The Wuhan lab origin theory of COVID is finally getting some respect…
…after having been “debunked” for such a long time.
I think when “debunked” is used by the MSM, the social media woke, and the left in general, it should now should be translated as “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”
Every intelligent and rational person, learning of any hypothesis dismissed by leftists as a “right-wing conspiracy theory”, should realize that, likelier than not, it is close to the truth, while almost anything claimed to be true by the MSM will turn out, upon close examination, to have been fabricated for ideological purposes, such is the topsy-turvy, upside-down world which we now inhabit. Four months ago, Nicholson Baker posted (at NYMag, of all places) a fascinating piece on the “lab-leak” theory, and now that the excellent science journalist Nicholas Wade has written such a superb essay on the same topic, the burden of proof is now on the side of those who, for months on end, were happy to disseminate the propaganda of the CCP.
So I guess the debunking has been rebunked. Let’s face it… if the Orange Man wasn’t so gosh darn Bad, the media wouldn’t have had to lie so fiercely.
But now that the Bad Orange Man (who is Bad) has been removed from office and banished to the outer darkness by our wonderous and wise Tech plutocrat overlords, I guess the truth can finally be told.
How much CCP money has gone into buying MSM favor? Not just outright ownership –direct or indirect– of significant equity positions in MSM businesses, but also grants and donations to think tanks, “consultancies” and campaign contributions, and a really nice fruit basket to key reporters and talking heads. Who is monitoring and disclosing this flow of influence in a credible and systematic way?
IMHO it’s an investment with an incredibly high ROI. We seem blind and deaf to the way it alters the whole frame of our shared perception.
While speaking truth to power, Fact Checkers 1619-ed.
If the communications majors or journalists were able or interested in conveying real scientific information to the people, we’d know more about this by now. My very limited understanding is that: 1) the SARS-CoV-2 virus unequivocally was not gene spliced. This is the basis for all of the overheated anti conspiracy theory blather. And 2) the virus might well have been “cultured” (or whatever the preferred term is) over a longer period of time, in a laboratory. No conspiracy theory required.
From the N. Wade piece.
https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038
‘What this means, in non-technical language, is that Dr. Shi set out to create novel coronaviruses with the highest possible infectivity for human cells. Her plan was to take genes that coded for spike proteins possessing a variety of measured affinities for human cells, ranging from high to low. She would insert these spike genes one by one into the backbone of a number of viral genomes (“reverse genetics” and “infectious clone technology”), creating a series of chimeric viruses. These chimeric viruses would then be tested for their ability to attack human cell cultures (“in vitro”) and humanized mice (“in vivo”). And this information would help predict the likelihood of “spillover,” the jump of a coronavirus from bats to people.
The methodical approach was designed to find the best combination of coronavirus backbone and spike protein for infecting human cells. The approach could have generated SARS2-like viruses, and indeed may have created the SARS2 virus itself with the right combination of virus backbone and spike protein.
It cannot yet be stated that Dr. Shi did or did not generate SARS2 in her lab because her records have been sealed, but it seems she was certainly on the right track to have done so. “It is clear that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was systematically constructing novel chimeric coronaviruses and was assessing their ability to infect human cells and human-ACE2-expressing mice,” says Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University and leading expert on biosafety.’
Of the many hundreds? thousands? of “wet” markets in China, scattered all over that nation, it just so happens that the corona virus first appeared in a town/province that is the home of a virology research lab.
Yep, just a coincidence folks; nothing to see here.
Let me see if I have this right…
1. The US CDC issued a prohibition against gain-of-function research.
2. Fauci included an exemption in that decree.
3. He invoked that exemption for the research he sponsored in the Wuhan lab.
4. The first outbreaks on a novel virus with excellent transmissibility to humans appeared virtually next door to that lab.
5. The records of that research have sealed by the CCP.
6. Fauci has stated that Trump followed every recommendation he made.
7. Trump’s failure to listen to Fauci caused the pandemic to go out of control.
Yes, that all makes perfect sense… if you’re a Democrat.
The new Malaysian Coronavirus Variant has already been attributed to dogs.
“The new Malaysian Coronavirus Variant has already been attributed to dogs.”
And Djinns… Don’t forget the Djinns.
In other news, Muslims abhor dogs as being nearly as unclean as pigs. The ruling Malays (Muslim) had a great time righteously and totally not vindictively bankrupting Malaysian Chinese Pig Farmers by culling their herds during the last swine flu scare. So it might be wise to buy a cat costume for Fido!
In my mind it was always the most probable that the source was the lab. There was some excellent on-the-ground journalism in the first few days of the crisis, which, although fragmentary, gave very high-resolution glimpses into the activities on the ground. It was very clear, once the spread of the disease took shape in Wuhan, that the officials were reacting swiftly in a highly-authoritative way that was showing strong indications of panic. They were desperate: Pulling people off the streets into vans. Welding the doors shut on apartment complexes, with people inside. Deploying drones with megaphones to chastise rule-breakers. And so on. They didn’t care how bad it looked to the rest of the world. And they let the international travel continue while closing their own domestic options, something that speaks volumes of their cynicism, a conscious willingness to use worldwide diffusion to blur the focus on Wuhan.
What it suggests is that the Chinese were worried that it was something much worse. And that, in turns, is revealing about their understanding of the actual bio-safety containment effectiveness of the lab, and also provides some insight into the kinds of things they were experimenting with. Or should I use the past-tense were?
And of course now we have high-level party functionary scientists discussing how effective this particular campaign has been. I’m not sure the translations are capturing this accurately, though.
@Aggie:
“I’m not sure the translations are capturing this accurately, though.”
Virtually all the people doing the translations are either Chinese in China or expat Mainlanders who have family back home.
The talking head credentialed ‘Authorities’ of Chinese extraction available in the West are credentialed precisely because they first went to prestigious Chinese Universities like Beida, Qinghua, Fudan before heading off to the Ivies for Round 2. Want to guess what their family backgrounds back home are? 🙂
There are very few Western Journalists left on the ground in China now — harassment campaigns were ramping up well before Covid came along.
This has implications for reporting on stuff you can see in the street. Much worse when it comes to what’s going on in official circles. We still have no definite idea of what really was going on with Lin Biao’s flight and plane crash in 1971. And probably never will.
There is plenty of sound and fury, but the West knows far less about machinations of Chinese Leadership than the US knew about Japan in the late 30s. Far less.
And today much of any Curiosity is a sin. The most terrible sin of all. It’s Racist and Xenophobic, doncher know.
The medical rationale advanced for gain-of-function research is that it increases medical science’s knowledge of how to protect humanity from future deadly viral outbreaks.
Of course, that assumes that totalitarian regimes like the CCP won’t use the now “weaponized” viruses as biological weapons.
Whether intentionally released, an accidental release or an outbreak from a wet market, the CCP’s knowingly spreading it around the world demonstrates that they will unhesitatingly use biological weapons.
Were Trump still in office, I’d advise him to quietly inform Xi and the CCP that, if America ever suffers a truly civilzation ending biological attack, all US nuclear attack submarines have a standing order to turn China into a glass parking lot.
Deterrence is presenting an enemy with the certainty of, what for them is a completely intolerable consequence.
Zaphod,
“the West knows far less about machinations of Chinese Leadership than the US knew about Japan in the late 30s. Far less.”
Whether true or partially true is less important than that we know they are dedicated communists and communism is a totalitarian ideology. By definition, a totalitarian ideology sees itself as exclusive, inherently opposed to “live and let live”.
So, with that as a strategic basis, where the CCP puts its money implies where and how they seek to advance their Marxist agenda. Economic domination, political infiltration, technological and military advancement, bioweapon research and developing a space based capability are the main areas that come to mind.
@Geoffrey Britain 11:04pm: Gain of function researchcan be used to develop human defenses against a virus, but since everything in China is in service to the Party, and everything of strategic importance is in service to the military, then I think it’s far more likely that the gain-of-function work in the Wuhan lab (and others like it) is primarily to develop the offensive bio-weapons potential of the disease viruses first. Primary Mission Objective. Once suitable candidates are identified, then workflows could then be split, with part of the efforts being devoted secondarily toward producing cures or effective prophylaxes. After all, bio-weapons are no good if they kill everybody. Even where life is cheap, it still can have selective value to the Party’s objectives.
@GB:
Totalitarian yes. Ruling Party Leninist yes. Hyper Nationalistic Mercantilist Winner Takes All Foreign Policy yes.
What is this ‘Communism’ you speak of though? PRC hasn’t been remotely Marxist for a long time now, despite some vestigial symbolism and rhetoric. CCP today is run pretty much along the lines of the old Right Wing (by antithesis) KMT — which itself was organised along strict Leninist party discipline lines.
One would do better to think of Xi as Emperor and many high officials come from 3rd/4th Generation party aristocracy. It gets complicated as there are various factions… one division is Basically Shanghai Party vs The Rest. Xi comes from an exclusive sub-group of the Rest. Last two Emperors were from the Shanghai Faction (more easy-going). Long and convoluted wheels within wheels stuff and Marxist Doctrine has almost zilch to do with the price of eggs today. Go down about 10 levels from Emperor and everything is still hereditary now. Not in sense of primogeniture…. but you have to belong to qualified by birth groups to be Elected Holy Roman Whatever or Doge of Venice, etc. down the line.
Beyond that, when Chinese think about What to do Next… they have their own ready-made bunch of historical cases — much as we can pull out the Peloponnesian War or the Treaty of Westphalia — Japanese will similarly latch onto what would Takeda Shingen or Oda Nobunaga have done. To understand them and the way they think about geopolitics and human life and the Other (heh)… Marxism is a pretty poor and scratched mirror.
Now there are always going to be limits to understanding.. and suggesting some hard Limits to the Chinese may be no bad thing. I don’t like nuance anyway 😛 — except when it’s me doing the nuancing 🙂
Just my know-it-all two cents FWIW.
@Aggie:
“After all, bio-weapons are no good if they kill everybody. Even where life is cheap, it still can have selective value to the Party’s objectives.”
A virus which selectively killed Uighurs or Indians, or Japanese, or Bantu, or Whitey and not Hans… would be just dandy for them. And they would have zero moral qualms about doing it.
Argue about Race vs. Culture all we might (and it’s fun), Morality is different Out East. Nothing is ‘Unthinkable’ — they rightly see this as being hysterical female silliness. There is no common humanity when the chips are down.
The only good news is that Chinese Quality Control is the Oxymoron we all know too well and early on baby steps stuff leaked out long before they got where they will most certainly end up in a decade or two.
Good example of how East Asians think differently.
China just shipped a bunch of vaccine to Thailand to be used *exclusively* for the 150,000 (yes) PRC citizens resident in Thailand. No wringing of hands and whining about ‘preferential treatment’ from the Chinese or from the Thais. The Thais know that if they complain, China will @#$% on them and in any case Thais would do the same for their own people if they could.. which they can’t. ‘Morals’ doesn’t come into it. Never really does.
You all might not be familiar with Drew Holden’s Twitter feed, but he does an excellent job of re-establishing the context on many current-event stories that seem to morph rather conveniently as the narrative changes over time. He does this by going back and pulling the tweets and news stories from the early days to juxtapose against more recent efforts by the same people, highlighting the disconnect and pinning their inconsistencies down.
Here is an example, one he just prepared on the Wuhan Lab Leak theory and its early treatment during the Trump days.
https://threader.app/thread/1394797808432070663
Just click the ‘Thread’ link at the top if you want to read the original in Twitter.
If around 2020 a PSA had told people “hey, dudes!! . . . There seems to be a new kind of flu going around . . . wash your hands carefully and stuff, will ya?!! . . . Peace” and that was the end of it and I mean nothing else, at all, we would be just fine.
All the rest was and is a leftoxenomorph PSYOPS panicdemic to bring about a tyrannydemic and “The Great Reset”
Since the medieval gargoyle of “climate change” wasn’t working to their satisfaction they came up with the medieval gargoyle of the covid-Black-Death-scare and the panicdemic.
That’s all there is to it.
Aggie,
The CCP recently announced that they’re creating 100 new Wuhan style biolabs. No way is the motivation humanitarian. Any interest in protecting chinese citizens from disease is strictly viewed from a cost/benefit analysis of what best serves the Party.
Zaphod,
Re: “Totalitarian yes. Ruling Party Leninist yes. Hyper Nationalistic Mercantilist Winner Takes All Foreign Policy yes.
What is this ‘Communism’ you speak of though? PRC hasn’t been remotely Marxist for a long time now, despite some vestigial symbolism and rhetoric. CCP today is run pretty much along the lines of the old Right Wing (by antithesis) KMT — which itself was organised along strict Leninist party discipline lines.”
Strongly disagree that the Mercantilist faction calls the shots. In the past few years, there have been several very wealthy mercantilists who discovered just how unimportant they are in the eyes of the Party.
Xi and the CCP are as dedicated to Marxist tenets as ever Lenin and Mao were… Mao’s successor Deng Xiaoping, persuaded the upper echelons of the CCP that adopting economic aspects of State controlled capitalism would allow the Party to challenge America in an Economic Long March. It wouldn’t surprise me if he pointed to the Nazi revival of Germany’s economic and military capabilities as what a socialistic, top down controlled governance could accomplish. Any objection to his proposed strategy that pointed out that Hitler had lost could be easily rebutted. By pointing out that Hitler had acted prematurely and stupidly precipitated a two front war. And that unlike Hitler, China was patient and would not act until certain of victory. A path they are demonstrably following, having gotten by the Trump ‘road bump’.
How China is run today is in service to the goal; Marxism triumphant over the world with lip service to China being “first among equals”. Lip service because today, the Chinese are the most racist society in the world. Its racism is covert rather than overt which makes it easy to deny and/or overlook.
“And Djinns… Don’t forget the Djinns.”
Possibly Huns, Russians, or the Sea People.
High probability it was the lab but we’ll never know unless we end up with a CCP defector. Which is unlikely.
Western media, being so like minded, will ignore, obfuscate, or lie about anything deemed not serving their interest. Only politicians are held in lower esteem.
Regarding the virus itself, it will end up mutating in such a way that the current vaccines are ineffective. Big pharma will save us though! Yearly vaccines with updated mRNA genetic material will be required for the foreseeable future.
Yawrate:
That’s true of flu viruses, but the COVID virus seems to mutate more slowly and with less differentiation from the initial virus than flu does. So I’m not at all sure you are correct. However, we may need booster shots if the protection afforded by the vaccine is shown to diminish significantly over time. But maybe not even that.
“…is shown to diminish significantly over time….”
Some suggest that the numbers are easily manipulated—according to the political end desired.
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/caught-red-handed-cdc-changes-test-thresholds-virtually-eliminate-new-covid-cases-among
the reason people believe conspiracy theories is because conspiracy theories make more sense than the official narratives. when a supposedly random coincident that heavily favor one side took place at the most convenient moment for the said side it is to be honest more scientific to believe that event was not random and more likely manipulated in some way (heavy handed or tilt a little) by the beneficiary.
the reason people believe conspiracy theories is because conspiracy theories make more sense than the official narratives.
Rubbish. Robert Welch never made much sense and aficionados of Kennedy Assassination literature make sense only when they stick close to discrete bits of data.
At Insty.
“Intelligence on Sick Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate On Covid-19 Origin.”
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/451637/
You could build a pretty good reality detector by inverting everything the experts “debunk”.
I keep wondering if Fauci truly deliberately pursued gain of function research in China. It appears so. Why?
Is he evil or stupid? Or do I lack the scientific sophistication to grasp his good intention?
Was this all just sloppy over confident VIP health officials inadvertently unleashing the pandemic on the world? Or was it just icky bat poop? Or are Fauci and his colleagues diabolically evil?
I never could stand the preening little man. But my very old dad hangs upon his every word. It’s truly appalling.