The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

In early December of 2019 with absolutely no indication that a new virus was being spread, the Chinese figured out that they had a) a new virus and b) they were able to identify the virus.

In this case the Chinese knew, in early December, they had a problem when they only had a handful of cases. HOW????

COVID presents like the flu, so there isn't a novel symptom to help them identify that something new is in play.

There wasn't a significant rise in cases or deaths. There couldn't be a significant rise in deaths because there weren't that many cases. A small cluster of flu cases escalating into pneumonia, and then death won't raise a red flag because it happens all the time. I've had multiple Chief Medial Officers tell me this.

With COVID presenting like the flu, and with so few cases the ONLY way they could know that a new virus was spreading was if they had prior knowledge. The only way they could get prior knowledge was because someone working at the lab got sick, and then people they came in contact with got sick.

If this really happened organically then it should have been spreading pretty damn fast, and because it presents like the flu it wouldn't have raised any eyebrows until either the case rates spiked or the death rates spiked. In the U.S. flu cases per year range from a low of 9.3M to a high of 45M and deaths of 12,000 up to 61,000.

I suspect that China sees the same fluctuations in yearly flu cases so localized spikes wouldn't have raised any eyebrows it wouldn't have gotten anyone's attention until hospitals started to get overwhelmed. But in early December they didn't have that many cases.

So how did they know?

> It's still not clear to me what the conflict of interest is. The amount of money is kind of important, because it gives you an idea of the level of involvement. As I said, $600K over 5 years is very little money, it basically makes sure you get the results of whatever research is already being done.

Maybe he's covering his own ass? Maybe he's trying to protect gain of function research? He was, after all, the most vocal proponent that the risks with gain of function research were worth it. [0]

> The top scientist in the country, with several Ph.Ds, 50 years of experience in a both public leadership and an incredibly complicated branch of biology, is making roughly what a staff engineer at a FAANG company makes...and you are complaining? That's the bargain of the century. He's a sick fuck for actually sticking it out - he could have bailed and consulted on "return to the office" for all the big tech and entertainment companies. He is 80 years old, working insane hours, and probably would have made more money in 6 months than he has in his whole public career from a really nice beach. You will never convince me that THIS is the smoking gun that proves Dr. Fauci corrupt, finally, after 50 years in public service. It's too stupid.

Oh, ok. So before his only reward was his "public servant salary", but now that you know he's the most highly paid government official (including the President) his salary is now being compared to FAANGs and he's underpaid. What a sacrifice.

[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3484390/

Edit: Fix typo.

It's not that you discover the One True Truth; it's that you know all the things that might be true. If you listen to the experts, all you hear is one possibility - hope they got it right.

> no mention of the virus not matching any backbones in use for genetic experimentation, or the suboptimal binding to humans

Are you going to cite sources? And then are you going to cite the other sources which have addressed both of these weak counter arguments? Some of us have done a lot of homework on this one, so you need to bring your A game.

"This is the most shocking article I have ever read in my life."

Dare we inquire how long you have lived. :)

But seriously, I am not sure that the scientific community, nor all national governments, have reached a clear consensus on gain of function research. It is still a developing issue. Welcome to be corrected on that. Such research could potentially help to prevent pandemics as well as accidentally start them. The idea that scientists in the US might have been working with scientists in other countries, including China, on GoF research is not shocking to me. Here is a paper from 2016 on the ethics of GoF research:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4996883/

Perhaps the old saying about mistakingly attributing malice to incompetence applies here.

As for the cover-up, it is difficult to imagine that David Baltimore is wrong. I used a textbook he co-authored when I was in school; he is one of the pioneers of the biotech industry. It seems unlikely this was not created in a lab. Then again, it is probably easier to prove someone in a lab made a mistake than to prove soemthing exists in nature.