Thread

1. robmusial · 1791169542 · focus · HN ↗

   I literally just finished Annie Jacobsen's book 'Biological War: A Scenario' last week where the central plot point is an accidental release of modified form of pneumonic plague from a lab in Siberia. Very coincidental timing, especially since it made me wonder how often labs like these have accidents and we never hear about them because it is cleaned up without issue.

   1. petcat · 1791170758 · focus · HN ↗

      > made me wonder how often labs like these have accidents and we never hear about them because it is cleaned up without issue.

      Did anyone ever confirm if the lab in Wuhan China was the originator of COVID? I remember that was a rumor but never heard if there was anything to it.

      1. potatoproduct · 1791172116 · focus · HN ↗

         Chinas actions following the event includes the destruction of evidence, refusal of access and using the WHO as their personal mouthpiece. Unless history is rewritten too, every textbook should clearly point to China.

         1. vachina · 1791172796 · focus · HN ↗

            Source? Your account is no better hearsay.

            1. sudo_cowsay · 1791173060 · focus · HN ↗

               ur username?
            2. nxm · 1791173691 · focus · HN ↗

               It’s clear that they knew about the extent of the issue weeks earlier and tried to contain it, rather than letting the world know

               1. vintermann · 1791179742 · focus · HN ↗

                  I agree it's clear they knew something was up and tried to control information getting out.

                  But that's not at all enough evidence that they knew about the extent of the issue. Such institutions reflexively try to control information flow whether they themselves know what's going on or not.

         2. ruficufi274 · 1791173665 · focus · HN ↗

            now do NIH / Doge / Twitter

            1. khazhoux · 1791176153 · focus · HN ↗

               Objection: relevance.

               1. ididndn · 1791179268 · focus · HN ↗

                  removal of evidence, there were British and US scientists involved also
         3. avidiax · 1791176884 · focus · HN ↗

            I feel it's more complicated than that. I wouldn't be surprise if Beijing does not actually know whether this was a lab leak or not.

            The local government might know. They would have started a cover up reflexively.

            But in either case, it could be that neither the local government nor central government wants to know or to find out. Ultimately, destroying the evidence and failing to cooperate with foreign investigators has cost China very little or nothing, even.

            In short, I feel China should be admonished for covering things up, but not that the cover up proves the lab leak.

            1. adventured · 1791179785 · focus · HN ↗

               There's no scenario where a local government knows whether it was a leak or not, and Beijing is kept in the dark. The fear local governments feel when it comes to being subservient to Beijing would entirely rule out hiding anything from them about what actually happened.

               1. nostrademons · 1791181185 · focus · HN ↗

                  It is not in Beijng's interest to know. The truth that is convenient for the Chinese government is that it had nothing to do with Chinese government research. Therefore that is the truth and nobody is going to go digging much deeper, or if they do it's going to be buried in some report that never gets published.
               2. 1718627440 · 1791191224 · focus · HN ↗

                  The local government could still fear retaliation for failure to regulate public health.
         4. vintermann · 1791179530 · focus · HN ↗

            In a state like China, this would probably happen as a panic response, not because the people covering up and destroying evidence know that their institution has done something bad/embarrassing, but because they fear it might be so and it's far better for their personal careers to suppress too much than to suppress too little. It's quite possible the people running cover-ups knew as little as us.

            And that goes for western spy agencies too, by the way. Headless chickens all around.

            1. Fricken · 1791186336 · focus · HN ↗

               The NSF was funding Gain-of-function research in Wuhan at a lab overseen and managed by an international scientific consortium. All these institutions have incentives to modify the narrative. At the start of the outbreak I would have bet anyone ten bucks that we'd never get to the bottom of it.
         5. dualvariable · 1791182988 · focus · HN ↗

            Of course, it should point to China. They're the ones who didn't shut down the wet markets after SARS-CoV-1.
         6. shlant · 1791184262 · focus · HN ↗

            this is one of the leaps of faith I allude to in my top level comment - just because a bad actor is involved and would be incentivized to cover something up, doesn't mean that the lab leak theory is correct. Those two ideas are not connected.

            A really easy knockdown for this kind of argument is - why did they close down, sanitize, and dispose of all animals and items at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market? If your argument is that a coverup points to the source, why wouldn't that mean the wet market was the origin?

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