[HN Gopher] WHO abandons plans for second phase of COVID-origins...
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WHO abandons plans for second phase of COVID-origins investigation
Author : rntn
Score : 61 points
Date : 2023-02-14 19:56 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| cosmic_gigachad wrote:
| [dead]
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| China should be the world's laughingstock, not bogeyman. They
| fucked up covid so bad that they are still in lockdowns. They let
| it happen in the first place and have done a hilariously bad job
| at the coverup.
|
| Pooh Bear doesn't have the mandate of his Mother, let alone
| Heaven.
| purututu wrote:
| Software programming rule #1: "Never fix bugs at their root
| cause." (joking, of course!!)
| mrkramer wrote:
| Very responsible of them. :/
| qclibre22 wrote:
| Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives is kicking off an
| investigation of covid origins: https://www.yahoo.com/news/gop-
| launches-probe-covid-origins-...
| influx wrote:
| Why do we have to rely on Republicans to investigate covid
| origins? Scary!
| purututu wrote:
| Me as a European software engineer, understanding tech stuff
| well, but not American politics, what's the problem with the
| Republicans? Why would you prefer the other party, Democrats
| (right?) do the origin research instead?
| ch4s3 wrote:
| If ever there were a team qualified to get to the bottom of
| this, it would include MTG and Matt Gaetz!
| kevviiinn wrote:
| I bet it was a space lazer
| qclibre22 wrote:
| Jamie Raskin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are in the
| committee, too, so, yeah, we got the A team on this one.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Oh yeah, they're going to be the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls of
| congressional COVID investigation teams.
| 2devnull wrote:
| Raskin is a serious guy actually. The headwear is because
| of cancer.
| locacorten wrote:
| I'm disappointed to hear this news. Understanding the origins of
| Covid is one of the most important things we can do in this
| century.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Why is that?
|
| If it was a lab leak there will be no accountability anyway.
|
| If it wasn't a lab leak, GoF research remains incredibly,
| incredibly high risk and should be banned.
|
| Seems almost definitionally not meaningful.
| peyton wrote:
| If the investigation uncovers a covert offensive bioweapons
| program there would be major repercussions. Repercussions a
| state would do almost anything to avoid.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| [dead]
| workingdog wrote:
| We need to know so we can understand what we're doing that
| could lead to another disaster.
|
| Among the possibilities: wet markets, exploring caves, gain
| of function research, unclean cooking practices, or it could
| be just bad luck.
|
| Each of those would lead us to drastically differing ways of
| trying to mitigate the next virus.
| kevviiinn wrote:
| >Each of those would lead us to drastically differing ways
| of trying to mitigate the next virus.
|
| Except we did already know some stuff but a bunch of people
| ignored it anyway, including chunks of the government. We
| learned from past viruses and a certain admin just decided
| to ditch the literal playbook
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Can you explain how each scenario would "lead us to
| drastically differing ways of trying to mitigate the next
| virus."?
|
| There doesn't seem to be a practical way to control all
| known bat caves or unsanitary cooking practices.
|
| Controlling the illegal wildlife trade would require a huge
| government commitment which doesn't seem like a viable
| option.
| chitowneats wrote:
| China boasts about successfully reigning in things like
| drug trafficking/use, cryptocurrency investment, firearms
| ownership, liberal reforms and revolutions, etc. They can
| even prevent you from using basic public services if your
| state-assigned social credit score is too low.
|
| Are they lying about this? Exaggerating it in some major
| way? If not, I see no reason they can't shut down big wet
| markets like the one in Wuhan.
|
| I'm left to assume they know that COVID-19 did not
| originate in such a place. If it had, there would be an
| "all hands on deck" campaign by the security services to
| shut these markets down. It would be accompanied by a
| massive propaganda effort to convince average Chinese
| that wild and exotic meat is unsafe.
| yunwal wrote:
| > gain of function research
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Why does it matter? We have multiple examples that virtually
| certainly aren't lab related. Even if this was a lab oops
| doesn't make the others go away. This time it just hit the
| jackpot on being able to spread well: spread before symptoms.
| We don't have enough understanding of genetics to engineer
| this.
|
| Covid is actually low in the lethality range for rampages from
| whatever is the underlying virus, it's just the others haven't
| spread so well. Finding that underlying virus could be useful,
| figuring out exactly how the zoonotic jump happened is simply
| an exercise in finger-pointing that will do nothing about the
| fact that they do happen naturally.
| anothernewdude wrote:
| China blocked it, it was their lab.
| ecf wrote:
| China wanting to have billions upon billions of citizens
| means it's only right for them to own up to the occasions
| when those billions of people cause billions or trillions
| worth of economic damages to the entire world.
|
| Like it or not, if it's Chinas fault then they should be
| forced to pay reparations. At the very least held accountable
| and change the circumstances that led to them breeding the
| virus.
| jacooper wrote:
| What an expected disappointment. From how botched the first
| investigation was, it was clear China is never goiing to allow an
| actual investigation to happen.
| vuln wrote:
| I wonder who swayed them to cancel the investigation?
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world-h...
|
| https://www.cfr.org/blog/who-and-china-dereliction-duty
|
| https://www.politico.com/amp/news/magazine/2020/04/15/its-no...
|
| https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/02/china-coronavirus-who-h...
|
| https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/03/23/fighting-coronaviru...
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