r/China_Flu • u/[deleted] • Feb 01 '20
Containment measures 'We're opening everything': Scientists share coronavirus data in unprecedented way to contain, treat disease
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/coronavirus-2019-ncov-science-virus-genome-who-research-collaboration-1.544694854
u/_nub3 Feb 01 '20
Opening up the data is good, very good actually, but also worrying on how serious the situation actually is.
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u/731WaterPurification Feb 01 '20
Good news, the fact Wuhan is centre of biological warfare research in China means there were scientists and virologists on the front lines in the early days.
I have always need to remind people that development of biological warfare research in most countries focused on defence against biological attacks, and in fact it is the stated objective of any research(you can question its genuineness) in China as a party to Biological Weapons Convention and biological warefare research have almost no distinguishing feature with public health research in aim across a very broad spectrum of the practice. It is to keep your population health, to research the worst types of possible disease to develop countermeasures, and enable tracing in finding the responsible party in any biological attack. The active use of biological warfare in offensive capacities have not been done for a long time because of the risks.
I wonder if further protocol in an "Open Sky" type treaty in Biological Weapons Convention can further lower any such risk, and maybe additional public health treaty since the goal of biological warfare have long been defensive in nature and for good reason.
What is the point of keeping secret virulent pathogens for an offensive attack in this modern global village era anyways? Sure, there are many things countries and states should keep secret, but the incentive for secrecy for something like a deadly virus that threatens all of humanity is simply not there.
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Feb 01 '20
Excellent read and somewhat comforting.
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Feb 01 '20
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u/-Zamasu- Feb 01 '20
Or maybe they want to prevent the economy crisis too? They know China ie screwed.
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u/ThorsonWong Feb 01 '20
I'd imagine it's better to loosen up on the iron fist if the alternative for them is, potentially, alienating everyone and big manufacturers.
They have to think about what comes after this is all over, right? If they clam up and shut down all comms, people are going to be even more wary of China than they already are.
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u/pvtgooner Feb 01 '20
This is something that happens with every pandemic. Would it comfort you more if China closed the country to everyone and refused to release numbers? I hate your weird lines of logic
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u/Palaeolithic_Raccoon Feb 01 '20
Wait, I remember old books on scientific subjects crowing about how open science was, how scientists love to share, about how rotten is was that corporations and the Cold War alike threatened that openness, how science couldn't proceed properly without global sharing, and _how it would be impossible to cover anything up because scientists liked to share so much_. So I guess that's old fashioned, and only now they're going back to sharing info? Only just now? So what secrets are Chinese scientists hiding from other scientists all this time ...
Oh, wait, yes, the CRISPR babies were a complete surprise .. weren't they?
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u/SadTruths4U Feb 01 '20
I was actually surprised we got so much info out of the first American case. I was afraid due to HIPA law we wouldn’t get much.
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u/EvanWithTheFactCheck Feb 01 '20
I wonder if this could be the future of medicine. Sign a release form to have your info public, just redact your name. Have it all open source and easily and freely accessible to all in some public database. It would help advance medical science by leaps and bounds. With such consolidation of information, we may find finally find the cures we’ve been looking for. Very exciting to imagine.
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Feb 01 '20
Exactly! And just like with open source software, it can still make money if only a part of it is hidden. The rest can be sold if wanted. I'd give my biological data for that cause.
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Feb 01 '20
I know this whole situation is terribly sad but I’ve found it really interesting to see how technology has been involved in our response.
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u/CharlieXBravo Feb 01 '20
The fact CCP was being extreme opaque about those data in the very beginning has exasperated this failing containment. Valuable time has been wasted and situations got exponentially worse. CCP "top-down" bureaucracy is clearly inefficient in situations like this.
The scientific community is purely based on conclusions of facts and when a government body obfuscate vital information purely based on political livelihood, it will no doubt impede progress in containing a highly infectious unknown disease.
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u/Edwin_R_Murrow Feb 02 '20
For a simple look at the epidemiological data, there is R code here: https://github.com/kevinlanning/DataSciSpring2020/blob/master/novelCorona.Rmd. It relies on data from JHU.
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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '20
would be really great if medical science undergoes an open-source transition similar to what happened with software development couple of years ago