[Firebot]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I think in reality, the virus is natural. Then it either spread through the market as we have been told, or it was under study in secrecy at this lab where it was accidentally released(or was spreading at the same time it was being studied). I do have strong doubts it was man made.

While I do fully believe if it was released from a lab it would have been entirely accidental, the problem is a US lab has already experimented with coronaviruses and engineered new versions of viruses, there has been recent precedent. The US did it, and there's little expectation to believe that China would be any different.

This was linked at one point in this thread (but completely dismissed at the time), it's a scientific article from 2015, that has since been redacted to to preemptively stop people from using it for the basis of the lab theory.

https://www.nature.com/news/engineer...search-1.18787

The argument is essentially a rerun of the debate over whether to allow lab research that increases the virulence, ease of spread or host range of dangerous pathogens — what is known as ‘gain-of-function’ research. In October 2014, the US government imposed a moratorium on federal funding of such research on the viruses that cause SARS, influenza and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome, a deadly disease caused by a virus that sporadically jumps from camels to people).

https://www.nature.com/news/us-suspe...search-1.16192

The US government surprised many researchers on 17 October when it announced that it will temporarily stop funding new research that makes certain viruses more deadly or transmissible. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is also asking researchers who conduct such ‘gain-of-function’ experiments on influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) to stop their work until a risk assessment is completed — leaving many unsure of how to proceed.

The US put a stop to this type of research as it was too dangerous, but China may not have been playing with the same rules and may not have disclosed this research method.

Wuhan's lab was specifically studying SARS and coronaviruses around this time. If they used the controversial gain of function method for research, they very likely may have created covid-19 and escaped accidentally.

https://www.nature.com/news/inside-t...hogens-1.21487

Some scientists outside China worry about pathogens escaping, and the addition of a biological dimension to geopolitical tensions between China and other nations. But Chinese microbiologists are celebrating their entrance to the elite cadre empowered to wrestle with the world’s greatest biological threats.

Future plans include studying the pathogen that causes SARS, which also doesn’t require a BSL-4 lab, before moving on to Ebola and the West African Lassa virus, which do. Some one million Chinese people work in Africa; the country needs to be ready for any eventuality, says Yuan. “Viruses don’t know borders.”

We also have to remember that this pandemic was never voluntarily disclosed by the Chinese state government at first, they were forced to after social media leaks of a SARS like pneumonia. This is when the whole wet market angle came in which was totally plausible, it's how SARS likely came from after all, but Chinese authority prevented any foreign researchers from having access to it until they thoroughly cleaned it.

The first article I found citing the wet market angle was this one, a day after the government publicly acknowledged a pneumonia outbreak at the time (Dec 31).

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/2020...e35581e30.html

Let's also remember, the official stance by the Chinese government of learning of a 'problem' was December 27. Anything attributed to cases prior to that date that should be known by the government, shows they have been covering up the data. The lab sickness certainly point to that, and so do cases in multiple countries dating from October or November 2019.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com...w/76243133.cms

According to the whitepaper, after the COVID-19 was identified by a hospital in Wuhan on December 27, the local government called experts to look into the cases through an analysis of the patients' condition and clinical outcome, the findings of epidemiological investigations, and preliminary laboratory testing results.

http://en.nhc.gov.cn/2020-06/08/c_80724.htm

The last thing they would ever admit is fault, even if totally accidental.

Imagine if this pandemic occured with an accidental release of a gain-of-function version of ebola which was next on the research list?