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Comment by 8bitsrule | Hacker News Reader

Animal food markets in China (and nearby in SE Asia) are unlikely to be shut down. They are regional phenomena. I guess they accept that risk. What will keep them from fathering pandemics?

The ships plying global sea trade started spreading plague epidemics no later than the 1500s. (Not to mention colonization, or Columbus.) War made the so-called Spanish flu widespread. We're not sure yet whether that one started in Kansas.

Both moved a lot slower than today's airplanes. They've become the disease's vector of choice ... and hugely bear the responsibility for accelerating regional epidemics into global ones.

How long did it take to shut down air travel once Wuhan happened? Why is that? Taiwan was expected to be badly hit. Take a close look at Taiwan's route to success. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689

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At least temporarily during the epidemic, the Chinese government has banned the raising and consumption of wild animals. However, it appears the ongoing trend in China is to eliminate these practices.

https://fox5sandiego.com/news/china-makes-eating-wild-animal...

Only this outbreak had nothing to do with the market, the index case had no connection.

It was still likely caused by consumption (preparation) of a wild animal like a pangolin or bat.

This is what I'm reading/hearing so far. After reviewing the DNA sequences available to date, experts determined the virus was unlikely to be a human created bioweapon, but instead a virus that jumped from a wild animal to humans. Supposedly the pangolin, but they haven't honed in exactly on which animal carried the original virus.

[0]: https://ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2020/01/13/novel-coron...

[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/sars-cov-2-seqs/

I think your premise does not support your conclusion, because a bioweapon does not need to be engineered by humans.

A zoonotic virus could have been isolated and stored.

How much did China lose due to this outbreak?

$1 trillion at least.

You think they can't do something to reduce the risk of this calamity from happening again?

Cultures can change. Ancient practices that had limited risks when everybody lived in remote villages must change to adopt to the modern society. There is a lot of people in China that want to ban these markets. I'm not sure about Southeast Asia.

Only 1 trillions? That's what usa pumped into the market in one day...

And it promptly disappeared as markets kept plunging

gain of function bioresearch must have international observers, because if there is an industrial accident - it can affect the entire world.

I doubt the Chinese government will be so attached to these traditions (?) that they choose to preserve them over increased probability of catastrophic risks.

Spanish flu was most likey originated in northern China.

https://www.history.com/news/why-was-the-1918-influenza-pand...

Let’s call for global cooperation and modern solutions rather than going backwards in time.

if you start talking about them causing pandemics that cause millions of deaths, you start approaching a situation where it could be argued it'd be moral to bomb them to oblivion, even if that led to a war. maybe not with china since they have nukes, but for every other SEA country? idk.

I feel like this makes me sound like John Bolton, and that's kind of scary.

Time for international oversight of unethical, extremely hazardous biological research.

If nuclear can be supervised and contained - you can contain gain of function research too.

"Breaches of safety regulations are probable cause of recent SARS outbreak, WHO says"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC416634/

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-analysis/sars-escaped-bei...

https://www.voanews.com/archive/who-beijing-lab-blame-sars-o...

Lab breaks of SARS, another coronavirus have happened a number of times, and likely caused the original SARS outbreak (according to WHO)

This regional phenomena happens to be right across the river, 20 miles, next to the only BSL4 level lab in the region.

That same lab also happens to have published hundreds of synthetic coronavirus genomes. They also ran gain of function research that was banned by NIH until recently, due to it's highly questionable ethics and biosafety in principle.

It's just another lab break, why is it so hard to accept that industrial accidents happen?

It is odd, and it could hint that the virus escaped the lab. It could also hint that a foreign power decided to release a pathogen there to disparage the government. It also could just be a coincidence. I don't think it benefits anyone to speculate. We will probably never find out the truth behind it.

They've had enough biosafety incidents to have the WHO themselves call them on it in the past.

SARS, according to WHO, was a lab break too.

What kind of damages would China be liable for 50-60% globally infected, with 3-4% deaths?

That is why the evidence will be suppressed, and the inconvenient voices silenced.

We don't need new drugs.

Outbreaks will continue on happening as long as we have gain of function research programs in place.

They will literally try to come up with new strains resistant to current treatments, if such research continues to be done.

Time for international oversight, just like with nuclear.

We need to stop unethical gain of function research. It should only ever be approved if the outbreak can be actually contained and victims treated - with monetary penalties in place for consequences.

Leaving aside the stuff about biological research, the idea that a country can be liable for damages in Western (or any other) courts is just bizarre.

Will US pay Vietnam for its liberation efforts, or UK pay India for bringing culture to it?

Original SARS outbreak was zoonotic, not a lab escape, and SARS-CoV-2 very likely is, too. It is an odd coincidence that it appeared to start near a research lab which contained SARS samples, but maybe the lab was created in that area in the first place due to it being a region full of biological diversity, including among viruses?

Those articles are discussing a 2004 outbreak. The SARS epidemic occurred during 2002-2003.

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