May 2020 report concluded that Covid 19 could have escaped from a Wuhan lab.

[Baitball Blogger]

Question: Didn't we also have a lab in Wuhan?

[PSPS]

1. LOL. Some unreferenced "report" that "concluded" that something "could have" happened.

[womanofthehills]

16. Actually, 18 top US scientists wrote to Science mag that lab leak possible

Dr. Barik - the main US gain of function scientist who often worked with Dr Shi - also signed the letter. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6543/694.1.full

[PSPS]

20. I read that and your made-up "headline" doesn't represent what is says at all

While it does say it's theoretically possible, it characterizes it as "very unlikely." It then goes on to ask for more investigation, which nobody opposes, including Faucci and Biden. The breathless braying of misinformation like in your misleading made-up "headline" is just another page in the "keep 'auditing' until we like the results" playbook used by the Q freaks.

[Initech]

2. Yes, and Trump fired the research team.

[womanofthehills]

17. I beleve Trump just stopped the money the NIH was giving

To EcoHealth Alliance who in turn was funding Wuhan lab research. When Obama called for a pause on gain of function research in the US in 2014 - (Obama said it was too dangerous and he was worried about a leak and pandemic) the NIH gave Peter Daszak’s Eco Health Alliance money. When Trump became President, Eco Health Alliance was still funding the Wuhan lab. in 2019, Trump decided US could again do gain of function research in our labs. EcoHealth Alliance was getting money from NIH through both presidencies until the pandemic happened and Trump finally cut funding. Our scientists and Wujan’s scientists worked and often wrote research papers together.

[roamer65]

3. Possible, but we will never truly know.

Meanwhile, GET VACCINATED everyone!!!

[Ferrets are Cool]

7. This x 1000

[Scrivener7]

4. Another unlinked and unnamed report concluded that it couldn't have.

[lagomorph777]

5. Link? While China pretty much stamped it out internally, Trump weaponized it.

[Goonch]

6. "Why Would the US Have Funded the Controversial Wuhan Lab?"

"Reports about the connection between the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Wuhan Institute of Virology risk feeding conspiracy theories about the origins of COVID-19."

https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/why-would-the-us-have-funded-the-controversial-wuhan-lab/

May 13, 2020

[lagomorph777]

10. Because we fund many labs around the world to help monitor and prevent diseases?

Duh.

[womanofthehills]

18. And - the lab was in bad shape & needed help in 2018

US officials were reportedly concerned that safety breaches at a Wuhan lab studying coronaviruses in bats could cause a pandemic

Amid questions about the origin of the novel coronavirus outbreak, newly reported diplomatic cables showed that US officials had sounded the alarm about possible safety breaches at a lab studying coronaviruses in animals in Wuhan, China.

In the cables, obtained by the Washington Post national-security columnist Josh Rogin, US officials raised concerns about safety at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2018, two years before the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The lab, which holds a level-four biosafety research certification, the highest possible rating, was conducting research on coronaviruses in bats.

After multiple visits to the lab from a US diplomat in Wuhan and a science diplomat at the US Embassy in Beijing in early 2018, the officials became concerned about the safety of the research and sent two "sensitive but unclassified" cables back to Washington, DC, asking for assistance to help the lab tighten its safety protocols.
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-officials-raised-alarms-about-safety-issues-in-wuhan-lab-report-2020-4

[Sympthsical]

8. We contributed funds to the Wuhan lab via the NiH

That isn't that unusual. We fund virology research and partner with labs all over the world. So, the controversy isn't us funding the research. That happens as a matter of course. It also allows us to keep tabs a bit on what is going on in various places.

The controversy is what the researcher, Shi Zhengli, was doing with gain-of-function research and coronavirus.

Because Fauci was involved with the NiH, and the NiH funded coronavirus research at Wuhan, Republicans are trying to draw a straight line to him and the pandemic. They're practically saying he caused the pandemic.

Which, as we know, is total bullshit. That's just Republicans being Republicans. (I thought it was a hoax anyway?).

But the Vanity Fair article blasted the doors off the whole, "It's all a conspiracy theory. Only right-wingers are questioning the virus origins!"

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins

People who keep saying that are people who have a vested interest in not trying to figure out what the truth may be, be it political or financial. On our side, it's mainly political. Trump promoted the lab leak theory early on, and since Trump was for an idea, we have to be against it, duh! As if that's even slightly logical or intelligent.

We don't know what the truth is yet, but evidence is piling. I personally think it was an accidental lab leak. I'm about 80/20 on that proposition based on the evidence I've read.

[Act_of_Reparation]

9. I think a lab leak is still an unlikely explanation

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01205-5

[Sympthsical]

12. That's an older article. More has come to light

Including lab activities, safety levels, etc.

And it asserts a lot in those few paragraphs. "We'd know if this research was being done." Except we wouldn't necessarily. The CCP isn't exactly what I'd call a transparent and forthcoming government. They didn't even share data with investigators. If there was a fuck-up somewhere, trusting the CCP to let us know is naive at best.

It could've been zoonotic. There's a lot of information in the VF article about the bat coronavirus research and the mine they were sampling from. It's a possibility.

But there's so much smoke around all this. The lab seems to have been evacuated all of a sudden in the autumn. Daszak rushed to create that Lancet article and then pressured scientists to sign it. Not only that, but he hid his authorship of the article and conspired to get others to hide their connection to EcoAlliance. What was supposed to be, "Just Objective Science!" turned out to be a crazy self-interested piece promoted for political and financial reasons, and then put into the media where it was widely circulated.

People who believe they are totally inculpable do not behave this way.

This discussion should've happened a year ago. It was pure politics - on both sides - that we didn't get to have a frank discussion about the virus' origins. We still haven't had a solid investigation about it. When WHO of all people are saying, "Yeah, we really didn't look into this very well . . ." people should raise an eyebrow.

When millions are dead, I want a thorough investigation and explanation of what was going on with that lab.

We haven't gotten close to that, yet. Hell, I already have two hides for discussing the topic here.

That's not a good look for us.

[Act_of_Reparation]

15. Nothing that has come to light suggests a leak.

And if you want to talk about naively believing whatever the CCP says, the very same could be said about articles written by Michael R. Jordan.

[womanofthehills]

22. Old news- since Fauci's emails that Nature article is under attack

The letter from five virologists published in Nature Medicine on March 17, 2020, was the single most influential statement in capturing the public narrative about the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Here was an authoritative statement from leading experts assuring the public that in terms of the virus’s origin “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible”

On Jan. 31, 2020, shortly after the SARS-CoV-2 genome had been decoded, Kristian Andersen, the five virologists’ leader, emailed Dr. Fauci that there were “unusual features” in the virus. These took up only a small percentage of the genome, so that “one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/fauci-email-bolsters-the-lab-leak-theory-11622830092.

Kristian Anderson told Fauci the opposite right before he was one of the authors of the Nature article.

[Act_of_Reparation]

23. I don't think you understand what "old" means.

https://www.newsweek.com/fauci-emails-kristian-andersen-scientist-defends-article-debunking-lab-leak-hypothesis-1596727

Andersen replied: "it specifically means we thought—on preliminary look—that the virus could have been engineered and/or manipulated. Turns out the data suggest otherwise—which is the conclusion of our paper."

"As I have said many times, we seriously considered a lab leak a possibility. However, significant new data, extensive analyses and many discussions led to the conclusions in our paper.

In the interest of full disclosure, Andersen voiced concerns to Fauci (explicitly intimating in that email there was a good chance his reservations were unfounded), and indicated that more information was forthcoming. This was in January. The Nature paper was published in March. Which would you say is "older" news?

This isn't a nefarious reversal of one's position; it is science. Something seems odd, you think of why that may be, and then you test your suspicions. A good deal of the time, experimentation proves your initial assessments incorrect.

My wife is a structural virologist of some renown. She did her postdoc at Scripps. I can say with some authority here that the notion that this is an engineered virus has never been widely accepted in virology or evolutionary circles.

[Baitball Blogger]

13. Great explanation. Thank you for posting.

[womanofthehills]

19. Actually, one of the reasons the gain of function research

Went to Wuhan is because Obama put a hold on it in the US in 2014 and some scientists like Dr Barik who were doing that research were upset.

[Takket]

11. Anyone who wants to push the Wuhan lab needs to explain this

This article was written last year and unless someone has some new data or research to refute it, it concludes the virus is natural.

I read this last year and managed to find it again:

“Additional evidence of natural evolution was data on the virus’s overall molecular structure. Typically, if a researcher was engineering a new coronavirus as a pathogen or biological warfare agent, they build it on the backbone of a virus that is already identified as causing disease. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, their research showed that the SARS-CoV-2 backbone was quite different from known coronaviruses and more closely resembled viruses found in bats and pangolins.”

https://www.biospace.com/article/stop-the-conspiracy-theories-novel-coronavirus-has-natural-origin/

[WA-03 Democrat]

14. This is the whole story thank you!

[womanofthehills]

21. So much new info has come out since last year

Including texts in Fauci’s emails where a fellow scientist told Fauci it had the markings of being made in a lab.

But that’s the exact opposite of what these experts thought after taking their first look at the virus. A large batch of emails exchanged with Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was made available this week to BuzzFeed and the Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act. For the most part the emails concern meeting arrangements or messages from cranks and have been redacted of any meaningful information. But one significant email escaped the censor’s black marker.

On Jan. 31, 2020, shortly after the SARS-CoV-2 genome had been decoded, Kristian Andersen, the five virologists’ leader, emailed Dr. Fauci that there were “unusual features” in the virus. These took up only a small percentage of the genome, so that “one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered.”
j with expectations from evolutionary theory.” It isn’t clear exactly what he meant by this striking phrase. But anything inconsistent with an evolutionary origin has to be man-made. https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/fauci-email-bolsters-the-lab-leak-theory-11622830092