
State Dept cables raised safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses - haltingproblem
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/#click=https://t.co/loWgonz9fo
======
haltingproblem
OP here. One subtle distinction - lab origin does _not necessarily_ mean
engineered. It can also just mean a lab employee got infected while handling
and then was a vector for one or many human to human transmission.

Intuitively that transmission vector appears to be higher probability than
zoonotic transmission (animal to human). Just my intuition.

~~~
chews
I don't think anyone is saying China purposely bioweaponed the planet.
Accidental lack of containment is almost certainly what happened.

~~~
haltingproblem
Good point. I was most certainly not saying that China purposely bioweaponed
the planet. But your point is very good. Lets look at the matrix of
engineering and purpose

A - The Wuhan lab was engineering a virus and purposely bioweaponed the planet

B - The Wuhan lab was engineering a virus and accidentally bioweaponed the
planet

C - The Wuhan lab was not engineering a virus but purposely released it.

D - The Wuhan lab was not engineering a virus but accidentally released it.

I hope no one believes A and C. I don't think B is a possibility since they
allowed American researchers to openly access the lab.

What is also interesting is the US shutdown this research saying it was too
risky. In my mind, this also raises the possibility that the Wuhan lab was not
negligent and just ran the risk for too long. Doing something risky for long
enough and eventually, the probability of sampling the unlikely but probable
goes to 1.

~~~
masonic
E - The Wuhan lab was engineering a virus for potential bioweapon use, but it
escaped into the wild.

~~~
rotexo
Isn’t that B in the grandparent?

------
maallooc
[http://archive.is/N2Z1K](http://archive.is/N2Z1K)

