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A comment on Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection. Parent comment

Re:Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infec... by nicoburns on Saturday June 19, 2021 @05:59PM (#27564878)
Coronaviruses were being studied in a BSL-4 lab in Wuhan. That is ~100 metres from the meat market which was supposedly the epicentre of the original outbreak. Theoretically the safety standards would be very high. But all it takes is one slip-up. And it wouldn't be the first time that has happened. Seems pretty simple to me.

The zoonotic leap is definitely plausible too. But there you have to explain how the virus mutated to be infectious to humans. Whereas the lab is known to have intentionally modified the coronaviruses it was studying to be infectious to humans.

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Re:Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infec... by actually_a_dog on Saturday June 19, 2021 @06:01PM (#27564890)
Sure, I'm not denying the plausibility of either scenario. But, which one is more likely: a virus jumped from animal to human, just as has happened many times before in history (and, without our help, for that matter), or safety procedures were not being followed in a lab that studies viruses with the very highest level of safety controls? How many times has the latter happened compared to the former?
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Re:Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infec... by javagram on Saturday June 19, 2021 @10:29PM (#27566569)
Only SARS was studied at BSL-4.

Bat coronaviruses were studied at BSL-2 as they were not believed to be dangerous to humans. Reference: the head of the WIV covid lab. https://news.yahoo.com/chinas-bat-woman-center-pandemic-1814... “ Shi said that bat viruses in China could be studied in BSL-2 labs because there was no evidence that they directly infected humans, a view supported by some other scientists.”

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