Practically, the Chinese government’s response to their biosafety people is: ‘You shouldn’t do that dangerous research in biosafety II labs the way you did in Wuhan. To get you to stop doing that, we give you a lot of money to build a lot of biosafety III and biosafety IV labs’.
Without openly admitting that there was a lab leak in Wuhan, they might not see other moves that are currently viable.
The problem with that policy is that the researchers in those biosafety III and biosafety IV labs are likely going to want to do dangerous prestigious work. There are strong pressures to create research results and China does not know how to teach their researchers safety culture.
It’s plausible that there are people high up in the Chinese party who do think there’s a good likelihood that there will be more screw-ups and lab leaks in the future because they don’t trust the biosafety people but who don’t see another path to take.
Practically, the Chinese government’s response to their biosafety people is: ‘You shouldn’t do that dangerous research in biosafety II labs the way you did in Wuhan. To get you to stop doing that, we give you a lot of money to build a lot of biosafety III and biosafety IV labs’.
Without openly admitting that there was a lab leak in Wuhan, they might not see other moves that are currently viable.
The problem with that policy is that the researchers in those biosafety III and biosafety IV labs are likely going to want to do
dangerousprestigious work. There are strong pressures to create research results and China does not know how to teach their researchers safety culture.It’s plausible that there are people high up in the Chinese party who do think there’s a good likelihood that there will be more screw-ups and lab leaks in the future because they don’t trust the biosafety people but who don’t see another path to take.