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CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

nytimes.com

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Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#91

Post by ndr42 »

I found this recent interview with Christian Drosten [1] very interesting, he explains very good scientifically why it is much more probable that the origin is not from a laboratory.

A quick summary of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av2Hax3Bg1U

(1) The area where the Nyctereutes spec. (german: Marderhund, I have no idea how it is called in english) where kept, there where a lot of DNA of Nyctereutes and a lot of nucleinacid of SARS II.

(2) From the beginning there a two lines of the corona viruses laboratory-confirmed. From the evolutionary speed of virus mutation it is nearly certain that the separation had to be taken place months before. About 8 times a corona-variation had been aquired by man. From this infection chains 2 virus-types had survived to be confirmed in Wuhan. A person who works in the laboratory would have been working with a clonal virus that is not mutated in that way.

(3) The market is the center of all infections even if you take out everybody that is known to be at the market, not the laboratory.

(4) For the animals at the market a analysis showed that they had been ill/infected (not specifically corona)

These are all separate published aspects that points to the same thing.

The part starts at 2 hours 23 minutes 30 seconds - you have to use auto-translated subtitles which are unfortunately not very good (german language)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Drosten

edit: grammar

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#93

Post by eastbound »

jgalt212 wrote: post #72
drewbug01 wrote: post #17

> The agency made its new assessment with “low confidence,” which means the intelligence behind it is fragmentary and incomplete. I do believe that's all one really needs to know about this shift in their thinking. In other words: it's really far from certain. --- One thing that is, however, quite certain: there are very real political reasons to favor one theory or another. For example, Sen. Tom Cotton is quoted as…

> I do believe that's all one really needs to know about this shift in their thinking. In other words: it's really far from certain. That's fine. The really problem is all debate on such matters was shut down during pandemic. To the benefit of no one (except for maybe Biden trying to cajole to Chinese into something, or other. Or to protect USG's role in this affair by financing Chinese gain of function research).

The real problem is, trying to cover that, they said masks were useless and other elucubrations for which they didn’t have proof, like “Stay inside”. “But they didn’t know it was false” Well, if so, don’t speak.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#94

Post by nradov »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #13
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Are they really anti-china? Or are they just trying to shake down China for some cash?

There is now a broad consensus across the national security establishment and the leadership of both major political parties that China must be treated as an adversary. Attempts at constructive engagement failed so now we have to pivot to containment in Cold War 2. This is a strategic issue that transcends money.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#95

Post by suzumer »

wongarsu wrote: post #51
suzumer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying COVID-19 leaked from a lab with zero evidence is different than waiting for evidence and then saying it leaked from a lab.

There was also no evidence against it. If there is neither solid evidence for nor against something I find it perfectly reasonable to apply the balance of probabilities. At least as long as you qualify your statement with a "probably". And with the main competing theory (covid spreading from a wet market in a city that contains a biolab) also being consistent with the hypothesis that it was an accidental lab leak, to…

At the time, there was essentially a 50/50 chance it was a lab leak or from a wet market. The issue with saying it was a lab leak at that time is that you are essentially gambling the US's relationship with China should it come out that it was a from a wet market. Also, a lot of the discussion regarding the lab leak theory early on seemed to me like it wouldn't be sated even if the US presented sufficient evidence that it was from a wet market.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#96

Post by mrkramer »

buyucu wrote: post #90
mrkramer wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>State media has been reporting intensively on coronavirus discovered on packaging of frozen food imports, not considered a significant vector of infection elsewhere, and research into possible cases of the disease found outside China’s borders before December 2019. The official People’s Daily newspaper claimed in a Facebook post last week that “all available evidence suggests that the coronavirus did not start in ce…

[flagged]

Step up your propaganda efforts. You can do better than this.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#98

Post by silverquiet »

pessimizer wrote: post #83
drewbug01 wrote: post #17

> The agency made its new assessment with “low confidence,” which means the intelligence behind it is fragmentary and incomplete. I do believe that's all one really needs to know about this shift in their thinking. In other words: it's really far from certain. --- One thing that is, however, quite certain: there are very real political reasons to favor one theory or another. For example, Sen. Tom Cotton is quoted as…

> I do believe that's all one really needs to know about this shift in their thinking. In other words: it's really far from certain. There's never going to be any conclusive evidence of the source of covid, and anyone claiming they have certainty (who wasn't a witness to a lab leak) is simply lying to you. What they're doing is going along with everyone else worth listening to, who find the coincidence that we were f…

I assumed it was a non-lab origin at first because that's how all previous pandemics have started as far as I am aware. A lab origin (and what precisely that means has never been particularly clear to me), but I have to say that I'd say your last observation cuts both ways - if one thinks this is such a great crime, then perhaps one would have encouraged masking, shutdowns/distancing, and vaccines, but those seem anti-correlated. Perhaps we'll do better next time around?

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#100

Post by pessimizer »

chimprich wrote: post #33

The CIA is not a neutral party in this. Discrediting China may well be their goal here. A lab leak is not impossible, but there are good reasons to suspect a natural spillover event. There have been a number of studies that point in that direction; e.g. recent genetic analysis that suggests that the Wuhan wet market was the origin. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00901-2

The US funded the Wuhan lab through the EcoHealth Alliance, which was used as a vehicle to steer US government funding into areas of research that Obama had banned the US government from funding.

The idea that this assessment needs a goal is strange, because it is the most reasonable assessment, but the idea that it discredits China more than it discredits the US is bizarre. Maybe it does for the Chinese people, who can see that their government is willing to put Chinese people in danger in partnership with a US that was nominally refusing to put American people in danger. Turns out viruses don't need visas so it didn't matter, but maybe it's the thought that counts.

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