haxxiy said:
Yeah, that makes sense. If you believe in intelligent design, a lab virus becomes just another extension of this. I also do wonder whether it will land it below or above influenza in terms of virulence. Some respiratory diseases such as RSV managed to land at fairly high infection fatality rates (0.25%) but are not very transmissible. But all the other coronaviruses have fallen well below influenza, so I hope that'll be that, at least in the mid to long term, once it runs out of hosts for viable dangerous mutations. |
Is a lab origin really that far-fatched? Isn't it the purpose of gain of function research to mimic/re-create how zoonotic spillover events happen but in a more safe, secure and controlled lab environment?? And in a lab setting, you can remove some of the roadblocks and RNG that nature puts up like, frequency/duration of animal to animal/animal to human proximity/contact, co-infection of cells with a specific second virus for recombination potential, that pesky immune system that clears the infection before it can better adapt or spread to another host/species etc...
Something just doesn't seem right.. Wuhan lab collecting bat coronaviruses for GoF research happens to be located in the region that was the first epicenter of the outbreak. Two years prior to the pandemic, US officials warned about the inadequate safety at the lab and the potential for a new SARS-like pandemic. Lead bat coronavirus researcher Dr. Shi Zhengli's initial fear was that it could have came from her lab and that it kept her up for days, but then ruled out that possibility based on genetic sequences at her lab. But all the way back in Sept of 2019 an extensive bat coronavirus database was taken offline coinciding with recent reports that lab workers were sick there back in the fall of 2019(probably sick from community transmission but perhaps spooked of a possible recent lab leak, harvard study showed evidence of sizeable community spread back in August 2019 via search queries for symptoms and satellite parking lot hospital images). You also have the fact that china waited a year to let researchers in for a very controlled and supervised "investigation" and the lab origin was ignored. No ability of any investigative body to review records,lab notes, access to lab databases, interviews with researchers/other staff. China has been uncooperative, offered very little data, 0 transparency and access for a year now... and for some reason they are having fun bullying Australia with tariffs for asking questions lol. This also wouldn't be the first time something leaked from a lab in China, SARS1 leaked on a couple of occasions.
