PM brings in strategies to protect against future lab leaks

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Amity Island

Amity Island

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On Monday, the Prime Minister told the House of Commons that the U.K. biosecurity strategy would be refreshed to protect against “natural zoonosis and laboratory leaks”, in a public acknowledgement of the threat from insecure research facilities.

and

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, an expert on chemical and biological counter-terrorism and former British Army officer, has submitted evidence for the strategy.

He said: “I think the official view [within Government] is that it is as likely as anything else to have caused the pandemic. A lot of people like myself think it is more likely. I think attitudes have changed a little bit. The zoonotic transfer theory just didn’t make sense.

www.telegraph.co.uk

Wuhan lab leak theory ‘accepted as likely behind closed doors at No 10’

Biosecurity expert helping Government to prevent future pandemics claims ministers consider leak as most likely origin of Covid pandemic
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk
 
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I remember that there was at least one series on TV - it started with a flask falling and smashing on the floor of a lab, and followed the lives of those left alive after the consequences - it might have been called Survivors. It was probably half a century ago now, I do reflect that if there was a catastrophic event, there are far fewer people these days who could keep themselves alive afterwards.
 
28 days later.
That's all we need to watch.
Must have been based on fact.
I used to live near a farm that bred guinea pigs for animal testing.
Someone broke in and let them out.
We heard farmers shooting after that, maybe something had spread to the rabbits?
 
Amity Island said:
One for all those coincidence theorists out there...

Here we have this week from the government regarding preventing a (lab leak) pandemic.

On Monday, the Prime Minister told the House of Commons that the U.K. biosecurity strategy would be refreshed to protect against “natural zoonosis and laboratory leaks”, in a public acknowledgement of the threat from insecure research facilities.

and

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, an expert on chemical and biological counter-terrorism and former British Army officer, has submitted evidence for the strategy.

He said: “I think the official view [within Government] is that it is as likely as anything else to have caused the pandemic. A lot of people like myself think it is more likely. I think attitudes have changed a little bit. The zoonotic transfer theory just didn’t make sense.

www.telegraph.co.uk

Wuhan lab leak theory ‘accepted as likely behind closed doors at No 10’

Biosecurity expert helping Government to prevent future pandemics claims ministers consider leak as most likely origin of Covid pandemic
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk
Click to expand...

Ironically, how can a story from behind closed doors, quoting the government advisors actual secret words, that is behind a pay to view firewall, that exists behind no where else on the the internet, actually be taken seriously by anyone other than conspiracy theorists?
 
Amity Island said:
Travellor,

"how can a story" "that exists behind nowhere else on the the internet"

now that sounds like a conspiracy theory!

I plugged my computer in, switched it on and voila!

www.express.co.uk

Wuhan lab leak 'more than likely' – biological weapons expert

THE THEORY that Covid had its origins in a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, is "more than likely," according to a biological weapons expert.
www.express.co.uk www.express.co.uk
www.foxnews.com

UK government believes Wuhan lab leak most likely COVID-19 origin: report

The United Kingdom's government is believing more and more that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic was the result of a lab leak in Wuhan, China, according to a new report.
www.foxnews.com www.foxnews.com
Click to expand...

"I’m really sorry that the lab leak has become such a distraction for so many people because frankly, we still don’t know," Collins told host Bret Baier.

So funny, that's actually in your link!
 
Amity Island said:
It seems to boil down to the furin cleavage found in the spike protein.
Click to expand...
Because something about the furin cleavage site hadn't been seen in coronaviruses before. But I thought since then some examples had been found? (Though I forget where. Quite likely in bat coronaviruses, since bats have lots of coronaviruses and, along with other viruses in wildlife, they're not that well explored. A good reason to be supportive of labs like the one in Wuhan: we need to be studying the viruses out there.)

The description of https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-762/ suggests it might discuss the furin cleavage site, amongst other things. It's from a while ago, so there may well be new information since then. Another couple, https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-734/ and https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-751/ also look relevant.

In general (I've listened to about half of the episodes from the last couple of years, I think) they don't think the lab leak hypothesis is all that likely (maybe 10% probability). It's possible that the virus was collected and somehow leaked, but more likely that this is a natural zoonotic event. And it's really, really, unlikely that it was engineered in any way: virologists (they believe) just aren't interested in doing that (doesn't produce great papers, for one thing: much better to do things in pseudo viruses and the like) and even if anyone wanted to engineer the virus they don't think any virologists have the necessary skills (and it's not close).
 
Martin.A said:
That's true - there's no evidence the virus leaked from the Wuhan lab. It's equally true that there's no evidence that it didn't. That was also the conclusion of the authors of Viral.
Click to expand...

No evidence?

Bit like witch burning then.
No evidence they are innocent.
Burn the witch!!!
Really?
Let's go for the conspiracy theory.
What century are we in?
 
So, our takeaway from the conspiracy theorists.
Boris has issues.
Boris totally messes up.
A secret number Ten meeting blabbed all over the news channels.
Oh, it's a conspiracy.
Someone else did it, and Boris did well.
Really.
And the sheep go "vote Boris"
Really !!!!
Go the UK
 
Martin.A said:
it evolved naturally or it leaked from a lab
Click to expand...
In the mainstream virologist community, the two options seem to be that no lab was involved, or it was collected and then leaked from a lab. In both cases it evolved in the wild, the difference is just how it got to humans. (A large part of that is that they don't think anyone knows how to engineer such a virus. Maybe minor challenges: try to get it to replicate in other animals, or challenged with antivirals. But those are tricky (and potentially dangerous) to do with the real virus. So there's a significant risk you'll end up with something you really don't want on your CV.)
 
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