I’m a lot more interested in how we weren’t allowed to talk about it for a couple years than whether or not it’s ultimately true.
The President of the United States was claiming that COVID was engineered in China as early as May 2020. I don't know how someone can claim they weren't allowed to talk about it.
Possibly because over a hundred million links were repressed by Twitter and Facebook for this.
Or because people who spoke up about received every kind of pushback - firing, demotion, smears, even death threats.
That Trump posed it as a likelihood means nothing in comparison to millions of posts getting flagged, shadowbanned, repressed and completely wiped. You get that, right?
You won't have to wait long for confirmation. The Director of National Intelligence will be required by law to declassify information about the infected researchers on June 18th, including their names, symptoms, date of onset and role at WIV.[1] [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/619...
At the moment I’m skeptical of how revelatory the report and documents will be. The act specifically mentions the possibility of redactions to protect sources and methods. We’ll have to wait and see what size of bus the DNI attempts to drive through that hole.
This is not going to be revelatory.
This is just a stamp on various anonymous "sources" on what we have heard already.
> My "source" was mainly common sense (the simplest solution is usually the right one https://www.cdc.gov/onehealth/basics/zoonotic-diseases.html 75% of all new infectious diseases come from animals. Isn't the simplest solution that COVID also came from animals? Just because it was a bad one doesn't make it less likely. Where did smallpox come from? Polio? Spanish flu? Is it strange that the lab was near the wet mark…
> Where did smallpox come from? Polio? Spanish flu? Which time? Lab leaks are pretty common, all three of those have leaked from labs (smallpox 5 times): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity... And keep in mind these are just the leaks we know about.
> Which time?
I mean the original appearance, thousands of years ago, when it definitely was not a lab leak. The point is that our worst viruses have come from nature, likely zoonotic sources.
My Aunt was killed by the flu. She had a pre-existing unknown heart-condition and despite her healthy lifestyle the flu weakened her heart enough that she needed a heart-transplant in her early 20s. She died at age 27. I tell this story whenever it is possible, to educate people about what the flu is capable of doing, whenever someone says the flu is "no big deal." Statistically, perhaps not. Unless you're the statis…
Is there a way to know who might be more susceptible to weakening of heart. Or is it just random bad luck with no known reason?
I don't trust this article at all . > Sources within the US government say that three of the earliest people to become infected with SARS-CoV-2 were Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu. All were members of the Wuhan lab suspected to have leaked the pandemic virus. > It is unclear who in the U.S. government had access to the intelligence about the sick WIV workers, how long they had it, and why it was not shared with the pub…
We have samples that pre-date the wuhan outbreak, so they are not among the earliest. Wuhan was only the first identified super spreader location. Here's one such study from Italy that found infections from as early as Sept 2019. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220830/Italian-study-fin... original journal https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393512...
Or it could do the opposite. Both Taibbi and Shellenberger are independent investigative journalists with no party loyalties. Their funding comes directly from readers rather than corporations or billionaire owned outlets. They can make a few mistakes from time to time but own up to them. Their opinions are their own, but they rarely report anything not factual.
It's weird how many smart people still haven't realized they are being lied to by the legacy media and establishment figures. Even after repeatedly discrediting themselves. Taibbi and Shellenberger aren't perfect either, but they are more reliable and honest. Taibbi is still the investigative journalist he's always been.
Often new, independent journalists will claim that the mainstream media is lying to the citizens and when I replace "mainstream media" with "my competitors" it makes a lot more sense.
"My competitors are lying to you" is a variation of the "my competitors have a bad product" claim that I imagine many small businesses make to discredit the market leader.
Does it mean that the market leaders have a better product? Not necessarily, but I don't automatically trust a business to be honest about its competitors, especially if the business is new and gets market share by directly attacking its competitors.
Unless someone has specimen samples from the sick WIV scientists, this doesn't really prove anything. Nasty respiratory viruses with Covid-like symptoms aren't actually that rare, and there's a lot of overlap between a bad respiratory infection and a mild Covid infection. I've talked to numerous people in the US who swore they had the full checklist of Covid symptoms well before the November 2019 date they're talking…
Proof is not objective. There are levels of proof, different ones for civil and criminal in the US. So, maybe this doesn't prove it to you, but it will prove it to others. Argue for what level of proof you think is right here, but there is no absolute in proof for anything like this, ever.
You're not wrong. My take is this: the context of this debate is, for many, "China caused the Covid pandemic intentionally and conspired to hide their culpability." It's a big claim, literally a conspiracy theory, so I'd put it at the standards of a criminal trial. This is circumstantial evidence and, while it's certainly evidence that could be used to prosecute that claim, it isn't a case of China being caught in flagrante delicto. In particular, the screaming headline "First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV" is very weak. There are reports from someone that people at WIV were sick. Nothing firmly supporting that it was Covid, and nothing but anonymously-sourced evidence that people at WIV were even sick.
Given the location, the timing, the symptoms, the severity of the illness (it's unusual for 'flu to put healthy young adults in hospital) I think we can be pretty confident in our guess.
My Aunt was killed by the flu. She had a pre-existing unknown heart-condition and despite her healthy lifestyle the flu weakened her heart enough that she needed a heart-transplant in her early 20s. She died at age 27. I tell this story whenever it is possible, to educate people about what the flu is capable of doing, whenever someone says the flu is "no big deal." Statistically, perhaps not. Unless you're the statis…
Having had a number of bad colds before I actually got a bad flu, I always thought my colds were the flu. Not a huge deal. When it was confirmed to be the flu when I talked to her later, the mobile doctor said that many people think the same because they tupically don't go to the doctor for confirmation, if the doctor even chooses to test.
A real (non-covid) flu had me feeling like I was on death's door for a week, and much of that time was spent wishing it would take me.
that may be- I am not qualified to say after reading the twitter thread, but my money is still on the peer reviewed paper written by the virologist, based on a large collection of priors. Note taht the "geoscientist" is really a hydrologist who works on oil and gas, so their ability to comment on the centering model is still suspect. From what I can tell, "dawalker" is just a retired hydrologist with no special skill…
If you read the linked thread, you might actually be able to engage with the argument on its merits, without resorting to ad hominems and appeals to authority.
Until a cause is completely identified, there will always be "reason to believe". That doesn't mean that it's the most likely source or the most reasonable hypothesis. The President was also claiming the virus came from WIV back in May 2020. It was a common theory in some media circles
That same president also claimed it would be gone by the summer of 2020. The same president even claimed it would never make it to the USA! Maybe this will be a case of a broken clock being correct twice a day but it was certainly thrown in with quite a bit of incorrect information that was being spewed at those daily briefings. I don’t blame anyone for being skeptical of the information coming out of the Trump admin…
I don't blame people for doubting either, especially because it was mixed in with assertions on the right that COVID was a bioweapon gone rogue.
My point isn't whether it's credible, just that one of the most powerful people in the world expressed support for Lab Leak very early on