6 ms·

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Russian_flu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Russian_flu Except another very recent one was also a lab accident. So, no, n

by dsyrk 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Russian_flu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Russian_flu Except another very recent one was also a lab accident. So, no, not every single previous one was, and 2 of last 3 will have been from labs.

XorNot 5y ago
Except that virus was genomically identical to another virus in the 1950s. These thing's aren't being made in labs, they're being stored there but the actual reality is this: none of the countries being so interested in this have any ability to influence the country's these things happen in. So your effective response protocol may as well just blackbox the problem: "there is a new novel virus, how do we respond?" No one's going to be invading China to drop napalm on biological research facilities they've collectively decided without the CCP's involvement are "risky".
- p1necone 5y ago
  Exactly. This is what I meant by "not actionable".
  - dsyrk 5y ago
    How is lab safety “not actionable”? Is it some special field of science where all improvements and progress has stopped? I don’t understand your point. Haven’t more people died from SARS-Cov-2 than nuclear weapons, why we can’t have international conventions and inspections on dangerous virological research?
  - seryoiupfurds 5y ago
    It's not actionable for the US to force China to do something, sure. China doesn't want to suffer through another global pandemic either, so it would be useful to them to know if they need to improve lab safety standards. In fact, that information would be useful and actionable for all countries that have viral research labs.
    - cudgy 5y ago
      There are plenty of actions beyond military options like economic, political, and legal. China could be isolated financially with trade embargos for example. US treasuries and other nations instruments that China owns could be seized and extinguished. Bank accounts can be seized. There are many actions that could be taken if countries really desired. However, the alluring call of cheap manufacturing and a large population to market goods toward clouds most countries from taking any actions.
- tripletao 5y ago
  First, I think you've misunderstood the significance of that genetic similarity in the 1977 pandemic, since your use of the word "except" doesn't make sense. That genetic similarity is itself the evidence that the pandemic was probably of unnatural origin. After 27 years of natural transmission, the 1950 virus should have picked up mutations along the way. It didn't, thus the widely-accepted theory that it spent those intervening years in a laboratory freezer: > The reemergence was probably an accidental release from a laboratory source in the setting of waning population immunity to H1 and N1 antigens https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra0904322 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra0904322 So the statement above that "every single previous one [pandemic] in history" was of natural origin is probably false. The 1977 flu killed about 700k people worldwide, less than SARS-CoV-2 but more than a typical flu season. To emphasize, humanity doesn't have the technology to invent viruses de novo. A lab-manipulated virus is always going to be derived from a naturally-evolved virus, whether that's in simple ways (like storage in a freezer for 27 years) or complex ones (like genetic engineering). The question is the causality--if a pandemic was caused by the actions of scientists, then if not for those actions, those thousands/millions of people would still be alive. Second, why would we need to invade China? The USA was literally funding this research, so couldn't we just stop doing that? If SARS-CoV-2 arose from a lab accident, then China certainly deserves special blame for the coverup. But before that, this wasn't a political topic--it was an obscure academic debate between a small subset of virologists who wanted to perform certain risky experiments, and other academics who thought that risk was unacceptable. It's quite possible that the CCP is currently wishing they'd blamed the whole thing on a rogue, American-funded researcher early on. If they had, then it's quite possible that narrative would have stuck--it would be stupider than what most people seem to believe now, but not by much. Finally, the indifference you express above is bizarre to me. Do you believe the same thing about Chernobyl, that it's better for us to devote all our resources to improving treatment for cancer (which will also occur naturally, with or without nuclear meltdowns) and none to preventing meltdowns? If not, how is this different?

by dsyrk 5y ago

XorNot 5y ago

Except that virus was genomically identical to another virus in the 1950s. These thing's aren't being made in labs, they're being stored there but the actual reality is this: none of the countries being so interested in this have any ability to influence the country's these things happen in. So your effective response protocol may as well just blackbox the problem: "there is a new novel virus, how do we respond?" No one's going to be invading China to drop napalm on biological research facilities they've collectively decided without the CCP's involvement are "risky".

p1necone 5y ago
Exactly. This is what I meant by "not actionable".
- dsyrk 5y ago
  How is lab safety “not actionable”? Is it some special field of science where all improvements and progress has stopped? I don’t understand your point. Haven’t more people died from SARS-Cov-2 than nuclear weapons, why we can’t have international conventions and inspections on dangerous virological research?
- seryoiupfurds 5y ago
  It's not actionable for the US to force China to do something, sure. China doesn't want to suffer through another global pandemic either, so it would be useful to them to know if they need to improve lab safety standards. In fact, that information would be useful and actionable for all countries that have viral research labs.
  - cudgy 5y ago
    There are plenty of actions beyond military options like economic, political, and legal. China could be isolated financially with trade embargos for example. US treasuries and other nations instruments that China owns could be seized and extinguished. Bank accounts can be seized. There are many actions that could be taken if countries really desired. However, the alluring call of cheap manufacturing and a large population to market goods toward clouds most countries from taking any actions.
tripletao 5y ago
First, I think you've misunderstood the significance of that genetic similarity in the 1977 pandemic, since your use of the word "except" doesn't make sense. That genetic similarity is itself the evidence that the pandemic was probably of unnatural origin. After 27 years of natural transmission, the 1950 virus should have picked up mutations along the way. It didn't, thus the widely-accepted theory that it spent those intervening years in a laboratory freezer: > The reemergence was probably an accidental release from a laboratory source in the setting of waning population immunity to H1 and N1 antigens https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra0904322 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra0904322 So the statement above that "every single previous one [pandemic] in history" was of natural origin is probably false. The 1977 flu killed about 700k people worldwide, less than SARS-CoV-2 but more than a typical flu season. To emphasize, humanity doesn't have the technology to invent viruses de novo. A lab-manipulated virus is always going to be derived from a naturally-evolved virus, whether that's in simple ways (like storage in a freezer for 27 years) or complex ones (like genetic engineering). The question is the causality--if a pandemic was caused by the actions of scientists, then if not for those actions, those thousands/millions of people would still be alive. Second, why would we need to invade China? The USA was literally funding this research, so couldn't we just stop doing that? If SARS-CoV-2 arose from a lab accident, then China certainly deserves special blame for the coverup. But before that, this wasn't a political topic--it was an obscure academic debate between a small subset of virologists who wanted to perform certain risky experiments, and other academics who thought that risk was unacceptable. It's quite possible that the CCP is currently wishing they'd blamed the whole thing on a rogue, American-funded researcher early on. If they had, then it's quite possible that narrative would have stuck--it would be stupider than what most people seem to believe now, but not by much. Finally, the indifference you express above is bizarre to me. Do you believe the same thing about Chernobyl, that it's better for us to devote all our resources to improving treatment for cancer (which will also occur naturally, with or without nuclear meltdowns) and none to preventing meltdowns? If not, how is this different?