There are multiple hypotheses and insufficient evidence to settle on just one.
The ‘gain of function’ experimental design—where a chain of lab animals are used, with a slightly harder to cross barrier between each animal—would cause similar ‘natural mutation’ patterns. The difference is that it makes the actual creation of a novel pandemic causing virus many many times as likely, as this same infection chain has to occur by chance in nature.
What we have now is like looking at the residue of a nuclear meltdown but we can’t examine the actual reactor, and the owners of the territory the meltdown occurred in are actively suppressing evidence. Nature can produce a nuclear reactor and has at least once it just isn’t likely.
That… seems like almost precisely the opposite metaphor one would use to compare to reality? Instead we are looking at something that happens naturally ALL THE TIME and you need special effort to sometimes maybe replicate if you really wanted to?
Do we have a quantitative measurement for “all the time”? We have in living memory the emergence of HIV which presumably also came from an animal host initially. And the previous 2 variants of covid which were not very contagious.
Please note I am not “convinced” either way. I am just noting a gain of function experiment is a specific set of conditions that might take nature decades to centuries to replicate by chance. It is a plausible method for the virus evolving. The other way being that lab field workers are going to collect more exotic specimens than commercial meat sellers, going deeper into caves,etc. All it would have taken is a mistake or counterfeit equipment such as HEPA filters, a problem that appears to be more common with current Chinese industries than in equipment from more mature name brand western companies.
There are multiple hypotheses and insufficient evidence to settle on just one.
The ‘gain of function’ experimental design—where a chain of lab animals are used, with a slightly harder to cross barrier between each animal—would cause similar ‘natural mutation’ patterns. The difference is that it makes the actual creation of a novel pandemic causing virus many many times as likely, as this same infection chain has to occur by chance in nature.
What we have now is like looking at the residue of a nuclear meltdown but we can’t examine the actual reactor, and the owners of the territory the meltdown occurred in are actively suppressing evidence. Nature can produce a nuclear reactor and has at least once it just isn’t likely.
That… seems like almost precisely the opposite metaphor one would use to compare to reality? Instead we are looking at something that happens naturally ALL THE TIME and you need special effort to sometimes maybe replicate if you really wanted to?
Do we have a quantitative measurement for “all the time”? We have in living memory the emergence of HIV which presumably also came from an animal host initially. And the previous 2 variants of covid which were not very contagious.
Please note I am not “convinced” either way. I am just noting a gain of function experiment is a specific set of conditions that might take nature decades to centuries to replicate by chance. It is a plausible method for the virus evolving. The other way being that lab field workers are going to collect more exotic specimens than commercial meat sellers, going deeper into caves,etc. All it would have taken is a mistake or counterfeit equipment such as HEPA filters, a problem that appears to be more common with current Chinese industries than in equipment from more mature name brand western companies.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoonosis#Lists_of_diseases