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Posted
  On 2/26/2023 at 6:10 PM, Horn of Gabriel said:

WSJ: Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807b7b0a?mod=hp_lead_pos1

 

 

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Thanks a lot assholes.

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Posted
  Quote

 

The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided.

...

The Energy Department made its judgment with “low confidence,” according to people who have read the classified report.

The FBI previously came to the conclusion that the pandemic was likely the result of a lab leak in 2021 with “moderate confidence” and still holds to this view.

 

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Stephen Colbert Idk GIF by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

 

 

Posted
  On 2/26/2023 at 8:03 PM, Telegraph_it said:

Weird what happens when you follow the science. 

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What happens?

The assessment is made with "low confidence."  So it's not exactly a definitive statement of what did or didn't happen.

For the record, I am completely agnostic on this issue.  I have no fucking clue whether it was natural or a lab failure.  I appreciate that some people have very strong opinions on this.  But it looks pretty impossible to state definitively one way or the other.

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Posted
  On 2/26/2023 at 9:44 PM, Ghost of LL said:

What happens?

The assessment is made with "low confidence."  So it's not exactly a definitive statement of what did or didn't happen.

For the record, I am completely agnostic on this issue.  I have no fucking clue whether it was natural or a lab failure.  I appreciate that some people have very strong opinions on this.  But it looks pretty impossible to state definitively one way or the other.

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This. There isn't a smoking gun. And until you have some consensus among departments and maybe said smoking gun, this is more that likely something that just came from the wild. In the end, this report isn't anything close to definitive. 

Posted

Just to remind everyone- the official Chinese position is neither lab leak nor wildlife interaction, but rather frozen foods from the west (with a possibility of US soldiers bringing it to China). 

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Posted

The department of…energy?  I’m agnostic on this too, and feel endless energy is probably wasted given China has buried any evidence and murdered those in the know.  But why is DoE investigating this?

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Posted
  On 2/26/2023 at 11:15 PM, Captain Ron said:

This. There isn't a smoking gun. And until you have some consensus among departments and maybe said smoking gun, this is more that likely something that just came from the wild. In the end, this report isn't anything close to definitive. 

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Just curious, why is the lack of a smoking gun reason to believe that it came from the wild?

For me, I kind of lean the opposite. If it came from the wild and China had any evidence to support that, I think they would be eagerly sharing that information to absolve themselves from any societal wrongdoing. It was a true case of bad luck for humanity and here are the facts to support that. The lack of transparency from China makes me lean more in the direction of human negligence within the Wuhan lab.

I honestly don't know and I don't think the general public will ever know.

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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 4:40 AM, wild_turkey said:

Just curious, why is the lack of a smoking gun reason to believe that it came from the wild?

For me, I kind of lean the opposite. If it came from the wild and China had any evidence to support that, I think they would be eagerly sharing that information to absolve themselves from any societal wrongdoing. It was a true case of bad luck for humanity and here are the facts to support that. The lack of transparency from China makes me lean more in the direction of human negligence within the Wuhan lab.

I honestly don't know and I don't think the general public will ever know.

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I firmly believe it was an accidental release from the Wuhan lab. But the lack of transparency from China means nothing to me either way. They’re a totalitarian state veering towards a dictatorship, with a massive bureaucracy. A lack of transparency is the status quo. 

I hope some kind of compelling proof is discovered one way or another, either in my lifetime or after. It’s one of the remarkable events in our lifetime - the first true global pandemic that shut the world down. I hope we know more about it some day. 

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Posted
  On 2/26/2023 at 11:15 PM, Captain Ron said:

This. There isn't a smoking gun. And until you have some consensus among departments and maybe said smoking gun, this is more that likely something that just came from the wild. In the end, this report isn't anything close to definitive. 

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What will satisfy as a smoking gun? The fact the patient zero picked it up across the street from the Chinese government’s research facility on viral gain of function? Do you require video of research and (accidental or intentional) release, PDFs of their plans to do it, witness testimonies, and a signed affidavit from the scientists? Why do so many default to “Chinese government had nothing to do with this”? I’ve been 80-20 towards it came from Wuhan lab based on circumstances but open to contrary data. If there was an entity I was going to die on a hill blindly defending its innocence, it would not be the Chinese government. 

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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 12:52 AM, statsman said:

Just to remind everyone- the official Chinese position is neither lab leak nor wildlife interaction, but rather frozen foods from the west (with a possibility of US soldiers bringing it to China). 

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I have very high confidence that the Swanson microwaveable brownie of my youth could be a breeding ground for deadly viruses.

 

Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 1:33 PM, Murfdogg21 said:

What will satisfy as a smoking gun? The fact the patient zero picked it up across the street from the Chinese government’s research facility on viral gain of function? Do you require video of research and (accidental or intentional) release, PDFs of their plans to do it, witness testimonies, and a signed affidavit from the scientists? Why do so many default to “Chinese government had nothing to do with this”? I’ve been 80-20 towards it came from Wuhan lab based on circumstances but open to contrary data. If there was an entity I was going to die on a hill blindly defending its innocence, it would not be the Chinese government. 

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Where is the information that the first patient got infected across the street from a gain of function lab and who specifically is insisting that the Chinese government had nothing to do with this?

Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 12:52 AM, statsman said:

Just to remind everyone- the official Chinese position is neither lab leak nor wildlife interaction, but rather frozen foods from the west (with a possibility of US soldiers bringing it to China). 

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The goddamned Chinese communist government officials have always been serial liars just like that goddamned POS Putin and his fascist thug gang. Piss on all of them and that monster Mao who was the worst POS in that world of horror they created. 
It is an awful shame the Chinese people have not yet thrown off the yoke that has suppressed them all these years.

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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 2:00 PM, Armybrat said:

The goddamned Chinese communist government officials have always been serial liars just like that goddamned POS Putin and his fascist thug gang. Piss on all of them and that monster Mao who was the worst POS in that world of horror they created. 
It is an awful shame the Chinese people have not yet thrown off the yoke that has suppressed them all these years.

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Mao was a great man in the history of the west. Looking at the achievements of (pre-assimilation) Hong Kong, and in Taiwan, it’s pretty clear that China would have become the world’s most powerful and advanced nation if China Kai Shek had won. 

Posted (edited)
  On 2/27/2023 at 3:21 AM, Homercles said:

The department of…energy?  I’m agnostic on this too, and feel endless energy is probably wasted given China has buried any evidence and murdered those in the know.  But why is DoE investigating this?

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image.thumb.png.9bffe1cca2146a42dfe97b49819f886b.png

 

also - the Biden Administration asked them to research the Wuhan issue. They weren't involved before.

Edited by Chopper
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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 4:40 AM, wild_turkey said:

Just curious, why is the lack of a smoking gun reason to believe that it came from the wild?

For me, I kind of lean the opposite. If it came from the wild and China had any evidence to support that, I think they would be eagerly sharing that information to absolve themselves from any societal wrongdoing. It was a true case of bad luck for humanity and here are the facts to support that. The lack of transparency from China makes me lean more in the direction of human negligence within the Wuhan lab.

I honestly don't know and I don't think the general public will ever know.

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Statistics. The fact that nature has produced every virus before now. If this was a case that every virus was from a lab and it was just WHICH lab, I would be willing to say sure it was Wuhan, but nature has cranked them out before now, so there is a big mountain to overcome.

 

  On 2/27/2023 at 1:33 PM, Murfdogg21 said:

What will satisfy as a smoking gun? The fact the patient zero picked it up across the street from the Chinese government’s research facility on viral gain of function? Do you require video of research and (accidental or intentional) release, PDFs of their plans to do it, witness testimonies, and a signed affidavit from the scientists? Why do so many default to “Chinese government had nothing to do with this”? I’ve been 80-20 towards it came from Wuhan lab based on circumstances but open to contrary data. If there was an entity I was going to die on a hill blindly defending its innocence, it would not be the Chinese government. 

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I require a legitimate number of our organizations saying it was a lab leak. It would require credible information about your patient zero.

Instead we have a pretty universal consensus among the scientific and intelligence community that it originated in the wild.

 

You guys also ask for evidence of it being shown to come from the wild. You're asking for stuff that we don't have for most viruses thus far. We don't question that Ebola is from nature, yet we have never found the source. Hell, we only recently sequenced the Spanish flu from 100 years ago. That China doesn't have this evidence shouldn't really shock anyone, it's needle in the haystack kind of stuff. 

 

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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 2:10 PM, statsman said:

Mao was a great man in the history of the west. Looking at the achievements of (pre-assimilation) Hong Kong, and in Taiwan, it’s pretty clear that China would have become the world’s most powerful and advanced nation if China Kai Shek had won. 

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I doubt that, as Chiang Kai Shek was almost as corrupt as Putin is. But at least he was an ally and hated the commies.

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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 3:18 PM, Armybrat said:

I doubt that, as Chiang Kai Shek was almost as corrupt as Putin is. But at least he was an ally and hated the commies.

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I doubt that nationalist China would have killed as many as the PRC, and would not have spent three decades driving back to the pre-industrial era. 

Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 4:40 AM, wild_turkey said:

Just curious, why is the lack of a smoking gun reason to believe that it came from the wild?

For me, I kind of lean the opposite. If it came from the wild and China had any evidence to support that, I think they would be eagerly sharing that information to absolve themselves from any societal wrongdoing. It was a true case of bad luck for humanity and here are the facts to support that. The lack of transparency from China makes me lean more in the direction of human negligence within the Wuhan lab.

I honestly don't know and I don't think the general public will ever know.

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China doesn't want to know, either way. 

The idea that a planet altering novel pathogen naturally surfaced in the same city as a poorly run institute for virology research would be the mother of all coincidences. Personally, I don't believe in coincidences of that magnitude.

We'll probably never know. We do know that some very powerful people attempted to immediately discredit the lab leak theory for, reasons. Coincidences abound.

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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 3:52 PM, Mullet Free said:

The idea that a planet altering novel pathogen naturally surfaced in the same city as a poorly run institute for virology research would be the mother of all coincidences. Personally, I don't believe in coincidences of that magnitude.

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The Office Thank You GIF

been saying this since March of 2020.

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Posted

The only publicly available evidence supporting the lab leak theory remains that the outbreak started in Wuhan and there is a lab that studies coronaviruses in Wuhan. That's pretty weak. We're not talking a college town situation where it's a small population that revolves around the lab.  Wuhan has a population of over 11 million people. It's massive.  There's not even any evidence that the lab ever had sars-cov-2. Yes, China lies, but the global scientific community knows a shitload about what else was in that lab. So for China to have successfully withheld evidence that the lab had sars-cov-2, that means they were hiding specifically that for like 6-8 years.

But let's assume they did. So what's the theory? Someone in the lab accidentally exposed themselves to sars-cov-2, went across town to the wet market, exposed people there and that became the epicenter of the outbreak? And that person didn't get anyone anywhere else sick? Not their own family? Not people in other public places that they went to? Not coworkers in the lab? Does that seem likely? 

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Posted

It turns out that the DOE has Lawrence Livermore labs, and they specialize in studying viruses as bio-weapons, so a report from the DOE is absolutely appropriate. 
 

Wildcat, there actually are indications that a lot of Wukan lab folks were sick in November 2019. 

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Posted

I don't understand why anyone has such an emotional need for this virus to have been released from a lab OR originate in the wild.  I guess there is at some level some political capital to be gained, but for me that is completely papered over by China's colossal intransigence.  It seems to me that there is enough "evidence" to support either theory, all of it incomplete.

I guess if it's a lab leak there is a slight opportunity to review and revise procedures, but at this point it feels like Lars Ulrich railing against Napster.  Kinda late, dude.

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Posted
  On 2/26/2023 at 9:44 PM, Ghost of LL said:

What happens?

The assessment is made with "low confidence."  So it's not exactly a definitive statement of what did or didn't happen.

For the record, I am completely agnostic on this issue.  I have no fucking clue whether it was natural or a lab failure.  I appreciate that some people have very strong opinions on this.  But it looks pretty impossible to state definitively one way or the other.

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Two different investigating bodies, using two different methodologies, seems to be stronger than just one, though:

  Quote

In endorsing the lab leak theory, the Energy Dept. joins the FBI, which has concluded with “moderate confidence” that Covid originated accidentally from a Chinese lab: the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The two agencies reportedly arrived at this conclusion via different methods.

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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 2:54 PM, Captain Ron said:

Statistics. The fact that nature has produced every virus before now. If this was a case that every virus was from a lab and it was just WHICH lab, I would be willing to say sure it was Wuhan, but nature has cranked them out before now, so there is a big mountain to overcome.

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One piece of evidence that’s missing from the natural transmission theory? The animal that hypothetically did the infecting hasn’t been identified. Given all this uncertainty, two other US agencies haven’t reached a conclusion on Covid’s beginnings yet.

So, if you’re doing the math at home: Four US agencies believe it was natural transmission, two say lab leak, and two are undecided.

Scientists say it’s important to make every effort to learn how Covid-19, a pandemic that’s caused nearly 7 million deaths globally, began, so we can better prevent the next one.

But with the Chinese government thwarting investigations by global authorities, there may only be so much information the US can gather. And it might never be able to confidently answer the question: How did Covid begin?

Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 7:35 PM, jimmyjazz said:

I don't understand why anyone has such an emotional need for this virus to have been released from a lab OR originate in the wild.  I guess there is at some level some political capital to be gained, but for me that is completely papered over by China's colossal intransigence.  It seems to me that there is enough "evidence" to support either theory, all of it incomplete.

I guess if it's a lab leak there is a slight opportunity to review and revise procedures, but at this point it feels like Lars Ulrich railing against Napster.  Kinda late, dude.

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This is where I am. I don't see how it changes anything in terms of our response.

Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 7:35 PM, jimmyjazz said:

I don't understand why anyone has such an emotional need for this virus to have been released from a lab OR originate in the wild. 

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That's easy, actually. It's the same reason tons of people fall for all sorts of conspiracy theories: people like to think someone is in control of things. Even if the theory in this case is that someone was in control and fucked up.

Zoonotic diseases are scary. The thought that a virus can seemingly come out of nowhere because of a tiny evolution and suddenly wipe out millions of people and there's not really anything that can be done to prevent it is terrifying (leaving aside that we actually know a lot about mitigating disease spread these days). Very few people are comfortable living with the belief that the world is essentially chaotic and random.  

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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 7:44 PM, wildcat09 said:

That's easy, actually. It's the same reason tons of people fall for all sorts of conspiracy theories: people like to think someone is in control of things. Even if the theory in this case is that someone was in control and fucked up.

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This kind of hints at anti-intellectualism, and I don't think you're all that far off, but there are certainly smart people on both sides of this argument, too.  I mean, read the thread.

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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 2:10 PM, statsman said:

Mao was a great man in the history of the west. Looking at the achievements of (pre-assimilation) Hong Kong, and in Taiwan, it’s pretty clear that China would have become the world’s most powerful and advanced nation if China Kai Shek had won. 

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Not a single statement you just made makes sense to me. Mao is not considered a great man in the west, and there’s nothing  at all clear to me what would have become of China if Chiang Kai Shek had won. 

I do think there’s something unique about cultures with some kind of Confucian foundation, but I don’t have a clear understanding of what that may be. I have guesses, but that’s it. But several of the countries with the greatest historical Chinese influence - Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore - have experienced the most impressive economic growth, all built on export led/current account surplus philosophies. 

But poor leadership can wreck any people/organization regardless of built in advantages. The Japanese made a massive change in their approach after Cook forcibly opened the country, and then another one just as drastic folllowing their defeat in WWII. Meanwhile much of the rest of the Far East was parceled off into European/American possessions, including China itself. 

Also, it’s not Mao’s leadership that brought China to where it is today. After some early successes in getting his people fed he led the country into a ditch. Deng is the one who got them turned around economically. And his leadership was no given. 

It’s also not clear if China would have been as successful if one of their party leaders had maneuvered themselves to be ruler for life as Xi seems to have done. 

It’s easy to look at their progress since WWII and think it was inevitable in some sense, but I feel strongly that’s a false assumption.

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Posted

Here is a good article on this new report and a summary of other evidence. 

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/energy-dept-reignites-bitter-covid-origin-debate-with-shaky-lab-leak-stance/

Some important bits below:

  Quote

 

Still, the Energy Department, which runs national laboratories, is in the minority. Of the eight elements of the intelligence community that have reviewed information on the origin of SARS-CoV-2, only two currently lean toward the so-called "lab leak" hypothesis. The other is the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which concluded with "moderate confidence" in 2021 that the pandemic was ignited by a lab leak, according to the WSJ. It's unclear what evidence that assessment is based upon.

By contrast, four other intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council have assessed with "low confidence" that the pandemic was likely sparked by human exposure to infected animals, possibly via animals serving as an intermediate host between a natural reservoir for the virus (such as bats) before leaping to humans.

The two remaining intelligence agencies concluded that there was not sufficient data to coalesce around either the lab leak or spillover transmission hypotheses.

All of the intelligence elements agree that SARS-CoV-2 was not developed as a biological weapon and that China officials did not have foreknowledge of the virus before its emergence in Wuhan at the end of 2019.

 

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And here is some more discussion on the specific evidence for and against lab leak:

  Quote

 

Many virologists and epidemiologists say a natural spillover transmission appears to be the most likely origin, noting epidemiological and genetic data pointing to this scenario—which has been the case for many other human outbreaks of viruses of animal origin, including those caused by other coronaviruses. In particular, two studies published last summer in the journal Science indicated two viral lineages of SARS-CoV-2 spilled over into humans in two independent events, likely within days to weeks of each other, and most of the earliest cases centered at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, particularly in a section of the market with a concentration of wild animals and virus-positive environmental samples. Collectively, the data and analyses suggest—though can't definitively conclude—that the market contained a so-far unidentified animal or group of animals harboring SARS-CoV-2, which became a prolonged source of infection for marketgoers. And the virus took off from there.

Staunch proponents of the lab leak hypothesis, however, argue that the market was not the origin of the spillover but acted as a setting for superspreader events. They also often point to a 2021 intelligence report suggesting three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology got sick with something and sought hospital care in November 2019, as well as ambiguous US State Department cables from 2018 discussing biosafety issues at a Wuhan virology lab.

There remains no confirmed evidence that a SARS-CoV-2 progenitor virus ever existed in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

 

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Posted

It’s still pretty easy to blame the Chinese government if you think it was zoonotic. They’ve known for decades about the danger those types of markets can pose and as far as I can tell have done pretty much nothing about it.

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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 7:35 PM, jimmyjazz said:

I don't understand why anyone has such an emotional need for this virus to have been released from a lab OR originate in the wild.  I guess there is at some level some political capital to be gained, but for me that is completely papered over by China's colossal intransigence.  It seems to me that there is enough "evidence" to support either theory, all of it incomplete.

I guess if it's a lab leak there is a slight opportunity to review and revise procedures, but at this point it feels like Lars Ulrich railing against Napster.  Kinda late, dude.

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I agree with almost all of that. 

To me it’s a watershed moment in human history. I think having a better understanding of its origin is important in terms of being able to tell that story in a more complete way. 

And while specific procedures might be a little late in being implemented, you and I both know that all kinds of human error was involved regardless of its origins. Having a better understanding of what that human error consisted of could still be an important learning moment/reminder of how quickly things can get out of control. 

But mostly I’d like as complete a telling of what happened for historical purposes. 

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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 8:11 PM, SL Xpress said:

Not a single statement you just made makes sense to me. Mao is not considered a great man in the west, and there’s nothing  at all clear to me what would have become of China if Chiang Kai Shek had won. 

I do think there’s something unique about cultures with some kind of Confucian foundation, but I don’t have a clear understanding of what that may be. I have guesses, but that’s it. But several of the countries with the greatest historical Chinese influence - Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore - have experienced the most impressive economic growth, all built on export led/current account surplus philosophies. 

But poor leadership can wreck any people/organization regardless of built in advantages. The Japanese made a massive change in their approach after Cook forcibly opened the country, and then another one just as drastic folllowing their defeat in WWII. Meanwhile much of the rest of the Far East was parceled off into European/American possessions, including China itself. 

Also, it’s not Mao’s leadership that brought China to where it is today. After some early successes in getting his people fed he led the country into a ditch. Deng is the one who got them turned around economically. And his leadership was no given. 

It’s also not clear if China would have been as successful if one of their party leaders had maneuvered themselves to be ruler for life as Xi seems to have done. 

It’s easy to look at their progress since WWII and think it was inevitable in some sense, but I feel strongly that’s a false assumption.

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Good post.  But I think you mean Perry, not Cook.

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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 8:11 PM, SL Xpress said:

Not a single statement you just made makes sense to me. Mao is not considered a great man in the west, and there’s nothing  at all clear to me what would have become of China if Chiang Kai Shek had won. 

I do think there’s something unique about cultures with some kind of Confucian foundation, but I don’t have a clear understanding of what that may be. I have guesses, but that’s it. But several of the countries with the greatest historical Chinese influence - Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore - have experienced the most impressive economic growth, all built on export led/current account surplus philosophies. 

But poor leadership can wreck any people/organization regardless of built in advantages. The Japanese made a massive change in their approach after Cook forcibly opened the country, and then another one just as drastic folllowing their defeat in WWII. Meanwhile much of the rest of the Far East was parceled off into European/American possessions, including China itself. 

Also, it’s not Mao’s leadership that brought China to where it is today. After some early successes in getting his people fed he led the country into a ditch. Deng is the one who got them turned around economically. And his leadership was no given. 

It’s also not clear if China would have been as successful if one of their party leaders had maneuvered themselves to be ruler for life as Xi seems to have done. 

It’s easy to look at their progress since WWII and think it was inevitable in some sense, but I feel strongly that’s a false assumption.

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It was a joke. 
Mao was a bad leader of China. He forced central economic control on them and killed them when it didn’t work, setting them back. 
If the entire nation were allowed to develop like HK and Taiwan, they would be the richest and greatest power in the world, not the US. 
That’s the joke. 

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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 7:35 PM, jimmyjazz said:

I don't understand why anyone has such an emotional need for this virus to have been released from a lab OR originate in the wild.  I guess there is at some level some political capital to be gained, but for me that is completely papered over by China's colossal intransigence.  It seems to me that there is enough "evidence" to support either theory, all of it incomplete.

I guess if it's a lab leak there is a slight opportunity to review and revise procedures, but at this point it feels like Lars Ulrich railing against Napster.  Kinda late, dude.

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That’s easy, actually.  People get their information from competing propaganda sources and they group up according to their information source.  One group’s source said it was plausible that Covid was a lab leak early on, another group said that was a crazy conspiracy theory.  Now each group wants to be vindicated and feel scientifically and intellectually superior for listening to the more accurate propaganda. 

Posted
  On 2/26/2023 at 8:03 PM, Telegraph_it said:

Weird what happens when you follow the science. 

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You mean like the science that says vaccines are safe and effective?

Whats strange is that during the height of the pandemic, some people were much more preoccupied with determining the origin of the virus than they were with mitigating the damage caused by it. The fact is, and remains, that knowing where the virus came from wasn’t important when dealing with the threat it posed to the population. The virus was a real and present danger regardless of where it came from. As it turned out, some of the people who were most concerned about where to assign blame for the virus were the least willing to address and promote sound solutions to the emergency. 

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Posted
  On 2/27/2023 at 12:47 AM, JesusSweatDuck said:

China fucked up and killed 7 million people.

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We can’t control what China does. We had a fuckup of our own that resulted in a great many preventable deaths, probably numbering in the hundreds of thousands. At one point we were losing more American lives every day than were lost in the terrorist attacks on 9/11. 

Posted (edited)
  On 2/27/2023 at 3:52 PM, Mullet Free said:

The idea that a planet altering novel pathogen naturally surfaced in the same city as a poorly run institute for virology research would be the mother of all coincidences. Personally, I don't believe in coincidences of that magnitude.

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It’s amazing how unlikely a connection can appear when you leave out critical contextual information.

For example, Wuhan is a massive city of over 12 million inhabitants. It’s not at all an unlikely candidate for a disease to originate. There are a lot of potential Patient Zeros in the area.

And Wuhan is not unique in its proximity to a high-level virology research lab, either. One 2020 estimate counted 62 individual BSL3-level lab complexes in China. Want to bet that those 62 labs are collectively near most of China’s population? 

If a disease originated naturally somewhere in China, odds are high the location of that natural origin would be near a high-level pathogen lab. That has nothing to do with cause-and-effect, it’s just pure probability and statistics. 

And consider a salient difference between the Wuhan lab and the others: Wuhan is a BSL4 facilty, which implements even higher safety standards (and thus reduces the chances of a leak).

It’s a lot less impressive a coincidence when you frame it honestly. “What are the chances a natural outbreak would start near one of the country’s 62 high-security pathogen labs?” Pretty high, actually.

Edited by BrickHorn
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