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> "If you knew that this was likely a lab-enhanced pathogen, there are so many things you could have done differently" I'm curious - if we knew in March 2020 t
by jb12 3y ago
> "If you knew that this was likely a lab-enhanced pathogen, there are so many things you could have done differently"
I'm curious - if we knew in March 2020 that covid came from a lab, what _would_ we have done differently?
- hotpotamus 3y agoThis is what I've always wondered - would those who downplayed the virus and eschewed masks and vaccines have changed their tune?
- hilbert42 3y agoAlmost certainty, the population already had a sense about the spread of natural viruses and their dangers—whether valid or not. Launched from a lab is a different ballgame altogether and not having experienced the problem before people would have been much more wary.
- StanislavPetrov 3y agoThe first thing we would have done would have been to put an immediate halt to all "gain of function" research - including all of the "gain of function" research that is currently ongoing (that Fauci and his ilk insist isn't really "gain of function" research). This would include severe penalties for those who funneled money to third party researchers. Instead, the global health authorities peddled the absurd "wet market" hypothesis and continue(d) to pour money into "gain of function" research that makes another lab leak inevitable (at some point).
- hotpotamus 3y ago[flagged]
- StanislavPetrov 3y agoI'm referring to the gain of function research currently being funded by the US government. We funded the gain of function research in Wuhan through the Eco Health Alliance. I don't mean to suggest we have any power to stop other countries from engaging in this dangerous research, but certainly we can stop being a party to it (and likely would have stopped if people knew there was a strong possibility that Covid resulted from a lab leak instead of a "wet market").
- Izkata 3y ago> We funded the gain of function research in Wuhan through the Eco Health Alliance. At least some of this funding happened during a ban. Doing it offshore was the workaround to avoid it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- baja_blast 3y agoWe could stop this research in it's tracks if the US government forced journals to not only refuse to publish dangerous research but also report the researchers to the authorities. Once you remove this incentive the whole demand and motivation for such reckless research collapses.
- ozr 3y agoThis comment is laden with rhetoric, but, to address your point regardless: 'military arms' are widely available. The equipment and knowledge to perform advanced virology work is not. It's much simpler to restrict.
- seattle_spring 3y ago> This comment is laden with rhetoric Can you elaborate on why this was worth pointing out for the parent comment, but not GP?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- neither_color 3y agoBeing unwilling to enforce something is not the same as being incapable of enforcing something, and stopping complex state-level research(especially nuclear) is something the US has been doing in many countries for decades. It's why so few countries have advanced bio/nuclear weapons. Your comparison makes no sense.
- dzader 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoWe've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines egregiously and repeatedly, and ignoring our request to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- mandmandam 3y agoNot censored millions upon millions of posts discussing the idea, for one thing. The conversation and narrative was warped, and a lot of people are now rather extremely divorced from the reality around this issue. Gain of function research would have been examined much more closely, and with the origins known we may have had much less fumbling around protocols for containment, such as knowing much sooner that it was airborne. I believe many people likely died as a consequence of this mass deception, and its ripple effects. And many more might die yet, if we don't reign in irresponsible bio research.
- UberFly 3y agoYou are correct. I guess people can't handle that. This is from the article, it tracks with your sentiment: Said Metzl, “Had US government officials including Dr. Fauci stated from day one that a COVID-19 research-related origin was a very real possibility, and made clear that we had little idea what viruses were being held at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, what work was being done there, and who was doing that work, our national and global conversations would have been dramatically different. The time has come for a full accounting.”
- mort96 3y agoThat doesn't track with their sentiment at all? "Our national and global conversation would have been dramatically different" is not the same as "many fewer people would have died".
- CrimsonCape 3y agoAny response to your question is hypothetical at this point (disclaimer) so here's my hypothetical explanation of how conversation would have led to less deaths: A lot of people believed the lab leak "consipracy theory", but Fauci and company were so adamant to contradict the "conspiracy theorists" that it practically destroyed those people's willingness to heed any of the CDC directives. Of course I can only say anecdotally violating CDC guidelines results in more deaths, but that's the gist of my hypothetical. See this article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2021/06/16/heres-what-dr-fauci-has-said-about-covids-origins-and-the-lab-leak-theory/?sh=30ff2c86a853 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2021/06/16/heres-w...
- ChemSpider 3y agoIf the lab leak story is correct, the WIV people knew somewhere inbetween September...November 2019 that the virus leaked.
- onethought 3y agoThat’s not true, a leak could occur without them realising. Getting cold and flu symptoms in winter wouldn’t raise too many suspicions. Given they didn’t start any containment procedures either they didn’t know or that’s not how it happened
- Natsu 3y agoThe article doesn't just say "people got sick" it says that researchers were hospitalized. That doesn't sound like "normal seasonal illness" to me.
- onethought 3y agoThen you haven’t spent time in China and realise they use their hospital system very differently. Often people will go to hospitals for minor fevers.
- dezgeg 3y agoYep, can confirm this took me by surprise when working with chinese colleagues in our company. Eg. I would read someone's out-of-message saying "OoO, going to hospital today" and be freaking out. But then they would be just out for couple days sick leave for fever or something. Only after like 3rd time that happening it clicked to me that 'hospital' for them means something completely different than I would have thought. Whether that is just a misunderstanding of language or actual difference in healthcare system I never thought about.
- Natsu 3y ago"Hospitalized" normally refers to staying at the hospital, not just visiting the ER, though it is a bit ambiguous.
- TechBro8615 3y agoI had personally decided by April 2020 that there was sufficient information for me to believe that Covid was a lab-enhanced pathogen that was accidentally released by researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. My "source" was mainly common sense (the simplest solution is usually the right one, and guilty people doth protest too much), an understanding of probability (there is a lab studying the pathogen right next to the wet market which an authoritarian regime claims was the source), and an unbiased reading of history (like looking at 2001 articles on CNN about the last time SARS leaked from a lab). For better or worse, I'm not a policymaker, so my opinion is meaningless and would have had no outcome on what "we" could have done differently (aside: I dislike this kind of rhetoric that shifts the blame to the amorphous "we" rather than the specific policymakers with names and titles who "we" should be blaming and holding responsible for their failures). But I've at least saved some sanity by listening to my gut instincts instead of subjecting myself to the whiplash that would have come with a world view determined by appeals to authority. It seems this is more and more necessary these days - if you rely on authority as a heuristic for truth, your reality can shift under you at the whims of politicians who manipulate it for their own selfish reasons. It's best to stay above the fray. Sure, gut instinct can be wrong, but when I'm not a policymaker and only need to be concerned with my own health and well-being, the consequences of incorrect critical thinking are usually less bad than the consequences of trusting the wrong authority. I will continue to prioritize my "gut feeling" - informed by critical reading of publicly available data, and careful triangulation of the motives and biases of stakeholders in the current political reality - over any blessed truth that "we" have anointed as "consensus."
- hotpotamus 3y agoOk, given your prescience about the origin of COVID, how did that influence the actions you took to mitigate its effects?
- dfee 3y agoPerhaps not mitigate its effects, but instead refocus our efforts on accountability – both in the US and in China.
- 3y ago
- ozr 3y agoIf it was developed in lab, presumably there would be a substantial amount of information available on it. Lab notes, testing results, transmission rates, all sorts of things we had to discover in the wild. We could have used that data to make progress on a vaccine (and adjust our overall response) much, much faster.
- this_user 3y agoHow and why would they have that kind of data available if the virus only existed in the lab? At most they could have had computer simulations, but no real data. The only information they would have had is the DNA sequence, but that was rapidly sequenced anyway, and design of the original vaccines followed in short order. What took time was testing and manufacturing the vaccines, but none of this would have been accelerated even if the lab theory were true and if they had any data on the details of the virus. This whole discussion is ultimately useless, and the people pushing for it were never interested in finding solution, but only in finding someone to blame, which has no impact on the outcome.
- ozr 3y ago> How and why would they have that kind of data available if the virus only existed in the lab? At most they could have had computer simulations, but no real data. I'm not a virologist, but this doesn't make sense to me. If we work under the assumption that this was a lab-made virus that leaked, then they plainly must have actually created it. What's the point of having a real virus if you aren't using it to generate real data? Even in the unlikely scenario where they made it, stuck it on a shelf, and did nothing: they could share information about how it was created, which would give insight into it's potential current and future behavior. > The only information they would have had is the DNA sequence, but that was rapidly sequenced anyway, and design of the original vaccines followed in short order. This isn't true. They would have information on how it was created, any work that they had done to devise a vaccine for it, and any other data they had accumulated on it. > This whole discussion is ultimately useless, and the people pushing for it were never interested in finding solution, but only in finding someone to blame, which has no impact on the outcome. It's not useless at all. If it turns out to be true, there are plenty of meaningful ramifications: 1. In the pursuit of stopping fake news and propaganda, real information from whistleblowers and researchers was suppressed and careers were ended. It would be a useful lesson in free speech and the open exchange of ideas. 2. It shows there are clearly deficiencies in these labs. Inspections could be more frequent, standards could be raised, all sorts of changes could be made to prevent it from happening again. 3. And, yes, if there is someone or some entity worthy of blame, they should be blamed. Why should their fault be hand-waved?
- unyttigfjelltol 3y agoIn 2020 Luc Montagnier identified Covid-19 as a lab creation and predicted that, because the original strain was unnatural, later strains would be less problematic as the virus reverted to its true (less problematic) nature. In contrast, the public health conversation was about a permanent threat and how much worse can it get and generally government running around hair-on-fire. Maybe the initial quarantine recommendation would have been the same--or even stronger-- but the pandemic impacted all aspects of life everywhere, and elements of that would have been different. EcoHealth would be a bad dream, no one would be running interference for Fauci. Vaccinations would have been a different conversation, because this would have been recognized as a temporary threat.
- jedmeyers 3y ago> because the original strain was unnatural, later strains would be less problematic as the virus reverted to its true (less problematic) nature Is it possible for someone to speed up this process in a lab somewhere, like South Africa, and release the less problematic version to the public to achieve the herd immunity quicker?
- twoWhlsGud 3y agoI doubt it. However, luckily for us someone has already invented called a vaccine that is far safer and plays a similar role in achieving herd immunity ; )
- kneel 3y agoDangerous virus research has continued in the interim. The real question is if there is little to no regulation or even acknowledgement of failures, it's only a matter of time before this happens again.
- baja_blast 3y agoIf we knew it was from a lab much of the confusion over H2H transmission, Airborne transmission, asymptomatic infections would have been known much earlier. We would have take the correct measure earlier and saved lives.
- usefulcat 3y agoIf it came from a lab, then we need to seriously re-evaluate the risk-reward ratio for such research.
- mc32 3y agoPresumably the people there would have knowledge of the virus's characteristics, behavior and better prepare us for dealing with it.
- evandale 3y agoClosing the borders wouldn't have been seen as racist, it would have identified as a valid tool to stop the spread, and we would have had an extra 2 months early on in the pandemic preventing the spread in a major way. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/covid-coronavirus-pandemic-trudeau-borders-1.5619705 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/covid-coronavirus-pandemic-...
- topspin 3y agoNot deplatforming people for discussing it would be the most visible difference.
- LatteLazy 3y agoLiterally nothing.