What's the point? Regardless if it leaked from the lab or not we have to prepare for the future the same way.
Just from a scientific perspective, we should know where covid-19 came from. If it hopped from bats to people in a wet market, that tells us something about the likelihood of this type of virus spreading from contact with wild animals. If it was accidentally released from a lab, that tells us something different.
In a healthy geopolitical environment, an impartial investigative team that's able to pinpoint the source of the original transmission could make this information public so that everyone can learn how to avoid this happening again. If the pandemic happened because policy enforcement at the virus lab in Wuhan was weak, this is worth knowing. Not to to lay blame and point fingers, but to help labs worldwide identify potential weak points in their own procedures.
The danger is that if evidence points to an accidental lab release, some Western politicians will seize on the opportunity to shame China just for the sake of national chauvinism. This will accomplish nothing positive. The Chinese Communist Party is very thin skinned and essentially amoral so they'll have no compunctions about covering up any evidence of a lab leak in order to save face. All of this political stuff risks getting in the way of helping the scientific community understand where covid-19 came from so we'll have a better understanding of how to reduce the chances of this happening again.
If COVID-19 was, in fact, a lab release then that's a strong argument for shutting the research down.
Liable in the trillions? Too big to speak about.
This is disputed.
That is not the assertion being made by the scientists pushing for the investigation. The assertion is that this is a chimeric virus that very much does NOT show up in nature and its lab-made qualities are precisely why it became a global pandemic.
Or would you take it as pure coincidence that the first truly global pandemic in however many decades you'd like just happened to be lab made?
Me: "This virus has unique qualities that made it especially contagious, so its artificiality is not moot."
You: "Other viruses in the past were also bad."
Me, now: Yes, other viruses in the past were also bad. If you meant that to relate to the previous comments I think you left out the important bits.
It's like if we were discussing whether we should investigate if someone caused a deadly landslide. Why would you argue that we shouldn't look into it simply because landslides also happen naturally? If there are empty crates of TNT on the top of the hill, shouldn't we look into it?
What happened is that (I think) I misinterpreted this statement:
> Or would you take it as pure coincidence that the first truly global pandemic in however many decades you'd like just happened to be lab made?
Upon re-reading, it seems you're saying that if this virus turned out to be lab-made, this fact might have something to do with it becoming a global pandemic (through an increased probability of spreading worldwide).
Whereas you're not saying that the fact that this became a global pandemic indicates that it is lab-made, which is how I misinterpreted it initially.
https://www.newsweek.com/controversial-wuhan-lab-experiments...
It is sickening that millions of people died, more will die, hundreds of millions of people have been pushed below poverty line, almost every single person's life on the planet is affected in some way and some people think it's unnecessary to investigate.
a.) It was covered up,
b.) The people responsible hid crucial information which could have helped contain the spread in the early days and find treatments,
c.) The people assuring us that lab creation was an impossible "conspiracy theory" at the very least have egg on their face, and at worst have no credibility or were engaged in a campaign of mis/disinformation.
And that's without getting into questions of whether the "leak" story is being used to cover for "intentional release."
> It was covered up
This is not actionable.
> The people responsible hid crucial information which could have helped contain the spread in the early days and find treatments
You imply in punishing those people? In the case it was a leak, the people interested in punishing them don't have that power, the people with that power were the same suppressing the information, so no, that won't happen.
> The people assuring us that lab creation was an impossible "conspiracy theory" at the very least have egg on their face, and at worst have no credibility or were engaged in a campaign of mis/disinformation
You should already remove any credibility from anybody claiming it was impossible, as well as from anybody claiming any other kind of certainty. What actually happened won't change that.
What we should do is take a good new look at the containment procedures of those labs, reevaluate them, verify if they are followed and fix what is not. We should also press uncooperative countries, like China, to open those up for inspection. Again, whether this one virus came from a lab leak or not is not relevant, we know that best practices are still leaky, and we have seen how problematic a leak would be.
All this politics game of "did | did not" is very counterproductive.
Who should do that, exactly? The same people you seem to think we should not to attempt to investigate or hold accountable in any way?
> We should also press uncooperative countries, like China, to open those up for inspection.
If China was demanding to have a bunch of their inspectors let into Fort Detrick to poke around, we wouldn't be any more welcoming than they have been. It's silly to allow imperial powers to engage in bioweapons research and then expect them to show each other all their cards.
It is much easier to get China to complain with "we developed those standards for virus research, and would like you to comply too, like any other serious country" than "we believe you made an incredibly large fuck-up and want your help to prove it".
(1) people like dramatic scandalous stories, in general. (2) knowing such might drive some prevention of whatever mistake lead to such from recurring.
There exists a class of people who, without necessarily being driven by other motivations, generally try to find out what is really going on. We call such people scientists.
No need to focus on motivation. Curiosity should be enough.
The only reason I see why we should want to remain ignorant is it will possibly embarrass China.
I think there's also something more insidious at play. In western countries lot of people have become rich by exporting manufacturing to China. If somehow it is found that COVID was a lab-leak, there'd be a huge amount of backlash against China. It will harm the business, who are doing their manufacturing in China. There's a lot of money involved if lab-leak hypothesis turned out true.