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My problem with the non-lab-leak story is that USA went to great lengths to cover up and downplay the virus in the early months, largely contributing to its glo

My problem with the non-lab-leak story is that USA went to great lengths to cover up and downplay the virus in the early months, largely contributing to its global spread

dkersten 5y ago
I'm unsure what your point is. Care to explain? Is that meant to be a counterargument? (just because the USA downplayed it doesn't make CCP's doing so better, especially since they had advance knowledge and could have potentially completely prevented the global pandemic, while when it was in the USA, it was already global, even if lesser) Are you agreeing with me but adding that the USA isn't faultless? (Its true, but I don't know how its relevant to what I said) I really have no idea what you're trying to say.
- javagram 5y ago
  Not parent, but considering the USA covered up and denied the virus spread for several months, the argument could be that China/CCP doing the same doesn’t indicate the virus was engineered by China. After all, there is no indication the virus was engineered by the US government, yet the danger was repeatedly lied about by the highest levels of government in January and February 2020, e.g. “when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away” (Feb 10), “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero” (Feb 26) ”It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear” (Feb 27), etc. It’s claimed the local CCP apparatus lying and covering up the virus in December 2019 was for similar political reasons - there was an important event coming up in the city and they didn’t want it to be canceled.
  - dkersten 5y ago
    The claim isn't that it was engineered, just that it escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Besides, reports from China predated any from the USA, so for it to even be in the USA, CCP needed to have failed in containing it. I'm not denying that the USA's covering it up made it worse, it absolutely did. The US government aren't innocent in the global spread of the virus. But this entire discussion was about whether it originated from a lab break or natural spread through the wet market, so in that context, it doesn't really seem relevant, while CCP's behaviour is relevant in the sense that it paints a picture of them being untrustworthy and having acted shady when their culpability was questioned, so their denials of the WIV break, as well as their other actions (especially denying the WHO the ability to investigate for OVER A YEAR) puts doubt on their story. Doubt, though, isn't definitive proof. I never said that I think it was definitely a lab break, just that I think the chances are higher than many people like to admit and that the CCP have not proven trustworthy. We will probably never know for sure, either way.
    - javagram 5y ago
      Agreed, it seems to me like we’ll never know for sure. Some aspects of china’s behavior are suspicious, and the lab leak theory is a plausible hypothetical, but I doubt we’ll ever see the evidence to know either way. We should definitely be reconsidering our own funding and oversight of any research that is similar to “gain of function”.
      - dkersten 5y ago
        Completely agree.
- shapefrog 5y ago
  If the smoking gun in the case is 'they must be guilty because they behaved like X' then we test this hypothesis by replacing 'CCP' with 'USA' (or the more apt swap would be 'RNC') and see how it look. It turns out that when you do this simple find and replace, we get equally as factual statements. So does this imply that it leaked from a US operated facility? Or is this an indication of the type of work the US was funding at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and conducting more generally? Or most likely, is this an irrelevant piece of 'evidence' of wrong doing on the part of any person or nation by assuming guilt based on their claim of innocence? An innocent person will say they were innocent just as often as a guilty person who is trying to hide their guilt.
  - dkersten 5y ago
    > It turns out that when you do this simple find and replace, we get equally as factual statements. Only if you ignore the known facts. We know that covid-19 originated from wuhan, we know that the wuhan institute of virology was studying that exact virus. We know that the CCP did not allow the WHO to investigate the WIV hypotheses until over a year later. Yes the USA acted shady, but the USA doesn’t have these addictions factual contributing elements. These factors don’t prove anything, of course, I never said that they do, but they certainly paint a picture that shows that the lab leak hypothesis is at least viable and the alternatives require some coincidences to be true. Again not proof, but certainly evidence that shouldn’t be ignored. The USA analogy is ignoring all of the other factual information we have and is focusing purely on “well China isn’t the only country acting shady”, which I don’t think is relevant or useful. CCP aren’t the only ones responsible for where we are today, but they were a rather key part of it, regardless whether covid-19 was a lab leak or not. > by assuming guilt based on their claim of innocence? It’s not their claim of innocence that is suspicious, it’s their actively suppressing information that is: they didn’t allow the WHO to investigate until over a year later and they didn’t allow scientists and doctors to acknowledge there was a virus. More recently they even tried to say the virus originated in countries other than China. That’s rather more than a claim of innocence.

My problem with the non-lab-leak story is that USA went to great lengths to cover up and downplay the virus in the early months, largely contributing to its global spread

dkersten 5y ago

I'm unsure what your point is. Care to explain? Is that meant to be a counterargument? (just because the USA downplayed it doesn't make CCP's doing so better, especially since they had advance knowledge and could have potentially completely prevented the global pandemic, while when it was in the USA, it was already global, even if lesser) Are you agreeing with me but adding that the USA isn't faultless? (Its true, but I don't know how its relevant to what I said) I really have no idea what you're trying to say.

javagram 5y ago
Not parent, but considering the USA covered up and denied the virus spread for several months, the argument could be that China/CCP doing the same doesn’t indicate the virus was engineered by China. After all, there is no indication the virus was engineered by the US government, yet the danger was repeatedly lied about by the highest levels of government in January and February 2020, e.g. “when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away” (Feb 10), “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero” (Feb 26) ”It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear” (Feb 27), etc. It’s claimed the local CCP apparatus lying and covering up the virus in December 2019 was for similar political reasons - there was an important event coming up in the city and they didn’t want it to be canceled.
- dkersten 5y ago
  The claim isn't that it was engineered, just that it escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Besides, reports from China predated any from the USA, so for it to even be in the USA, CCP needed to have failed in containing it. I'm not denying that the USA's covering it up made it worse, it absolutely did. The US government aren't innocent in the global spread of the virus. But this entire discussion was about whether it originated from a lab break or natural spread through the wet market, so in that context, it doesn't really seem relevant, while CCP's behaviour is relevant in the sense that it paints a picture of them being untrustworthy and having acted shady when their culpability was questioned, so their denials of the WIV break, as well as their other actions (especially denying the WHO the ability to investigate for OVER A YEAR) puts doubt on their story. Doubt, though, isn't definitive proof. I never said that I think it was definitely a lab break, just that I think the chances are higher than many people like to admit and that the CCP have not proven trustworthy. We will probably never know for sure, either way.
  - javagram 5y ago
    Agreed, it seems to me like we’ll never know for sure. Some aspects of china’s behavior are suspicious, and the lab leak theory is a plausible hypothetical, but I doubt we’ll ever see the evidence to know either way. We should definitely be reconsidering our own funding and oversight of any research that is similar to “gain of function”.
    - dkersten 5y ago
      Completely agree.
shapefrog 5y ago
If the smoking gun in the case is 'they must be guilty because they behaved like X' then we test this hypothesis by replacing 'CCP' with 'USA' (or the more apt swap would be 'RNC') and see how it look. It turns out that when you do this simple find and replace, we get equally as factual statements. So does this imply that it leaked from a US operated facility? Or is this an indication of the type of work the US was funding at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and conducting more generally? Or most likely, is this an irrelevant piece of 'evidence' of wrong doing on the part of any person or nation by assuming guilt based on their claim of innocence? An innocent person will say they were innocent just as often as a guilty person who is trying to hide their guilt.
- dkersten 5y ago
  > It turns out that when you do this simple find and replace, we get equally as factual statements. Only if you ignore the known facts. We know that covid-19 originated from wuhan, we know that the wuhan institute of virology was studying that exact virus. We know that the CCP did not allow the WHO to investigate the WIV hypotheses until over a year later. Yes the USA acted shady, but the USA doesn’t have these addictions factual contributing elements. These factors don’t prove anything, of course, I never said that they do, but they certainly paint a picture that shows that the lab leak hypothesis is at least viable and the alternatives require some coincidences to be true. Again not proof, but certainly evidence that shouldn’t be ignored. The USA analogy is ignoring all of the other factual information we have and is focusing purely on “well China isn’t the only country acting shady”, which I don’t think is relevant or useful. CCP aren’t the only ones responsible for where we are today, but they were a rather key part of it, regardless whether covid-19 was a lab leak or not. > by assuming guilt based on their claim of innocence? It’s not their claim of innocence that is suspicious, it’s their actively suppressing information that is: they didn’t allow the WHO to investigate until over a year later and they didn’t allow scientists and doctors to acknowledge there was a virus. More recently they even tried to say the virus originated in countries other than China. That’s rather more than a claim of innocence.