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The CIA is not a neutral party in this. Discrediting China may well be their goal here. A lab leak is not impossible, but there are good reasons to suspect a n

The CIA is not a neutral party in this. Discrediting China may well be their goal here. A lab leak is not impossible, but there are good reasons to suspect a natural spillover event. There have been a number of studies that point in that direction; e.g. recent genetic analysis that suggests that the Wuhan wet market was the origin. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00901-2 https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00901-2

tcdent 2y ago
overlaying an additional conspiracy theory in skepticism of the current conspiracy theory
wkat4242 2y ago
> There have been a number of studies that point in that direction; e.g. recent genetic analysis that suggests the Wuhan wet market was the origin. Those are not mutually exclusive theories. It could have been a lab leak that was then superspread by the visit of an affected lab worker (or someone they came into contact with) at the wet market.
- chimprich 2y ago
  That is possible, but the evidence doesn't suggest that. E.g. if I am reading the paper correctly, they say that there is evidence of two distinct spillover lineages, which wouldn't be consistent with a simple visit from a lab worker.
- DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
  They really are mutually exclusive theories. The current evidence points to at least two different spillover events (of slightly different variants) at the market, followed by spread of the virus in the communities surrounding the market, eventually radiating out to the rest of Wuhan. There is solid evidence now for each of those statements. If you try to reconcile that with the lab leak theory, you end up with an ever more implausible theory: two different scientists got infected in the lab with different variants (of a virus we have good evidence never existed at the lab in the first place), then both of them went to the market (where the same types of wild animals that caused the original SARS outbreak in 2002 just happened to be sold) and infected people, but somehow they didn't infect anyone else at the lab. It's just one implausibility stacked on top of the next, all with the goal of avoiding what the data is obviously saying: the outbreak began at the market.
  - Retric 2y ago
    Carful when assuming how a lab leak must have unfolded, there’s many possibilities. A single worker gets infected/accidentally releases multiple variants, sloppy worker messing up twice doesn’t seem that crazy. A lab leak is also consistent with an infection person visiting a location that experienced a separate variant. And that’s just a few options there’s also things like an intentional leak followed by another intentional leak etc. I’ve read that the lab was intentionally set near that wet market, so there being overlap like this doesn’t seem extraordinary.
    - DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
      This is how conspiracy theories become unfalsifiable. You're now positing that a lab worker got infected with multiple variants (which wouldn't exist in the lab, by the way, since they would work with cloned virus), then traveled across town and spread the virus at the market. The evidence all points towards a spillover (two, actually) at the market, but you can always make the lab leak theory ever more convoluted to keep it alive.
      - pclmulqdq 2y ago
        Why do you believe that lab workers only work with cloned viruses? Do you know the exact nature of the research that was going on there? Two spillovers at a lab that has one spillover does not seem that unlikely. There's a good chance that the lack of safety was in the culture and not just one careless person. In November and December, several Wuhan Institute personnel were reporting unknown illnesses and took standard precautions (weeks of isolation) over it. It sounds like they weren't equipped to deal with a class of pathogens that they were working with.
        DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
        > Do you know the exact nature of the research that was going on there? We actually have a very good idea of what research was going on there. The groups in question publish their research, give talks at international conferences, upload the viruses they discover to US databases, talk with colleagues abroad, etc. We have a very good picture of what they were working on, and every indication is that they didn't have any virus closely related to SARS-CoV-2. > Two spillovers at a lab that has one spillover does not seem that unlikely. If that were the case, you'd see the outbreak centered on the lab. It wasn't. It was centered on the market, on the other side of town. So you have to start making implausible - and obviously motivated - assertions that two different lab workers went and infected people at the market, without infecting any of their colleagues or anyone else along the way.
- Aloisius 2y ago
  A hypothetical lab worker which only spread it to the market and nowhere else seems implausible. I suppose that could happen if what they were carrying wasn't capable of human transmission yet, but was capable of infecting some species of the live animals at the market, but that's a big if. There's till the problem of the second lineage which would indicate multiple zoonotic crossover events.
  - shakow 2y ago
    > I suppose that could happen if what they were carrying wasn't capable of human transmission yet, but was capable of infecting some species of the live animals at the market Or if infected carrions from the labs were sold at the market – I suppose it only takes a low-ranking employee wanting to make a few bucks.
    - macinjosh 2y ago
      You are 100% right. Not sure why you are being downvoted. All of the evidence people argue over can fit together. Original virus was brought from the south of china, was studied in the lab. Unclear if it was engineered. Somehow in the lab an animal was exposed. Either purposefully for study or accidentally. Animal dies or will die soon so a rouge employee takes it to the market to sell the meat for some pocket money. First cases show up in lab employees they are smart enough to quarantine. Full outbreak starts at market from animal source.
- indoordin0saur 2y ago
  Or the selling of "used" animals by some irresponsible night-shift employee at the lab in charge of said animals.
mrkramer 2y ago
US will keep discrediting China as long as there is no conclusive evidence of what exactly happened. The burden of proof is on China. But let's be honest if it was a lab leak of this scale and consequences in US, US wouldn't admit it as would probably no country.
- buyucu 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - benwills 2y ago
    This is true in the US legal system. This is far less true in the general social system.
    - siltcakes 2y ago
      In my "social system" no one is less trustworthy than the CIA.
  - mrkramer 2y ago
    >State media has been reporting intensively on coronavirus discovered on packaging of frozen food imports, not considered a significant vector of infection elsewhere, and research into possible cases of the disease found outside China’s borders before December 2019. The official People’s Daily newspaper claimed in a Facebook post last week that “all available evidence suggests that the coronavirus did not start in central China’s Wuhan”. “Wuhan was where the coronavirus was first detected but it was not where it originated,” it quoted Zeng Guang, formerly a chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.[0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/29/a-year-after-wuhan-alarm-china-seeks-to-change-covid-origin-story https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/29/a-year-after-w... They kept changing the story....they claim or claimed that it originated outside China. Give me evidence. The burden of proof is on them.
    - buyucu 2y ago
pessimizer 2y ago
The US funded the Wuhan lab through the EcoHealth Alliance, which was used as a vehicle to steer US government funding into areas of research that Obama had banned the US government from funding. The idea that this assessment needs a goal is strange, because it is the most reasonable assessment, but the idea that it discredits China more than it discredits the US is bizarre. Maybe it does for the Chinese people, who can see that their government is willing to put Chinese people in danger in partnership with a US that was nominally refusing to put American people in danger. Turns out viruses don't need visas so it didn't matter, but maybe it's the thought that counts.
hulitu 2y ago
[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > The lab was founded by the CIA What evidence do you have for this claim?
- wk_end 2y ago
  You think China, in the 1950s, was opening research labs at the behest of the CIA?
jandrewrogers 2y ago
US intelligence likely has more evidence than they will publicly discuss. It is a matter of public record that parts of US intelligence (not CIA) had been tracking COVID in China since at least November of 2019. That they coincidentally happened to be johnny-on-the-spot when the initial infection(s) happened, long before anyone was paying attention or trying to create a narrative, suggests that they probably have more context around the conditions of the initial infections than they will ever disclose. How they managed to be "right place, right time" to observe the initial stages raises all kinds of interesting questions that aren't going to be answered. However, what the (classified) evidence indicates is somewhat separate from whatever public posture the CIA finds useful to take.
- wahern 2y ago
  > It is a matter of public record that parts of US intelligence (not CIA) had been tracking COVID in China since at least November of 2019. What's public record is that ABC News reported[1] that two anonymous officials claimed there was an internal intelligence report in late November discussing an outbreak in China, and that it was briefed up the chain. All other news outlets then picked it up, with attribution (ABC News says someone else says...) buried deep in the text per usual. The report was immediately denied publicly by various officials and in over 4 years has never been corroborated, not even with other anonymous sources. Plus, even if it were true, what's the relevance? It originally made headlines because it implied the Trump administration was slow to react; in particular, that they possibly had as many as 4 additional weeks in which to begin preparations. But it doesn't speak to origin. Most advocates for both the natural and lab-leak arguments all agree that the COVID-19 outbreak began sometime in Fall 2019. It's not a point of contention except possibly when comparing one overspecified theory against another overspecified, straw man theory. There are so many degrees of freedom to either theory (or rather, group of theories) that an early or late start doesn't significantly weigh in favor of one or the other. [1] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intelligence-report-warned-coronavirus-crisis-early-november-sources/story?id=70031273 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intelligence-report-warned-c...
- ioulaum 2y ago
  They could as well say "We aren't sharing our real sources, but we have high confidence." But they are saying that they have low confidence, and that there is no new evidence that changes anything. They're just changing the way they're biased, because they think that the lab's conditions weren't particularly safe. But then, we might as well expect that dozens of dangerous viruses should've gotten out.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
willmadden 2y ago
What are you talking about? The NIH funded the research through Ecohealth alliance. It was funded from the US and created in the Wuhan lab. We've known the virus was created in a lab and not natural since early 2020. https://peakprosperity.com/more-evidence-covid-19-may-not-be-natural/ https://peakprosperity.com/more-evidence-covid-19-may-not-be...
- etc-hosts 2y ago
  you're really going to make us watch a 45 minute youtube video?
  - willmadden 2y ago
    Yes. He explains exactly why the virus is not natural. It was published in May 2020.
csomar 2y ago
If only there was an inter-national body that everyone contributes to and that does these things /s. Both parties here are at blame: China didn't fully cooperate with the WHO and the US recently kicked it out.
- morepedantic 2y ago
  It's not obvious that international bodies are the answer. Health agencies the world over lied through their teeth to manipulate the public to take specific actions. So if you believe that your lauded international bodies are immune to politics and the abuse of authority, then maybe it will work. The rest of us prefer international bodies to be forums and coordination points for the real authorities.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
stbenjam 2y ago
Eh, sure, the CIA isn't behind honest. China isn't being honest. There's too many parties with ulterior motives to trust anything being said. China has done a great job of looking like they're covering something up. I read "Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19 by Alina Chan and Matt Ridley" and it convinced me the lab leak theory was at least fairly likely. The proximity of the outbreak to WIV -- which was doing gain-of-function research of bat coronaviruses -- is convincing. Occam's razor and all.

tcdent 2y ago

overlaying an additional conspiracy theory in skepticism of the current conspiracy theory

wkat4242 2y ago

> There have been a number of studies that point in that direction; e.g. recent genetic analysis that suggests the Wuhan wet market was the origin. Those are not mutually exclusive theories. It could have been a lab leak that was then superspread by the visit of an affected lab worker (or someone they came into contact with) at the wet market.

chimprich 2y ago
That is possible, but the evidence doesn't suggest that. E.g. if I am reading the paper correctly, they say that there is evidence of two distinct spillover lineages, which wouldn't be consistent with a simple visit from a lab worker.
DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
They really are mutually exclusive theories. The current evidence points to at least two different spillover events (of slightly different variants) at the market, followed by spread of the virus in the communities surrounding the market, eventually radiating out to the rest of Wuhan. There is solid evidence now for each of those statements. If you try to reconcile that with the lab leak theory, you end up with an ever more implausible theory: two different scientists got infected in the lab with different variants (of a virus we have good evidence never existed at the lab in the first place), then both of them went to the market (where the same types of wild animals that caused the original SARS outbreak in 2002 just happened to be sold) and infected people, but somehow they didn't infect anyone else at the lab. It's just one implausibility stacked on top of the next, all with the goal of avoiding what the data is obviously saying: the outbreak began at the market.
- Retric 2y ago
  Carful when assuming how a lab leak must have unfolded, there’s many possibilities. A single worker gets infected/accidentally releases multiple variants, sloppy worker messing up twice doesn’t seem that crazy. A lab leak is also consistent with an infection person visiting a location that experienced a separate variant. And that’s just a few options there’s also things like an intentional leak followed by another intentional leak etc. I’ve read that the lab was intentionally set near that wet market, so there being overlap like this doesn’t seem extraordinary.
  - DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
    This is how conspiracy theories become unfalsifiable. You're now positing that a lab worker got infected with multiple variants (which wouldn't exist in the lab, by the way, since they would work with cloned virus), then traveled across town and spread the virus at the market. The evidence all points towards a spillover (two, actually) at the market, but you can always make the lab leak theory ever more convoluted to keep it alive.
    - pclmulqdq 2y ago
      Why do you believe that lab workers only work with cloned viruses? Do you know the exact nature of the research that was going on there? Two spillovers at a lab that has one spillover does not seem that unlikely. There's a good chance that the lack of safety was in the culture and not just one careless person. In November and December, several Wuhan Institute personnel were reporting unknown illnesses and took standard precautions (weeks of isolation) over it. It sounds like they weren't equipped to deal with a class of pathogens that they were working with.
      - DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
        > Do you know the exact nature of the research that was going on there? We actually have a very good idea of what research was going on there. The groups in question publish their research, give talks at international conferences, upload the viruses they discover to US databases, talk with colleagues abroad, etc. We have a very good picture of what they were working on, and every indication is that they didn't have any virus closely related to SARS-CoV-2. > Two spillovers at a lab that has one spillover does not seem that unlikely. If that were the case, you'd see the outbreak centered on the lab. It wasn't. It was centered on the market, on the other side of town. So you have to start making implausible - and obviously motivated - assertions that two different lab workers went and infected people at the market, without infecting any of their colleagues or anyone else along the way.
Aloisius 2y ago
A hypothetical lab worker which only spread it to the market and nowhere else seems implausible. I suppose that could happen if what they were carrying wasn't capable of human transmission yet, but was capable of infecting some species of the live animals at the market, but that's a big if. There's till the problem of the second lineage which would indicate multiple zoonotic crossover events.
- shakow 2y ago
  > I suppose that could happen if what they were carrying wasn't capable of human transmission yet, but was capable of infecting some species of the live animals at the market Or if infected carrions from the labs were sold at the market – I suppose it only takes a low-ranking employee wanting to make a few bucks.
  - macinjosh 2y ago
    You are 100% right. Not sure why you are being downvoted. All of the evidence people argue over can fit together. Original virus was brought from the south of china, was studied in the lab. Unclear if it was engineered. Somehow in the lab an animal was exposed. Either purposefully for study or accidentally. Animal dies or will die soon so a rouge employee takes it to the market to sell the meat for some pocket money. First cases show up in lab employees they are smart enough to quarantine. Full outbreak starts at market from animal source.
indoordin0saur 2y ago
Or the selling of "used" animals by some irresponsible night-shift employee at the lab in charge of said animals.

mrkramer 2y ago

US will keep discrediting China as long as there is no conclusive evidence of what exactly happened. The burden of proof is on China. But let's be honest if it was a lab leak of this scale and consequences in US, US wouldn't admit it as would probably no country.

buyucu 2y ago
[flagged]
- benwills 2y ago
  This is true in the US legal system. This is far less true in the general social system.
  - siltcakes 2y ago
    In my "social system" no one is less trustworthy than the CIA.
- mrkramer 2y ago
  >State media has been reporting intensively on coronavirus discovered on packaging of frozen food imports, not considered a significant vector of infection elsewhere, and research into possible cases of the disease found outside China’s borders before December 2019. The official People’s Daily newspaper claimed in a Facebook post last week that “all available evidence suggests that the coronavirus did not start in central China’s Wuhan”. “Wuhan was where the coronavirus was first detected but it was not where it originated,” it quoted Zeng Guang, formerly a chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.[0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/29/a-year-after-wuhan-alarm-china-seeks-to-change-covid-origin-story https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/29/a-year-after-w... They kept changing the story....they claim or claimed that it originated outside China. Give me evidence. The burden of proof is on them.
  - buyucu 2y ago

pessimizer 2y ago

The US funded the Wuhan lab through the EcoHealth Alliance, which was used as a vehicle to steer US government funding into areas of research that Obama had banned the US government from funding. The idea that this assessment needs a goal is strange, because it is the most reasonable assessment, but the idea that it discredits China more than it discredits the US is bizarre. Maybe it does for the Chinese people, who can see that their government is willing to put Chinese people in danger in partnership with a US that was nominally refusing to put American people in danger. Turns out viruses don't need visas so it didn't matter, but maybe it's the thought that counts.

hulitu 2y ago

[flagged]

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> The lab was founded by the CIA What evidence do you have for this claim?
wk_end 2y ago
You think China, in the 1950s, was opening research labs at the behest of the CIA?

jandrewrogers 2y ago

US intelligence likely has more evidence than they will publicly discuss. It is a matter of public record that parts of US intelligence (not CIA) had been tracking COVID in China since at least November of 2019. That they coincidentally happened to be johnny-on-the-spot when the initial infection(s) happened, long before anyone was paying attention or trying to create a narrative, suggests that they probably have more context around the conditions of the initial infections than they will ever disclose. How they managed to be "right place, right time" to observe the initial stages raises all kinds of interesting questions that aren't going to be answered. However, what the (classified) evidence indicates is somewhat separate from whatever public posture the CIA finds useful to take.

wahern 2y ago
> It is a matter of public record that parts of US intelligence (not CIA) had been tracking COVID in China since at least November of 2019. What's public record is that ABC News reported[1] that two anonymous officials claimed there was an internal intelligence report in late November discussing an outbreak in China, and that it was briefed up the chain. All other news outlets then picked it up, with attribution (ABC News says someone else says...) buried deep in the text per usual. The report was immediately denied publicly by various officials and in over 4 years has never been corroborated, not even with other anonymous sources. Plus, even if it were true, what's the relevance? It originally made headlines because it implied the Trump administration was slow to react; in particular, that they possibly had as many as 4 additional weeks in which to begin preparations. But it doesn't speak to origin. Most advocates for both the natural and lab-leak arguments all agree that the COVID-19 outbreak began sometime in Fall 2019. It's not a point of contention except possibly when comparing one overspecified theory against another overspecified, straw man theory. There are so many degrees of freedom to either theory (or rather, group of theories) that an early or late start doesn't significantly weigh in favor of one or the other. [1] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intelligence-report-warned-coronavirus-crisis-early-november-sources/story?id=70031273 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/intelligence-report-warned-c...
ioulaum 2y ago
They could as well say "We aren't sharing our real sources, but we have high confidence." But they are saying that they have low confidence, and that there is no new evidence that changes anything. They're just changing the way they're biased, because they think that the lab's conditions weren't particularly safe. But then, we might as well expect that dozens of dangerous viruses should've gotten out.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

willmadden 2y ago

What are you talking about? The NIH funded the research through Ecohealth alliance. It was funded from the US and created in the Wuhan lab. We've known the virus was created in a lab and not natural since early 2020. https://peakprosperity.com/more-evidence-covid-19-may-not-be-natural/ https://peakprosperity.com/more-evidence-covid-19-may-not-be...

etc-hosts 2y ago
you're really going to make us watch a 45 minute youtube video?
- willmadden 2y ago
  Yes. He explains exactly why the virus is not natural. It was published in May 2020.

csomar 2y ago

If only there was an inter-national body that everyone contributes to and that does these things /s. Both parties here are at blame: China didn't fully cooperate with the WHO and the US recently kicked it out.

morepedantic 2y ago
It's not obvious that international bodies are the answer. Health agencies the world over lied through their teeth to manipulate the public to take specific actions. So if you believe that your lauded international bodies are immune to politics and the abuse of authority, then maybe it will work. The rest of us prefer international bodies to be forums and coordination points for the real authorities.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

stbenjam 2y ago

Eh, sure, the CIA isn't behind honest. China isn't being honest. There's too many parties with ulterior motives to trust anything being said. China has done a great job of looking like they're covering something up. I read "Viral: The Search for the Origin of COVID-19 by Alina Chan and Matt Ridley" and it convinced me the lab leak theory was at least fairly likely. The proximity of the outbreak to WIV -- which was doing gain-of-function research of bat coronaviruses -- is convincing. Occam's razor and all.