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It's because The Experts (specifically those in the public space) made it clear that they Had Spoken and that COVID had come from a wet market. From there, any dissent was met with incredible vitriol that still lasts to this day.

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Covid can come from a wet market and we can have a discussion about virus research. These two things aren't connected.

Can we really? Can we really have a discussion if suggesting that COVID-19 may have come from a lab leak at a top tier virology lab doing cutting edge GoF research gets one labeled a racist?

First of all I said we didn’t have to resolve whether or not COVID-19 came from a lab in order to have a discussion of whether or not we should have bioweapons and other viral research labs.

Second of all. No, you racist.

Haha, I get where you're coming from but I still disagree. It's a question of the baseline risk, if COVID occurred naturally then there's a much higher chance of similar pandemics happening again and risky research like GoF makes sense. But if it was a lab leak, then it's harder to justify. There are other parts to if of course, if you think that covert bioweapon research is common then it probably doesn't matter.

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