Was the Wuhan lab leak purposeful?
Note what she is saying and what she’s not saying. She’s saying it was not a leak, but rather a purposeful release. She’s saying that once the Chinese government realized how transmissible it was, they allowed it to spread all over the world (we already knew that, by the way). But she is not saying that the initial release was for that purpose. She thinks they had no idea how bad it was and that the initial release got out of control. And she’s basing all of this on opinion, related to her own knowledge of safety procedures in virus labs like Wuhan plus something one informant has told her.
What do I think? I think it’s been clear some time that this was from a lab. I think it’s also been clear that the Chinese did nothing to stop its spread to the rest of the world and that was most likely purposeful. I think the rest of her claims are certainly possibly true, but I’m far from sure.
And I think she looks a bit like a “Chinese virology scientist” character from a James Bond movie.
She is remarkably brave as well as bright, and her opinion must be taken seriously, but I am still not convinced that it was released intentionally to cause harm and havoc. The fact that the lab’s safety protocols seem to have been, for years, rather lax might well suffice as an explanation. Kudos to Tucker for allowing her to speak!
I have a fervent wish, that will never be granted, that Fauci is somehow held accountable for his role. He looks more and more like a 21st century version of Mengele to me. 7 million deaths seem to have no effect on him. What a monster.
I say yes because of this
https://rense.com/general96/china-bio-weapons.php
The leak was an accident, what happened after is and was intentional.
Fauci should be stripped of his pensions, his bank accounts emptied, and he should be frogged marched naked to jail where he will get a booster shot eveyday with live active COVID.
I’m sure the genome of the virus has been mapped, so the answer to leaked or released is in the genome. If the structure of the virus ignores ethnic Han peoples, it was released.
Everybody has their own pet theory. Mine hasn’t changed from fairly early on: The virus escaped from the lab accidentally – they had been repeatedly warned that their controls and procedures were ineffective, dangerously so. The forensic blood work and review of records indicates that it probably first started spreading around September ’19. Once it escaped and the contagion became widespread, the Chinese panicked, which tells me (a) that they knew if came from the lab quite early and (b) that they thought it was much more lethal than it turned out to be (because it had escaped from the lab). Their response was nothing short of the kind of desperation that you see in a Hollywood disaster movie – white suits grabbing people straight off the street and stuffing them into vans, welding the doors shut on housing complexes, ‘disappearing’ any doctors or scientists that dared to report.
Then the Chinese did the most evil thing of the whole pandemic: They shut down internal air travel and continued to run international travel at full tilt, ensuring that the likely-infected Chinese would become a viral diaspora and the rest of the world would suffer at least as badly as the Chinese. This was pure, cynical evil on display – no other word for it, quarantining internally while ensuring rampant infection for the rest of the world.
It looks like there are plenty of incentives on the US side to keep things under wraps, since it also now appears pretty clear that the US was funding gain-of-function experimentation, but being careful to launder the funding through multiple organizations in order to give the appearance of deniability. I hope that Rand Paul never shuts up about this.
If the US was funding this kind of research, then what kind of funding was being funneled to the pharmaceutical companies for vaccine research on the viruses being tweaked? The whole thing looks too much like the branches on a common tree to dismiss it out of hand. And the stonewalling only makes it look worse.
In the early stages, the CCP must have realized how devastating this pandemic would be to their export driven economy. Widespread infections, high debilitating fever with large numbers of deaths among the elderly. As mentioned above, they new the source and probably assumed that it was deadly across the whole population. In retrospect, it seems reasonable that from their strictly amoral, parochial view, that it was necessary to spread the disease far and wide to the Western world. In that light, they banned internal travel, put permitted travel to foreign destinations. Ugly, but not a surprise.
Chi haotian is a senior pla commander, going back to the korean war he relayed a message to the clinton administration re the 95 elections in taiwan.
Except for iran and australia the most affected countries had concessions in colonial china us uk france germany italy
Was the release intentional? Does the answer depend on the quality of the lab safety protocols —the design of the facility, the equipment to contain the hazard, the proper maintenance and operation of that equipment, the adherence to protocol by every person in the lab?
To me the answer is suggested by asking a more familiar question: if I drive drunk, did I not intend the mayhem that follows?
I remember her original interview, before she disappeared from sight. I wondered at the time if that was necessary on her part.
What would be the benefit of a pandemic in 2020? Donald Trump? Really? Why not? What would be another reason for deliberately releasing a deadly virus?
At the time, most folks thought Donald Trump would be re-elected. For all the left’s shrill screams to the contrary, most Americans were seeing the benefits of Trump’s economic policies.
I know it’s unbelievable, but so many unbelievable things have happened in the last two years.
I agree with what Aggie said. The key point isn’t whether the CCP released this intentionally from the lab or not. The point is that they knew it came from the lab early on, they knew it was very dangerous, they let it spread around the world intentionally, and then they lied about it.
The conversation that is just starting in the mainstream media now was happening here and many other places three years ago. There really is no way that Fauci will ever be held accountable. He’s an old man who has reaped great rewards from his lies and deception. What possible punishment would be sufficient for his crimes?
Question: did the Chinese engineer the virus to be especially lethal to Europeans and their descendants but to largely spare other segments, such as Orientals of the Chinese-Korean-Japanese varieties? Has this all been an exercise in biowarfare?
It would not surprise me if the lab leak were deliberate, the CCP are that malicious. OTOH, the ruling elite in this country took one look at the virus, and in Rahm Emanuel’s words decided “not to let a crisis go to waste.” I am quite sure that Chuck and Nancy and McConnell, the DNC, the RNC, and the media saw it as a giant opportunity to put a disabling hit on Trump, while at the same time roughing up the American people to let them know who’s boss. They were almost giddy in their obvious enjoyment at finally getting to let their inner tyrant come out.
So having seen the reaction (or lack thereof) to lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and election rules that were implemented without the passage of necessary legislation, why wouldn’t they figure they had carte blanche to engage in corruption on an even larger scale? Billions of dollars have been given to Ukraine, how much of that is simply laundered and returned to Biden and his cronies? Or how about the allegations that Katie Hobbs accepted money from the Sinaloa cartel? Now, I’ll admit that I have no idea if it’s true or not, but the safe way to bet these days is that it is.
It’s almost as though the one thing that motivates our ruling class’ most every act is spite.
Art Deco (5:33 pm) asks:
“Question: did the Chinese engineer the virus to be especially lethal to Europeans and their descendants but to largely spare other segments, such as Orientals of the Chinese-Korean-Japanese varieties?”
Verrrrry interesting. Heaven knows, the dividers break down practically everything that can be broken down, into racial and ethnic impacts.
Has anyone seen any breakdown of covid fatalities and/or covid ICU admissions, by race and/or ethnicity — specifically examining impacts of covid on “Orientals of the Chinese-Korean-Japanese varieties” as compared with “Europeans and their descendants”? I know I have not.
[Better include black folks in the study, in light of Black History Month. (Snark.)]
Verrrrry interesting.
Since Covid 19 was developed in Chapel Hill, NC by the us gov’t, whom has shown long term and continuous irresponsibility and unaccountability, the release of the virus was built-in to the package.
It was just a matter of time, if not fully intentional.
The gov’t scapegoated China to give the low hanging fruits something to focus on.
The US gov’t is the most criminal and outright evil institution the world has ever experienced.
ghostsniper:
I disagree with virtually everything you wrote.
China seemed to use the virus to destroy the Western Economies.
Western elites used the virus to increase their power, including censorship.
And Fauci and company did their best to hide their funding of the virus research.
Very early on, someone suggested that the virus was developed as a weapon, because corona viruses of various types are so common in China that many people there have some level of acquired immunity. If it escaped or was released, some Chinese people would still get it, but the effects would be much less severe in China than in other parts of the world. This is a price that the Chinese government would be willing to pay. I’d like to hear some comments from someone who really understands this issue.
M J R:
Asians have had lower COVID rates in this country.
Here’s a lengthy discussion of why COVID may be less prevalent in Asians. It offers lots of reasons.
Gregory Harper: I’m not sure whether there’s a Heaven, but justice demands that there be a Hell.
CapnRusty:
Do you honestly believe there is any act for which justice would be eternal torment?
Baric of chapel hill was a pioneer in gain of function research but he didnt seem as much imput as daszak
Like others here have mentioned, I believe I saw her first appearance on American television. Not the scientific method at all, but she seemed intelligent, brave and honest then, and each time I’ve seen her since. It’s kind-of like the first time I saw Jordan Peterson. A quality beyond mere human interaction. A level of sincerity one encounters all too rarely.
Again, I’m basing this on emotion more than reason, but she does not appear, at all, like someone who would falsely accuse or do anything dishonest. Nor does she seem like a braggart who would make claims beyond her understanding. I think she knows what she’s talking about.
While I certainly believe the virus came from the virology lab, it’s tough to think it was intentional because once a virus is in the general public there is no way to control it and no way to predict, in advance, its lethality.
Further, why would the Chinese release a virus within their own country? What purpose would that serve? What would China have to gain by doing so?
A virus is an “un-directed” weapon; it can, and does go anywhere including where you hope it does not go.
Anyway, why on earth was US taxpayer $$$$ sent to China for this sort of research? Are we to believe that no lab here in the USA is capable of doing this?
Unf’n believable.
neo (6:06 pm) refers me (and other interested readers) to “a lengthy discussion of why COVID may be less prevalent in Asians.”
Thanks for that, neo. I continue to appreciate how you can dig out salient material — thus saving many of us a lot of heavy lifting.
My initial reaction is, as I remarked in my earlier comment, “Verrrrry interesting.” I am already delving into this.
What glenn beck found out was this was part of biodefense arms race that accelerated after the first sars outbreak in 2003
Why was the COVID gain-of-function research not conducted in the US? Because Congress forbade it after a close call during Obama’s presidency, including funding the research in other nations. There was a relaxation during Trump’s, that allowed the director of NIAID (that is, Fauci, assuming I haven’t screwed up the acronym) to permit US funds to be used for gain-of-function research. It’s equally clear that he didn’t formally use that power, and sought to hide the research with cutouts through third parties, conducting the research outside the US, and perjuring* himself before Congress.
* Some would argue that use of ‘creative definitions’ isn’t, technically, lying. That’s bullshit; the whole point of making up new words to do things one isn’t supposed to be doing is to misinform. ‘Enhanced interrogation’ means something besides torture? It’s a cop-out for people who act as if words create reality, and new, different words make reality different.
“Do you honestly believe there is any act for which justice would be eternal torment?”
Boss it’s a good thing we don’t actually get to answer that question & enforce our decision.
‘Cos I’d have a thing to say about the Bee Gees!
Just kidding. 😉
@ghostsniper
Please count the number of people Mao starved to death and murdered during peacetime and then go take a long walk off a short train station.
Why would the Chinese release a virus which likely would damage them more than anyone else? And why would they release such a wimpy virus?
SteveD:
She does rather gloss over that part, doesn’t she?
I think her contention was that it was purposely released in order to study it in some way in natural conditions, but the people who released it weren’t aware it was as contagious as it ended up being.
Doesn’t quite make sense to me, either.
However, it’s not the case that the virus damaged the Chinese more than anyone else.
John Guilfoyle:
The Bee Gees’ admirers often refer to their voices as “heavenly.”
I assume you are not of that mindset.
Commenters at Red State also recall seeing her earlier interviews.
That has become increasingly probable, verging on unity.
Also, they reminded me of this:
That claim was forthwith dropped into the memory-hole completely, and I always wondered why Trump didn’t hammer it more. I suspect he was “convinced” somehow by the Intelligence operatives with the info (whoever they were) into withholding more comment for “national security reasons” — a request which, I believe, he would honor.
Trump continued to put fat too much trust in the agencies that we now know were actively suborning their duty and lying about, well, pretty much everything.
Imagine for a moment you are science itself, Dr Fauci(TM). You have a fairly binary choice in which story to tell the population of the country you represent.
Option 1- That in the city of Wuhan, a place where a well documented government lab exists. A lab where various viruses including COVID are experimented with. Said virus is either accidentally or purposefully escapes and spreads around he world. OR
Option 2- An unnamed Chinese farmer is on a pastoral Tibet-ten countryside. He is orally serviced by a rare an generally unknown endangered small mammal. And at that time in 2020 a virus that has existed for hundreds of thousands of years. Suddenly decides ” Hey I am ditching this little armored freak and going big time. Homo sapiens here I come”.
And as the United States top virology official you decide the party line not only must be option two. But you are racist and an anti scientist conspiracy nut that must be ruthlessly silenced for even suggesting option number one.
This is where we are now. Next up they will be telling us penises are simply rigid societal constructs
@ Miguel > “I say yes because of this”
The post he linked, originally published 2020-02-15, is titled “China Defense Minister Speech 2005 Speech – Bio-Weapons Will be used to prepare America
for A Chinese Invasion
(Caveat: I have no idea who the poster is, or what was his source for this speech, or if this is an accurate transcription, or if it happened at all.)
If Covid was supposed to be the ultimate cleaning agent, it didn’t succeed quite so well as they had hoped.
I found this next excerpt very interesting, in light of our more recent invasion from Chinese agents.
The “one blow” might be still to come, but the battlespace preparation is pretty much acknowledged by everyone except the DOD and Biden Inc.
https://strategypage.com/on_point/2023022121641.aspx
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2023/02/20/fascinating-facts-balloons-farmland-united-fronts-shipping-companies-military-bases/
The bulk of the analysis is of Chinese land purchases in New Zealand, Australia, a few other countries, and the US; the observation that much of this land includes critical port infrastructure; and that almost all of it adjoins or is close to the “host” country’s defense installations.
This should be ringing some bells here about prior discussions.
Wade through the long presentation of “dots” connecting China to military espionage (it’s very detailed and thought provoking), or skip down to the end
“not of that mindset”
Yes ma’am that would be correct…BUT…neither do I view them as “eternal torment.” Just not my go-to music choice; as in they will not show up on my “year in Spotify review” or whatever they call it.
Dyer brings up another prong of what I just christened the Chinese War Trident (bio, balloon, and business):
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2023/02/27/in-a-new-geo-military-landscape-belaruss-lukashenko-goes-to-china/
In case anyone needed to vent some more, Doc Zero feels your pain.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1630553325702660098.html
Just a reminder (from Nov. 2022):
“World Economic Forum chair Klaus Schwab declares on Chinese state TV: ‘China is a model for many nations’ “—
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/world-economic-forum-chair-klaus-schwab-declares-on-chinese-state-tv-china-is-a-model-for-many-nations/ar-AA14tRvy
This is not a one-off….
Nor should one forget the abject, COLLUSIONAL role played by the WHO (under the non-doctor former communist).
Whether Covid was an intentional “experiment” or not (and it makes far more sense to me that it was an accident that, once it occurred, was taken advantage of to see how it could be used), one can COUNT ON IT, that it will be perceived—-is perceived—as a trial run for the next round of…whatever.
The leak itself might not have been done deliberately; the weaponization of it was.
So was the cover-up.
https://redstate.com/jeffc/2023/02/28/your-government-used-your-money-to-silence-your-opinions-on-the-chinese-lab-leak-theory-n709782
Meanwhile,
Biden Defense Official Rejects Medical Science Journal’s Finding that Immunity Is as Effective as Vaccination
A top Biden defense official on Tuesday during a House hearing rejected a leading medical science journal’s recent conclusion that immunity is as effective as vaccination.
But of course!
Not really surprising, keeping in mind that the greatest enemy of “Biden”‘s military machine is AGW…and that it is a military imperative that one keep one’s strategic priorities consistent——IOW weakening that military and confounding and alienating your fighters…
You know where this one is going.
“Biden Supports ‘Safe And Secure’ Gain-of-Function Research, White House Says”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-supports-safe-and-secure-gain-function-research
And you know why…
Related (to “Biden” ‘s military)…
…but how, exactly?
‘ Air Force Relieves Six Leaders At Nuclear Base Over “Loss Of Confidence” ‘—
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/air-force-relieves-six-leaders-nuclear-base-over-loss-confidence
One dearly hopes (against hope?) that this has NOTHING to do with vaccine mandates.
That is, one hopes that it’s just good old incompetence.
OTOH, it seems doubtful, but could it possibly have anything to do with Ukraine? …
#1 . I agree with the summary by Aggie at 4:47, which lays out what I think happened.
#2. At 11:04 pm above Neo said “However, it’s not the case that the virus damaged the Chinese more than anyone else.”
In view of the CCP’s near total control over virtually every aspect of China and it’s peoples, and the news coming out of China, I wonder what source she has–able to penetrate the CCP’s totalitarian grip on information, and discern the truth–to back up this statement.
The CCP propagandists I saw on TV say that actually very few Chinese have died from COVID.
But, did Chinese actually die by the many millions, and are they still dying in huge numbers?
Who can really know.
Well that usually means they have commonsense unpossible barry
What is curious is hubei province has long been a rival to beijing
Early on in spread of the Wuhan virus there was the news story from Italy, about a town devoted to clothing manufacture which had a large number of Chinese who were working there, and who apparently made frequent trips back and forth to China.
To demonstrate his/their virtue, and to protest how people were pointing fingers at the Chinese as responsible for this outbreak–lots of racists, man–a man was standing in the town square with a signboard, asking Chinese to come up for a hug.
I remember that, in the TV clip saw, when someone Chinese came up for a hug, the guy with the signboard took off the Chinese person’s mask as he leaned in for a hug.
Shortly thereafter came reports of a major outbreak of the Wuhan virus in this town/region.
What fools!
P.S. If the Chinese authorities were serious about trying to stop spread of the virus, wouldn’t you think that the first thing they would do is to take the elementary and common sense step of limiting it’s spread by temporarily forbidding Chinese citizens from traveling to other countries?
The giveaway that this spread was done on purpose/was actually being facilitated by Chinese authorities, was when the Chinese government locked down internal travel from Wuhan but, at the same time, allowed Chinese to freely travel anywhere else in the world.
The CUP knows, from experience, that they can spare a few tens of millions of people from time to time. Their idea of ” catastrophe” is different from ours.
It’s possible, perhaps even probable, that China’s refusal to ban foreign travel was due more to the desire/need to make it appear as though things were normal, that there was nothing to conceal (until they couldn’t conceal it any more, whereupon they blamed the US).
IOW coverup…
…which is a proven authoritarian “methodology” that also just happens to be one of “Biden”‘s many talents.
And Trudeau’s.
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2023/02/28/trudeau-downplays-chinese-efforts-to-elect-canadian-liberals/
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2023/03/01/warmington-time-for-investigation-into-chinas-alleged-election-interference/
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2023/02/28/csis-is-worried-about-china-interfering-in-our-elections-even-if-the-government-isnt/
+ Bonus:
Ben Shapiro pretty much says the obvious in his Covid coverup run-down, saturated in exquisitely detailed collusion perpetrated by the usual suspects, as well as some surprising ones, and smothered aggressively by the corrupt media.
But he does it quite well.
“The Greatest Cover-up in Human History”—
https://jewishworldreview.com/0323/shapiro030123.php
They knew that ferguson at imperial the folks at u washington john hopkins would cook up this methodological bat soup
‘Eternity’ offers a long time in which to repent.
Trump had China on the defense and they did not like it. First because they are controlled by communist tyrants, and second because many in their society are arrogant pricks who consider themselves and Chinese culture superior to anyone else.
I believe they released the virus on purpose. Anyone that has to ask wether they did or not has no idea what these hegemonic communist regimes are capable of.
JohnTyler asks what purpose would it serve to release the virus in their own country?
While I still believe the most logical explanation is negligence (or here, gross negligence given that the scientists knew how easy it was to infect others), one aspect of COVID-19 that could be useful to China in particular, but also other countries, is the somewhat unusual impact this virus has. From the beginning this virus had little impact on the young and very young, which is very surprising since their immune systems are not well developed. The typical Type A influenza virus kills the old and young (especially age 0-4) disproportionately, but COVID-19 really hit the old harder, especially the very old, and barely touched the very young.
China, like many countries, is facing social costs for its elderly, both as to healthcare expenses and simple social security safety net, and COVID is a perfect virus to weed out the old, while not affecting the young who will pay taxes to support the older generations. The very old typically cost the most as far as health care expenes, and those people contribute the least economically in China, so add another benefit for the Chinese government. China in particular is very concerned with social unrest, and by helping solve an economic and social problem (and getting rid of Donald Trump to boot), it helps the communist party and Xi stay in power. I have no doubt they would willingly sacrifice millions of their own people for power–they’ve done it before. The care even less about the rest of the world.