5 ms·

WHO's Chief: It Was Premature to Rule Out a Lab Leak as the Pandemic's Origin

32 points by heshiebee 5y ago

MisterBastahrd 5y ago
It was irresponsible and harmful to declare that it definitely was a Chinese lab's fault, too.
- Rerarom 5y ago
  Yup. I was pissed off from the start by people who were absolutely sure it was/wasn't a lab leak.
  - ta0x9 5y ago
    And that you were a racist xenophobic bigot for even considering the possibility of a lab leak.
    - happytoexplain 5y ago
      >for even considering the possibility This is an exaggeration/cherry-picked. Many people were in fact using the assertion primarily to express xenophobia, and had no compelling thoughts beyond that. Those people were not the same as the people "considering the possibility", which describes a more reasonable subset of people.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - ta0x9 5y ago
        >This is an exaggeration/cherry-picked. Not at all, it's what happened. Even considering it makes you racist and xenophobic adjacent, because "people were in fact using the assertion primarily to express xenophobia, and had no compelling thoughts beyond that." Even if you were 100% not racist, just alluding to the possibility makes you a Nazi ally.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- briefcomment 5y ago
  Who was saying that?
  - happytoexplain 5y ago
    The lab leak origin is the subject of a popular conspiracy theory that failed to put forward evidence and served mostly as an expression of hatred and political side-taking (and therefore predictably engendered similar attitudes against the theory). This is irrelevant to its status as an actual theory in good faith (sort of like how mask wearing has a left-vs-right flavor independent of legitimate arguments).
    - loopz 5y ago
      Yep. Just taking a 50:50 bet on the popular side doesn't mean anything, unless backed up by something substantial. There's no meaning to saying you were right or wrong, unless how you got there can be followed by facts and verification.
    - briefcomment 5y ago
      As far as I remember, the prominent people who were talking about this a year ago did not say "it definitely was a Chinese lab's fault", just that it was seriously suspicious and needed further investigation, and that they were upset that people who were bringing it up were getting prematurely dismissed. Who exactly (other than random conspiracy theorists) was saying it was definitely a Chinese lab?
      - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
        Maybe English isn't your first language. They were using the "some people are saying" Trumpian rhetorical technique of blaming the Wuhan labs and Chinese leadership directly for the outbreak. The virus had TWO names and instead they wanted to refer to it as the China Virus and Kung Flu because they didn't want to take responsibility for the lack of political leadership by this country during a time when we could have limited the spread and effects of the virus. The result is that Asians were being assaulted because "they brought it here."
tester756 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak > On 2 April 1979, spores of Bacillus anthracis (the causative agent of anthrax) were accidentally released from a Soviet military research facility in the city of Sverdlovsk, Russia (now Yekaterinburg). The ensuing outbreak of the disease resulted in the deaths of at least 66 people, although the exact number of victims remains unknown. The cause of the outbreak was denied for years by the Soviet authorities, which blamed the deaths on consumption of tainted meat from the area, and subcutaneous exposure due to butchers handling the tainted meat. All medical records of the victims were removed to hide serious violations of the Biological Weapons Convention that had come in effect in 1975. The accident is sometimes referred to as "biological Chernobyl".
readflaggedcomm 5y ago
Will there be fallout for social media fact checkers, who moderated out users' observation and hypothesis which matched the new consensus? Also, 'there had been a "premature push"' is very passive language. Who pushed? I wish the AP published on the web so that they were able to hyperlink to original source material or their transcript. Edit: I guess the old consensus must be buried.
- djrogers 5y ago
  https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-world-news-health-science-coronavirus-pandemic-c0c594f9060f676c0ea48c2d1c69daec https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-world-news-health-scien... AP Does publish on the web...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Urgo 5y ago
    NPR wins on the permalink though. I was going to link someone the apnews version but changed to the npr one due to the url. NPR: who-chief-wuhan-lab-covid-19-origin-premature-tedros AP: joe-biden-world-news-health-science-coronavirus-pandemic AP is just stuffing keywords in there.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Simulacra 5y ago
  Depends on who you ask. For some, because Trump lost, the fact checkers, media, etc. were justified in burying the lab leak theory because in doing so was a "resistance" to trump.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  What new consensus? There is no new or old consensus, and this article does not indicate otherwise. The one thing that has consensus from early on is that the virus is not man made. However, that did get muddied and confused with the possibility of a lab leak. In other words, lab origin is not the same thing as lab leak. It is, however, wrong and harmful to suggest it was a lab leak without evidence. And that is what a lot of social media people were saying at the time. It's also not wrong to hypothesize that it could have been leaked from a lab. But most of the stuff I saw being censored or fact checked was not presented as a "possibility".
Simulacra 5y ago
What bothered me most about this was that there was very little consideration or toleration for anyone suggesting it may have been a lab leak, could have been a lab leak, and hey let's really look at this lab leak theory so we don't just dismiss it out of hand due to media manipulation, and politics. America let politics dictate its response to COVID and in doing so let China off the hook. One hopes we don't make the same mistake in the future.
- happytoexplain 5y ago
  >there was very little consideration or toleration for anyone suggesting it may have been a lab leak This wasn't my observation. There was a lot of championing of the theory motivated by politics or xenophobia, a lot of backlash against that attitude, and a little reasonable hypothesizing suggesting a lab leak. Of the three, the last was by necessity least common because there was so little evidence. That may create a false impression that the "lab leak" voice was oppressed, when what you're actually seeing is the result of the high levels of ideological pollution in the "lab leak" voice itself.
abystander 5y ago
It wasn't hard to see this as a potential (albeit entirely uncertain) possibility if you weren't extremely impassioned by partisan politics.

32 points by heshiebee 5y ago

MisterBastahrd 5y ago

It was irresponsible and harmful to declare that it definitely was a Chinese lab's fault, too.

Rerarom 5y ago
Yup. I was pissed off from the start by people who were absolutely sure it was/wasn't a lab leak.
- ta0x9 5y ago
  And that you were a racist xenophobic bigot for even considering the possibility of a lab leak.
  - happytoexplain 5y ago
    >for even considering the possibility This is an exaggeration/cherry-picked. Many people were in fact using the assertion primarily to express xenophobia, and had no compelling thoughts beyond that. Those people were not the same as the people "considering the possibility", which describes a more reasonable subset of people.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - ta0x9 5y ago
      >This is an exaggeration/cherry-picked. Not at all, it's what happened. Even considering it makes you racist and xenophobic adjacent, because "people were in fact using the assertion primarily to express xenophobia, and had no compelling thoughts beyond that." Even if you were 100% not racist, just alluding to the possibility makes you a Nazi ally.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
briefcomment 5y ago
Who was saying that?
- happytoexplain 5y ago
  The lab leak origin is the subject of a popular conspiracy theory that failed to put forward evidence and served mostly as an expression of hatred and political side-taking (and therefore predictably engendered similar attitudes against the theory). This is irrelevant to its status as an actual theory in good faith (sort of like how mask wearing has a left-vs-right flavor independent of legitimate arguments).
  - loopz 5y ago
    Yep. Just taking a 50:50 bet on the popular side doesn't mean anything, unless backed up by something substantial. There's no meaning to saying you were right or wrong, unless how you got there can be followed by facts and verification.
  - briefcomment 5y ago
    As far as I remember, the prominent people who were talking about this a year ago did not say "it definitely was a Chinese lab's fault", just that it was seriously suspicious and needed further investigation, and that they were upset that people who were bringing it up were getting prematurely dismissed. Who exactly (other than random conspiracy theorists) was saying it was definitely a Chinese lab?
    - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
      Maybe English isn't your first language. They were using the "some people are saying" Trumpian rhetorical technique of blaming the Wuhan labs and Chinese leadership directly for the outbreak. The virus had TWO names and instead they wanted to refer to it as the China Virus and Kung Flu because they didn't want to take responsibility for the lack of political leadership by this country during a time when we could have limited the spread and effects of the virus. The result is that Asians were being assaulted because "they brought it here."

tester756 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak > On 2 April 1979, spores of Bacillus anthracis (the causative agent of anthrax) were accidentally released from a Soviet military research facility in the city of Sverdlovsk, Russia (now Yekaterinburg). The ensuing outbreak of the disease resulted in the deaths of at least 66 people, although the exact number of victims remains unknown. The cause of the outbreak was denied for years by the Soviet authorities, which blamed the deaths on consumption of tainted meat from the area, and subcutaneous exposure due to butchers handling the tainted meat. All medical records of the victims were removed to hide serious violations of the Biological Weapons Convention that had come in effect in 1975. The accident is sometimes referred to as "biological Chernobyl".

readflaggedcomm 5y ago

Will there be fallout for social media fact checkers, who moderated out users' observation and hypothesis which matched the new consensus? Also, 'there had been a "premature push"' is very passive language. Who pushed? I wish the AP published on the web so that they were able to hyperlink to original source material or their transcript. Edit: I guess the old consensus must be buried.

djrogers 5y ago
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-world-news-health-science-coronavirus-pandemic-c0c594f9060f676c0ea48c2d1c69daec https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-world-news-health-scien... AP Does publish on the web...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Urgo 5y ago
  NPR wins on the permalink though. I was going to link someone the apnews version but changed to the npr one due to the url. NPR: who-chief-wuhan-lab-covid-19-origin-premature-tedros AP: joe-biden-world-news-health-science-coronavirus-pandemic AP is just stuffing keywords in there.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Simulacra 5y ago
Depends on who you ask. For some, because Trump lost, the fact checkers, media, etc. were justified in burying the lab leak theory because in doing so was a "resistance" to trump.
jjeaff 5y ago
What new consensus? There is no new or old consensus, and this article does not indicate otherwise. The one thing that has consensus from early on is that the virus is not man made. However, that did get muddied and confused with the possibility of a lab leak. In other words, lab origin is not the same thing as lab leak. It is, however, wrong and harmful to suggest it was a lab leak without evidence. And that is what a lot of social media people were saying at the time. It's also not wrong to hypothesize that it could have been leaked from a lab. But most of the stuff I saw being censored or fact checked was not presented as a "possibility".

Simulacra 5y ago

What bothered me most about this was that there was very little consideration or toleration for anyone suggesting it may have been a lab leak, could have been a lab leak, and hey let's really look at this lab leak theory so we don't just dismiss it out of hand due to media manipulation, and politics. America let politics dictate its response to COVID and in doing so let China off the hook. One hopes we don't make the same mistake in the future.

happytoexplain 5y ago
>there was very little consideration or toleration for anyone suggesting it may have been a lab leak This wasn't my observation. There was a lot of championing of the theory motivated by politics or xenophobia, a lot of backlash against that attitude, and a little reasonable hypothesizing suggesting a lab leak. Of the three, the last was by necessity least common because there was so little evidence. That may create a false impression that the "lab leak" voice was oppressed, when what you're actually seeing is the result of the high levels of ideological pollution in the "lab leak" voice itself.

abystander 5y ago

It wasn't hard to see this as a potential (albeit entirely uncertain) possibility if you weren't extremely impassioned by partisan politics.