So... What if China's Wuhan Institute of Virology did leak covid-19?

[nexus5rocks]

Let's try to have a civil discourse and not be rude.

ok, so you likely don't speak chinese. but you have a degree in chinese political science right?

 

[nexus5rocks]

Let's try to have a civil discourse and not be rude.

did you take an intro to chinese law class in your local community college? c'mon bro, help me help you! there's got to be some rhyme or reason you became such an expert in chinese politics.

 

[nexus5rocks]

Let's try to have a civil discourse and not be rude.

Brah, where ya been? I'm trying to understand your angle here.

• You've never been to China
• You don't speak Chinese
• You haven't studied Chinese law
• You haven't taken any classes on Chinese politics
• You know a couple of Chinese nationals
• But somehow, you claim that Chinese congress is a "sham"

Let me know if I've misrepresented you in any way and I'll immediately issue an apology and correction, but I am deeply interested in where you get your information about China from.

 

[Pohemi]

US Dept of Energy now saying they believe COVID-19 DID in fact come from the Wuhan lab.

Edit to add archived WSJ link:

https://archive.is/2jgLZ

'The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community have arrived at disparate judgments about the pandemic’s origin. The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided.'

 

[K1052]

US Dept of Energy now saying they believe COVID-19 DID in fact come from the Wuhan lab.

Tried to find a non-paywalled link but no luck yet...it's a WSJ exclusive atm but might be posted by other sources in the next day or two if you keep an eye out for it.

They state it is a low confidence assessment.

 

[fskimospy]

They state it is a low confidence assessment.

And to be clear in intelligence speak ‘low confidence’ is even lower confidence than I think the average layman would think.

 

[Brovane]

And to be clear in intelligence speak ‘low confidence’ is even lower confidence than I think the average layman would think.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-...jfid1ng8rll&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

The energy department now joins the FBI in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese Laboratory. Previously the Energy Department was undecided, it looks like they got some new information to shift their stance.

This tidbit was interesting in the article.

The National Intelligence Council, which conducts long-term strategic analysis, and four agencies, which officials declined to identify, still assess with “low confidence” that the virus came about through natural transmission from an infected animal, according to the updated report.

So low confidence that it came from a animal and low confidence it came from a lab leak. It would have helped if the Chinese would have cooperated with the investigation.

I was always kind of suspicious back in 2020 that we were told we were told so quickly that it was improbable that it came from a lab leak by the same virologists who had the most to lose.

Still love Jon Stewart talking about the Lab Leak theory.

 

[cytg111]

I mean the only lab in China capable of handling this type of virus is like *right there two streets down*. Common. I can only surmise that playing it down is to not start serious shit both domestic and internationally, shit is going to happen and China suffered just like the rest of us. More than the rest of us. Lets just agree to some international standards and mutual bilateral inspections or something… shit is worse than nukes.

 

[K1052]

It would have helped if the Chinese would have cooperated with the investigation.

Indeed however this was always unlikely since if it came from a lab or a wet market China would still be taking the blame, something their government is pretty strongly averse to.

 

[compcons]

And of course the reaident dumbasses will be by shortly to make sure that somehow it is Bidens fault and that Faucchi is definitely connected to the outbreak.

They of course ignore the fact that had the administration not turned it into a political topic (see Lee country FL for current shenanigans) we would have gotten through this shit a lot faster and nearly a million Americans would still be alive.

 

[uclaLabrat]

There are two conflicting theories about the origin, and scientists have come down pretty heavily on the natural evolution/infected animal/wet market exposure hypothesis, indicating the virus originated in the wild and propogated through the above mechanism.

One thing i dont think will ever be settled about either theory is that could it be a wild type virus that was isolated elsewhere and brought to the institute for studies, but escaped through bad safety protocols/practices? That would fit both theories and i cant think of a way to differentiate them without a thorough forensics investigation (which we wont get).

 

[brycejones]

and I do not believe that china is a pure authoritarian dictatorship.

Well that’s just delusional.

 

[blackangst1]

Heres another source:

Covid-19 pandemic most likely came from lab leak in China: US agency (msn.com) [Times of India]

 

[Pohemi]

Well that’s just delusional.

A rabid Xi-sucker and CCP apologist, judging by his previous posts in this thread.

 

[abj13]

There are two conflicting theories about the origin, and scientists have come down pretty heavily on the natural evolution/infected animal/wet market exposure hypothesis, indicating the virus originated in the wild and propogated through the above mechanism.

One thing i dont think will ever be settled about either theory is that could it be a wild type virus that was isolated elsewhere and brought to the institute for studies, but escaped through bad safety protocols/practices? That would fit both theories and i cant think of a way to differentiate them without a thorough forensics investigation (which we wont get).

I think part of the problem is that there's two plausible hypothesis as to how the virus emerged, and then there's a third conspiracy theory that gets conflated into how the former two are described. As you mentioned, the first possibility was this was somehow an exposure event where the virus was in an animal etc and infected patient zero as some natural event. The second possibility is that the exposure event occurred in the Wuhan Virology Institute, an infected organism is brought in, and because of lax protocols or a mishap, a worker gets exposed and that's patient zero. When most scientists talk about a "lab leak" scenario, this is the event they refer to. Of course, this would indicate serious concerns of the protocols at Wuhan, but the event is not some nefarious attempt to cause a pandemic. Both of these hypotheses would be difficult to trace unless you can place SARS-CoV-2 in a study organism at Wuhan pre-2020, which we know China isn't going to allow any investigation into.

The third conspiracy theory is that SARS-CoV-2 is an engineered virus because of "gain of function" research generated by Fauci, etc, and this virus escaped the lab (purposely or accidentally). This conspiracy theory isn't supported by the biology or logic, and is just a bunch of buzz words uninformed people use to try to make the pandemic event into a nefarious scenario. People like to label this as the "lab leak" scenario, but it is completely different from how the scientists have been talking about their idea of a "lab leak."

So the idea of a lab leak gets pushed in the media and by others, the problem is that there's been two definitions used. Not enough people differentiate between the two when they should. One is very much a possibility, the other is a true conspiracy theory with a poor foundation in reality.

 

[Jaskalas]

US Dept of Energy now saying they believe COVID-19 DID in fact come from the Wuhan lab.

Department of Energy...
They know fuck all, what does DoE have to do with COVID?

You know who I want to hear from? Department of Transportation. Clearly they can tell us how COVID traveled.

 

[UNCjigga]

Yeah, good summary of how I feel about “lab leak” believers. There’s the plausible version of this hypothesis, and the improbable version.

If it were a lab-leak though, I would have thought China may have taken different actions than they have been taking post-pandemic. Given the level of cooperation between the US and Wuhan labs, I would expect that we’d know of more infections amongst lab staff by now. I would have also expected them to be faster on the roll-out of a *working* vaccine assuming they had advanced lab knowledge of the virus. So, I’m curious to know what this new intelligence entails.

My bet is that Chinese authorities haven’t definitively confirmed the origin either—or else there may be bureaucratic inefficiencies preventing them from making a firm conclusion.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Heres another source:

Covid-19 pandemic most likely came from lab leak in China: US agency (msn.com) [Times of India]

Let's accept the lab leak theory as a hypothetical. that still doesn't change anything about the completely abysmal response of the trump administration.

He should be charged with crimes against humanity, but it will never happen.

 

[Pens1566]

Lot of people reading tea leaves from this that have zero idea how US agencies assess things. Again, "low confidence" means they have zero to microscopic amounts of evidence to support said theory.

 

[Pohemi]

Department of Energy...
They know fuck all, what does DoE have to do with COVID?

You know who I want to hear from? Department of Transportation. Clearly they can tell us how COVID traveled.

Guess who really knows fuck all. Do a little reading before saying idiotic shit, maybe?

From the article at WSJ:
"The Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research. "

 

[cytg111]

And of course the reaident dumbasses will be by shortly to make sure that somehow it is Bidens fault and that Faucchi is definitely connected to the outbreak.

They of course ignore the fact that had the administration not turned it into a political topic (see Lee country FL for current shenanigans) we would have gotten through this shit a lot faster and nearly a million Americans would still be alive.

Well ask Elmo Prosecute/Fauci Dumbass whats up…

 

[Jaskalas]

Guess I should have included the part about COVID's travel papers...
Cause some people didn't seem to get the /s.

But yes, a department named Energy overseeing and conducting "advanced biological research" seems misplaced. Such a field does not / should not belong to them.

 

[Brovane]

I think part of the problem is that there's two plausible hypothesis as to how the virus emerged, and then there's a third conspiracy theory that gets conflated into how the former two are described. As you mentioned, the first possibility was this was somehow an exposure event where the virus was in an animal etc and infected patient zero as some natural event. The second possibility is that the exposure event occurred in the Wuhan Virology Institute, an infected organism is brought in, and because of lax protocols or a mishap, a worker gets exposed and that's patient zero. When most scientists talk about a "lab leak" scenario, this is the event they refer to. Of course, this would indicate serious concerns of the protocols at Wuhan, but the event is not some nefarious attempt to cause a pandemic. Both of these hypotheses would be difficult to trace unless you can place SARS-CoV-2 in a study organism at Wuhan pre-2020, which we know China isn't going to allow any investigation into.

The third conspiracy theory is that SARS-CoV-2 is an engineered virus because of "gain of function" research generated by Fauci, etc, and this virus escaped the lab (purposely or accidentally). This conspiracy theory isn't supported by the biology or logic, and is just a bunch of buzz words uninformed people use to try to make the pandemic event into a nefarious scenario. People like to label this as the "lab leak" scenario, but it is completely different from how the scientists have been talking about their idea of a "lab leak."

So the idea of a lab leak gets pushed in the media and by others, the problem is that there's been two definitions used. Not enough people differentiate between the two when they should. One is very much a possibility, the other is a true conspiracy theory with a poor foundation in reality.

On September 21st, drastic published a startling new revelation. In 2018, Daszak, at EcoHealth Alliance, in partnership with Shi, Baric, and Wang, had submitted a $14.2-million grant proposal to the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (darpa). The proposal—which was obtained from an anonymous whistle-blower—detailed an ambitious plan to identify, model, and test the spillover risk of novel sars-related bat coronaviruses, then develop vaccines for the horseshoe bats themselves, to preëmpt viruses from jumping into other animals or people. What stood out was their plan to insert “human-specific” furin cleavage sites into sars-like bat coronaviruses. The furin cleavage site is the single most distinguishing feature of sars-CoV-2. It’s “the magic sauce of this virus,” Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, said recently. “Whether it’s natural or genetically modified, this is why this virus is circulating in humans.”

SARS-CoV-2 being engineered was given some credence because of this DARPA grant proposal in 2018 that was never funded and rejected. If there was a grant proposal to do "gain of function" research into SARS Bat viruses and insert "human-specific" furin cleavage sites into SARS like bat coronaviruses then how can someone say the third conspiracy theory isn't supported by Biology or Logic?

 

[Pohemi]

But yes, a department named Energy overseeing and conducting "advanced biological research" seems misplaced. Such a field does not / should not belong to them.

Your entire post didn't req an /s, because part of it you actually were thinking. As demonstrated by your double down on the DoE being, "outside their lane."

Perhaps you simply have a poor understanding of what the DoE does, in it's entirety. Just maybe.

 

[blackangst1]

Let's accept the lab leak theory as a hypothetical. that still doesn't change anything about the completely abysmal response of the trump administration.

He should be charged with crimes against humanity, but it will never happen.

OK?
Stay on topic shall we?