So the FBI now says the virus came from a lab leak

So it is your contention that the released data that showed Covid with raccoon dogs at the wet market was fake data planted by China?

 

I don’t think I said anywhere it’s fake.

The researchers merely say they had samples of the animals in the wet market around the time the virus appeared to come to the fore front

“Having found and downloaded the codes on a genetic database called GISAID, where scientists share this kind of information, she and her colleagues set out to find out which species matched the samples that were found in the same locations as the virus. "We saw the results appear on our screens, and it was: racoon dog, racoon dog, racoon dog, racoon dog," she recalled.

"So we found animals and virus [together]," explained Dr Debarre. "That does not prove that the animals were infected, but that is the most plausible interpretation of what we've seen”



I’ve said all along China has not been forthright with much of anything associated with the origins of COVID-19.

Do you think the lab in Wuhan was truly a secure bio lab given their history of lax security protocols?

The NY times reported about two years ago 3 researchers who worked in the lab being hospitalized with a covid like respiratory illness in the months before the pandemic took off, that seems to be more of a smoking gun to me than genetic samples of animals found in the wet market that weren’t even sick…

 

That we know of…

 

You really should listen to the podcast, but you seem pretty vested in the lab leak scenario.

If you are saying you don’t think the above results are fake, you are saying that in spite of them finding early wet market samples that had both Covid and raccoon dog, you still think it’s a lab leak, even though there is no direct or even indirect evidence (as far as I know) that ties the virus to the lab.

The person in the prior referenced podcast said the first seven Covid samples from the hospital in late dec19/Jan 20 were all linked to people working in wet markets.

As to the people you referenced from the lab going to the hospital prior to that, there isn’t any evidence it was Covid, and there were lots of bugs running around. Also, in China, if you get sick you go to the hospital first. It isn’t an uncommon thing to do.

Also, as to theories it was running around in November or prior, it seems unlikely given how rapidly it spreads. It would have spread a lot more by January if that actually was the case.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715

 

No virus ever isolated. Ergo, nothing to leak.

Do carry on ...

 

Science | AAAS


In the face of intense pressure and criticism from many in the scientific community, Chinese researchers today released a trove of new genetic data that may offer fresh clues to the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also substantially revised a related study they first posted online 13 months ago to include this evidence, which some scientists say gives more credibility to the thesis that SARS-CoV-2 could have jumped into humans from raccoon dogs or other mammals illegally sold at a Wuhan market.

 

Genetic Data - computer printouts.

 

Why does any of this matter?

 

Why did anyone think this perfectly normal pneumonia must have an abnormal cause?

None of this makes any sense. None of it ever made any sense.

You can keep looking for the answer, keep asking “why did they think this pneumonia was different?”, and find nothing but a tangle of vague assertions that don’t hold up to any kind of analysis.

There was no reason for that doctor to think those patients were suffering from anything other than a normal, seasonal respiratory infection.


Wuhan’s “Mystery Illness” is Covid’s Foundational Lie

 

I think it matters a lot in terms of preventing future pandemics.

 

Thanks. I agree, but reading the thread, it sure seems politicized.

 

unfortunately it is. But I don’t think the answer is to avoid answering the question just because it has become politicized.

 

You can’t blame liberals for nature and that’s no fun.

 

It was a decidedly bipartisan Hysteria. Although conservatives probably emerged from it sooner.

 

How does the lab leak put the blame on liberals?

 

Well, because IF it is true it came from a lab leak then the libs will look stupid for saying for years that the Lab leak "theory" was right wing garbage. Fauci and the media all were complicit in that.

 

"the simplest answer is usually the correct one"

Disagree. The simplest answer is that it came from a natural origin -- like every other virus that has ever existed --and took root in a densely populated city that just happened to have a lab ...

The complicated answer is that the Chinese somehow engineered the virus in a way that is undetectable to other scientists and somehow had an accident with it that released it, then have managed to cover it up for 3 years without a shred of hard evidence linking the virus to their lab or program ...

I agree with the CDC position that a lab leak can't be ruled out, but to call it the "simplest answer" ignore billions of years of viruses evolving on their own ...

 

Researchers examining archived samples taken from bats, pangolins, and other wildlife have found evidence this virus and others very much like it have been loose in the wild for decades.
From David Quammen’s book Breathless recommended by @gatorade. Only half way into it but seems to be his usual quality reporting.

 

No evidence of viruses anywhere. Only computer projections as bolstered by the PRESUPPOSITION that clusters of symptoms must point to person-to-person transmissions of deadly nanoparticles.

 

Just to be clear I’m not suggesting the Chinese were directly engineering Covid 19, Viruses can be studied in labs and be forced to evolve “naturally” by speeding up replication that produces more variants. This can then cause the virus to take on different traits. That’s not going to leave any fingerprints like direct genetic engineering that would be detectable to other scientists.

The other option is they could have found it in the wild and been studying it not realizing that it could “jump” species already. Either of those scenarios are very plausible.