> This is a question of mechanism: How a breach could have occurred in a way that could produce widespread infection. I’m not sure why knowing the exact mechan

> This is a question of mechanism: How a breach could have occurred in a way that could produce widespread infection. I’m not sure why knowing the exact mechanism of the leak is relevant. Lab leaks happen and it is enough to say so. SARS (the first one) leaked from well-run labs multiple times. The leak from the Beijing lab even led to deaths. Given WIV has papers (example https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/JVI.02582-15 https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/JVI.02582-15) claiming they developed infectious clones of SARS like viruses (AKA gain of function) in the last few years, it doesn’t seem outlandish at all that a new leak would happen. WIV also has not just BSL4 labs but lesser controlled labs too. But even leaving that aside, consider the diplomatic cables indicting a lack of trained staff at Wuhan to operate such a lab at an appropriate safety level (https://www.ibtimes.sg/shocking-diplomatic-cables-reveal-safety-compromise-wuhan-lab-us-intelligence-probing-coronavirus-43094 https://www.ibtimes.sg/shocking-diplomatic-cables-reveal-saf...). To put it another way, this is a game of probabilities. There are numerous factors that make the case for a lab leak more likely. This is also why Nate Silver updated his priors (https://twitter.com/natesilver538/status/1396550770368172033 https://twitter.com/natesilver538/status/1396550770368172033) in response to the recent WSJ exclusive on WIV researchers falling ill. This article seems to completely ignore the brazen contempt from the political left in 2020 for any legitimate hypothesis about origins. The vicious attacks against the lab leak hypothesis, the lack of coverage from news media, and censorship from tech companies were all in service of keeping a negative focus on Trump. This happened because it was an election year where the Democrats were expected to lose, and this pandemic was the only available political opportunity at the time. This artificial interference with free discourse allowed the CCP and WHO to avoid transparency. We COULD have potentially had harder evidence, except that these actions delayed discussion of lab leaks and now we are some 18 months past when an independent international site visit should have taken place. So forgive me if I find the sneering demand for “extraordinary evidence” to be just completely tone deaf and absurd.