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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

#61

Post by _cenw »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #54
_cenw wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It did though. Animal origin only stopped being the most favored explanation because we haven't found the link in 5 years.

There was a nucleotide sequence in the covid strain that did not show up in any of the proposed hosts or progenitor viral sequences, which is where leaked documents showed NIH (Fauci included I believe) discussing the non-natural origin of the nucleotide sequence. It's possible to search for articles about the Fauci NIH emails, and whether they mean anything scandalous. Here's a technical article at NIH discussing th…

This is interesting, thanks for sharing.

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

#62

Post by steveBK123 »

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.

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

#63

Post by frankharv »

andy_ppp wrote: post #53

We can conclude nothing, except that humans do stupid stuff and usually conspiracy theories are incorrect. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Do we actually know if NIH was doing gain of function research (on Corona viruses) in the Wuhan lab? It sounds like another right wing conspiracy theory but if people have high quality sources for this being true I’ll happily change my mind.

They subbed it out to these guys because it was illegal to do Gain of Function research:

https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2024/06/ecohealth-alliance...

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

#64

Post by wongarsu »

_cenw wrote: post #49
frde_me wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused, do you mean the animal origin had no evidence either, but was favoured? But not having evidence for 5 years suddenly makes the other theory favoured instead? So basically neither had real evidence, but one was favoured?

False equivalence. Zoonotic diseases have precedent (SARS, MERS) and SARS-CoV-2 most closely resembles BANAL-52, a bat Coronavirus. Animal origin still seems more likely to me, but less than 5 years ago, since we have a missing link one would expect to see.

Animal origin does not contradict a lab leak however. Especially if you have a biolab studying coronaviruses in bats in the city identified as ground zero.

It does favor an accidental lab leak over a targeted weaponization and release, but it doesn't contradict a lab origin.

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

#66

Post by shadowgovt »

I simply cannot use this as signal to update my priors on the theory given how politically charged this issue is and the new administration.

We cannot ignore the timing or the fact that the release appears to be the direct consequence of the previous director not believing the information he had passed the evidential bar and the new directory believing it does.

It's new signal on the question, which is always nice-to-have, but I'll be digesting it with a huge grain of salt given its pedigree.

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

#67

Post by rayiner »

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…

As the article observes, “the new analysis … began under the Biden administration.”

The new administration has been in office a week. There is a political incentive to release it now, but they couldn’t have meaningfully created the analysis for political reasons in five days.

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

#68

Post by rhansgrt »

Fauci has been preemptively pardoned for gain of function research (lying or funding), so the bureaucrats can now pander to Trump. Anyway, we have always been at war with Oceania and China is now our enemy! Next week the NYT will use the term "Wuhan Virus".

This is the first US presidential change of power I'm following consciously. Have there always been such abrupt 180° turns and pledges of loyalty as now? I feel like I'm watching The Godfather.

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

#69

Post by chimprich »

wkat4242 wrote: post #40
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

> There have been a number of studies that point in that direction; e.g. recent genetic analysis that suggests the Wuhan wet market was the origin. Those are not mutually exclusive theories. It could have been a lab leak that was then superspread by the visit of an affected lab worker (or someone they came into contact with) at the wet market.

That is possible, but the evidence doesn't suggest that. E.g. if I am reading the paper correctly, they say that there is evidence of two distinct spillover lineages, which wouldn't be consistent with a simple visit from a lab worker.

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

#70

Post by pbhjpbhj »

CMay wrote: post #14
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Concern about China is not partisan anymore, pretty much everyone is on board now. Also from the article: "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."

But we know Trump lies, and that people around him change their story and lie for him, and we know he gets rid of personnel who don't 'kiss the ring'... and this comes at the exact instant that he says he's going to start his import tariffs for Chinese goods and needs media support to convince USA-ians that making all goods coming from China now expensive is a good idea...

I mean you're going to need extraordinary evidence to show this is true; but CIA say there's no new evidence and it's a low confidence conclusion.

Probability that it's just Trump continuing to be deceitful and manipulative approaches certainty.

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