A little over two weeks ago 11 people on the fire department I retired from tested positive. Only 1 developed any symptoms and he thought that they were from his seasonal allergies. Now they all test negative. “Bio-weapon”, highly unlikely.
What if you want to get rid of all the old people with underlying health conditions? The virus is a boomer remover.
I made no mention (nor did the article) about it possibly being designed as a bio-weapon, originally, as I don’t think it was. I primarily reach this conclusion based on the fact that there are many published articles about the coronavirus manipulation work that was being done at the Wuhan lab, that was originally funded by US organizations, most prominently the National Institute of Health, the University of North Carolina, Harvard, etc, back around 2015. Those efforts were almost certainly NOT geared towards weapon development.
That being said, the communist Chinese and WHO response did very likely weaponize the virus, and inflict it upon the world. It may have been medically somewhat impotent, but economically it has been fairly catastrophic. I see that as a completely separate discussion, however. Thanks.
The weight of evidence that is mounting points to the lab and its research, but as you point out, there is no hard evidence yet that this was the end result of a biological weapon development process. In fact, it almost certainly was not.
But the thing to remember about China is that there’s really no such thing as purely “civilian” research, at least as we understand that. Everything is dual-use; military and civil.
It’s a certainty that the virologists working at the Wuhan lab were keeping their eyes open for possible military applications for their research, but that doesn’t mean that this particular virus was their preferred weapon, or that it was intentionally released.
But, that doesn’t really matter to indict China’s leadership for spreading this.
The likely fact that it escaped their lab is sufficient motivation for them to try to cover up the nature, source, and effects of the virus. And they may well have made a strategic decision to let this spread around the world while attempting to contain it within their own country.
The focus, and heat need to be directed at the CCP. That’s “Phase 4” of the response as we dig our way out of this mess, created possibly deliberately by a hostile foreign power.
If you wanted to develop a bioweapon to destroy the US economy, what properties would you assign to it?
Your post is flawed on several accounts. First,you jumped to the conclusion that “engineered” assumes that that implies weaponized. I, personally, believe that the most plausible explanation is that it was engineered in order infect test animals for vaccine development.
Secondly, you assume that it could not have been engineered as a bio weapon because it didn’t work well. If it escaped, then it is not necessarily a finished product. The intent of the engineering could have been weapon development. But they just were not done, yet.
“Why would anyone design a “bio-weapon” that a vast majority of those infected suffer no symptoms from?”
The evidence is inconclusive regarding if this virus was designed as a bio-weapon or naturally occurring. However if they were intending to make it a weapon it could have gotten out before it was completed. That would explain why it is so inefficient.
It actually makes perfect sense when you think about it. Coronaviruses usually can’t cause “significant human disease”. Since this is a “Gain of Function” Super Bug made in a lab now it’s in the wild it is already attenuating. It sounds like the CFR in January in China was a lot higher than 5%. So at 1 generation a day in about 100 generations it has already lost a lot of it’s “punch”. It “might” keep attenuating right down to the usual “native” lethality of Coronavirus which is “wimp”. IOW this may be why they felt they could “play” with this bug, it’s a wimp. Who knows? Another 100 generations and the CFR could be half what it is now. And again as much in another 100 generations. It ain’t the “world killer” but it is one hell of a wake up.
Created to disrupt through panic and fear. Not to destroy. The asymptomatic transferal is helpful in spreading the disease . A more virulent killer would have caused shutdowns much earlier. Limiting the effects and burning itself out. SARS did exactly that. This is easily spread. Kills just enough to cause a panic response that shuts down a nation’s economy, finance and those areas that would provide diversion from the fear, entertainment, sports, religion. It also overwhelms health care when it hits an area. Numbers approaching flu admissions hit hospitals in two months instead of six.
There is no evidence that the virus is a ‘bioweapon’ but there is circumstantial evidence that it came from a lab and maybe was even artificially altered.