Lab Leak: The conspiracy theory is shaping up to look like real possibility

[Mountain Man]

Trump drew an extra line on a map of the probably path for Hurricane Dorian, just one example of the tens of thousands of instances he went out of his way to earn a reputation as someone whose word couldn't be trusted. Someone who will lie about the weather will lie about anything.
.

At the White House on Thursday, Mr Trump was asked by a reporter: "Have you seen anything at this point that gives you a high degree of confidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the origin of this virus?"

"Yes, I have. Yes, I have," said the president, without specifying. "And I think the World Health Organization [WHO] should be ashamed of themselves because they're like the public relations agency for China."

Asked later to clarify his comment, he said: "I can't tell you that. I'm not allowed to tell you that."

Because the aliens won't let him.

Trump, tossing some Trumpian word salad.
.

He also told reporters: "Whether they [China] made a mistake, or whether it started off as a mistake and then they made another one, or did somebody do something on purpose?

"Somebody do something" isn't information. I have no idea why you keep talking about Trump. I have no idea why you keep defending him.

But it's not a good idea.

And it's not all of a sudden. Like I tell my kids, history didn't start when you started paying attention. The Kessler timeline includes suggestions of deliberate release on January 5, 2020, a week after the "urgent notice" from Wuhan about a particular virulent new respiratory illness. By the end of the month, the market theory was debunked. The drumbeat has been building since the beginning.

Read the timeline.

That's a lot of words to simply say that President Trump was right.

[rogue06]

Okay, but are we sure it really is a hate crime, or is this just the way leftist prosecutors are interpreting it for maximum sentencing? I'm just saying we need to be careful how things even on video are construed before we know the facts and details, especially when it fits into a common "Asian hate crime" narrative. I don't think I have to tell you why that is.

But even still, this doesn't prove there is a wave of violence against Asians as result of the pandemic. Crime stats might do that, but even then there could be other factors.

I'm not agreeing with calling it a hate crime, but rather noting that there was apparently a lot of evidence to show that the sprayer only singled out one person for getting too close. The Asian guy.

[seanD]

I'm not agreeing with calling it a hate crime, but rather noting that there was apparently a lot of evidence to show that the sprayer only singled out one person for getting too close. The Asian guy.

How do we know he didn't act that way to others of different races who got too close? I'm saying we don't have context, nor did he apparently make any racial insults or comments. The Asian guy got too close, then the crazy paranoid guy reacted to his space being invaded. I see it all the time in person with crazies. Then when you consider all the fake narratives swirling around, and the fact the guy who uploaded it obviously wanted it to viral, there's every reason to think this is just yet another one of those fake leftist racism narratives. In fact, I'm not even sure what they can charge him with since he never even touched the Asian guy, which is why I suspect they're playing the "hate crime" card to make it stick.

[Stoic]

Your initial claim was that they dunked stories of it being released deliberately. They also debunked stories it could have been engineered in a lab, irregardless of how it was released.

Okay, fair enough.

[Gondwanaland]

A hitman shows up in Judge Gondwanaland's court.
.

"Judge, I wouldn't have done it if it weren't for the money."

Case dismissed.

You're a gift that keeps on giving, G. Never change.

Come back when you manage to piece together an argument.

[Gondwanaland]

I was referring to the NYT article.

But the same is true of your CNN article. None of the people interviewed claimed that a virus could not have escaped from the Wuhan labs. They were all arguing that it was unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 had been deliberately engineered. IOW, their idea of the "lab leak theory" had been unduly influenced by exposure to the conspiracy theories.

The NYT article literally quotes Cotton who simply talked about it having come from lab origins. His statement had nothing to do with anything being engineered.

“We don’t know where it originated, and we have to get to the bottom of that,” Cotton said. “We also know that just a few miles away from that food market is China’s only biosafety level 4 super laboratory that researches human infectious diseases.”

“Now, we don’t have evidence that this disease originated there, but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says,” Cotton said. “And China right now is not giving any evidence on that question at all.”

Yet they STILL smeared him and declared him as pushing a conspiracy theory, etc.. Your argument is simply not accurate wrt actual observable history, or your claims wrt the article.

[Gondwanaland]

In this case, calling the virus the 'china-flu' is not a simple geographic designation devoid of negative connotation. It is an expression of blame. And that has and does manifest as increased overt expressions of hatred and disdain for Asian people in those so inclined.

No. No, it is not, by any sane measure.

And no it has not.

I think you've revealed more of your own personal issues than anything else with this line of reasoning.

[Stoic]

The NYT article literally quotes Cotton who simply talked about it having come from lab origins. His statement had nothing to do with anything being engineered.

And I said, "That may not be what Tom Cotton was claiming, but when you want to make a point that looks suspiciously like a widely circulated conspiracy theory, it's best to highlight how what you are saying is different."

[oxmixmudd]

No it's not.

Perhaps that's why you might be motivated to call it that, but you don't speak for everybody.

Your denial doesn't change the simple fact that is exactly what it is. And the cost of the ignorance that tries to justify it has been the loss of innocent human lives.

[Gondwanaland]

And I said, "That may not be what Tom Cotton was claiming, but when you want to make a point that looks suspiciously like a widely circulated conspiracy theory, it's best to highlight how what you are saying is different."

But his point did not remotely look 'suspiciously like a widely circulated conspiracy theory'. He literally just stated that we should look into lab origins (nor is it his job to do basic journalistic integrity for the MSM turds). Or are you now declaring lab origins a conspiracy theory too? Your argument doesn't hold up. The media, etc., smeared people as conspiracy theorists for holding perfectly rational positions and asking perfectly logical questions. You can deny it all you want, but you're just shooting your own foot at this point.

[siam]

... And when people in authority give permission to express hate or act on hate, more people will do it than would without that added incentive. It's human nature. So those in authority and power have a responsibility to keep things civil. Hatred or resentment expressed by a leader towards a group WILL manifiest as increased acts of incivility towards that group by those that follow or admire that leader, or those that secretly (or overtly) harbor that same hatred or resentment. This is the history of the world.

In this case, calling the virus the 'china-flu' is not a simple geographic designation devoid of negative connotation. It is an expression of blame. And that has and does manifest as increased overt expressions of hatred and disdain for Asian people in those so inclined.

I agree. "Authority" can make the immoral act into "right behavior"...it has happened so many times both in history and in Modernity.


...and in case we forgot....swine flu---or 2009 pandemic originated in the U.S. (H1N1/09)--it was called swine flu because it was similar to the flu virus among north american swine.

In the spring of 2009, a novel influenza A (H1N1) virus emerged. It was detected first in the United States and spread quickly across the United States and the world. This new H1N1 virus contained a unique combination of influenza genes not previously identified in animals or people. This virus was designated as influenza A (H1N1)pdm09 virus
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-res...-pandemic.html


...and in case we forgot---the U.S. govt has a history of manufacturing "conspiracy theories" in order to go to war---Iraq and WMD....?.....at that time---most of the U.S. population was fooled into believing it.....

[rogue06]

The NYT article literally quotes Cotton who simply talked about it having come from lab origins. His statement had nothing to do with anything being engineered.

“We don’t know where it originated, and we have to get to the bottom of that,” Cotton said. “We also know that just a few miles away from that food market is China’s only biosafety level 4 super laboratory that researches human infectious diseases.”

“Now, we don’t have evidence that this disease originated there, but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says,” Cotton said. “And China right now is not giving any evidence on that question at all.”

Yet they STILL smeared him and declared him as pushing a conspiracy theory, etc.. Your argument is simply not accurate wrt actual observable history, or your claims wrt the article.

Yeah, even a number of those who disagreed with him pointed out that Cotton was very careful with his language to not make any wild charges but the MSM still accused him of making wild charges. Of passing "misinformation." Of pushing "fringe" and "debunked" theories. And as Vox and the NYT's top investigative reporter covering the Chicom coronavirus Apoorva Mandavilli proclaimed, it's racist to even wonder if it could have been the result of an accident or mistake.

[Juvenal]

They were all arguing that it was unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 had been deliberately engineered. IOW, their idea of the "lab leak theory" had been unduly influenced by exposure to the conspiracy theories.

Coronavirus ‘lab leak’ theory jumps from mocked to maybe as Biden orders intelligence review
.

The U.S. officials felt that experts should consider the possibility that the lab was engaged in risky research that might have sparked an outbreak.

Trump agreed. In April 2020, he first publicly raised the idea that the virus could have leaked from a lab. At the same time, Trump intensified his anti-China rhetoric, referring to the coronavirus as the “China virus.” A rise in anti-Asian hate crimes followed.

Trump offered no evidence to back the lab theory. His trade adviser, Peter Navarro, a longtime China hawk, accused the Chinese government of engineering the virus, offering no credible evidence to support such an audacious claim.

While it wasn't possible to pull any meaningful allegation out of President "seriously not literally," Navarro was specific, and consistent, that it was an engineered virus, that is, when he wasn't pushing quack science on hydroxychloroquine or accusing Fauci of paying for the engineering. The recklessness of the charges, the counterfactuals, the admixture of conspiracy theories, and the politicization used to cover an otherwise anemic response, made it literally impossible to take the administration seriously.
.

For some of the officials who were privately suspicious of the Wuhan lab, Trump’s and Navarro’s comments turned the lab-leak scenario into a fringe conspiracy theory. It became nearly impossible to generate interest among health experts in a hypothesis that Trump had turned into a political weapon, they said.

Actions have consequences. No respectable scientist is going to want to see their work turned into a sound bite for a hate crime.
.

But in the fall of 2020, momentum picked up again. The U.S. intelligence community had obtained information that three workers at the Wuhan lab had fallen ill in November 2019 with symptoms similar to covid, which had sent them to the hospital. Their symptoms were also similar to seasonal illnesses, including the flu, but they’d gotten sick the month before the initial cases of the disease were confirmed in Wuhan.

The illnesses were top-of-the-list on the fact sheet released by Pompeo's state department in the waning days of the Trump administration.
.

1. Illnesses inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV):

• The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses. This raises questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli’s public claim that there was “zero infection” among the WIV’s staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses.
• Accidental infections in labs have caused several previous virus outbreaks in China and elsewhere, including a 2004 SARS outbreak in Beijing that infected nine people, killing one.
• The CCP has prevented independent journalists, investigators, and global health authorities from interviewing researchers at the WIV, including those who were ill in the fall of 2019. Any credible inquiry into the origin of the virus must include interviews with these researchers and a full accounting of their previously unreported illness.

Research on RaTG13 followed close behind.
.

2. Research at the WIV:

• Starting in at least 2016 – and with no indication of a stop prior to the COVID-19 outbreak – WIV researchers conducted experiments involving RaTG13, the bat coronavirus identified by the WIV in January 2020 as its closest sample to SARS-CoV-2 (96.2% similar). The WIV became a focal point for international coronavirus research after the 2003 SARS outbreak and has since studied animals including mice, bats, and pangolins.
• The WIV has a published record of conducting “gain-of-function” research to engineer chimeric viruses. But the WIV has not been transparent or consistent about its record of studying viruses most similar to the COVID-19 virus, including “RaTG13,” which it sampled from a cave in Yunnan Province in 2013 after several miners died of SARS-like illness.
• WHO investigators must have access to the records of the WIV’s work on bat and other coronaviruses before the COVID-19 outbreak. As part of a thorough inquiry, they must have a full accounting of why the WIV altered and then removed online records of its work with RaTG13 and other viruses.

The military aspect completed the list.
.

3. Secret military activity at the WIV:

• Secrecy and non-disclosure are standard practice for Beijing. For many years the United States has publicly raised concerns about China’s past biological weapons work, which Beijing has neither documented nor demonstrably eliminated, despite its clear obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention.
• Despite the WIV presenting itself as a civilian institution, the United States has determined that the WIV has collaborated on publications and secret projects with China’s military. The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017.
• The United States and other donors who funded or collaborated on civilian research at the WIV have a right and obligation to determine whether any of our research funding was diverted to secret Chinese military projects at the WIV.

I don't know what to make of that. If the funds awarded via Ecohealth were fungible, and if the research on RaTG13 was conducted by military researchers, and only if the ifs in a long chain are confirmed, there might finally be reason to take the admixed conspiracy theories seriously. For now, I'm peering over the reading glasses with jaundiced eyes.

But with or without a military component, the withdrawal of RaTG13 research records is a cover-up that demands a full investigation.

[Juvenal]

And I said, "That may not be what Tom Cotton was claiming, but when you want to make a point that looks suspiciously like a widely circulated conspiracy theory, it's best to highlight how what you are saying is different."

He did exactly that in his follow-up tweet, characterized in the NYTimes as a "walkback" from "lending credence to what has been largely considered a fringe theory."

cotton-tweet.jpg

The WaPo story he was "debunking" now includes a correction immediately following the byline.
.

CORRECTION
Earlier versions of this story and its headline inaccurately characterized comments by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) regarding the origins of the coronavirus. The term “debunked” and The Post’s use of “conspiracy theory” have been removed because, then as now, there was no determination about the origins of the virus.

[rogue06]

Actions have consequences. No respectable scientist is going to want to see their work turned into a sound bite for a hate crime.

Indeed they have consequences. With the left and most of the MSM summarily dismissing even the possibility that the Chinese government was lying yet again and that Chicom coronavirus didn't come from the local wet market but was the result of a leak from a lab, while ridiculing those who suggested we investigate the possibility, no respectable scientist is going to want to step forward with what they knew or suspected for fear of being smeared and slimed and their professional career left in tatters.