2020 Post Election MEGAthread

[imperiouskitten]

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I suspect a lot of governments quietly believe it potentially originated in a Chinese weapons lab. Such a belief would explain their panic, regardless of its accuracy, and it's also something they would never openly admit to for fear of creating even greater public turmoil.

Danth

The only way to confirm it is man-made would be espionage, but I am a biologist and can confirm that the composition of the virus is very hard-to-believe unlikely, meanwhile being something within the human capacity to engineer. It is a spliced-together composite of several common viruses including HIV. The mechanism for doing this exists in the wild as well as in the laboratory; there are no novel proteins involved (humans cannot design original proteins yet). Medical professionals are loath to admit this possibility because of a prevailing aversion to conspiracy theories, but the fact is that there is an unfalsifiable and plausible possibility that this virus escaped from the Wuhan bioweapons laboratory near the initial hotspot. Whether it is manmade or not, anyone in a security position understanding that it could be would certainly be motivated to develop a protocol which can stop the spread.

I also agree that there would be a strong incentive not to admit it to the public even if it were confirmed to be Chinese-made, as it would unravel state control of the narrative and all-but-guarantee hostilities with China, not to mention giving life to tons of conspiracy theories about hidden capabilities of the virus and starting a much more difficult to control panic.