Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

What does that mean?

Bench scientists have the capability to manipulate viruses for experiments and various research goals -- The subtitle for the New York article says, "For decades, scientists have been hot-wiring viruses in hopes of preventing a pandemic, not causing one. But what if …?

Again, he has no evidence that happened.

At the same time, you keep dismissing the possibility of it as disproven -- and that isn't true . You linked to that Nature Medicine article and told me that I am part of the problem because I don't read. That article addressed the "They created a man-made virus in a lab to start a pandemic" conspiracy theories. That New York magazine article didn't suggest that.

 

I'm not saying anything.

I'm saying READ the article and if you think it is unsound -- or scientifically unsound, which was what someone said that I quoted and responded to -- address what he actually wrote in the article.

It was a perfectly valid piece for them to run. There is a top virology lab in the backyard of where the virus first appeared, and there have been a lot of conspiracy theories from the earliest days of the pandemic. It's natural that someone would go there. And he actually did exhaustive legwork for that piece and interviews. What he theorized actually could have been POSSIBLE. Doesn't mean it happened. There is no evidence of it. But the level of dismissiveness on this thread, like "how dare he write that? The smartest people in the world have disproven that! (no they haven't)" came across like shouting down what he is suggesting rather than addressing it on its substance.

 

Your "end of story" notwithstanding. ... um, no.

You can (and they do) create viral hybrids (for example of bat and human viruses) in lab cultures, for which nobody else could possibly know if they developed in nature or in a lab culture.

 

The source of the virus is really important. That lab may be collecting pathogens in the wild and creating hybrids, and if one of them escaped and created the pandemic, it's something we all would have a stake in, just in terms of trying to prevent future pandemics.

There are enough facts at hand for it to be something that people shouldn't just dismiss. An outbreak of a deadly bat virus -- whose origin we do not know -- coincidentally occurred near the only level 4 virology institute in China. ... which happened to be studying the closest known relative of that exact virus.

Those are the facts. It's certainly worth SOME level of scrutiny.