A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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If this all came down to "what's the likelihood of a lab leak", then sure, all of this would be very concerning. However,we have to contend with all the "unlikelihood" that would have to happen _upstream_ and _downstream_ of anactual lab leak for that to explain how SC2 emerged in the human population, plus, of course, actual evidence. People love to focus on the "lab leak happens" part and then forget about everything else. If you live in that vacuum,sure, it can be hard to convince yourself that's not how this happened. Problem is, we don't live in a vacuum.
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Perhaps a commentary timed for shortly after the Zoonati paper discussing how, given the origins are now reasonably pinned down, important it is to separate the issues and make some sensible positions on lab risk (and aswe dicussed this morning the much greater risk from field work)
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Very good idea!
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Make it clear that: (1) separate debate on biosafety in the light of how widespread SARSr viruses are, and (2) that continued investigations to understand their emergence is required, including figuring out exactly how SC2 poppedup (and SC1 for that matter).
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2021-11-26 14:05
Edward C. Holmes
Yup, I'm all for that.
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Let's do it - I actually think this is a really good idea.
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Yes. And there are often safe ways of getting much of the data.
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Yup - and in fact, tying it all back to what we said in our 2018 Nature commentary... Would be extra powerful sinceso many idiots have brought up that commentary as a proof that we changed our minds - which we didn't. Ifanything, I think we all would double down on what we said in that commentary.