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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

#601

Post by the_why_of_y »

Dalewyn wrote: post #304
spanktheuser wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My priors include all the agencies (the Intelligence Community , arguably the deep state) having ulterior political and personal motives. Does noone remember the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction hoax that the CIA cooked up for GWB? I would not trust any of these agencies to provide objective findings or conclusions, there is a lot of power on the table that's at stake.

The CIA did not cook up the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction hoax. Paul Wolfowitz had to create an entirely new intelligence agency with hand-picked analysts to get that result, because the existing agencies refused to make that claim.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Special_Plans

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

#603

Post by newsclues »

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #180
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…

> China obstructed and delayed the investigation. You can only assume from this that whatever was going to be found would have been unfavorable to them. Although that would be the case with both the market theory and the lab leak theory.

Or you understand that there is going to be a viral outbreak and you can choose: save the rest of the world from the pandemic or limit information and allow people to spread the virus globally to ensure that your nation doesn’t suffer disproportionately.

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

#605

Post by tripletao »

lamontcg wrote: post #432
KennyBlanken wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The zoonotic theory has no evidence to support it whatsoever . It's the viral equivalent of the 'Magic Bullet.' - No samples were ever found, nor were any sick animals, in the market where it supposedly started. Period. Nothing. - No evidence of genetic mutations and variants leading up to crossover, no intermediary host ever found. - It just happened to start infecting people in the city of a lab which had been doin…

The initial outbreak cases were clustered around the wet market, not around WIV, and the cases weren't linked to WIV. There was a documented lab leak with SARS-CoV-1 and it killed the affected researcher's mother. That'd the kind of thing you expect to see in a lab leak. Instead you see a cluster of cases that look exactly like it spilled over from the wet market. And there's zero evidence to support the lab leak. Al…

> There was a documented lab leak with SARS-CoV-1 and it killed the affected researcher's mother. That'd the kind of thing you expect to see in a lab leak.

SARS-1 had a CFR of 11% over all ages, 55% for >65. That's about 10x as deadly as SARS-CoV-2. The situations are thus not comparable--with SARS-CoV-2, we'd expect much more cryptic spread before someone gets sick enough to seek medical attention, and illness much more easily misdiagnosed as flu.

There's also zero question that the WIV had unpublished viruses during the pandemic, since they just published 56 new sequences collected "between 2004 and 2021". So do you really think it's impossible that they actually had 57?

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

#606

Post by stared »

Leary wrote: post #191
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…

Things that are true: The first large cluster of infections was associated with the Huanan Seafood Market, and retrospective analyses of influenza-like-illness patients and blood donations in Wuhan found no evidence of earlier circulation. Sampling of many individuals prior to December 2019 showed no positives for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, suggesting that the virus did not spread widely before the market outbreak. The W…

You are conflating two things - a lab leak and a virus being engineered. These are two separate things.

Likely, the virus was not engineered but was stored in the laboratory.

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

#608

Post by nialv7 »

Leary wrote: post #191
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…

Things that are true: The first large cluster of infections was associated with the Huanan Seafood Market, and retrospective analyses of influenza-like-illness patients and blood donations in Wuhan found no evidence of earlier circulation. Sampling of many individuals prior to December 2019 showed no positives for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, suggesting that the virus did not spread widely before the market outbreak. The W…

Very good summary, but the problem is, like most things, it is impossible to 100% rule out the lab theory. It is always possible to look at one of these evidences and say "yeah, but ...". And given how politicized this question is, people are just going to believe what they want to believe. I am quite pessimistic about this, that people will remain rational.

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

#609

Post by maxglute »

tzs wrote: post #270
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…

>> 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 saying: > “Now the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world,” Mr. Cotton said. That could backfire in a couple ways. 1. China could say that they'll consider paying for COVID escaping their borders if the US pays for the dam…

> if the US pays for the damage the things that have escaped its borders have caused,

Or just covid. I remember after PRC lockdown when regional countries were publishing their inbound repatriation flight test data and basically they only got very low digit covid positives, i.e. it was epidemiologically containable. At same time you have all the news of western travellers spreading covid to different countrries because they kept borders open.

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

#610

Post by aucisson_masque »

If the cia wants to prove something, they do. See the Saddam Hussein weapon of mass destruction that never actually existed.

The fact they can't prove it and have low confidence on this theory means it has absolutely zero credibility.

I see a pattern in the news these last month of warmongering, from the US to China. Maybe I'm wrong but history has shown that with the us, everytime they want to make a war they first got to brainwash their population into that for a few years and then they find any convoluted reason to get in while pretending they're merely defending them or others.

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