If it turns out this was an iatrogenic pandemic, then that also has immense global implications for how we study dangerous pathogens in the future. This is not a "blame China" issue but a basic question of risk.
The question under that hypothetical would not be making sure China brings itself up to some putatively safe international norms, but questioning those norms themselves, and cutting off whole fields of research globally as too dangerous to conduct.
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Cutting off research areas globally is going to be a lot harder when 1/7th of the world’s population isn’t willing to sit down at the table (figuratively speaking.)
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The world has largely dismantled multilateral institutions, so I don’t know how we’d even begin to enforce norms. We all see how well that’s been going in infosec. Why would we expect better cooperation on this issue?
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It does us no good for the next pandemic if China identifies the source of covid in research programs or lab practices that remain routine in 50 other countries, and silently clamps down. That's why the details of what happened in such a scenario matter.
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Yes and if I thought there was even a 1% chance that China would ever allow us to collect those details I’d be on your side.
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