear of forcing them into a defensive posture and risking a larger confrontation. But there are also those who desire such a confrontation. That makes it hard to trust the motives that any given party might have for promoting one theory or another. At the end of the day, all that any sane person should care about is preventing another similar pandemic.

lolinder 2y ago
It may be true that other states don't want to antagonize them, and that may also be why we don't see enough emphasis placed on how absurd it is that China has allowed these wet markets to exist so long. Imposing a basic set of health codes is a very fundamental task of any government, and their inability or unwillingness to do so does not reflect well on them. If anything, one reason why the China hawks may prefer the lab leak theory is because it makes China look more threatening than the alternative: the we-couldn't-enforce-basic-health-codes version of the story doesn't mesh well with the image we have in the West of the CCP as an all-powerful Big Brother that has complete control over every aspect of their citizens' lives. It instead projects a CCP that can barely perform the minimum functions of a state, which is harder to be afraid of.

downrightmike 2y ago

Same reason Senators claimed American blood was spilled on American soil in ~1835 in the Mexican state of Tejas, which we now call Texas. Notably, Abraham Lincoln demanded proof, but the senate was too happy to see manifest destiny come about even on lies. Fast forward ~200 years and you're starting to hear the same things.

fragmede 2y ago

Lax health codes mean the virus came about through sheer (bad) luck, by a bunch of "dumb hicks". The US doesn't have to do anything to compete with a bunch of yokels with bad hygiene. We have those in the US too. But if it came from a lab, using advanced technology that the west doesn't have, China goes from being more than where shitty knockoffs come from, to a much scarier boogieman that requires us to give more money to the military-industrial complex.

lolinder 2y ago
Yeah, I think this hits closer to home: the zoonotic origins story makes the Chinese government look incompetent. They actually are much less competent than Western popular culture likes to paint them, but emphasizing that doesn't provide a very effective external threat to rally the masses against. A lab leak plays into the stereotypical German or Russian mad scientist trope of the 20th century: the incredibly powerful supervillain who in their hubris (nearly) destroys the world.

FeteCommuniste 2y ago

Because a lab leak could imply that China had a direct, active role in cultivating or engineering the virus, as opposed to the “mere” disastrous negligence entailed by the wet market theory.

Fomite 2y ago
That this is someone's fault and they can be punished is, I think, the reason people want it to be true. Rather than the world is a terrifying place that sometimes kills millions.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Failing to enforce basic health codes is not a random act of God, it's a failure to perform the minimum functions of a state. It's not a single individual's fault, true, but these wet markets are not some obscure corner shop that managed to dodge regulation, their existence would not be tolerated in any developed country.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  The zoonotic theory has no evidence to support it whatsoever. It's the viral equivalent of the 'Magic Bullet.' - No samples were ever found, nor were any sick animals, in the market where it supposedly started. Period. Nothing. - No evidence of genetic mutations and variants leading up to crossover, no intermediary host ever found. - It just happened to start infecting people in the city of a lab which had been doing extremely similar experiments AND had issues with releases before. - WHO rushed the investigation, involved Chinese scientists in the investigation, and the Chinese government did not cooperate in any way, shape, or form - no samples, no lab data, nothing. It was just "trust us." And everyone dusted off their hands and said "well, no evidence. Done then!" The world's governments pushed the "zoological crossover" theory because the only alternative would be...what? Accusing the world's largest source of manufactured goods of killing 8 million people? And what would we do, exactly? Level economic sanctions against a country producing most of the world's stuff? That is by and large quite self sufficient, far more so than most nations?

Fomite 2y ago

I wrote this awhile ago on a previous thread about this: To my mind, there are a few reasons why people are so fixated on the lab leak thing 1) It makes the pandemic deterministic (bad lab security means an outbreak) instead of stochastic (wildlife spillover). That is, to be frank, even as an epidemiologist who is very skeptical of the lab leak hypothesis, a comforting thought. 2) It's a popular topic in the Substack/Medium set, because it moves the pandemic back into their wheelhouse of expertise, international relations, policy, etc. It becomes a human problem with human solutions. 3) It appeals to the contrarian mindset. 4) All of the lab leak papers at least attempt to show definitive proof. In contrast, actually finding the source of spillover events is the work of decades (and isn't always or even often successful). "Science is slow and uncertain" is a less compelling narrative.

dehrmann 2y ago
There's a greater burden of proof for spillover when there just happens to be a lab doing virus research near the epicenter of the outbreak.
- jyounker 2y ago
  There have been two other spillover events from coronaviruses in the last 30 years. One of those (SARS) was from Chinese wet markets. Wuhan has a population of 13 million. It would be surprising if the city didn't have a lab doing virus research.
  - dehrmann 2y ago
    There are 42 BSL-4 facilities in the world. I'm too lazy to do the math, but I'm curious what percent of the world's population is near one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#List_of_BSL-4_facilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#List_of_BSL-4_...
    - oneshtein 2y ago
      One of these BSL4 had major incident on Sep 16 2019, just before start of epidemic.

TZubiri 2y ago

[flagged]

Sporktacular 2y ago
Why don't you just answer the question? A lab leak makes China look incompetent. It means sick animals infecting lab staff. It doesn't make it look malicious, it doesn't mean engineered bioweaponry, actively playing with fire or any other unsupported conspiracy nonsense.
morepedantic 2y ago
>Just think about it This always proceeds a cogent point. >what's the difference between negligence and malice? Wrong, these are both theories of Chinese negligence. Did you mean the difference in culpability for positive and negative action? The lab leak is negative action by the Chinese government, and positive action by some subset of the Chinese citizenry. Zoonosis is positive action by the Chinese government. China (government U citizenry) are 100% culpable either way. Malice only appears in fringe theories about intentional release, which isn't a lab leak by definition.

KPGv2 2y ago

I don't think it's an attack on China. It's a political attack on Fauci, who became public enemy #1 for conservatives early in the pandemic. They've been looking for reasons to blame him (oh, who just incidentally helped protect those dirty gay people during the AIDS crisis), and now our President has stripped him of security detail and announced he wouldn't feel responsible if something bad happened to him.

Izkata 2y ago

The lab in question is BSL-2* while viruses like this are supposed to be researched in BSL-3*. If it was a lab leak, they were using insufficient safety protocols to keep the virus contained. It also implies they're probably still doing the same for much worse viruses. *I think these were the levels, I'm going from memory.

AlotOfReading 2y ago
There are two campuses in Wuhan. One has BSL-3 facilities, the other BSL-4. Not all work is done at the highest BSL available for cost and practicality reasons though. American rules were that research on agents in the same classification as COVID is BSL-3, but routine diagnostic work is only BSL-2. Chinese researchers classified both at BSL-2.

renewiltord 2y ago

Lab leaks admit the possibility that China was developing a bioweapon. If you're a Chinahawk, this is something you'd be concerned about.

indoordin0saur 2y ago

It's the difference between burning down the house because you were playing with fire indoors vs burning down the house because some cheaply bought electric appliance malfunctioned.