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

[Stoic]

Even I am embarrassed for you at this point.

[Terraceth]

Lyme's Disease
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)
Ebola Virus
Zika Virus
West Nile Virus
Hendra Virus
Spanish Flu (named after the location that first publicized its existence - notably it likely came from China originally, thru the US, and out to Europe after)

All named for locations where they originated (or were recognized, in the case of the last one).

Nothing wrong with naming a virus for its geographic origins.

The thing is, there are two big differences. First, for a bunch of those, I'd say about 99% of people don't even know it's named after anyplace. I know I didn't know Lyme, Ebola, Zika, or Hendra were named after locations.

The other important fact, I feel, is the fact that those are the terms they are most recognized by. People recognize "Lyme", they don't recognize "borrelia." In contrast, if you say "COVID" pretty much everyone will recognize it. It isn't even a matter of convenience, because COVID is faster to type (even counting the caps lock key it's fewer strokes) or to say, being fewer syllables.

Outside of the desire to be ornery, I don't really see the purpose of calling it "China virus" or "China flu" when there is another perfectly recognizable--perhaps more recognizable--term to use.

[rogue06]

The thing is, there are two big differences. First, for a bunch of those, I'd say about 99% of people don't even know it's named after anyplace. I know I didn't know Lyme, Ebola, Zika, or Hendra were named after locations.

How many folks would have recognized "Wuhan" as place until recently.

And what about "Legionnaire's Disease"? Were there ever any attacks on American Legion Halls. In the early days nobody knew how it was transmitted or if it was infectious.

Outside of the desire to be ornery, I don't really see the purpose of calling it "China virus" or "China flu" when there is another perfectly recognizable--perhaps more recognizable--term to use.

When those responsible for a catastrophic disaster demand special treatment (how dare you name the disease after a place like you do with virtually every other one), I tend to be less than sympathetic to their demands. Perhaps if they owned up to their mistakes instead of continuing to lie through their teeth about it even today (still pretending that it didn't even originate in China) I might be more willing to listen.

[rogue06]

True, but what a real nonpartisan actual journalist would do is present all sides of the argument in their reporting. What a TDS fake journalist hack would do (or a journalist getting china money) is exactly what MSM did for year before they were forced to painfully concede the theory's plausibility.

Yeah when you have the lead reporter in charge of investigating stories to do with the Chicom coronavirus from the so-called "(News)paper of Record" still reflexively dismissing the possibility of the plague originating in a lab and calling the idea racist, you have to question anything that source reports.

[seanD]

I love how this thing looks like it's snowballing, especially when it seems to offend others.

Explosive study claims to prove Chinese scientists created COVID

A bombshell new study claims to have proof that Chinese scientists created COVID-19The Daily Mail reported

[Stoic]

I love how this thing looks like it's snowballing, especially when it seems to offend others.

Explosive study claims to prove Chinese scientists created COVID

As I've already said, I'm pretty convinced that the virus was created in the lab. But that article doesn't add much to the case.


If they were ignored by academics and major medical journals, I have to wonder how good their evidence is.

"The laws of physics mean that you cannot have four positively charged amino acids in a row," Dalgleish told the Daily Mail. "The only way you can get this is if you artificially manufacture it."

If the laws of physics make it impossible, then you can't artificially manufacture it.

The study concludes: "the likelihood of it being the result of natural processes is very small."

Even if their conclusion is supported by the evidence, it's not quite the same as proving that Chinese scientists created covid.

[Mountain Man]

If they were ignored by academics and major medical journals, I have to wonder how good their evidence is.

It astounds me that any active member of this forum could be this naive.

[seanD]

It astounds me that any active member of this forum could be this naive.

It's not naivety. He's smarter than that.

[Gondwanaland]

I love how this thing looks like it's snowballing, especially when it seems to offend others.

Explosive study claims to prove Chinese scientists created COVID

And the hits just keep coming (and further confirm reports we knew about over a year ago of multiple researchers at the lab being bitten, etc., by the bats they were studying).

https://nypost.com/2021/05/28/scient...ium=SocialFlow

Scientists at the Chinese lab eyed as a possible source of the coronavirus pandemic were previously filmed getting bitten and spattered with blood while handling bats without protection, according to reports.

The state-run TV footage showed researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) disregarding gloves, masks and other PPE while handling bats and collecting feces in the field, Taiwan News first noted.

In one section, virus expert Cui Jie related how a bat’s fangs once went right through his glove, describing it as feeling “like being jabbed with a needle,” the outlet noted.

The video — first broadcast in China on Dec. 29, 2017 — then cut to a person’s limb badly swollen from an apparent bat bite. Scientists also admitted getting spattered with blood during the research, according to the Sun.

As one scientist was shown handling samples with bare hands, the narrator noted how the risk of injury “still exists,” and that team members got a rabies vaccine before each field sampling, the Taiwan report said.

However, the lab’s now-notorious “bat woman” leader, Shi Zhengli, dismissed the fears in a since-deleted article, claiming that “this job is not as dangerous as everyone thinks,” Taiwan News noted.

“The odds of directly infecting humans is very small,” she reportedly wrote before her lab become the focus of worldwide attention because of the coronavirus pandemic that as of Thursday has killed more than 3.5 million people worldwide.

“In most cases, only ordinary protection will be utilized,” she admitted at the time of their risky research, the outlet said.

The video was aired by Chinese TV to showcase the lab’s work as well as celebrate its “bat woman” director, Taiwan News has said.

But it has resurfaced now that world leaders are increasingly concerned about possible ties to the pandemic — with President Biden this week ordering US spy agencies to carry out a 90-day investigation.

Former President Donald Trump and his administration long raised suspicions over the coincidence of the bat research lab being in the epicenter of the pandemic’s outbreak, with its research including similar viruses.

Biden finally focused on the lab after it emerged that a US intelligence report had raised concerns over three of the lab’s researchers getting sick from a mystery illness in November 2019, just before the first COVID-19 cases were officially noted.

The renewed focus even encouraged Facebook to reverse its ban on stories linking the lab to the outbreak.

[seanD]

And the hits just keep coming (and further confirm reports we knew about over a year ago of multiple researchers at the lab being bitten, etc., by the bats they were studying).

https://nypost.com/2021/05/28/scient...ium=SocialFlow

If I'm reading that right, this seems to push the official story, only from a different location. IOW, that infection occurred naturally as opposed to being engineered.

[Starlight]

And the hits just keep coming (and further confirm reports we knew about over a year ago of multiple researchers at the lab being bitten, etc., by the bats they were studying).

Approximately zero people worldwide are surprised to learn that health and safety standards in China are low.

To reiterate: Low health and safety standards leading to a worker infection from the bats, or a leak from the lab, means its accidental. That's quite different to "they were developing bioweapons and released it deliberately". The two are not at all the same, and anyone who alleged the latter and who is now claiming victory because the former is widely suspected, is wrong.

[CivilDiscourse]

Approximately zero people worldwide are surprised to learn that health and safety standards in China are low.

To reiterate: Low health and safety standards leading to a worker infection from the bats, or a leak from the lab, means its accidental. That's quite different to "they were developing bioweapons and released it deliberately". The two are not at all the same, and anyone who alleged the latter and who is now claiming victory because the former is widely suspected, is wrong.

I recall alot of lab leak comments, very little deliberate release theories. Seems odd, where are you getting that from

[rogue06]

Approximately zero people worldwide are surprised to learn that health and safety standards in China are low.

To reiterate: Low health and safety standards leading to a worker infection from the bats, or a leak from the lab, means its accidental. That's quite different to "they were developing bioweapons and released it deliberately". The two are not at all the same, and anyone who alleged the latter and who is now claiming victory because the former is widely suspected, is wrong.

Captain Obvious is my shtick.

[Gondwanaland]

Approximately zero people worldwide are surprised to learn that health and safety standards in China are low.

Yet Fauci funneled money into their research.

To reiterate: Low health and safety standards leading to a worker infection from the bats, or a leak from the lab, means its accidental. That's quite different to "they were developing bioweapons and released it deliberately". The two are not at all the same, and anyone who alleged the latter and who is now claiming victory because the former is widely suspected, is wrong.

Interesting. I don't recall ever claiming the latter. Nor do I remember seeing many people claim the latter. Most said the former, and got attacked and smeared by the media, social media, and liberals like yourself, as conspiracy theorists, racists who hate Chinese people, etc., for suggesting it, and had our suggestions conflated with the latter dishonestly by people who couldn't handle the idea that Trump might have said something correct.

[Stoic]

I recall alot of lab leak comments, very little deliberate release theories. Seems odd, where are you getting that from

I can't imagine.