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Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

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31–40 of 186 posts

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#31
post #19

I think the problem is that America's Director of National Intelligence just isn't saying what people had hoped to hear. "We continue to have no indication that the Wuhan Institute of Virology's pre-pandemic research holdings included SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID…

Lab leak theorists don’t believe Covid was developed as a weapon. They believe it was an accidental leak from a lab doing normal, non-warfare virological research. The quoted phrasing makes me think that they know it was a leak but redirect the conversation by saying it wasn’t a biological weapon.

Many conspiracy theorists have claimed it was a bio-weapon, along with other batshit stuff like Bill Gates & 5G. Read both quotes, not just the last one.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#32
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s amazing that we’re literally talking about a major geopolitical rival’s negligence leading to the deaths of millions of people, but the right wing talking point continues to be “how can we pin this on Fauci?” Americans have been taught to hate each other more than anyone else.

Conservatives need for the lab leak theory to be correct as they were wrong about basically all other points on covid. They refused to believe in masks, lockdowns, and social distancing and paid the ultimate price at a much higher rate. [0] [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/03/03/the-changing...

> They refused to believe in masks,

As someone that believed in masks from the very beginning. The CDC and Fauci himself said masks were useless at the start of the pandemic. Stop being a pawn.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#33
post #19

I think the problem is that America's Director of National Intelligence just isn't saying what people had hoped to hear. "We continue to have no indication that the Wuhan Institute of Virology's pre-pandemic research holdings included SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID…

Lab leak theorists don’t believe Covid was developed as a weapon. They believe it was an accidental leak from a lab doing normal, non-warfare virological research. The quoted phrasing makes me think that they know it was a leak but redirect the conversation by saying it wasn’t a biological weapon.

Professionals holding this believe it was probably an accidental leak. Conspiracy theorists and laypeople believe it's probably a bioweapon. It's hard to have discussions about this because the two positions get lumped together.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#34
The Wuhan Institute of Virology was working on adding a unique furin cleavage site to a bat coronoavirus strain to make it bind to human ACE-2 receptors.

This is factual, because the grant proposals are out there and DARPA in the US turned them down:

https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra...

Suddenly, we have a global pandemic featuring a bat coronavirus with a unique furin cleavage site that binds to human ACE-2 receptors, out of Wuhan, China, directly next to the lab where they were studying this.

What are the chances?

We know what they were studying because all of the grants, emails, and other information from NIH to EcoHealth Alliance have been acquired via the Freedom of Information Act:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23793974-tobias-v-hh...

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#35

I think the problem is that America's Director of National Intelligence just isn't saying what people had hoped to hear. "We continue to have no indication that the Wuhan Institute of Virology's pre-pandemic research holdings included SARS-CoV-2 or a close progenitor, nor any direct evidence that a specific research-related incident occurred involving WIV personnel before the pandemic that could have caused the COVID…

> "All Intelligence Community agencies assess that SARS-CoV-2 was not developed as a biological weapon." This strawman is getting old. A tiny portion of people believe or assert it's a bioweapon. That is relatively unlikely and even less likely to be proven true, even if it is. Many people suspect it leaked from the lab. That's relatively likely. But let's just completely ignore that and focus on debunking a crazier…

I think a biological weapon deliberately released makes more sense than an accidental release from a lab that happens to look exactly like it spilled over at a wet market.

SARS-CoV-1 had an accidental "lab leak" and instead of infecting a market it killed the mother of the researcher who was infected with it.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservatives need for the lab leak theory to be correct as they were wrong about basically all other points on covid. They refused to believe in masks, lockdowns, and social distancing and paid the ultimate price at a much higher rate. [0] [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/03/03/the-changing...

> They refused to believe in masks, As someone that believed in masks from the very beginning. The CDC and Fauci himself said masks were useless at the start of the pandemic. Stop being a pawn.

My understanding is that they said that as a path to avoid hoarding of N95 supplies which they knew were in short supply for those who most needed it at the time, medical professionals.

That doesn't aren't right, precisely because it validates conspiracy minded people.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They refused to believe in masks, As someone that believed in masks from the very beginning. The CDC and Fauci himself said masks were useless at the start of the pandemic. Stop being a pawn.

My understanding is that they said that as a path to avoid hoarding of N95 supplies which they knew were in short supply for those who most needed it at the time, medical professionals. That doesn't aren't right, precisely because it validates conspiracy minded people.

[flagged]

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#39

tl;dr probably from a sick animal, maybe from a lab, no smoking gun either way. Probably not engineered or lab-adapted.

> Probably not engineered or lab-adapted. Despite having a novel furin cleavage site in the exact location as stated in a grant proposal, a furin cleavage site that happens to make the virus extremely infectious towards humans all while leaving no trace of how it adapted this feature. This seems to me more like a desperate attempt to avoid any regulations or attention drawn to this reckless research conducted all ove…

A PRRA furin cleavage site that was a previously unknown sequence and not something that a scientist would have copied off some other virus.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#40
post #34

The Wuhan Institute of Virology was working on adding a unique furin cleavage site to a bat coronoavirus strain to make it bind to human ACE-2 receptors. This is factual, because the grant proposals are out there and DARPA in the US turned them down: https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra... Suddenly, we have a global pandemic featuring a bat coronavirus with a unique furin cleavage site that bi…

Neither of those are definitive sources of evidence. Grant proposals that were denied and statements that the furin site could've evolved naturally or been lab manipulated, aren't really evidence that COVID-19 leaked from a lab.
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