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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

#221

Post by mandmandam »

stvswn wrote: post #132

It's pretty wild to me that a good portion of commenters here seem to think that only one side can politicize Covid's origins when the cited article itself says that the conclusion predates the new administration. The natural origin bitter-clingers are still citing papers that claim to lean towards natural origin with the thinnest possible evidence. I admit I'm not a virologist, but I am a bit skeptical that this com…

> oh, no, no scientists released a paper that says the natural origin is still a live theory

Not to mention that the main paper cited for this was written by ... Daszak, yet again. And it was endorsed by 26 other people who all had conflicts of interest, under a Lancet editor who since admitted that he knew Daszak had a massive conflict of interest, which wasn't admitted publicly for a year.

Ain't it odd that media never really ran with that story? That neither Dems or Republicans had much to say about Daszak? It didn't too viral on social media, there were never any TV interviews where they showed people reacting to being told that, no documentaries about the flaws of the Lancet paper and how it was pushed; it was never part of any drive to change policies, etc. Seemed odd to me anyway.

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

#222

Post by shakow »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #120
Retric wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carful when assuming how a lab leak must have unfolded, there’s many possibilities. A single worker gets infected/accidentally releases multiple variants, sloppy worker messing up twice doesn’t seem that crazy. A lab leak is also consistent with an infection person visiting a location that experienced a separate variant. And that’s just a few options there’s also things like an intentional leak followed by another in…

This is how conspiracy theories become unfalsifiable. You're now positing that a lab worker got infected with multiple variants (which wouldn't exist in the lab, by the way, since they would work with cloned virus), then traveled across town and spread the virus at the market. The evidence all points towards a spillover (two, actually) at the market, but you can always make the lab leak theory ever more convoluted to…

TBF, the idea of two zoonosis event, at the same, and virtually at the same time, do not rank very higher in the probability scale either.

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

#223

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

stvswn wrote: post #153
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The demonization of the Ecohealth Alliance is one of the more depressing aspects of the response to the pandemic. EHA has been warning for decades that a coronavirus pandemic is likely, and that governments should be taking steps to prepare for it and to make it less likely. Then, they're proved right, but instead of society thanking them, they're subject to a politically motivated witch hunt, with the aim of distrac…

It's begging the question to claim they were proven right. Sure, they were proven right in some respect, but if the research itself caused it (and let's be real, it did) then they were proven right in a manner that doesn't really speak well of their record. And yes, they were influential in arguing for continued grant money to study coronaviruses. They were also influential in arguing against the Obama administration…

The research didn't cause it.

The scientific evidence that the outbreak began at the market is overwhelming at this point, and there's never been a shred of evidence for the lab leak.

If you think otherwise, then you have not been following the scientific publications on the subject for the last 5 years.

So yes, EHA has been proven right, and you're hounding the very people who dedicated themselves to warning the world about the threat of a pandemic.

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

#224

Post by mrandish »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #162
CMay wrote: post #154

Things that are true: "Officials said the agency was not bending its views to a new boss, and that the new assessment had been in the works for some time." The Department of Energy concluded with low confidence that it was a lab leak. The FBI concluded with moderate confidence that it was a lab leak. The CIA's new report also concludes that they have low confidence that it was a lab leak. It's important to note that…

> the agency was not bending its views to a new boss Trump has thrown the China hawks under the bus. To the extent anyone is winning accolades by pushing this hypothesis, it's in giving Trump leverage in a trade negotiation. That's too marginal to motivate an adverse conclusion at the CIA. (Counterfactual: Soviet bureaucrats would notoriously produce reports for every possible conclusion, and then pick the one that w…

> That's too marginal to motivate an adverse conclusion at the CIA.

The decision to not release by the previous director and the decision to release by the new director probably were political to some extent. But I agree with you that the report's impact is too marginal to assume its creation or conclusion was politically motivated. But I think that for a different reason: I doubt adding yet another "low confidence" agency report onto the pile of existing ones changes much - either in geo-political super power negotiations or in the mind of the American public.

The issue has been played out and it's not top of mind or relevant anymore. The majority of people have already made up their minds one way or the other - or decided it doesn't matter anymore and they don't care. Pretty much everyone already acknowledges we'll never know for sure.

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

#225

Post by shakow »

chowells wrote: post #159
steveBK123 wrote: post #62

It was never an implausible theory so the censorship over it was foolish. Of course the immediate jump to conclusion in the first few months by some who found it politically expedient was no better either. People need to be more comfortable saying I don’t know but we are looking into it.

[dead]

> was rightly rejected by people who care more about evidence than spreading hatred.

The French CNRS, well know to be a right-wing US actor wanting to spread hate

https://lejournal.cnrs.fr/articles/la-question-de-lorigine-d...

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

#226

Post by User23 »

spanktheuser wrote: post #172
derektank wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both the FBI and DOE, which have their own foreign intelligence gathering capabilities, had previously assessed that COVID was caused by a lab leak with moderate confidence. So while I agree with you that the truth will likely remain shrouded in some mystery, most of us that believed it originated from zoonosis at first (and I would include myself in that camp) should update our priors both based on the CIA assessmen…

My priors include none of the agencies having expertise in epidemiology.

Why would you think that?

It's obviously false if you just think about it, but you can also do some searching if you need some authority to tell you.

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

#227

Post by DonHopkins »

nxm wrote: post #122
steveBK123 wrote: post #62

It was never an implausible theory so the censorship over it was foolish. Of course the immediate jump to conclusion in the first few months by some who found it politically expedient was no better either. People need to be more comfortable saying I don’t know but we are looking into it.

Back then anyone who suggested the lab leak theory was immediately labeled a conspiracy theorist by main stream media.

[flagged]

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

#228

Post by eightysixfour »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #219
bhickey wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unlikely we normies will ever know the truth Thanks for the dose of epistemic humility. I'm willing to go one step further: It's plausible that no one knows the truth. Keeping secrets is hard. If someone knew they might've died in the early stages of the outbreak.

[flagged]

I like how the CIA has "low confidence," but that you are positive. You should share your evidence with them so that they can upgrade to "high confidence" and we can settle it.

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

#229

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

shakow wrote: post #222
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how conspiracy theories become unfalsifiable. You're now positing that a lab worker got infected with multiple variants (which wouldn't exist in the lab, by the way, since they would work with cloned virus), then traveled across town and spread the virus at the market. The evidence all points towards a spillover (two, actually) at the market, but you can always make the lab leak theory ever more convoluted to…

TBF, the idea of two zoonosis event, at the same, and virtually at the same time, do not rank very higher in the probability scale either.

Multiple zoonosis events is actually exactly what you expect from natural spillover.

If the virus is spreading in farmed animals, it will have many chances to spill over into humans. In fact, this is exactly what happened with the original SARS in 2002.

It's striking how similar the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak is to the original SARS outbreak. Almost every detail of the spillover is identical: unknown coronavirus emerges at market in major Chinese city selling wild animals.

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

#230

Post by Khaine »

juliushuijnk wrote: post #155

Apart from directing anger for political reasons, I don't see the big importance. It's like wondering why a single building caught fire, when the shocking thing was that the whole world caught fire. Surely the lessons to learn are with 'how to deal with a spreading fire', and not with 'how to prevent a fire'.

The NIH under Fauci may have been funding gain of function research in China in violation of an Executive Order (EO), and this research may have caused the pandemic.

If so, I think it's pretty important to investigate, how the NIH could violate the EO without appropriate oversight, and to hold those who made those decisions to account.

From: https://unherd.com/2025/01/the-criminal-pardoning-of-anthony...

"Fauci claims — in a curious echo of Trump — that he is the victim of partisan threats of investigation and prosecution. “Let me be perfectly clear: I have committed no crime and there are no possible grounds for any allegation or threat of criminal investigation or prosecution of me,” he said in response to Monday’s news. Yet it was noticeable that the pardon is backdated to 2014. This is, coincidentally, the same year that the US three-year ban on gain-of-function research took effect and also the start date for an NIH grant to Wuhan that biosafety experts such as Richard Ebright, professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University, believe is linked to the “reckless” research that sparked global pandemic. “The pardon is a travesty,” he told me.

The evidence has shown clear efforts to avoid such scrutiny. One memo disclosed that “Tony” had told David Morens, a senior adviser to Fauci, how to avoid requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), suggesting that he stop using government-issued phones for his gmail accounts. A leaked email indicated that Morens was coached on evasion of FOIs by Margaret Moore, Fauci’s long-serving assistant — who pleaded the fifth when asked to testify. “I learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia’d but before the search starts, so i think we are all safe,” he wrote. Another senior aide to Fauci misspelled key conspirators, presumably to avoid searches intended to fulfil FOIA requests."

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