Personally I think it's due to eating infected bats. If it was an accidental release from a lab, then the Chinese government would have been a lot quicker to implement lockdown. And if it was a deliberate release, it's unlikely they would have deliberately created chaos in their own country and economy.
Thanks for the post about the advance warnings. There have been a few similar reports, but mostly anecdotal. Nice to see something in writing. I think we can draw parallels here with other disasters, such as 9/11, and potential disasters-in-waiting such as climate change. I think what tends to happen is that experts publish threat warnings, but governments take no notice because of cost. Most governments, particularly in western democracies, are extremely short-termist, and base their policies on the 4 or 5 year electoral cycle. They want to do what will be popular today and will have a visible effect today, not sensible planning that will cost money today but reap rewards in 10 years' time - who know who will be in power in 10 years' time and able to claim the glory when the effects are apparent?
The effects of COVID-19 here in the UK have been made far worse by the fact that our health service is under-funded. Evidence has surfaced today that in 2017 the UK government decided against buying protective equipment for frontline medical staff on the basis of cost:
A recommendation for all frontline NHS staff to be given protective equipment during a flu epidemic was rejected as too costly, an explosive memo reveals. Labour said the decision – made in 2017, when Jeremy Hunt was the health secretary – left "serious questions" for ministers to answer about whether underfunding was now costing lives. In recent weeks, doctors and nurses have protested against a shortage of equipment which has left them at risk of contracting – and spreading – coronavirus on hospital wards. Now the document shows advisers called for "eye protection for all hospital, community, ambulance and social care staff who have close contact with pandemic influenza patients". Either visors or safety glasses should be provided, because of evidence of becoming infected via the eyes when in close contact with pandemic influenza patients, they said.
The recommendation came from Nervtag, a body set up in 2015 to prepare for the new and emerging threat from respiratory viruses. However, according to minutes of a meeting in June 2017, seen by The Guardian, a health official rejected it because of "the very large incremental cost of adding in eye protection". Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s shadow health secretary, said: "There are serious questions for the government to answer about why warnings on providing equipment were ignored and dismissed because of underfunding."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-nhs-protective-equipment-jeremy-hunt-eye-protection-a9431311.htmlI would imagine a lot of governments are reluctant to spend huge sums of money on something that might happen in future, and might happen under a different administration. They would rather spend the money on visible effects right now, and damn the future.
This crisis is highlighting all sorts of institutional failings across the world, and demonstrating very starkly that the current economic set-up is not fit-for-purpose.
I would hope that when the dust settles and economic activity starts up again, that lessons are learned and that we can change how things are run, so that governments are more forward-thinking and are more interested in the welfare and wellbeing of their citizens, rather than in whatever the next news headline will be and whether they can put enough sticking-plaster short-term solutions on long-term problems to get themselves through to victory in the next election.
I hope things will change, but history teaches me to be very skeptical that there will be much change at all, beyond the governments exploiting the crisis to assume swingeing new powers such as mass surveillance.
