Re:Early ‘lab-grown’ Covid virus found in sample lends weigh...
by ethanbond on Wednesday February 09, 2022 @05:27PM
(#30279463)
Yep, one of the confounding factors of this whole conversation is that there have always been several theories under the heading “lab leak.” Some of which were completely plausible (though had little to no evidence) and some of which were 10 layers deep in actual conspiratorial lunacy (also with similar amounts of evidence).
Re:Early ‘lab-grown’ Covid virus found in sample lends weigh...
by ksaj on Wednesday February 09, 2022 @05:35PM
(#30279566)
There is precedence for this, too. Still is, although we currently don't use the same terminology as we did during the cold war. You could argue that terrorists who strap themselves into bomb jackets also demonstrate this, and I've heard the acceptance of "collateral damage" thrown around as yet another aspect of it.
I heard someone once describe that kind of germ warfare as "attempting to use a grenade as a handgun." Yes it hurts your opponent, but...
Someone will bring up the fact that China seems (if you buy their numbers) to have had good success containing COVID, but the thing is: there's no way they could have known this would be the case. What if they released it on purpose and their containment efforts failed? What if it mutated into something 5X as deadly and 100X as contagious? Viruses don't take loyalty oaths.
Also: the global recession it caused probably did not do China any good in terms of net economic growth.
Also also: why would China release it inside their own country? Why not drop it in some random airport somewhere? If they really wanted to target the USA the thing to do would have been to drop it in Bethesda, Maryland and then spread a lot of anti-US conspiracy theories.
Lots of reasons it would have been a stupid idea to release it on purpose. China's leadership might be evil in some ways but they're not stupid or careless.