The problem with banning risky gain-of-function research seems to be that, surprisingly, most people don’t understand that it’s risky and although there’s a general feeling that COVID-19 may have originated in the lab at Wuhan, we don’t have definitive evidence.
So the people who are trusted on this are incentivized to say that it’s safe, and there also seems to be something of a coverup going on.
I suspect that if there was some breakthrough that allowed us to find strong technical evidence of a lab origin, there would be significant action on this.
But, alas, we’re trapped in a situation where lack of evidence stalls any effort to seriously look for evidence.
The problem with banning risky gain-of-function research seems to be that, surprisingly, most people don’t understand that it’s risky and although there’s a general feeling that COVID-19 may have originated in the lab at Wuhan, we don’t have definitive evidence.
So the people who are trusted on this are incentivized to say that it’s safe, and there also seems to be something of a coverup going on.
I suspect that if there was some breakthrough that allowed us to find strong technical evidence of a lab origin, there would be significant action on this.
But, alas, we’re trapped in a situation where lack of evidence stalls any effort to seriously look for evidence.