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Made in a lab vs not made in a lab: so what?

If it came from animals China would have already found the animal and cleared themselves. The reason they haven't is because it did not come from some animal but from their lab. China has covered this up since day 1. You don't cover things up when there is nothing to hide. You cover things up because you do have things to hide.


To absolutely scientifically know that a virus came from a specific animal this early in study is rare. Furthermore, while science considers C-19 most probably came from bats, they’ve not yet even selected a specific species of animal that is a candidate for which animal actually transferred the disease to humans. Sometimes it’s the other way around. MERS was likely originated by bats, not yet concluded as most probably, but most surely transferred to humans by a camel.

China hides everything whether they have something to hide or not. That’s their MO. Their culture, if you wish.
 
Yep; Trump wasn't the one who sent Covid infected elderly back to the nursing homes. What irks the liberals here is it's starting to look like Trump was right all along; it did come from the Wuhan lab. And the Chinese could have provided the early warning before it spread worldwide. The respones would have been different if the Chinese had said it was a militarized virus intended to infect humans and it's very lethal. At first, no one even knew how it spread or how lethal it could be. But the Chinese knew.

How does any of that excuse Trump laughing at people putting on a mask at the height of the pandemic? If anything, believing that it might have been a weaponized virus from a Chinese lab makes that even more inexcusable.
 
How does any of that excuse Trump laughing at people putting on a mask at the height of the pandemic? If anything, believing that it might have been a weaponized virus from a Chinese lab makes that even more inexcusable.
And now we know from Fauci's own emails that masks are ineffective at spreading the virus. Turns out Trump was right about that, too.
 
False.

The “evolving knowledge” defense is b.s. You always err on the side of caution. He deliberately downplayed mask’s effectiveness. Masks have been used to protect against the spread of viruses for decades. He knew or should have known this.
 
The “evolving knowledge” defense is b.s. You always err on the side of caution. He deliberately downplayed mask’s effectiveness. Masks have been used to protect against the spread of viruses for decades. He knew or should have known this.

So once the real risks were known, I am sure you were outraged Trump was still making fun of people trying to wear masks, right? Especially if he really knew this was a weaponized Chinese virus?
 
So once the real risks were known, I am sure you were outraged Trump was still making fun of people trying to wear masks, right? Especially if he really knew this was a weaponized Chinese virus?
Trump’s approach to masks was a stupid mistake. But just because I supported Trump doesn’t mean I was stupid enough to listen to him.
 
we know now that masks aren't effective outside of a clinical setting. Even then those cheap masks we all wore do little. Trump was right.

Who is “we”? And how do they know?
 
If the virus originated in a wet market, the world will tend to construe the virus as an act of God (despite God's clear instruction not to eat the kinds of animals found in wet markets, but I digress).

If the virus originated in a Chinese lab, then the Chinese are guilty of engineering and ultimately losing control of a virus that wiped out millions of lives and countless trillions in GDP. It would constitute perhaps the single greatest blunder of the 21st Century, and China is squarely to blame.

Even if this doesn't carry weight in international courts (with respect to liability for damages), it's a major embarrassment for China. It means that at a time their government is claiming to be a model and boon to humanity, their actual legacy to the world is incompetence, hubris, death, misery, and deceit--at least in the first quarter of this century.
The only issue with your comparison (or whatever it is) here is that it originating from a Chinese lab does not equal that they engineered it. These sort of labs study viruses, allowing them to naturally develop, mutate all the time without any sort of engineering of those viruses. It could be that some lab techs or even scientists accidentally let the virus escape, maybe didn't take the proper precautions when working with it, tried to cover it up, and then spread it to more people without it being a case of "GOF research" causing the virus.
 
It could be that some lab techs or even scientists accidentally let the virus escape, maybe didn't take the proper precautions when working with it, tried to cover it up, and then spread it to more people without it being a case of "GOF research" causing the virus.
It's possible, but getting progressively less likely as more evidence comes out.

Ultimately it doesn't matter much from the standpoint of liability. It's not in dispute that the lab was engaged in GoF research (they published on the topic many times). The ability to conduct such research--which includes the ability to store and cultivate viruses of all origins--carries with it a duty of care to protect the public. If the outbreak originated from an error at the lab, it constitutes a breach of this duty of care, and such breaches carry liabilities for damages.

China isn't going to pay the world one thin dime for COVID, even if the evidence nails them dead to rights. Everyone knows this, including the politicians blustering about how much China owes the world. Hence the issue of liability is more one of national prestige and public perception.
 
It's possible, but getting progressively less likely as more evidence comes out.

Ultimately it doesn't matter much from the standpoint of liability. It's not in dispute that the lab was engaged in GoF research (they published on the topic many times). The ability to conduct such research--which includes the ability to store and cultivate viruses of all origins--carries with it a duty of care to protect the public. If the outbreak originated from an error at the lab, it constitutes a breach of this duty of care, and such breaches carry liabilities for damages.

China isn't going to pay the world one thin dime for COVID, even if the evidence nails them dead to rights. Everyone knows this, including the politicians blustering about how much China owes the world. Hence the issue of liability is more one of national prestige and public perception.
Not that I've seen. There is little evidence of it being manipulated. Some random and wild claims that have not been peer reviewed.

Again, being involved in GoF research does not mean that this particular escaped virus was part of that research. And any research in viruses, even without any sort of GoF research going on, carries a responsibility to do your utmost to protect the public.

China wouldn't pay the world jack and anyone who believes they would is ridiculously naive. No one really trusts China now though, so that really won't matter. No one really trusted China before this all happened though either.
 
Again, being involved in GoF research does not mean that this particular escaped virus was part of that research. And any research in viruses, even without any sort of GoF research going on, carries a responsibility to do your utmost to protect the public.
If it originated at the lab, why does it matter whether it was one of the engineered strains or one of the natural strains that ultimately escaped.

If I own a factory that imports nitroglycerine and turns it into dynamite, and my factory blows up and levels six city blocks, why does it matter whether it was the nitroglycerine or the dynamite that initially caused the explosion? I'm clearly liable.
 
If it originated at the lab, why does it matter whether it was one of the engineered strains or one of the natural strains that ultimately escaped.

If I own a factory that imports nitroglycerine and turns it into dynamite, and my factory blows up and levels six city blocks, why does it matter whether it was the nitroglycerine or the dynamite that initially caused the explosion? I'm clearly liable.
Because of the potential intent there. Was it being modified to use against others or for research, if it was modified?

But overall it is simply the clarification that these are different things. If it doesn't matter, then why is GoF research mentioned at all within these debates?
 
But overall it is simply the clarification that these are different things. If it doesn't matter, then why is GoF research mentioned at all within these debates?
Likely because most people (presently company included) consider GoF research an even more spectacularly bad idea than simply running around the world collecting natural pathogens to experiment with them in a lab.

However, in terms of liability, you're right: it matters very little.

FWIW, I don't believe the lab was engaged in biowarfare research. I believe the intent was well-meaning, if reckless.
 
Likely because most people (presently company included) consider GoF research an even more spectacularly bad idea than simply running around the world collecting natural pathogens to experiment with them in a lab.

However, in terms of liability, you're right: it matters very little.

FWIW, I don't believe the lab was engaged in biowarfare research. I believe the intent was well-meaning, if reckless.
But you just said it shouldn't make a difference. Either it does make a difference or it doesn't.

There really is no rational reason to discuss "liability" in this when it comes to China.
 
But you just said it shouldn't make a difference. Either it does make a difference or it doesn't.
It makes a difference whether the outbreak originated from the research lab versus an act of God. This is the thread question. "Made in a lab vs not made in a lab: so what?"

If the outbreak originated in a lab, it does not make a difference from the standpoint of liability whether the escaped strain was modified or natural.

There really is no rational reason to discuss "liability" in this when it comes to China.
I agree, but the criticism against China is a moral one. There's a war for people's hearts and minds as concerns the CCP. Is China a benign, responsible, world-leading global citizen? It it a clumsy, despotic, hazardous Fourth Reich? Whether the outbreak originated in a lab and what researchers were doing in that lab weigh on these questions, even though the question of liability is entirely answered by the first. And is moot.
 
It makes a difference whether the outbreak originated from the research lab versus an act of God. This is the thread question. "Made in a lab vs not made in a lab: so what?"

If the outbreak originated in a lab, it does not make a difference from the standpoint of liability whether the escaped strain was modified or natural.


I agree, but the criticism against China is a moral one. There's a war for people's hearts and minds as concerns the CCP. Is China a benign, responsible, world-leading global citizen? It it a clumsy, despotic, hazardous Fourth Reich? Whether the outbreak originated in a lab and what researchers were doing in that lab weigh on these questions, even though the question of liability is entirely answered by the first. And is moot.
But that again is just it, if it came from the lab, then we can say that China had some responsibility to not cover it up. Absolutely agree. However, the only reason that would change when it comes to whether it was GoF research or not is their intention behind the GoF research. If it was just to study the virus deeper, then it really isn't different, and as you claim, moot, but we don't have evidence of it being from GoF research, despite some trying to throw that out basically as this big bad "look, the Chinese were making bioweapons" (and yes, this is a claim being made by rightwing pundits on why GoF here matters.
 
Where
It doesn't and I have heard no one say it does.

Who have you heard say otherwise?


That it may have come from the Wuhan wet market is no longer debated. The door has closed on this speculation.

Peace

Unusual posts for you. :unsure:
Where it came from is important because this will not be the last pandemic and the next one could be much much more deadly.

Would be good to know what environment spawns such things.
 
Who is “we”? And how do they know?


Just a note. The effectiveness of various mask types were known fairly early on. Such as N95 masks being 95% effective over X period of time. Had we distributed those masks early on, that would have been the most effective. However, they are a bit cumbersome in operation compared to softer mask types and likely rejected by many. Still, a better option would have been distribution. The KN95 mask, made in China, was much less eff. Unless your homemade mask was made with 3 layers as demonstrated by the CDC, most OTC masks and homemade masks were less effective, being less or much less than 50%. Plus, people re-use masks beyond their max effectiveness.
 

... I'm perfectly willing to believe that [natural evolvement] happened, but I don't think it's the only way that that sequence could have appeared. The other way is that somebody could have put it in there. You can't distinguish between the two origins from just looking at the sequence. So, naturally, you want to know were there people in the virology laboratory in Wuhan who were manipulating viral genetic sequences? It's really a question of history: What happened?
When I first saw the sequence of the furin cleavage site—as I've said, other beta coronaviruses don't have that site—it seemed to me a reasonable hypothesis that somebody had put it in there. Now, I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know that it's a hypothesis that must be taken seriously.

Why is it important to know where the virus originated?

Well, I think we want to know the pathway of generating highly infectious new viruses that could cause pandemics because we want to protect ourselves against this happening again. If it happened by natural means, it means that we have to increase our surveillance of the natural environment. We have to try to find the hosts that provide an ability for the virus to change its sequence, to become more infectious. This would mean we need to keep surveillance on markets, on zoos, on places where viruses could jump from one species to another.

But if SARS-CoV-2 came about by an artificial means, it means we've got to put better defenses around laboratories. I'm not suggesting that it was deliberately released if it came from a laboratory, but we have to realize that whatever a laboratory does might get out of the laboratory and create havoc. It means that work of this sort should only go on in what are called biosafety level 4 laboratories.

... When I looked at the world of viruses 20, 30 years ago, I was a younger virologist. It seemed to me that there was very little that viruses did that was good. Most of what they did was bad, caused disease of various sorts, even cancer. Today, there is the ability to manipulate viruses. Researchers can remove the genetic material that makes a virus dangerous, that makes people ill, and instead use the virus as a package to get a desired therapeutic into cells. That's an incredibly powerful, positive thing that viruses can do. They don't naturally treat diseases, but we can manipulate them so that they become vectors that allow us to fight diseases.

the importance of knowing the genesis of covid19 is being able to know to focus on lab safety or to instead focus on those intersections where viruses can mutate across species
 



the importance of knowing the genesis of covid19 is being able to know to focus on lab safety or to instead focus on those intersections where viruses can mutate across species


You're talking science but the RW is talking the non-critical CT of origin an it's non-scientific concerns, which is purely political. "non-critical" (as opposed to the "critical" in such as CRT) being "In CT, no significant evidence of such being a characteristic, no criticism is acceptable."
 
While the lab/market controversy may never be settled, we can look at the emergence of mutations of the Covid-19 virus. Right now we're up to the Delta strain. It may well be followed by an Epsilon variation. That one may be more contagious and/or more virulent than Delta.

We will know the source with considerable certainty. It will originate in someone who is unvaccinated, has not previously contracted the Covid-19 virus and does not have natural immunity. There are many, many millions, perhaps billions, of these 'mini-labs' or human Petri dishes walking about among us.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.
 
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