Hacker News Reader

This seems unlikely given that it was first a disaster for China

On that note, from the very beginning China's reaction appeared extreme and overbearing, but in hindsight it worked better than most other countries' responses. The question is... if other countries had known that it was from an accidental leak would they and the population in general have taken it much more seriously? I think they would have. If it were proven to be from a leak would there be less vaccine hesitancy? I think so too. The strongest contrarian argument against doing anything was always "it's just a flu" and some variation of "let nature take its course."

The source is irrelevant to to the virulence. We were able to measure the virulence from the start. That should be the guide for our response.

A natural virus could evolve to be very dangerous and a lab leak could give you a sore throat for a day. Origin != danger level.

That's not what GP is saying.

Facts and figures are next to worthless when trying to motivate billions of people to do something. If people hear "Covid gives you flu symptoms", they aren't going to care. If people hear "Covid is an experimental virus that escaped from a lab", that's scary and people will care more.

Nah, the people who deny the severity of covid will do the same, because of their masters who downplay it for political purposes and for personal inconvenience. You can see it play out right now in a certain part of the political spectrum. "Covid is just a flu, don't need to risk a vaccine from it, but also it's a very dangerous virus released by Chyna".

>On that note, from the very beginning China's reaction appeared extreme and overbearing

No, it actually did not. It was clear that they tried to hide it and downplay it in the beginning. But once the cat was out of the bag and you could see picture of clinics overcrowding, they figured out it as quite deadly. They were able to use both the lessons of SARS(due to which people were much more amenable to drastic measures) and being a totalitarian regime to suppress it.

> Blame assignment gives motivation to destroy evidence and obstruct the inquiry.

The problem with this angle is, ‘what if the destruction of evidence and obstruction of inquiry’ already happened? Then shouldn’t we blame destruction and obstruction?

Well, you could, if you find evidence that the obstruction actually happened - and there's certainly obstruction coming from China, not really surprising in a non-free country. China can reasonably be blamed for that.

What you can't do is make up what would have been found if there had been evidence.

Framed that way, more important than investigating would be aiming there is a 50% likelihood that this came from a lab, and to introduce reforms as is it did. That does seem more productive than essentially a criminal investigation.

The problem it is not very useful if we don't know how it happened. The Wuhan lab is already highest security, and in fact, higher security than what was required for coronaviruses. I guess they already thought of the "generic" security measures.

For example, you will not take the same action if it is the result of someone intentionally taking the virus out or if there is something wrong with the ventilation system. And addressing both "just to be safe" will not help much it waste management turned out to be the problem.

> what good is a superweapon if you don't tell anyone about it?

Off-topic, but that's a very big misconception, and also very common misconception. The bigger is the weapon, the more you gain to have it hidden not the other way around, moreover a superweapon like an H-bomb.

On-topic, it's very much clear that the COVID blame assignment is pretty much a proxy now for Western World's decision how to treat China now.

In case a smoking gun level proof is found, and it is any much blameable on Beijing, Western politicians will not be engaging China for the next 5-8 years, for sure.

If it escaped a lab, via researchers accidentally infecting themselves and then started to spread, infecting a few people at the wet market as a cover might have happened. Or just fabricating evidence that it started there would work.

If it was a lab escape, the virus may have been from a number of sources, but one would think their end goal was to create a vaccine / study it.

If you look at this from a high level, there were countries that did better with this and countries that did worse. On the whole, democratic, free countries have trouble controlling what their citizens do. So this has a slight benefit for countries that have more “control” over their citizens or stricter laws. Everyone loses something though, so I don’t think it was intentional.

I would say the longest game would be to create a virus like this and the vaccine, vaccinate your people, then spread it and let the rest of the world deal with a pandemic. But then you still can’t control mutations. And I don’t think this was the case with this one at all.

If it’s true, what do we do about it?

Nothing. We can’t do anything. Saving face is likely more valued than the truth coming out, and it would potentially cause a revolution and great instability if this got out. It could be World War III and lead to more death.

What does America do next time?

Be a hell of a lot more aggressive with emerging illnesses and with our support. If it is a well known secret that they had a leak before but we don’t publicize it, other countries may be more welcoming to support and transparency if it happens again.

I think all we can do in this case is look forward and put things in place so it doesn’t happen again.

pjc50 says: "...it was first a disaster for China..."

Was it a disaster for China? A virus that primarily killed elderly and immune-compromised persons? The virus leaves China with a younger, healthier and more productive population. China's economic situation is better today than it was before the pandemic b/c they now have a reduced dependent population.

Mao Tse-tung said he did not fear nuclear holocaust b/c their huge population protected China from being wiped out. In contrast, other nations would be annihilated. That is an idea CCP members are familiar with:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Mao%27s+comments+on+nuclear+war+po...