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Comment by eschaton | Hacker News Reader

So if a restaurant worker in California happens to do a poor job of washing their hands and a diner gets sick, does that mean America is to blame?

There should absolutely be as deep as possible an investigation into the origins of the virus, but it needs to be dispassionate in all directions.

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> a restaurant worker in California happens to do a poor job of washing their hands and a diner gets sick

If that worker causes a global pandemic the U.S. government covers up, yes.

Exactly this.

The cover up by is the problem

There is a difference between a restaurant worker (or a wet market worker) who slipped up and a lab worker that slipped up because we want lab rules to be idiot proof such that one worker would not be able to infect others/themselves - even if they tried.

The restaurant worker slipping up is bad luck if they happen to be first to contact a virus. The government that runs labs know there is 100% chance there are dangerous viruses there and have a responsibility to enforce the safeguards.

I think that only applies within their borders.

Once it's outside, sure, there's a duty to report, but other governments have a responsibility to their own populace to keep them healthy.

The US, for instance, should have more than enough spies in China to know everything china knows anyways, and took the chinese line that the virus didn't exist, or wasn't a problem up until Joe Biden got elected

The US spy networks in China have been "rolled up"[1]. They don't exist in a usable form (if the news is to be believed).

As for the "until Joe Biden" bit, er ... no. Trump was kicked out in large part due to his incompetent handling of the virus in the US (he thought it was an orchestrated attack by his political opponents, given that they turned everything into such an attack).

The virus was a problem long before Biden won. Not that he is more competently handling it (he isn't), but the news media can now largely let go of their Trump derangement to start focusing on important things again. So it shows up more.

[1] https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/905779/CIA-China-Jerry-...

Wikipedia:

> The Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences is a research institute on virology administered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), which reports to the State Council of the People's Republic of China.

It would be reasonable by most people's definitions to blame whoever has oversight over a virology lab that leaked a virus. In this (alleged) case, that's the Chinese government.

The chinese government doesnt owe me anything though. Sure, it's bad that they killed a bunch of their citizens, but they do that all the time

The US outsourced virus research to this lab. The US will share some blame, because gain-of-function research is stupid in the first place.

Is this part of the misdirection? Both sides do not want to know. Or let's say powerful interests on both sides.

Yes. If the restaurant had a history of documented safety issues and the relevant regulatory government bodies didn't take action to rectify it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-dep...

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-officials-raised-alarms-a...

Btw, comparing a restaurant worker being sloppy and a supposedly BSL-4 lab functioning at the level of BSL-2 lab is not a good look.

Also, China's govt. has much much more control over a govt. lab than US has over a restaurant in California.

The analogy fails.

The US has complete control over a restaurant in California. Its got a huge military and could nuke the place if it wanted to.

Deciding not to is the same in both cases

> The US has complete control over a restaurant in California

No, it doesn't.

> Its got a huge military and could nuke the place if it wanted to

By this logic, the US govt. has control over every corner of earth.

Also, was the US govt. running the place and ignoring safety warnings?

Was the restaurant possible responsible for a global pandemic?

The analogy is stupid and not worth discussing more.

All I am getting from this is that people think a restaurant I n US has the same level of responsibility as the lab in Wuhan.

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