so where did it come from and how did it spread? It's frustrating how after 1.5 years of intense interest and research, our best hunches are either it came from the lab or market (or from the lab to the market), which is the same as it was in January 2020, so after nearly a year and a half, no further progress has been made.
There is sufficient evidence in the coronavirus genome to assess the origin without any further cooperation from China.
The crime against humanity is not the lab leak, instead the crime against humanity is the CCP cover up actions that allowed the spread of the outbreak beyond Wuhan to the rest of the unprepared world.
I don't know how to make the western world prepared: the sequence of virus is out; CCP has locked down a whole city of 20+ million people; following lockdown in most Chinese cities. They managed to get rid of the virus in less than two months. I remember one of the European health minister said on TV that they will not have problem because their hygiene is better than Chinese.
Europe and US are the leaders in biotech and pharmaceutical industry, and yet they failed. Countries had politicians trained in UK also failed, because they just want to follow what UK did, those politicians don't know what to do. I have to say that if UK or US decides to lock down multiple cities gradually, the world will follow because their influences, things will be a lot different. Your politicians betrayed you, they put their ego before people's interests.
The issue is not what the CCP did, but the Wuhan local authorities while the outbreak was still manageable. They did not advise the local population to wear masks or avoid social contact and travel, even though they knew quite well that a SARS-like outbreak was occurring. WHO was actually advised of the situation well before any such clear advice was given to the people in Wuhan. So you had people traveling everywhere with no masks, no distancing etc. only to suddenly be forced into a "hard" lockdown as you mention. But this was too little, too late.
Are you sure the US failed here? From what I can tell we had a combination of technology to make a medical solution and the capital and drive to order enormous numbers of vaccine doses, to the point where we've been able to reopen (with thousands of people in close proximity without masks).
China is not in that situation. What they got right was initial containment (the US got that wrong, but that's because we had an ineffective leader and have a populace which is highly resistant to social control). The initial containment didn't completely help, because the chinese vaccine appears (I say appears because I'm not 100% sure yet) to be much less effective than Pfizer or Moderna, and China still has outbreaks that lead them to quarantine large sections of cities.
I don't think anybody really failed here. This was an event that the world partly prepared for for decades (vaccine tech, study related viruses) and partly ignored (our public health apparatus feels very slow and old now), and realistically, if we hadn't done what we did it woudl have been far worse.
I think US is great, and it didn't fail itself. I don't worry about developed world to be honest, they have the technology and resources to deal with this problem. US and Europe is so far ahead than anyone else in this field.
I believe many developing countries are lack of good decision makers, they blindly follow US and UK, without realizing that the reason behind US and UK's decision. Developing countries couldn't develop vaccines, not well equipped for medical support, and didn't have resources, they are not the same as US or UK.
> If < the lab leak is confirmed then China knew much earlier than the rest of the world just how bad what they were dealing with was and apparently didn't communicate it that way.
If you set your building on fire by mistake you ring the neighbours to tell them to get out before the whole building burns, if you don't do it you can't blame the people living on the top floor for not being prepared
What I am trying to say is that, after Wuhan lockdown, we have European health minister saying it is a hygiene problem and American politicians say it is a flu, and media painted the lockdown to be unnecessary and human rights crisis, is something I didn't understand. Wuhan lockdown is not a secret operation.
Anyway, I think the world should take a different view on lock down now. I would imagine technology in next 10 years would enable average person to launch bio attack in any city, and we need to have a way to deal with it better than 2020.
