Yes, this was very explicitly stated. And this is nowhere near the first call to do so (a lot of very respected scientists were calling for a stop to GoF research before the pandemic).

Whatever claims GoF research had beforehand of helping w/ pandemic preparedness have evaporated, because none of the successful responses to the pandemic (vaccines, antivirals) have relied on GoF research whatsoever. It appears to a high risk with no reward.

Do you have a source for this? Because if true this would be extremely frightening, even if Covid is natural the research is just too risky. GoF research should be banned, I mean it's entire justification for conducting this research in the first place is that it "helps predict new emergent diseases and develop vaccines" but it failed to predict this pandemic and did nothing towards vaccine development.

This was actually the reason we stopped the research in the US in 2014: Risky with no clear benefit. It was restarted in 2017 after investigations and new guidelines for the research to hopefully improve safety measures.

Ban gain of function research.

There are many virologists who make compelling arguments that the hypothetical benefits of the research (which have yet to materialize) pale in comparison to the risks.

Every day that goes by that GoF research fails to materialize any of its hypothetical benefits makes the case against it ever stronger.

It should be obvious now, that all the gain-of-function research done on coronaviruses didn't help at all with this pandemic. Gain-of-function researchers didn't contribute to vaccine development, vaccines were developed by different people.

I don't think one stops a pandemic; IIUC, one gets out in front of it with vaccination. Which we did, thanks to previous mRNA research conducted on other viruses. GOF research is one of the few ways we're aware of to get out in front of vaccinating viruses that don't yet exist but are probable to exist.

This argument treads suspiciously close to "Sometimes people use fire to burn a house down, so why do we allow cooking? People should only be allowed to use naturally-occurring fires and not create new ones."

It calls into question the entire premise of this sort of research. If the risk of accidental release in the course of this research is greater than the risk of a natural pandemic, then the research should be discontinued. Of course anybody who is involved in this sort of research has a strong personal incentive to discourage such lines of thought, since it could end their careers.

It doesn't help solve the crisis and it doesn't change attitudes toward gain-of-function research. The pandemic itself, regardless of origin, highlighted the possible consequences. Even without a connection to research - and even more so with the mere possibility - it heightened concern about lab safety, and made the risk/reward calculations around GoF research even less favorable than they already had been. The community of people capable of performing or funding such research was already on top of it - again, regardless of origin. Public finger-pointing is only likely to rile up nationalist sentiments which would interfere with establishing better procedures and protocols governing virological research.

The lawyers and diplomats have some work to do, but (especially in light of today's news) I suggest that the rest of us including the media have some higher priorities for how to spend our time/energy.

How does any role he might (or might not have) played in GOF research create a conflict of interest in terms of his advice about the pandemic?

You're saying that without regard to the measure of risk, or what risks exist if we don't do those experiments.

The link made it pretty clear that the vast majority of the world already refuses to fund the type of research that could have led to the virus.

I think this is the primary reason so many virologists are against the lab-leak idea. It's not because they think it's unlikely, but because if people were aware of how dangerous this research was the funding would dry up and it might even get banned.

Which scientific community are you referring to? There are countless scientists who have been arguing against the risks of gain of function research for many years. Why are pro-gain of function scientists deathly silent now about the supposed benefits of their research?

This is an absurd strawman. If it were true, why have there been so many virologists calling GoF unethical and seeking to prohibit it?

A few problems with this. First modifying wild animal viruses to be infectious towards humans is different than modifying human viruses to model potential mutations. Modifying animal viruses to be infectious towards humans has done nothing but cause risks. Despite this research being conducted for almost a decade it has yet to predict or prevent any pandemic and probably started this one.

Additionally the idea that modifying animal viruses to easily transmit towards humans will allow us to develop vaccines is absurd. You can't test a vaccine that is not circulating in humans, so trails can not start until the pandemic has already started.

So yes, there should be moratorium on research that modifies infectious diseases! The public has a right to consent on whether such research is worth the risks.

Then we shouldn't be doing _gain of function_ research on the types of viruses that can cause these outbreaks.

> Maybe it was an accident at a sloppy lab, ok, so labs on the other side of the planet in sovereign countries we do not control might make mistakes. We should get better at responding fast to save lives.

What's the cost-benefit analysis for running the lab in the first place? Was any of it's research used in producing the vaccine? If it's all about saving lives, can't we be mad at both the lacking response and the laboratory at the same time?

> I don't care where it came from [...] We should get better at responding fast and saving lives (my opinion).

Those two goals seem in conflict with each other. Good offense is something we should aspire too.. but that doesn't mean we should entirely ignore defense as well.

Help me out, I don't see the thread of logic from your previous points...

So you would add months of delay, significantly impaired observability, and far less agility to our response to emerging threats. Congratulations, you've just increased risk.

Would that that were true. I'm curious how you explain how your perception aligns with the reality that no lab, anywhere, at anytime since the outbreak, has been able to produce COVID-19 variants as fast as occurred naturally.

Nature is experimenting all the time, with the overwhelming majority of viruses out there, with absolutely no interest in controls, mitigations or protections for the human population... and nature is far trickier to observe. We've gotten pretty good at reducing the risk from nature, but make no mistake, even with all the GoF research we could possibly hope for, it far outpaces our capacity to experiment. The only advantage GoF labs have is that they can direct their research in specific areas where there is greatest risk. That's the whole challenge.