Origin of Covid-19

[SimonBolivar 10958]

1 hour ago, Horn of Gabriel said:

WSJ: Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-origin-china-lab-leak-807b7b0a?mod=hp_lead_pos1

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Energy Department has concluded that the Covid pandemic most likely arose from a laboratory leak, according to a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress.

The shift by the Energy Department, which previously was undecided on how the virus emerged, is noted in an update to a 2021 document by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office.

The new report highlights how different parts of the intelligence community have arrived at disparate judgments about the pandemic’s origin. The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided.

The Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research.

The Energy Department made its judgment with “low confidence,” according to people who have read the classified report.

The FBI previously came to the conclusion that the pandemic was likely the result of a lab leak in 2021 with “moderate confidence” and still holds to this view.

A nurse cared for a patient at a California intensive-care unit in May 2020 as Covid-19 continued to spread across the U.S.PHOTO: ALLISON ZAUCHA FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The FBI employs a cadre of microbiologists, immunologists and other scientists and is supported by the National Bioforensic Analysis Center, which was established at Fort Detrick, Md., in 2004 to analyze anthrax and other possible biological threats.

U.S. officials declined to give details on the fresh intelligence and analysis that led the Energy Department to change its position. They added that while the Energy Department and the FBI each say an unintended lab leak is most likely, they arrived at those conclusions for different reasons.

The updated document underscores how intelligence officials are still putting together the pieces on how Covid-19 emerged. More than one million Americans have died in the pandemic that began more than three years ago.

The National Intelligence Council, which conducts long-term strategic analysis, and four agencies, which officials declined to identify, still assess with “low confidence” that the virus came about through natural transmission from an infected animal, according to the updated report.

The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency that officials wouldn’t name remain undecided between the lab-leak and natural-transmission theories, the people who have read the classified report said.

Despite the agencies’ differing analyses, the update reaffirmed an existing consensus between them that Covid-19 wasn’t the result of a Chinese biological-weapons program, the people who have read the classified report said.

A senior U.S. intelligence official confirmed that the intelligence community had conducted the update, whose existence hasn’t previously been reported. This official added that it was done in light of new intelligence, further study of academic literature and consultation with experts outside government.

The update, which is less than five pages, wasn’t requested by Congress. But lawmakers, particularly House and Senate Republicans, are pursuing their own investigations into the origins of the pandemic and are pressing the Biden administration and the intelligence community for more information.

 

The updated report was completed by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’s office earlier this year.PHOTO: JOSE LUIS MAGANA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Officials didn’t say if an unclassified version of the update would be issued.

U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan declined to confirm or deny the Journal’s reporting in an appearance Sunday on CNN. He said President Biden had repeatedly directed every part of the intelligence community to invest in trying to discern as much as possible about the origins of the pandemic. 

“President Biden specifically requested that the national labs, which are part of the Energy Department, be brought into this assessment because he wants to put every tool at use to be able to figure out what happened here,” Mr. Sullivan said.

There are a “variety of views in the intelligence community,” Mr. Sullivan added. “A number of them have said they just don’t have enough information.”

Asked about the Energy Department’s assessment, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Ala.) said Sunday on NBC that Congress needed to hold extensive hearings concerning the origins of the pandemic, adding that China has sought to intimidate other countries from questioning whether the virus emerged naturally. “This is a country that has no problem coming out and lying to the world,” he said.

The Covid-19 virus first circulated in Wuhan, China, no later than November 2019, according to the U.S. 2021 intelligence report. The pandemic’s origin has been the subject of vigorous, sometimes partisan debate among academics, intelligence experts and lawmakers.

David Relman, a Stanford University microbiologist who has argued for a dispassionate investigation into the pandemic’s beginnings, welcomed word of the updated findings.

“Kudos to those who are willing to set aside their preconceptions and objectively re-examine what we know and don’t know about Covid origins,” said Dr. Relman, who has served on several federal scientific-advisory boards. “My plea is that we not accept an incomplete answer or give up because of political expediency.”

An Energy Department spokesman declined to discuss details of its assessment but wrote in a statement that the agency “continues to support the thorough, careful, and objective work of our intelligence professionals in investigating the origins of COVID-19, as the President directed.”

The FBI declined to comment.

China, which has placed limits on investigations by the World Health Organization, has disputed that the virus could have leaked from one of its labs and has suggested it emerged outside China.

The Chinese government didn’t respond to requests for comment about whether there has been any change in its views on the origins of Covid-19.

Some scientists argue that the virus probably emerged naturally and leapt from an animal to a human, the same pathway for outbreaks of previously unknown pathogens.

Intelligence analysts who have supported that view give weight to “the precedent of past novel infectious disease outbreaks having zoonotic origins,” the flourishing trade in a diverse set of animals that are susceptible to such infections, and their conclusion that Chinese officials didn’t have foreknowledge of the virus, the 2021 report said.

Yet no confirmed animal source for Covid-19 has been identified. The lack of an animal source, and the fact that Wuhan is the center of China’s extensive coronavirus research, has led some scientists and U.S. officials to argue that a lab leak is the best explanation for the pandemic’s beginning.

U.S. State Department cables written in 2018 and internal Chinese documents show that there were persistent concerns about China’s biosafety procedures, which have been cited by proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis.

Wuhan is home to an array of laboratories, many of which were built or expanded as a result of China’s traumatic experience with the initial severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, epidemic beginning in 2002. They include campuses of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, which produces vaccines.

The Energy Department revised its assessment of the origins of Covid-19, according to an updated U.S. intelligence report.PHOTO: ERIC LEE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

An outbreak at a seafood market in Wuhan had initially been thought to be the source of the virus, but some scientists and Chinese public-health officials now see it as an example of community spread rather than the place where the first human infection occurred, the 2021 intelligence community report said.

In May 2021, President Biden told the intelligence community to step up its efforts to investigate the origins of Covid-19 and directed that the review draw on work by the U.S.’s national laboratories and other agencies. Congress, he said, would be kept informed of that effort.

The October 2021 report said that there was a consensus that Covid-19 wasn’t the result of a Chinese biological-weapons program. But it didn’t settle the debate over whether it resulted from a lab leak or came from an animal, saying that more information was needed from the Chinese authorities.

The U.S. intelligence community is made up of 18 agencies, including offices at the Energy, State and Treasury departments. Eight of them participated in the Covid-origins review, along with the National Intelligence Council.

Before that report, the Energy Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory prepared a study in May 2020 concluding that a lab-leak hypothesis was plausible and deserved further investigation.

The debate over whether Covid-19 might have escaped from a laboratory has been fueled by U.S. intelligence that three researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care.

A House Intelligence Committee report concluded last year that this disclosure didn’t strengthen either the lab-leak or the natural-origin theory as the researchers might have become sick with a seasonal flu. But some former U.S. officials say the sick researchers were involved in coronavirus research.

Lawmakers have sought to find out more about why the FBI assesses a lab leak was likely. In an Aug. 1 letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, requested that the FBI share the records of its investigation and asked if the bureau had briefed Mr. Biden on its findings.

In a Nov. 18 letter, FBI Assistant Director Jill Tyson said the agency couldn’t share those details because of Justice Department policy on preserving “the integrity of ongoing investigations.” She referred the senator to Ms. Haines’s office for information on what briefings were arranged for the president.

Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com and Warren P. Strobel at Warren.Strobel@wsj.com

 

Thanks a lot assholes.

[Telegraph_it 3357]

Weird what happens when you follow the science. 

[Captain Ron 12877]

Quote

 

The Energy Department now joins the Federal Bureau of Investigation in saying the virus likely spread via a mishap at a Chinese laboratory. Four other agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that it was likely the result of a natural transmission, and two are undecided.

...

The Energy Department made its judgment with “low confidence,” according to people who have read the classified report.

The FBI previously came to the conclusion that the pandemic was likely the result of a lab leak in 2021 with “moderate confidence” and still holds to this view.

 

 

 

[Ghost of LL 15531]

1 hour ago, Telegraph_it said:

Weird what happens when you follow the science. 

What happens?

The assessment is made with "low confidence."  So it's not exactly a definitive statement of what did or didn't happen.

For the record, I am completely agnostic on this issue.  I have no fucking clue whether it was natural or a lab failure.  I appreciate that some people have very strong opinions on this.  But it looks pretty impossible to state definitively one way or the other.

[statsman 5471]

Nm

Edited February 26, 2023 by statsman

[Captain Ron 12877]

1 hour ago, Ghost of LL said:

What happens?

The assessment is made with "low confidence."  So it's not exactly a definitive statement of what did or didn't happen.

For the record, I am completely agnostic on this issue.  I have no fucking clue whether it was natural or a lab failure.  I appreciate that some people have very strong opinions on this.  But it looks pretty impossible to state definitively one way or the other.

This. There isn't a smoking gun. And until you have some consensus among departments and maybe said smoking gun, this is more that likely something that just came from the wild. In the end, this report isn't anything close to definitive. 

[Auto Driller 2506]

Fuck China.

[JesusSweatDuck 17781]

China fucked up and killed 7 million people.

[Auto Driller 2506]

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this news emerges as we’re in a diplomatic standoff over their desire to supply Russia with weapons.

[Deej 76797]

[statsman 5471]

Just to remind everyone- the official Chinese position is neither lab leak nor wildlife interaction, but rather frozen foods from the west (with a possibility of US soldiers bringing it to China). 

[Homercles 10205]

The department of…energy?  I’m agnostic on this too, and feel endless energy is probably wasted given China has buried any evidence and murdered those in the know.  But why is DoE investigating this?

[Hate 20108]

The only reason to believe it came from anywhere other than the lab in Wuhan is because you just don't want to admit it for ...reasons??  I'm really not sure why anyone would choose to believe otherwise, especially the "trust the science" people.  the most likely cause has always been human error at the lab in Wuhan.  I am not suggesting it was used as germ warfare as I don't believe that at all.  But somebody at that lab fucked up and it changed the world forever. 

[wild_turkey 3159]

5 hours ago, Captain Ron said:

This. There isn't a smoking gun. And until you have some consensus among departments and maybe said smoking gun, this is more that likely something that just came from the wild. In the end, this report isn't anything close to definitive. 

Just curious, why is the lack of a smoking gun reason to believe that it came from the wild?

For me, I kind of lean the opposite. If it came from the wild and China had any evidence to support that, I think they would be eagerly sharing that information to absolve themselves from any societal wrongdoing. It was a true case of bad luck for humanity and here are the facts to support that. The lack of transparency from China makes me lean more in the direction of human negligence within the Wuhan lab.

I honestly don't know and I don't think the general public will ever know.

[SL Xpress 7516]

44 minutes ago, wild_turkey said:

Just curious, why is the lack of a smoking gun reason to believe that it came from the wild?

For me, I kind of lean the opposite. If it came from the wild and China had any evidence to support that, I think they would be eagerly sharing that information to absolve themselves from any societal wrongdoing. It was a true case of bad luck for humanity and here are the facts to support that. The lack of transparency from China makes me lean more in the direction of human negligence within the Wuhan lab.

I honestly don't know and I don't think the general public will ever know.

I firmly believe it was an accidental release from the Wuhan lab. But the lack of transparency from China means nothing to me either way. They’re a totalitarian state veering towards a dictatorship, with a massive bureaucracy. A lack of transparency is the status quo. 

I hope some kind of compelling proof is discovered one way or another, either in my lifetime or after. It’s one of the remarkable events in our lifetime - the first true global pandemic that shut the world down. I hope we know more about it some day. 

[Murfdogg21 4412]

14 hours ago, Captain Ron said:

This. There isn't a smoking gun. And until you have some consensus among departments and maybe said smoking gun, this is more that likely something that just came from the wild. In the end, this report isn't anything close to definitive. 

What will satisfy as a smoking gun? The fact the patient zero picked it up across the street from the Chinese government’s research facility on viral gain of function? Do you require video of research and (accidental or intentional) release, PDFs of their plans to do it, witness testimonies, and a signed affidavit from the scientists? Why do so many default to “Chinese government had nothing to do with this”? I’ve been 80-20 towards it came from Wuhan lab based on circumstances but open to contrary data. If there was an entity I was going to die on a hill blindly defending its innocence, it would not be the Chinese government. 

[gofuckyourself 8247]

12 hours ago, statsman said:

Just to remind everyone- the official Chinese position is neither lab leak nor wildlife interaction, but rather frozen foods from the west (with a possibility of US soldiers bringing it to China). 

I have very high confidence that the Swanson microwaveable brownie of my youth could be a breeding ground for deadly viruses.

 

[Celery Man 20959]

18 minutes ago, Murfdogg21 said:

What will satisfy as a smoking gun? The fact the patient zero picked it up across the street from the Chinese government’s research facility on viral gain of function? Do you require video of research and (accidental or intentional) release, PDFs of their plans to do it, witness testimonies, and a signed affidavit from the scientists? Why do so many default to “Chinese government had nothing to do with this”? I’ve been 80-20 towards it came from Wuhan lab based on circumstances but open to contrary data. If there was an entity I was going to die on a hill blindly defending its innocence, it would not be the Chinese government. 

Where is the information that the first patient got infected across the street from a gain of function lab and who specifically is insisting that the Chinese government had nothing to do with this?

[Armybrat 40850]

13 hours ago, statsman said:

Just to remind everyone- the official Chinese position is neither lab leak nor wildlife interaction, but rather frozen foods from the west (with a possibility of US soldiers bringing it to China). 

The goddamned Chinese communist government officials have always been serial liars just like that goddamned POS Putin and his fascist thug gang. Piss on all of them and that monster Mao who was the worst POS in that world of horror they created. 
It is an awful shame the Chinese people have not yet thrown off the yoke that has suppressed them all these years.

[statsman 5471]

8 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

The goddamned Chinese communist government officials have always been serial liars just like that goddamned POS Putin and his fascist thug gang. Piss on all of them and that monster Mao who was the worst POS in that world of horror they created. 
It is an awful shame the Chinese people have not yet thrown off the yoke that has suppressed them all these years.

Mao was a great man in the history of the west. Looking at the achievements of (pre-assimilation) Hong Kong, and in Taiwan, it’s pretty clear that China would have become the world’s most powerful and advanced nation if China Kai Shek had won. 

[Chopper 17235]

10 hours ago, Homercles said:

The department of…energy?  I’m agnostic on this too, and feel endless energy is probably wasted given China has buried any evidence and murdered those in the know.  But why is DoE investigating this?

 

also - the Biden Administration asked them to research the Wuhan issue. They weren't involved before.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Chopper

[Captain Ron 12877]

10 hours ago, wild_turkey said:

Just curious, why is the lack of a smoking gun reason to believe that it came from the wild?

For me, I kind of lean the opposite. If it came from the wild and China had any evidence to support that, I think they would be eagerly sharing that information to absolve themselves from any societal wrongdoing. It was a true case of bad luck for humanity and here are the facts to support that. The lack of transparency from China makes me lean more in the direction of human negligence within the Wuhan lab.

I honestly don't know and I don't think the general public will ever know.

Statistics. The fact that nature has produced every virus before now. If this was a case that every virus was from a lab and it was just WHICH lab, I would be willing to say sure it was Wuhan, but nature has cranked them out before now, so there is a big mountain to overcome.

 

1 hour ago, Murfdogg21 said:

What will satisfy as a smoking gun? The fact the patient zero picked it up across the street from the Chinese government’s research facility on viral gain of function? Do you require video of research and (accidental or intentional) release, PDFs of their plans to do it, witness testimonies, and a signed affidavit from the scientists? Why do so many default to “Chinese government had nothing to do with this”? I’ve been 80-20 towards it came from Wuhan lab based on circumstances but open to contrary data. If there was an entity I was going to die on a hill blindly defending its innocence, it would not be the Chinese government. 

I require a legitimate number of our organizations saying it was a lab leak. It would require credible information about your patient zero.

Instead we have a pretty universal consensus among the scientific and intelligence community that it originated in the wild.

 

You guys also ask for evidence of it being shown to come from the wild. You're asking for stuff that we don't have for most viruses thus far. We don't question that Ebola is from nature, yet we have never found the source. Hell, we only recently sequenced the Spanish flu from 100 years ago. That China doesn't have this evidence shouldn't really shock anyone, it's needle in the haystack kind of stuff. 

 

[Armybrat 40850]

1 hour ago, statsman said:

Mao was a great man in the history of the west. Looking at the achievements of (pre-assimilation) Hong Kong, and in Taiwan, it’s pretty clear that China would have become the world’s most powerful and advanced nation if China Kai Shek had won. 

I doubt that, as Chiang Kai Shek was almost as corrupt as Putin is. But at least he was an ally and hated the commies.

[statsman 5471]

10 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

I doubt that, as Chiang Kai Shek was almost as corrupt as Putin is. But at least he was an ally and hated the commies.

I doubt that nationalist China would have killed as many as the PRC, and would not have spent three decades driving back to the pre-industrial era. 

[Armybrat 40850]

Oh, China would have been better off with Chiang, but whether or not they could’ve equalled their current economic level is debatable.

[Mullet Free 40]

11 hours ago, wild_turkey said:

Just curious, why is the lack of a smoking gun reason to believe that it came from the wild?

For me, I kind of lean the opposite. If it came from the wild and China had any evidence to support that, I think they would be eagerly sharing that information to absolve themselves from any societal wrongdoing. It was a true case of bad luck for humanity and here are the facts to support that. The lack of transparency from China makes me lean more in the direction of human negligence within the Wuhan lab.

I honestly don't know and I don't think the general public will ever know.

China doesn't want to know, either way. 

The idea that a planet altering novel pathogen naturally surfaced in the same city as a poorly run institute for virology research would be the mother of all coincidences. Personally, I don't believe in coincidences of that magnitude.

We'll probably never know. We do know that some very powerful people attempted to immediately discredit the lab leak theory for, reasons. Coincidences abound.

[Incredulity 11675]

5 minutes ago, Mullet Free said:

The idea that a planet altering novel pathogen naturally surfaced in the same city as a poorly run institute for virology research would be the mother of all coincidences. Personally, I don't believe in coincidences of that magnitude.

been saying this since March of 2020.

[wildcat09 29354]

The only publicly available evidence supporting the lab leak theory remains that the outbreak started in Wuhan and there is a lab that studies coronaviruses in Wuhan. That's pretty weak. We're not talking a college town situation where it's a small population that revolves around the lab.  Wuhan has a population of over 11 million people. It's massive.  There's not even any evidence that the lab ever had sars-cov-2. Yes, China lies, but the global scientific community knows a shitload about what else was in that lab. So for China to have successfully withheld evidence that the lab had sars-cov-2, that means they were hiding specifically that for like 6-8 years.

But let's assume they did. So what's the theory? Someone in the lab accidentally exposed themselves to sars-cov-2, went across town to the wet market, exposed people there and that became the epicenter of the outbreak? And that person didn't get anyone anywhere else sick? Not their own family? Not people in other public places that they went to? Not coworkers in the lab? Does that seem likely? 

[statsman 5471]

It turns out that the DOE has Lawrence Livermore labs, and they specialize in studying viruses as bio-weapons, so a report from the DOE is absolutely appropriate. 
 

Wildcat, there actually are indications that a lot of Wukan lab folks were sick in November 2019. 

[jimmyjazz 45960]

I don't understand why anyone has such an emotional need for this virus to have been released from a lab OR originate in the wild.  I guess there is at some level some political capital to be gained, but for me that is completely papered over by China's colossal intransigence.  It seems to me that there is enough "evidence" to support either theory, all of it incomplete.

I guess if it's a lab leak there is a slight opportunity to review and revise procedures, but at this point it feels like Lars Ulrich railing against Napster.  Kinda late, dude.

[HamsterHookah 112]

21 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

What happens?

The assessment is made with "low confidence."  So it's not exactly a definitive statement of what did or didn't happen.

For the record, I am completely agnostic on this issue.  I have no fucking clue whether it was natural or a lab failure.  I appreciate that some people have very strong opinions on this.  But it looks pretty impossible to state definitively one way or the other.

Two different investigating bodies, using two different methodologies, seems to be stronger than just one, though:

Quote

In endorsing the lab leak theory, the Energy Dept. joins the FBI, which has concluded with “moderate confidence” that Covid originated accidentally from a Chinese lab: the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The two agencies reportedly arrived at this conclusion via different methods.

 

[HamsterHookah 112]

4 hours ago, Captain Ron said:

Statistics. The fact that nature has produced every virus before now. If this was a case that every virus was from a lab and it was just WHICH lab, I would be willing to say sure it was Wuhan, but nature has cranked them out before now, so there is a big mountain to overcome.

One piece of evidence that’s missing from the natural transmission theory? The animal that hypothetically did the infecting hasn’t been identified. Given all this uncertainty, two other US agencies haven’t reached a conclusion on Covid’s beginnings yet.

So, if you’re doing the math at home: Four US agencies believe it was natural transmission, two say lab leak, and two are undecided.

Scientists say it’s important to make every effort to learn how Covid-19, a pandemic that’s caused nearly 7 million deaths globally, began, so we can better prevent the next one.

But with the Chinese government thwarting investigations by global authorities, there may only be so much information the US can gather. And it might never be able to confidently answer the question: How did Covid begin?

[Nice Guy Eddie 13512]

6 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I don't understand why anyone has such an emotional need for this virus to have been released from a lab OR originate in the wild.  I guess there is at some level some political capital to be gained, but for me that is completely papered over by China's colossal intransigence.  It seems to me that there is enough "evidence" to support either theory, all of it incomplete.

I guess if it's a lab leak there is a slight opportunity to review and revise procedures, but at this point it feels like Lars Ulrich railing against Napster.  Kinda late, dude.

This is where I am. I don't see how it changes anything in terms of our response.

[wildcat09 29354]

5 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I don't understand why anyone has such an emotional need for this virus to have been released from a lab OR originate in the wild. 

That's easy, actually. It's the same reason tons of people fall for all sorts of conspiracy theories: people like to think someone is in control of things. Even if the theory in this case is that someone was in control and fucked up.

Zoonotic diseases are scary. The thought that a virus can seemingly come out of nowhere because of a tiny evolution and suddenly wipe out millions of people and there's not really anything that can be done to prevent it is terrifying (leaving aside that we actually know a lot about mitigating disease spread these days). Very few people are comfortable living with the belief that the world is essentially chaotic and random.  

[jimmyjazz 45960]

8 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

That's easy, actually. It's the same reason tons of people fall for all sorts of conspiracy theories: people like to think someone is in control of things. Even if the theory in this case is that someone was in control and fucked up.

This kind of hints at anti-intellectualism, and I don't think you're all that far off, but there are certainly smart people on both sides of this argument, too.  I mean, read the thread.

[SL Xpress 7516]

5 hours ago, statsman said:

Mao was a great man in the history of the west. Looking at the achievements of (pre-assimilation) Hong Kong, and in Taiwan, it’s pretty clear that China would have become the world’s most powerful and advanced nation if China Kai Shek had won. 

Not a single statement you just made makes sense to me. Mao is not considered a great man in the west, and there’s nothing  at all clear to me what would have become of China if Chiang Kai Shek had won. 

I do think there’s something unique about cultures with some kind of Confucian foundation, but I don’t have a clear understanding of what that may be. I have guesses, but that’s it. But several of the countries with the greatest historical Chinese influence - Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore - have experienced the most impressive economic growth, all built on export led/current account surplus philosophies. 

But poor leadership can wreck any people/organization regardless of built in advantages. The Japanese made a massive change in their approach after Cook forcibly opened the country, and then another one just as drastic folllowing their defeat in WWII. Meanwhile much of the rest of the Far East was parceled off into European/American possessions, including China itself. 

Also, it’s not Mao’s leadership that brought China to where it is today. After some early successes in getting his people fed he led the country into a ditch. Deng is the one who got them turned around economically. And his leadership was no given. 

It’s also not clear if China would have been as successful if one of their party leaders had maneuvered themselves to be ruler for life as Xi seems to have done. 

It’s easy to look at their progress since WWII and think it was inevitable in some sense, but I feel strongly that’s a false assumption.

[Dahobbs 17543]

Here is a good article on this new report and a summary of other evidence. 

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/energy-dept-reignites-bitter-covid-origin-debate-with-shaky-lab-leak-stance/

Some important bits below:

Quote

 

Still, the Energy Department, which runs national laboratories, is in the minority. Of the eight elements of the intelligence community that have reviewed information on the origin of SARS-CoV-2, only two currently lean toward the so-called "lab leak" hypothesis. The other is the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which concluded with "moderate confidence" in 2021 that the pandemic was ignited by a lab leak, according to the WSJ. It's unclear what evidence that assessment is based upon.

By contrast, four other intelligence agencies and the National Intelligence Council have assessed with "low confidence" that the pandemic was likely sparked by human exposure to infected animals, possibly via animals serving as an intermediate host between a natural reservoir for the virus (such as bats) before leaping to humans.

The two remaining intelligence agencies concluded that there was not sufficient data to coalesce around either the lab leak or spillover transmission hypotheses.

All of the intelligence elements agree that SARS-CoV-2 was not developed as a biological weapon and that China officials did not have foreknowledge of the virus before its emergence in Wuhan at the end of 2019.

 

And here is some more discussion on the specific evidence for and against lab leak:

Quote

 

Many virologists and epidemiologists say a natural spillover transmission appears to be the most likely origin, noting epidemiological and genetic data pointing to this scenario—which has been the case for many other human outbreaks of viruses of animal origin, including those caused by other coronaviruses. In particular, two studies published last summer in the journal Science indicated two viral lineages of SARS-CoV-2 spilled over into humans in two independent events, likely within days to weeks of each other, and most of the earliest cases centered at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, particularly in a section of the market with a concentration of wild animals and virus-positive environmental samples. Collectively, the data and analyses suggest—though can't definitively conclude—that the market contained a so-far unidentified animal or group of animals harboring SARS-CoV-2, which became a prolonged source of infection for marketgoers. And the virus took off from there.

Staunch proponents of the lab leak hypothesis, however, argue that the market was not the origin of the spillover but acted as a setting for superspreader events. They also often point to a 2021 intelligence report suggesting three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology got sick with something and sought hospital care in November 2019, as well as ambiguous US State Department cables from 2018 discussing biosafety issues at a Wuhan virology lab.

There remains no confirmed evidence that a SARS-CoV-2 progenitor virus ever existed in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

 

 

[tigol 2398]

They need to point a finger.  They need someone to hate.  Nature doesn't fit the bill.  That's all.

[wildcat09 29354]

It’s still pretty easy to blame the Chinese government if you think it was zoonotic. They’ve known for decades about the danger those types of markets can pose and as far as I can tell have done pretty much nothing about it.

[SL Xpress 7516]

41 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I don't understand why anyone has such an emotional need for this virus to have been released from a lab OR originate in the wild.  I guess there is at some level some political capital to be gained, but for me that is completely papered over by China's colossal intransigence.  It seems to me that there is enough "evidence" to support either theory, all of it incomplete.

I guess if it's a lab leak there is a slight opportunity to review and revise procedures, but at this point it feels like Lars Ulrich railing against Napster.  Kinda late, dude.

I agree with almost all of that. 

To me it’s a watershed moment in human history. I think having a better understanding of its origin is important in terms of being able to tell that story in a more complete way. 

And while specific procedures might be a little late in being implemented, you and I both know that all kinds of human error was involved regardless of its origins. Having a better understanding of what that human error consisted of could still be an important learning moment/reminder of how quickly things can get out of control. 

But mostly I’d like as complete a telling of what happened for historical purposes. 

[shakahorn 1645]

19 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:

Not a single statement you just made makes sense to me. Mao is not considered a great man in the west, and there’s nothing  at all clear to me what would have become of China if Chiang Kai Shek had won. 

I do think there’s something unique about cultures with some kind of Confucian foundation, but I don’t have a clear understanding of what that may be. I have guesses, but that’s it. But several of the countries with the greatest historical Chinese influence - Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore - have experienced the most impressive economic growth, all built on export led/current account surplus philosophies. 

But poor leadership can wreck any people/organization regardless of built in advantages. The Japanese made a massive change in their approach after Cook forcibly opened the country, and then another one just as drastic folllowing their defeat in WWII. Meanwhile much of the rest of the Far East was parceled off into European/American possessions, including China itself. 

Also, it’s not Mao’s leadership that brought China to where it is today. After some early successes in getting his people fed he led the country into a ditch. Deng is the one who got them turned around economically. And his leadership was no given. 

It’s also not clear if China would have been as successful if one of their party leaders had maneuvered themselves to be ruler for life as Xi seems to have done. 

It’s easy to look at their progress since WWII and think it was inevitable in some sense, but I feel strongly that’s a false assumption.

Good post.  But I think you mean Perry, not Cook.

[SL Xpress 7516]

23 minutes ago, shakahorn said:

Good post.  But I think you mean Perry, not Cook.

My ability to butcher names strikes again.

[statsman 5471]

1 hour ago, SL Xpress said:

Not a single statement you just made makes sense to me. Mao is not considered a great man in the west, and there’s nothing  at all clear to me what would have become of China if Chiang Kai Shek had won. 

I do think there’s something unique about cultures with some kind of Confucian foundation, but I don’t have a clear understanding of what that may be. I have guesses, but that’s it. But several of the countries with the greatest historical Chinese influence - Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore - have experienced the most impressive economic growth, all built on export led/current account surplus philosophies. 

But poor leadership can wreck any people/organization regardless of built in advantages. The Japanese made a massive change in their approach after Cook forcibly opened the country, and then another one just as drastic folllowing their defeat in WWII. Meanwhile much of the rest of the Far East was parceled off into European/American possessions, including China itself. 

Also, it’s not Mao’s leadership that brought China to where it is today. After some early successes in getting his people fed he led the country into a ditch. Deng is the one who got them turned around economically. And his leadership was no given. 

It’s also not clear if China would have been as successful if one of their party leaders had maneuvered themselves to be ruler for life as Xi seems to have done. 

It’s easy to look at their progress since WWII and think it was inevitable in some sense, but I feel strongly that’s a false assumption.

It was a joke. 
Mao was a bad leader of China. He forced central economic control on them and killed them when it didn’t work, setting them back. 
If the entire nation were allowed to develop like HK and Taiwan, they would be the richest and greatest power in the world, not the US. 
That’s the joke. 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I don't understand why anyone has such an emotional need for this virus to have been released from a lab OR originate in the wild.  I guess there is at some level some political capital to be gained, but for me that is completely papered over by China's colossal intransigence.  It seems to me that there is enough "evidence" to support either theory, all of it incomplete.

I guess if it's a lab leak there is a slight opportunity to review and revise procedures, but at this point it feels like Lars Ulrich railing against Napster.  Kinda late, dude.

That’s easy, actually.  People get their information from competing propaganda sources and they group up according to their information source.  One group’s source said it was plausible that Covid was a lab leak early on, another group said that was a crazy conspiracy theory.  Now each group wants to be vindicated and feel scientifically and intellectually superior for listening to the more accurate propaganda. 

[Celery Man 20959]

Just now, axiom of foundation said:

another group said that was a crazy conspiracy theory.  

Who said that?

[WhatTheBuck 28783]

On 2/26/2023 at 3:03 PM, Telegraph_it said:

Weird what happens when you follow the science. 

You mean like the science that says vaccines are safe and effective?

Whats strange is that during the height of the pandemic, some people were much more preoccupied with determining the origin of the virus than they were with mitigating the damage caused by it. The fact is, and remains, that knowing where the virus came from wasn’t important when dealing with the threat it posed to the population. The virus was a real and present danger regardless of where it came from. As it turned out, some of the people who were most concerned about where to assign blame for the virus were the least willing to address and promote sound solutions to the emergency. 

[WhatTheBuck 28783]

21 hours ago, JesusSweatDuck said:

China fucked up and killed 7 million people.

We can’t control what China does. We had a fuckup of our own that resulted in a great many preventable deaths, probably numbering in the hundreds of thousands. At one point we were losing more American lives every day than were lost in the terrorist attacks on 9/11. 

[BrickHorn 18237]

7 hours ago, Mullet Free said:

The idea that a planet altering novel pathogen naturally surfaced in the same city as a poorly run institute for virology research would be the mother of all coincidences. Personally, I don't believe in coincidences of that magnitude.

It’s amazing how unlikely a connection can appear when you leave out critical contextual information.

For example, Wuhan is a massive city of over 12 million inhabitants. It’s not at all an unlikely candidate for a disease to originate. There are a lot of potential Patient Zeros in the area.

And Wuhan is not unique in its proximity to a high-level virology research lab, either. One 2020 estimate counted 62 individual BSL3-level lab complexes in China. Want to bet that those 62 labs are collectively near most of China’s population? 

If a disease originated naturally somewhere in China, odds are high the location of that natural origin would be near a high-level pathogen lab. That has nothing to do with cause-and-effect, it’s just pure probability and statistics. 

And consider a salient difference between the Wuhan lab and the others: Wuhan is a BSL4 facilty, which implements even higher safety standards (and thus reduces the chances of a leak).

It’s a lot less impressive a coincidence when you frame it honestly. “What are the chances a natural outbreak would start near one of the country’s 62 high-security pathogen labs?” Pretty high, actually.

Edited February 27, 2023 by BrickHorn

[BrickHorn 18237]

Correction: 

10 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

It’s amazing how unlikely a coincidence can appear when you leave out critical contextual information.

 

[babysdaddy 2724]