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Many people flag these types of posts (including myself) because they get too toxic. I even flagged this one despite commenting on it.
Is “because I think they become too toxic” a good reason to flag a post? I flag spam, shitposts, unsubstantiated or patently false articles. You, like other people, are abusing your flagging powers.
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What will make this information dangerous is if people misconstrue “lab leak” to mean “human designed”. The report specifically says it was not from a bioweapons program. I’m sure they took pains to verify that because the implications of THAT conclusion would be explosive.
You’re already seeing that exact type of confusion strewn about this comment section. Some people interpreting “lab leak” to mean deliberately designed, others to mean deliberately released , others to mean an accident involving a natural research virus. So yeah this whole conversation will continue to go nowhere because in reality it is full of conspiracy theorists who make the conversation impossible to have.
Why should anybody believe otherwise? Principle of charity? Please.
How can they tell the difference between a lab leak and a deliberate release to explore the world's reaction to a viral weapon?
As a non-American, the whole thing seems crazy to me. It seems like Trump said it from the start, and the media negated him based on political views, not facts. And now, only years later, there is a reconciliation with the facts. Now, I'm not that aware of the politics or the media in the US. But I think the way I see it may be the way many others saw this story roll. Whether or not it's true - it is a big reason tha…
Trump said that not because he had some particular insight, but it was just a way to deflect blame, and that's why it was super amplified across the right wing, but lacking any sort of evidence or proof. Also back then there was a strong suggestion that it was bioengineered at Wuhan on purpose to tank the western economies. Note that he also said covid wasn't a serious thing several times. If that's the case even if…
I'm not particularly surprised by the accusation, but I am a surprised they dug up more evidence so long after the fact.
This ratchets up the credibility of the claim for me, but there are a lot of strangely unanswered questions that leave me skeptical, still.
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You’re already seeing that exact type of confusion strewn about this comment section. Some people interpreting “lab leak” to mean deliberately designed, others to mean deliberately released , others to mean an accident involving a natural research virus. So yeah this whole conversation will continue to go nowhere because in reality it is full of conspiracy theorists who make the conversation impossible to have.
The research out of this lab didn't help develop the vaccine, so what were they doing in the first place? Weapons research, it's as simple as that. As soon as the virus started circulating through the public, that was their chance to shine! They could have released everything they knew and jump-started vaccine development.. but they didn't. They covered it up, because fighting bugs was never their interest in the fir…
Wuhan Institute of Virology did actively contribute to the development of the Vero vaccine by Sinopharm.
Regarding the premise, there's no reason to believe that a lab working on coronaviruses (quite common) that did not happen to contribute directly to a successful vaccine development effort (profoundly uncommon) was necessarily working on a bioweapon.
FWIW, there are ~59 operational BSL-4 labs in the world, and only a BSL-3 is necessary to work on potentially airborne diseases like coronaviruses. According to this study[1] of published research papers, there are probably about 150 BSL-3 labs in the United States alone. Are those all bioweapon programs because they didn't contribute to the vax development programs?
[1]: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/mapping-biosafety-le...
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When Trump made accusations of a lab leak, there were few facts pointing to that conclusion. Furthermore, the statements he made were dangerous to Asian Americans in the US. Later, as more facts came to light, the lab-leak theory became more plausible. Guessing right in the absence of evidence shouldn't grant a person any kind of vindication in retrospect
Where do you people get briefed? The guy was fucking President
Now, if he had claimed the virus originated as a Chinese lab leak, and the intelligence community came out supporting that contribution, then that would have been a different story. Information from these sources didn't start becoming public until 2021, and was still mixed at that point[2].
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-fa...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/27/us/politics/covid-origin-...
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> American media Huh? The previous President of the US frequently called it the "China Virus". > GOP conspiracy to bring down Biden Biden wasn't President for the first year of the pandemic, not sure how that works out. > Are American progressives so fragile in their identity that they avoid agreeing with conservatives for fear of guilt by association? I personally don't care whether the virus was man-made or natural…
>I personally don't care whether the virus was man-made or natural That's really surprising to me, because in my opinion the answer truly does matter, and sticking my head in the sand feels defeatist. I suppose that's a difference of opinions, though.