German Spy Agency Concluded COVID Virus Likely Leaked From Lab (reuters.com) 150
An anonymous reader shares a report: Germany's foreign intelligence service in 2020 put at 80%-90% the likelihood that the coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic was accidentally released from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, two German newspapers reported on Wednesday.
According to a joint report by publications Die Zeit and Sueddeutscher Zeitung, Germany's spying agency BND had indications that the institute had conducted gain-of-function experiments, whereby viruses are modified to become more transmissible to humans for research purposes.
It also had indications that numerous violations of safety regulations had occurred at the lab, the papers said. The spy agency assessment's was based on an unspecified intelligence operation code-named "Saaremaa" as well as on publicly-available data. It had been commissioned by the office of Germany's chancellor at the time, Angela Merkel, but never published, the report said.
According to a joint report by publications Die Zeit and Sueddeutscher Zeitung, Germany's spying agency BND had indications that the institute had conducted gain-of-function experiments, whereby viruses are modified to become more transmissible to humans for research purposes.
It also had indications that numerous violations of safety regulations had occurred at the lab, the papers said. The spy agency assessment's was based on an unspecified intelligence operation code-named "Saaremaa" as well as on publicly-available data. It had been commissioned by the office of Germany's chancellor at the time, Angela Merkel, but never published, the report said.
It was never published (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It was never published (Score:5, Insightful)
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He pushed it not because of insight but because that's what his dumbass base believed in. They were right this time because sometimes conspiracies are real. That still doesn't make him or them have wisdom. 99% of the shit they shovel is just that.
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Jesus dude.
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So far, no evidence for the lab leak has been shown whereas there is abundant evidence it started in the wet market.
The theories aren't incompatible, of course. People who work in labs aren't prohibited from buying meat at a wet market. So it is entirely possible that it was an accidental leak AND that it started at the wet market. The two are entirely independent probabilities.
Re:It was never published (Score:4, Informative)
Actually the US intelligence agencies conclude the same thing for the same reason but because republicans headed up he committee liberals and their legacy media dismissed the findings.
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There is no consensus among US intelligence agencies that it came from a lab.
Four intelligence agencies have concluded natural exposure caused the pandemic (at least until Dec 2024).
Only two intelligence agencies came to that conclusion, and each blamed a different institute!
The FBI said it is the WIV, and the Dept of Energy said it is the Wuhan CDC.
And political leaning is at play as you say, but in the other direction: the FBI head was a Trump first term appointee, and the the new CIA head changed its sta
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That's completely false. The US intelligence agencies completely disagreed on the cause. You're cherry picking the ones you agree with.
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^ this. Forced selection possibly in humanized cells isn't gene editing and just uses random mutations and selection. basically like plant or animal breeding.
That's the legitimate-but-arguably-unwise gain of function research that we know was going on at Wuhan Institute of Virology (and other places) for the purpose of understanding how long it wild take a virus to become more likely to cause a pandemic.
and some of the stuff got out.
the lab leak requires nothing more complex or nefarious than that
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How many experimental animals do you think these institutes have? Natural mutations in these viruses happen so fast in a pandemic because tens or hundreds of millions of people get infected, driving up the number of viral replications enormously, vastly increasing the rate at which mutations occur. So, in other words, if a new strain will emerge about once a year in a population of 1,000,000, then it will take, on average, 1,000 years for a new strain to emerge in a population of 1,000. Not to mention that
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No, nonsense like your post which offers nothing but conjecture and conspiracy theories from another country nothing to do with the USA is how orange man got elected.
Bullshit (Score:2)
And what got the orange one elected was voter suppression. About 7 million Americans showed up to vote in 2024 and couldn't. Voter suppression means multi-hour wait times to vote, 67 bomb threats, and tens of thousands of people denied the right to vote using Jim Crow era laws that were previously illegal but wh
This doesn't explain (Score:3, Insightful)
All the evidence for finding covid at the Wuhan wet market. Nor the first people who were reported to have covid who had nothing to do with lab, but did frequent the market.
This is one of those times the "secret" evidence needs to be disclosed. They can't hide behind sources. They need to show their evidence.
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I read (though admittedly I can't remember where) that the lab and the wet market shared a subway line.
The lab leak theory says that someone at the lab got infected while at the lab, then left and took the train, spreading it there.
Re:This doesn't explain (Score:5, Informative)
There is one scientist later on in the first part who does say they couldn't rule out someone who may have been infected at the lab visiting the market and starting the ball rolling, but they also say there is no evidence to back this up. Considering the number of people who ride that line each day, if there was a sick person from the lab spreading their infection, there should have been far more people getting sick all over the place. That didn't happen. The earliest known infections were all clustered around the market.
This article [acsh.org] from February describes how zootonic spillover occurs. What they describe, based on the evidence, is what happened.
But again, if someone in the intelligence community is saying it inadvertently started in the lab, they need to provide the evience. Otherwise, this is another Iraq WMD scenario.
Lab week is also just silly (Score:2)
Never mind that the lab is supposed to have leaked from is a biohazard for lab. There is no lab on Earth so poorly run that you're going to have a virus like COVID-19 leak from it.
The counter argument is then that it was intentional and it was a bio weapon. If you have no clue about the science this one you could almost g
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If you stop and think about it for a second. The virus does not spread well, really barely at all, by touch. And even the most rudimentary masking procedures are enough to stop it.
Systematic review conducted by Cochrane disputes both assertions. NPIs involving hand washing were effective at controlling spread while masking had no impact on spread.
https://www.cochranelibrary.co... [cochranelibrary.com]
Never mind that the lab is supposed to have leaked from is a biohazard for lab. There is no lab on Earth so poorly run that you're going to have a virus like COVID-19 leak from it.
Perhaps we live on different planets which coincidentally both happen to be named earth?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The counter argument is then that it was intentional and it was a bio weapon. If you have no clue about the science this one you could almost get away with falling for.
Nobody is talking about bio weapons.
Basically yes we can gin up a fake virus but they don't last. The modifications we make aren't natural and so they don't survive successive generations. If you have the technology to engineer a virus you would have achieved a massive scientific breakthrough worth hundreds of billions of dollars if not trillions. You wouldn't be building bio weapons with it you would be patenting the shit out of it and using it to make medical breakthroughs that you profit from.
This is a sequence of increasingly unhinged non sequiturs.
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Those studies are not really reliable.
Any ideas what is reliable? I welcome credible objective refutations of Cochrane's peer reviewed 320 page systematic review so long as refutation is at least as rigorous as the study itself.
I sneeze into your face, you have a hich chance to get infected.
If I wear a mask: I can not sneeze into your face.
Is this sneezing into your face thing a salient issue or did you just make it up because it sounds good to you?
"Sneezing is not normally a symptom of COVID-19, and much more likely to be a sign of a regular cold or allergy."
https://health-study.zoe.com/p... [zoe.com]
There is a district/province in India, where they made the experiment: half the villages had mandatory masks the other half voluntary. And the difference in infections is magnitudes.
Do you mean the Bangladesh study? If so ALL of the above point
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This article from February describes how zootonic spillover occurs. What they describe, based on the evidence, is what happened.
There is no specific objective evidence to support spillover hypothesis. Like lab leak the only evidence publicly known to exist at present takes the form of inductive arguments. There was never any precursor virus or animal reservoir found despite intensive efforts to find them.
But again, if someone in the intelligence community is saying it inadvertently started in the lab, they need to provide the evience. Otherwise, this is another Iraq WMD scenario
Anyone making claims needs to put up or shut up. It doesn't matter what side you take the requirements are the same.
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There are at least two: bats - especially a specific species in a specific cave. But bottom line: all bats. (And guess how many bats live in a market like Wuhan's?) ... ah, well! You have to google Guerteltier, I am to lazy now. I can not memorize the English word for them.
And Guerteltiere. Guess where they get sold? Oi oi
I am pretty sure there are more natural hosts, it is just not so, that we randomly kill an animal, and sequenc e all the potential virus DNA it might contain. What about Pandas? Pinguins are unlikely, but Pandas?
This is incorrect. No precursors of SARS-CoV-2 were ever found in ANY animal.
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There is one scientist later on in the first part who does say they couldn't rule out someone who may have been infected at the lab visiting the market and starting the ball rolling, but they also say there is no evidence to back this up. Considering the number of people who ride that line each day, if there was a sick person from the lab spreading their infection, there should have been far more people getting sick all over the place. That didn't happen. The earliest known infections were all clustered aro
Re:This doesn't explain (Score:5, Insightful)
It does matter. If, as is most likely the case, this all started because China is harvesting wild animals in unsanitary conditions in close proximity to humans, that can be adjusted. You know, by NOT harvesting wild animals and puting them in casges in close proximity to humans.
This would be like saying what does it matter what the origin of the measles outbreak in Texas is from? What does it change? We know how to change this. Get vaccinated. The same with this. If everything points to the wet market, get rid of it.
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It does matter. If, as is most likely the case, this all started because China is harvesting wild animals in unsanitary conditions in close proximity to humans, that can be adjusted. You know, by NOT harvesting wild animals and puting them in casges in close proximity to humans.
This would be like saying what does it matter what the origin of the measles outbreak in Texas is from? What does it change? We know how to change this. Get vaccinated. The same with this. If everything points to the wet market, get rid of it.
I mean, most of the civilized world has already done this. It has nothing to do with Covid, or at least it shouldn't.
We know China is/was doing gain of function. We know wet markets are a cesspool for stuff like this. At this point it feels like the "where did it come from" question is an academic exercise so one group can go "I TOLD YOU SO".
China's rural economies depend on The wet markets (Score:2)
For me the real question is why is the German intelligence agency spewing obvious misinformation. Are they giving this to China in exchange for something? Because to your point China would very much like us to blame it on the lab leak so they can continue to run the wet markets. Also don't forget their slash and burn deforestation policies that also put people in close proximity to animals.
Whatever the case science is definitely on a b
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It happens even when you don't do that. After all, Bird Flu jumped to humans via cows by the humans taking care of their animals.
And bird flu jumped to cows simply because cows require large fields and wild birds have been known to occupy such lands as well.
So yeah, put species together in close proximity and diseases will jump given enough contact.
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At this point it really does not matter the origin of COVID does it? What would it change?
What kind of question is this? If we want to prevent a similar outbreak from happening, of course we would want to know the origin of Covid.
What would it change?
If we understood the origin of Covid and whether it was preventable, you don't know what would change? The steps that could be taken to prevent this from happening again is what would change. Again, what kind of question IS this?
Re: This doesn't explain (Score:2)
Well, but it does sound like there are two competing theories that are both quite likely. So if what we care about is prevention, and if it could have been either of these things, then prevention efforts should be made with both of these things.
Re: This doesn't explain (Score:2)
Yes it did. You say that it is important to understand the exact cause, to help prevention in the future. I say that if there are two likely causes, it doesn't matter that much which one it was in terms of prevention, since it could have been either: prevention work needs to be done for both. So we have made very different statements.
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At this point it really does not matter the origin of COVID does it? What would it change?
It would give the political right additional ammo to use when weakening economic ties with China, which I suspect is the main reason why right-wing politicians are pushing this in the U.S.
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At this point it really does not matter the origin of COVID does it? What would it change?
The whole point of the COVID gain-of-function research was to determine how an outbreak might happen, so it can be prevented.
The point of understanding how COVID happened is to prevent it from happening again.
Re:The report was written in 2020. (Score:1)
The report was written in 2020, before they even had all the evidence they have now. Therefore the report is largely meaningless.
Re:This doesn't explain (Score:4, Informative)
Researchers from that lab sought medical help with rona symptoms a month before the first rona cases were officially reported by the Chinese government. Here. [yahoo.com]
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Again, it does not say explicitly this is what happened. It says from an intelligence source. Either they have the information or they don't. Even the most recent CIA asessment does not say the lab leak theory is valid. It says it has low confidence.
Considering this came from the Trump administration, if they had any evidence to support this it would have been blasted from the towers.
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Considering this came from the Trump administration, if they had any evidence to support this it would have been blasted from the towers.
It didn't come from the Trump administration.
"The finding is not the result of any new intelligence, and the report was completed at the behest of the Biden administration and former CIA Director William Burns. It was declassified and released Saturday on the orders of President Donald Trump's pick to lead the agency, John Ratcliffe, who was sworn in Thursday as director."
https://www.voanews.com/a/cia-... [voanews.com]
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Nor does it explain the delay in China releasing the genomic data. Or the disappearance of Chinese whistleblowers. Or the gain-of-function Fauchi coverup/lies. There is a ton of fishy business surrounding something that seems pretty obvious.
Some people scream "but there is no evidence", well, I suppose you can go with what little "evidence" China supplied, to try and support a wet-market theory. And lack of evidence doesn't make something not true, just not verifiable.
Common-sense view: a novel coronavi
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Nothing found at the market was inconsistent with a lab leak origin, there was no animal found at the market... the worker who the virus hitched a ride with stopped at the market after work.
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Nothing found at the market was inconsistent with a lab leak origin, there was no animal found at the market... the worker who the virus hitched a ride with stopped at the market after work.
False. Animals were found at the market AND investigators narrowed it down to what type [cnn.com].
After an in-depth analysis of the genetic material from hundreds of swabs taken from the walls, floors, machines and drains inside the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China — a site that’s been described as an epicenter of early spread of Covid-19 — scientists say they now know exactly which species of animals were in the same area where investigators also found the most positive samples the virus that causes Covid-19.
Species present in the areas where the highest numbers of SARS-CoV-2 samples were found include raccoon dog, hoary bamboo rat, dog, European rabbit, Amur hedgehog, Malayan porcupine, Reeves’s muntjac, Himalayan marmot and masked palm civet. .
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Of the animals present at the market, rabbits, dogs and raccoon dogs are known to be susceptible to Covid-19 infections. Raccoon dogs have also been shown to transmit the infection, making them a strong candidate to be the animals that first passed the virus to humans.
Re: This doesn't explain (Score:2)
Didn't we all mostly agree on this (Score:1)
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re emails: Sort of.
There WERE emails eventually released that showed that Western experts, including Fauci, thought early on it was probably lab leak but that it had to be denied for various political (e.g we don't want to alienate China) and anti racism reasons.
As to the rest of your post, no, none of those questions have been answered AFAIK. And also people here keep forgetting that it's freakin' a Congress government lab... yes they absolutely would destroy any incriminating evidence. It wouldn'
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I'm not sure if they've answered the questions as to why the virus was so adapted and "designed" so effectively to attack humanity
This virus family has been with us since inception as a species. We have always been highly susceptible to infection. The Rates of infection , symptomatic expression and mortality have remained fairly stable over all that time. COVID-19 barely blipped above that.
One variant out of the millions that preceded it managed to kill a few more folks than usual, especially those with pre-existing conditions. Big whoop. We are not at risk of going extinct here and this is not the first time in history such a thing h
Uh oh (Score:1)
Also, German Spy Agency does not publish its data (Score:4, Insightful)
So no independent veruification of the claims is possible. Hence their analysis is worthless.
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Data? That's not what spy agencies are up to. They are about hunting down sources and clues. They won't share their sources, for obvious reasons.
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Do you somehow not now what data is?
File it under: No Shit (Score:2, Insightful)
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The outbreak spread from a city with an Institute of Virology-lab in it. File it under: No shit.
Or maybe, correlation does not imply causation, especially when there are several alternate and equally (if not more) plausible theories in play. But glad you came out saying that you had already made up your mind before anyone even started discussing causality.
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Now let's talk about... (Score:2, Insightful)
Mr "I am Science" Fauci, the research he authorized, the funding he authorized, and the amount of $ he made during COVID.
Is that allowed now? Or are we asserting the German Intel Services are secretly MAGA?
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Name someone better qualified in the field of virology than Fauci.
Bonus points if you can explain what gain of function means and whether it's good or bad.
Not possible (Score:2)
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Problems like what?
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Wolf! Likely BS (Score:2)
...because in 2020 knowledge of the virus was limited. For example, changes that initially looked like tampering eventually were found in (natural) relatives of the virus. Viruses can and do exchange DNA (pervs!). Just because one can't initially think how nature could do something is not a reason to conclude it was artificial.
Look how many times they found "likely" signs of life on Mars only to back off. In one case the odd "organic like" nature of the soil in probe tests was eventually replicated via iner
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...because in 2020 knowledge of the virus was limited. For example, changes that initially looked like tampering eventually were found in (natural) relatives of the virus. Viruses can and do exchange DNA (pervs!). Just because one can't initially think how nature could do something is not a reason to conclude it was artificial.
You need to do a probabilistic analysis. Of course it can happen, but what is the probability? This sort of thing [xkcd.com].
I haven't seen anyone do a probabilistic analysis. I unfortunately am incapable of doing it, but it needs to be done.
I don't give a rat's ass what spy agencies say (Score:3)
I don't know what the German spy agencies are up to but whatever it is it's not good. I do find it hilarious that the sort of conspiracy theory nut jobs who would normally disbelieve a spy agency if they told them the sky was blue suddenly are all in on it.
The real problem though here is that by saying it's a lab leak it means we are going to blow off addressing the real causes. The ones the epidemiologists have been warning us about for years and continue to warn us about. Specifically the unregulated wet markets and the slash and burn forestry policies. Both of which China would very much like you to not think about because they make a lot of money off of them and because their rural communities depend on them.
Meanwhile the next pandemic is busy fomenting over in China because we're not addressing root causes. And because we believe spy agencies over scientists
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Well, at least there's a 10-20% chance you're right.
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Why Niow? (Score:2)
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people are starting to feel like they can speak up without fear or censorship and professional reprisal?
And they can now speak up anonymously with a leaks of 5 year old "intelligence" assessments? I don't think so.
The two hypothesis aren't mutually exclusive (Score:2)
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Both can be true, but that PARTICULAR scenario is unlikely.
SARS-CoV-2 is a most closely related to a virus from bats, and the lab is known to have been working on bay viruses that they collected from caves in the wild.
The virus at the market was already quite infectious to humans. The question is whether or escaped from the lab and made it to the market or where it made it to the market without any involvement of the WIV.
Concluded Trump is Russian agent (Score:2)
Now depending on whether you are so inclined you may confuse said conclusion with proof to supposedly justify political bias.
After all they have some of the best intelligence and the best people and the best conclusions.
Elephant in the room. (Score:2)
Way less likely than "natural" zoonosis. (Score:2)
It just doesn't make sense. If you want to dabble with virii, corona is the worst place to start becaus they mutate so quickly on their very own. And why would to dabble with something so uncontrollable like SARS pathogens?
This "lab theory" is likely just a pet theory to make things interesting and ward of the more scary reality: That this sort of thing basically just emerges without us having any real control, other than perhaps teaching Chinese agriculture basic modern hygene.
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In March 2019 a breakthrough in producing a vaccine for SARS and MERS, then in 2020 we used the same breakthrough for Operation Warp Speed. How lucky.
It's almost as if one learns from the past and applies that knowledge [nih.gov] rather than starting from scratch.
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Just think of the mental gymnastics involved to be a part of MAGA and booing about the vaccine Trump helped create with operation warp speed. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/a... [nbcnews.com]
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Most MAGA don't boo the vaccine because it exists, they boo it because of the mandates, false claims, and shaming of those who didn't want it, which later came along with it.
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Re:March 2019 .. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not really impressive that Trump did the bare minimum of what any president would do in the situation, but I guess his fans need to take whatever they can
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Wet Market (Score:3)
is it just me, or does that sound like a sexy place?
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is it just me, or does that sound like a sexy place?
I hear chines live-food-animal markets are called that because they typically sell seafood (fish, lobsters, etc.) which are kept alive in big water tanks.
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Both the wet market and the lab leak hypothesis can be true.
If somebody is selling used lab animals to make money on the side, we would not expect the other animals to be infected, as the contaminated food animals would be already dead at time of delivery to the market.
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The market had live wild animals and there's reasonable evidence that some of them had COVID infection with early SARS-CoV-2 variants pretty early on in the COVID timeline.
BUT as you point out it's unknown if the animals caught it in the wild and brought it in, or they caught it from a person at the market or possibly they caught it from illicit lab animals also present. The fact that no wild animals outside the market have since been found with early or distinct lineages of SARS-CoV-2 is to me the bigges
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It's like a 40 minute drive between the two.
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It's like a 40 minute drive between the two.
In many Chinese cities that's a 10 min walk
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It's across a river, but not directly across.
It's equivalent to going from the suburbs in northern NJ to Manhattan. A viable but unpleasant commute. The kind of commute that lots of people do, but find absolutely miserable.
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I completely agree. But, the action taken differs in either case. In the case of the wet market, improve the cleanliness... I guess.
In the case of the lab, send Anthony Fauci to prison, along with ever other motherfucker who funded and aided in the creation of the virus, including Stephane Bancel.
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Let's say we find a clear and irrefutable path of blame to individuals.
What should your goal be?
a) vengeance. You want to hurt them because they did something bad? Wouldn't this make you an animal in turn?
b) prevention by example. Assume the people to blame did not act maliciously. Would you still punish them harshly? Wouldn't this cause people who we genuinely need to avoid similar careers? What would happen i
Re: So that's at least two now. (Score:2)
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>"The left, that for decades was both skeptical of Big Pharma and believed in free speech, during 2020-2022 era was actively advocating mass censorship over COVID lab leak theory."
And forcing people to put the vaccine in their bodies, even if they didn't need it or want it. And forcing people to wear mostly ineffective simple masks. And trying to force through vaccine "passports." And quite a few other very anti-traditional-liberal stances.
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Do you have children attending a school? Were vaccines “forced” on them?
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Tons of Americans were forced to vaccinate or lose their jobs. It wasn't a secret. Had the previous administration gotten all it wanted, it would have been many more (over 100 million). Then there were all the State mandates and private ones as well. That isn't even counting children, who were at virtually zero risk.
No, it wasn't forced as in held-down and injected at gunpoint, but losing one's job would fit most people's definition of using force.
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I think pretty much every RATIONAL human figured that out 3-4 years ago.
As much as suspect we were gaslit by various actors, I don't think it's ever been obvious which it was. Either a lab leak or the wet market were plausible, stories on social media vastly overstated the strengths and weaknesses of both explanations, and hard data was difficult to come by.
I'm not enough of a scientist or investigator to have much of a personal opinion. It's not like you or I can actually do any research to figure this out, we have to depend on others to figure it out for us.