I don’t see how, unless it involved some process no one has ever thought of. We already know that investigating pathogens can itself cause human exposure. We know poor hygiene practices can spread disease. We know that, in the course of upgrading its billion citizens to something closer to Western standards of living, China is fertile ground for the emergence of new diseases. A single data point cannot significantly advance the science on any of these fronts.
The root cause of the pandemic is that viruses are constantly evolving new ways to infect humans. Both science and China have been helpful in addressing that. The question of “what did China do wrong and how should we force them to change” is more what I’d call a carefully selected branch.
I’m guessing for many people, this will become a non-issue once a reasonable paper comes out on it’s origin, but am concerned that the pundits/politicians who only believe in themselves are going to double down on it being a conspiracy to hide the “Truth”, and we’ll be unable to extinguish the prevalence of the hypothesis, even if/when it’s proved false. I think giving the theory more air now is going to extend the reach of the lab hypothesis, and give it more credence than is warranted.
Well, that’s just par for the course, as most of the crap coming out of the GOP doesn’t even have any connection to reality. I don’t think that the times that things that reasonable people could believe, and crap spewed by Trumpian asshats coincide should be seen as anything but that… a coincidence.
I also don’t think that avoiding discussion of something because asshats will make use of it is a good idea either?
But hey, everyone is entitled to opinions, and yours is just as valid as mine.
The right wing is fine with that. After all, it was Obama that supposedly funded them. Of course that does cut into the whole “sue the Chinese for one hundred trillion dollars scheme”.
The pandemic killed 3.8 million people. Surely the chance to prevent this sort of death toll in the future is worth a little more than the opportunity to save face.
“Must have” != “more than likely” which is what he said.
A lab that exists specifically for the purpose of studying novel coronaviruses being at the epicenter of a novel coronavirus outbreak has got to at least raise an eyebrow.
Relying on people smarter than I am, I don’t believe covid 19 was a biological weapon because people who study Coronaviruses know there are ways to manipulate the genetics of such viruses to be even more infectious than this particular one.
However, if the lab is meant to study Coronaviruses that could reasonably appear in nature in order to study vaccines to fight them, it’s conceivable that covid 19 was an escaped experiment.
Reminds me of John Cornyn, Texas Senator, decrying ‘Chinese wet markets’ while representing a state entirely willing to eat gator, rattlesnake, rabbit, and (in some cases) raccoon.
(Mind: this is said as a native Texan. We’re not particularly picky in our regional cuisine. Yes, I’m also considering myself in the above list as I’ve tried all of them.)
