Smallpox and a flu-like virus aren't comparable. So I reject your premise.
Like I said, if a novel flu-like virus appeared in Atlanta, would your first guess be that it leaked from the CDC facility? That's what you're faced with, not smallpox.
Like I said, if a novel flu-like virus appeared in Atlanta, would your first guess be that it leaked from the CDC facility? That's what you're faced with, not smallpox.
If a new flu virus, quite more virulent that the usual flu, popped up in Atlanta 10 miles from the BSL4 facility and the closest known relative is endemic in polar bears, yeah, I'd be asking questions. Both about BSL4 and about the zoo. And maybe there are private citizens raising polar bears in Atlanta. I'd ask about them too. Especially if it were already known that polar bear viruses can be quite dangerous, see SARS episode 1.
But then again, these discussions are by now futile. It is obvious that the conversation has been politicized. One side will try its best to dismiss and discredit the slightest mention that there was ongoing bat coronavirus research in Wuhan, including WTF moments like creating chimera viruses for the specific purpose of infecting humans. The other will overhype all the scary innuendo that can possibly be created around WIV, whether it relates even remotely to SARS-CoV-2 or not.
I don't have the energy to elaborate the full decision tree in every post. Have fun!
Couple more points:
* Asking questions is a legitimate activity, even if the answer turns out to be negative. It's the fundamental mechanism for truth finding. I'm appalled, but not surprised, at the aggressive censorship strain that is spreading like wildfire in our society. Not only some people know all the correct answers, they know all the correct questions as well.
* Think hard about the wisdom of proliferating BSL4 centers in the middle of population centers of the size of NYC. That single fact is a scandal in itself.
Yes, but "just asking questions"[0] is also a rhetorical trick common enough to have a name, especially when the questions are leading, as some of yours are. That isn't to say that you're intentionally being nefarious, but hiding behind "I'm just asking questions" doesn't absolve one of responsibility for applying their own logical thinking.
> To the best of my knowledge, they do not naturally occur anywhere near Wuhan.
As I mentioned elsewhere, this is exactly the same story as with SARS-CoV-1. Bats from Yunnan are the source of a virus first found in humans in Guangdong, around 1000 miles away. So we have literally the exact same thing happening, in essentially the same area, in modern times. Given that, I have a question for you:
Which is more likely: that SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 had essentially the same transmission path, or that SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a government lab, but as far as we know, none of the early infections were related to said lab, meaning that it would have had to spread into the community without any of the lab employees getting infected (this reduces the reasonable escape paths significantly)
> * Think hard about the wisdom of proliferating BSL4 centers in the middle of population centers of the size of NYC. That single fact is a scandal in itself.
Yeah, I'm not seeing the issue here. We stick nuclear reactors in population centers, and I'm unaware of any known leaks from BSL-4 labs anywhere ever, so they have a better track record.
The wisdom, by the way, is that you need researchers and infra to support BSL-4 labs. You can't stick them out in the middle of nowhere, they usually need things like attached universities.
Your turn.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23072574
> As of your first point, there may be another natural virus, as of yet unidentified, possibly carried by a different species, that brought the disease to Wuhan. From the virologist chatter I hear, the genetic difference between RaTG13 is too large to have RaTG13 a recent direct precursor of SARS-CoV-2, either through genetic manipulation, or via culturing.