4 ms·

FBI Director Says Covid Pandemic Likely Caused by Chinese Lab Leak

30 points by ksherlock 4y ago

seydor 4y ago
This seem more like geopolitical developments, there is no other reason why it s happening NOW. Is this just to put pressure v China, or are there going to be more 'developments'?
- fsckboy 4y ago
  you POV does match this possible (hypothetical) scenario: while the US might have suspected the virus might have been developed and escaped from a chinese lab, it was considered in the US interest to suppress such an idea and focus on world cooperation in tamping down the pandemic. But now, with the pandemic seemingly over, and shifting geopolitics, it might now be considered OK to let the truth come out despite how angry it will make the chinese government.
- lamontcg 4y ago
  After the balloon incident, and the US government cracking down on tiktok we now have a coordinated drop of lab leak articles in the press, with no new evidence presented at all. We know historically that the US government engages in propaganda, including the 2002 NIE that led to war with Iraq and the yellowcake/joseph wilson affair. But in real time we're always completely blind to the US government using propaganda and distorting intelligence. And I've heard "they know things we don't" used before to get people to uncritically accept falsehoods from US intelligence.
daly 4y ago
This is interesting. A group of internationally known virologists have a video podcast. They have nearly 1000 casts and have interviewed virologists worldwide. See This Week in Virology (https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/ https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/) They have said that they do not believe it would be possible, given the current state of research, to engineer Sars-Cov2 I'm more likely to take the opinion of world experts in Virology than the Director of the FBI. Your opinion may differ.
- wrp 4y ago
  "Leaked from a lab" and "created in a lab" are different issues.
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
    With which one worse, objectively? And for whom?
    - nwah1 4y ago
      They are both a bad look for virology. And thus virologists would have a bias towards defending their profession.
  - rogerkirkness 4y ago
    The story about how various miners working in a cave with bats in it in China got pneumonia in 2016 and that virus was worked on at WIV seems most likely.
    - lamontcg 4y ago
      RaTG13 is a thousand mutations and several decades of evolution away from SARS-CoV-2, you don't get from having RaTG13 in a lab to SARS-CoV-2. There's no evidence that WIV recovered whole virus of RaTG13 or cultured it. SARS-CoV-2 is not a chimera of a RaTG13 backbone and an ACE2-attaching spike, there's a lot more mutations involved. You also don't get there from serial passage experiments in a lab, you need serial passage through decades and many millions of infections in nature, we can't operate at that scale.
- brucethemoose2 4y ago
  The intelligence community certainly knows things virologists don't, and vice versa. Also, it does not necessarily have to be "engineered" to have been released. Both statements could be somewhat true. Not that I buy either explanation yet. I have kind of accepted we will never definitively know COVID-19's source, and (though I understand the need to protect clandestine information) these announcements without evidence are not changing that sentiment.
jprd 4y ago
https://archive.is/RRvr3 https://archive.is/RRvr3
transfire 4y ago
What irks me is they told us it was coming well before it came and they waited to do anything about until it had well arrived.
chaimanmeow 4y ago
Well before the discovery and IDing in Wuhan this new SARS variant was detected in various other locations as early as March 2019 (Barcelona sewer sample), patient medical samples in various Italian cities in late 2019. S1 spike segment was also found in various Boston, MA medical samples, as well as antibodies in blood samples, suggesting presence of this new SARS2 in Boston in early October 2019. https://adeno-news.com/2022/08/07/mystery-deepens-over-early-sars-cov-2-circulation-as-antigens-found-in-pre-pandemic-samples-in-boston/ https://adeno-news.com/2022/08/07/mystery-deepens-over-early... https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-circulated-europe-china-before-wuhan-outbreak-2020-12?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-circulated-europ... https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2020/06/26/the-coronavirus-was-detected-in-sewage-in-march-of-2019-far-from-wuhan-china/?sh=499c017812e3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2020/06/26/the-coronav... https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220830/Italian-study-finds-SARS-CoV-2-in-clinical-samples-collected-before-December-2019.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220830/Italian-study-fin... I believe Marseilles France also detected the new SARS in sewer sample in the fall or summer of 2019, though I cannot find the link.

30 points by ksherlock 4y ago

This seem more like geopolitical developments, there is no other reason why it s happening NOW. Is this just to put pressure v China, or are there going to be more 'developments'?

fsckboy 4y ago
you POV does match this possible (hypothetical) scenario: while the US might have suspected the virus might have been developed and escaped from a chinese lab, it was considered in the US interest to suppress such an idea and focus on world cooperation in tamping down the pandemic. But now, with the pandemic seemingly over, and shifting geopolitics, it might now be considered OK to let the truth come out despite how angry it will make the chinese government.
lamontcg 4y ago
After the balloon incident, and the US government cracking down on tiktok we now have a coordinated drop of lab leak articles in the press, with no new evidence presented at all. We know historically that the US government engages in propaganda, including the 2002 NIE that led to war with Iraq and the yellowcake/joseph wilson affair. But in real time we're always completely blind to the US government using propaganda and distorting intelligence. And I've heard "they know things we don't" used before to get people to uncritically accept falsehoods from US intelligence.

daly 4y ago

This is interesting. A group of internationally known virologists have a video podcast. They have nearly 1000 casts and have interviewed virologists worldwide. See This Week in Virology (https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/ https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/) They have said that they do not believe it would be possible, given the current state of research, to engineer Sars-Cov2 I'm more likely to take the opinion of world experts in Virology than the Director of the FBI. Your opinion may differ.

wrp 4y ago
"Leaked from a lab" and "created in a lab" are different issues.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
  With which one worse, objectively? And for whom?
  - nwah1 4y ago
    They are both a bad look for virology. And thus virologists would have a bias towards defending their profession.
- rogerkirkness 4y ago
  The story about how various miners working in a cave with bats in it in China got pneumonia in 2016 and that virus was worked on at WIV seems most likely.
  - lamontcg 4y ago
    RaTG13 is a thousand mutations and several decades of evolution away from SARS-CoV-2, you don't get from having RaTG13 in a lab to SARS-CoV-2. There's no evidence that WIV recovered whole virus of RaTG13 or cultured it. SARS-CoV-2 is not a chimera of a RaTG13 backbone and an ACE2-attaching spike, there's a lot more mutations involved. You also don't get there from serial passage experiments in a lab, you need serial passage through decades and many millions of infections in nature, we can't operate at that scale.
brucethemoose2 4y ago
The intelligence community certainly knows things virologists don't, and vice versa. Also, it does not necessarily have to be "engineered" to have been released. Both statements could be somewhat true. Not that I buy either explanation yet. I have kind of accepted we will never definitively know COVID-19's source, and (though I understand the need to protect clandestine information) these announcements without evidence are not changing that sentiment.

jprd 4y ago

https://archive.is/RRvr3 https://archive.is/RRvr3

transfire 4y ago

What irks me is they told us it was coming well before it came and they waited to do anything about until it had well arrived.

chaimanmeow 4y ago

Well before the discovery and IDing in Wuhan this new SARS variant was detected in various other locations as early as March 2019 (Barcelona sewer sample), patient medical samples in various Italian cities in late 2019. S1 spike segment was also found in various Boston, MA medical samples, as well as antibodies in blood samples, suggesting presence of this new SARS2 in Boston in early October 2019. https://adeno-news.com/2022/08/07/mystery-deepens-over-early-sars-cov-2-circulation-as-antigens-found-in-pre-pandemic-samples-in-boston/ https://adeno-news.com/2022/08/07/mystery-deepens-over-early... https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-circulated-europe-china-before-wuhan-outbreak-2020-12?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-circulated-europ... https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2020/06/26/the-coronavirus-was-detected-in-sewage-in-march-of-2019-far-from-wuhan-china/?sh=499c017812e3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2020/06/26/the-coronav... https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220830/Italian-study-finds-SARS-CoV-2-in-clinical-samples-collected-before-December-2019.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220830/Italian-study-fin... I believe Marseilles France also detected the new SARS in sewer sample in the fall or summer of 2019, though I cannot find the link.