Covid-19 - natural / man made debate - does it matter?

[Mitz]

OK, so there seems to be some debate whether Covid-19 is man made in a lab or natural.

The vast majority of scientists say it's natural. A few very high profile scientists say it's man made.

Am I missing something?

Does it really matter?

I'm no scientist but just for arguments sake, let's say it's natural (which I believe it is). That doesn't mean the virus wasn't extracted from an animal in a lab and then released intentionally or accidentally. Does it? All it means is the virus wasn't created. How would anybody be able to tell if a nutural virus was extracted without being messed with and then released?

Just curious. What do you smarter than me people think?

 

["Misfit"]

The conspiracist in me says man made.
The Humanist in me would like to think it was natural.
Could it be linked to Global Warming with all this melting ice
god knows what lies below it. ?


Also not smarter than you.

 

[rew]

At this point in time it doesn't really matter imo. Just seems like a debate for the sake of having a debate.

 

[ForestMagpie]

As far as I understand it then we will never know for sure but by looking at the structure of the virus and the way it has evolved and affected us points to the fact that it is natural. That doesn't mean it hasn't been found in nature and released as there would be absolutely no way to tell from its genetic make up. We know viruses in the covid family have come from nature in the past such as SARS and MERS so we have no reason to believe that this isn't the same.
Just because scientists are high profile doesn't mean they are right, Einstein struggled with quantum mechanics and revised relativity more than once.
The problem I have with this is why would someone release it? To what end? Why would you go to all the trouble and expense to create a virus like this?

 

[ForestMagpie]

Right now, where it came from doesn't matter, we can look at that later. What does matter is how we treat it and how we create a vaccine.

 

[wraith]

"High profile scientist" these days just means "gets more clicks than other scientists". Good way to do that is come up with something scary and different that gets hits on newspaper sites that rely on hits for ad revenue (like claiming vaccines causing autism or that drinking arsenic cures erectile disfunction).

"Respected scientist" or "Reputable scientist" is another matter.

 

[vapemac]

Yes and no.

It needs to be investigated for sure and when that was announced by Australia, China took huge offense which is somewhat concerning. They obviously know more than they are letting on if they feel they need to start on the defensive to what seems a very sensible approach to learning how something like this has mutated and spread.

 

["Misfit"]

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/luc-montagnier-covid-created-lab/

 

[flearider]

The conspiracist in me says man made.
The Humanist in me would like to think it was natural.
Could it be linked to Global Warming with all this melting ice
god knows what lies below it. ?


Also not smarter than you.

global warming ... what a joke .. it's just cycles ..
but if it was created in a lab it was done so to do harm .. very bad thing ...
if it was ? natural then the wet markets made it so again very bad ..
so the next one will be worse ? problem is how will we tackle that ?
if it's 3 times the spanish flue 80% of the population dies next time .this time we were lucky it had the spread capability but not the death availability
yes it killed mainly the old or those with something wrong ...
next time it could be everyone

 

[Mitz]

"High profile scientist" these days just means "gets more clicks than other scientists". Good way to do that is come up with something scary and different that gets hits on newspaper sites that rely on hits for ad revenue (like claiming vaccines causing autism or that drinking arsenic cures erectile disfunction).

"Respected scientist" or "Reputable scientist" is another matter.

How about a Nobel Prize winner for discovering the Aids virus?

I don't agree with him BTW.

Edit. Ninjad by Social Misfit. He's only one of a few. But as I said in my op - it seems a moot point because even natural viruses can be extracted and released without anyone knowing. If someone wanted to release a virus surely they wouldn't engineer it so everyone knew. And if it was released by accident they'd just deny it and nobody would know any different.

I'm only asking because I'm curious and it's interesting. Not because I subscribe to any particular position.

Maybe he was paid by Trump.