Chinese Virologist post report claiming virus made in Wuhan lab

fun example of how yesterday's "misinformation" becomes today's sincerely debated hypothesis

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/tk-mashup-the-lab-leak-conspiracy

TK Mashup: The Lab Leak "Conspiracy Theory"
"NOT MAN MADE OR GENETICALLY MODIFIED," they cried in unison, until they didn't, as Matt Orfalea's latest trip back in time shows

After Covid-19 hit America’s shores, a question naturally arose: how did this happen? Most of us assumed the mystery would soon be unraveled, that the society of epidemiological detectives who found everything from the rat that transmitted Lassa Fever to the leak that caused viral outbreaks in Marburg and Frankfurt would nail down the origin of the pandemic.

It didn’t happen. We were initially told something about bats, a weird animal called a pangolin, and a Chinese “wet market,” but never heard the full story. A combination of the virus originating in an authoritarian state and a sudden seizure of incuriosity among the international press corps led to a strange coverage détente, in which we weren’t told exactly what happened, but we were told all sensible people were sure of what didn’t happen. 27 scientists in The Lancet put it this way in mid-2020: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”

As TK contributor Matt Orfalea pieces together in his latest hilariously disturbing trip to our recent past, the notion that Covid-19 did not originate in a lab became a mandatory talking point. This might have made sense, if epidemiologists had definitively identified the source of the disease. But they hadn’t, making the intensity of the press reaction both comical and suspicious.

A common explanation for the propaganda is that once Donald Trump suggested the disease might have had a laboratory origin, it became mandatory to denounce the idea for political reasons. The Trump-said-it-so-it-must-be-wrong angle was also ubiquitous, as Orfalea shows here:

(includes video)

In the main mashup, in a series of revealing montages, press figures are also shown wasting no time embracing the word-for-word conclusion of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) that the disease was “not manmade or genetically modified.” The sections involving denunciations of Senator Tom Cotton are particularly interesting because Cotton was accused of “fanning the embers of a coronavirus conspiracy theory” just for including lab origin among the possible causes, even as he said natural origin was “most likely.” This showed that even considering a lab-origin hypothesis was, to press critics, now the same as advancing or embracing an idea they considered “debunked.”

The idea that the disease may have originated in a lab suddenly became acceptable again last spring, when the likes of Dr. Anthony Fauci began entertaining the idea in public. Fact-checkers who’d issued fierce declarations about “conspiracy theories” backtracked. Internet platforms like Facebook that had been banning such assertions announced, “We will no longer remove the claim that Covid-19 is man-made or manufactured from our apps.”

We still don’t know what caused the pandemic, but that’s not the issue here. The concept of telling the public you’re this certain of something when you quite obviously are not is at least somewhat new, both in politics and in media. The crucial problem shown in this reel is the complete absence of humility about the possibility of error. The most well-meaning scientists make mistakes — even the famous tale of the discovery of HIV’s “Patient Zero” later fell into question thanks to genetic analysis — and there was a time not long ago when no responsible press outlet would have declared any hypothesis off-limits before the mystery had been solved.

Orfalea does a great job here using everything from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure to Fahrenheit 451 to show the dangerously moronic certainty of modern propaganda. The origins of Covid-19 remain a mystery, but another Whodunit is why curiosity and the spirit of free inquiry have been made taboo in a business where those qualities were once prerequisites.
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more at the link, including this video:

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posted the video yesterday in another thread; surprisingly, none of the usual suspects has weighed in thus far.

 

LOL@ Teddy at the end, he forgets China is cutting his checks.

 

It would be incorrect to describe it as a hypothesis given the scientific standard associated with that word.

 

that's fine, substitute your favorite word

 

The problem with the idea of a lab leak today is the same as it was back then - there's no evidence for it. Yes it was a possibility back then, and it's the same possibility today - a possibility that is still very very unlikely.

Now, does that mean that a virus couldn't be released from a lab in the future? Not at all, it's a real risk and it's good that we debate and discuss whether we should be doing gain of function research. Should be noted that Obama had put a ban on it which was lifted by Trump.

But in terms of COVID-19, it would be a crazy twist if it came form a lab based on the genetic sequencing done of COVID 19 vs what was in the lab and what they find right now in nature in terms of similar viruses. When the viruses in nature look far more related than what's in the lab, it's hard to make a case for the lab leak idea.

 

duly noted

 

I never actually gave a **** about the lab leak people one way or the other.

I really didn't understand how this became a badge of honor among rightists? Nobody not in the Fox News Extended Universe actually cared about lab leak or not lab leak as much as you know - get ****ing vaxxed you dumbasses (they didn't)

Lab leak, therefore, we pass jim crow laws and blacks shouldn't be allowed to vote....? What? I just never got why this was even a thing.

But whatever, anyway looks like lab leak boyz (im assuming this includes @basso @Os Trigonum )are getting leaked on.



You hate to see it. Or, don't care enough to not see it.

 

I was waiting to see which ChCom fellow traveller would be the first to post this NYT piece of propaganda.

Spoiler

I was not disappoint

 

Yeah im sure you guessed me - i mean, I can't express to you and your kith how heavily invested i am in whatever it is you're talking about here!

 

In Russia when people believe the state propaganda, Americans regard them as fools. Yet in America, the liberals who believe the state's propaganda consider themselves smarter than those who question it. My goodness they are naïve people.

Obviously COVID came from a lab leak. And the US was likely funding that lab. But had this been known at the beginning, the CDC and Fauci would have even less credibility than they do now... so one could argue it was better for society for this to stay a secret... until they started abusing their power and took things way too far. I hope the Republican controlled House of Representatives creates accountability on this issue next year.

 

I’ve said all along that it’s possible this came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The problem is that jumping to that as the only possible conclusion cuts off other avenues of investigation.

Much of the argument for the “lab leak” appears as ideological driven as absolutely insisting that isn’t possible.

 

Anything but a lab leak was acceptable debate. Lab leak possibility was taboo.

 

Also we must accept the the virus came naturally from the area geographically next door to a lab where funding and efforts were going on to study and enhance the same type of virus, but it's a conspiracy theory to suggest it came from inside said lab despite the mathematical odds.