To what extent are there already similarly dangerous pathogen genomes on the internet? I’m guessing that things like smallpox are less of a worry because we already have a vaccine for them, but if many novel, certified pandemic-grade pathogen genomes are already available then adding more seems significantly less harmful.
Kevin claims there are none at the moment that he’s particularly concerned about (in large part because most such viruses we have developed vaccines / antivirals for).
I think the more important answer to this question is that most of the virus genomes available online are either from viruses that are unlikely to take off as a pandemic and/or have probably limited expected harm even if they take off. This harm being rather limited might be because most of us have some immunity against the pathogen like for the 1918 Spanish flue as most ppl got the flue (other influenza infections) before or indeed because there are plenty of vaccines available that are ready to go (like for smallpox which additionally is much harder to manufacture from the genome).
I should note that I’m not saying anything new here. This is just from the interview. Esvelt addresses this exact question at 33 / 35 mins in (depending on where you listen to it). He seems to see the claim that there are already (many) pandemic-grade pathogens available online as a common harmful misperception.
To what extent are there already similarly dangerous pathogen genomes on the internet? I’m guessing that things like smallpox are less of a worry because we already have a vaccine for them, but if many novel, certified pandemic-grade pathogen genomes are already available then adding more seems significantly less harmful.
Kevin claims there are none at the moment that he’s particularly concerned about (in large part because most such viruses we have developed vaccines / antivirals for).
I think the more important answer to this question is that most of the virus genomes available online are either from viruses that are unlikely to take off as a pandemic and/or have probably limited expected harm even if they take off. This harm being rather limited might be because most of us have some immunity against the pathogen like for the 1918 Spanish flue as most ppl got the flue (other influenza infections) before or indeed because there are plenty of vaccines available that are ready to go (like for smallpox which additionally is much harder to manufacture from the genome).
I should note that I’m not saying anything new here. This is just from the interview. Esvelt addresses this exact question at 33 / 35 mins in (depending on where you listen to it). He seems to see the claim that there are already (many) pandemic-grade pathogens available online as a common harmful misperception.