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What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?
UnHerd ^ | June 23, 2022 | BY MATT RIDLEY AND ALINA CHAN

Posted on 06/25/2022 5:17:35 AM PDT by FarCenter

Covid cases are rising again. In the UK, they have broken through the 200,000 infections-a-day threshold for the first time since April. In America, the sixth wave is well under way. In countries that kept the disease at bay for years, such as Taiwan and New Zealand, numbers are shooting up, driven by milder but highly infectious versions of the Omicron variant. The virus has not gone away, even if its death toll is much lower. But what has disappeared is any real or urgent interest from the media and the scientific establishment in finding out how it started.

Imagine if the accidental launch of a nuclear missile had killed 21 million people. It’s hard to believe the world would shrug and say: let’s not bother finding out how it happened. The Covid pandemic has killed around that number and disrupted the lives of billions. Nothing like it has happened in more than a century; it is the greatest cause of global suffering since the Forties. Yet we still do not know how it started, and much of the world seems to be increasingly incurious to find out.

We co-authored a book, Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19, on this topic in 2021 and it proved to be an odd experience. Eschewing speculation and sticking to what we could prove, we delved deep into the evidence and wove together the threads that linked bat viruses from southern China or Southeast Asia with an outbreak in Wuhan in late 2019. We concluded that it was impossible to be sure yet, but two theories were plausible: spillover from an animal to a person at a market, or an accident in a laboratory or during a research field trip.

In this we are in line with the US government, the G7, the World Health Organisation and the general public, all of whom are on record as saying that they think a leak from a Wuhan virology lab is a strong possibility that deserves to be investigated. The latest WHO report two weeks ago confirms this, saying that it is important “to evaluate the possibility of the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 into the human population through a laboratory incident”. That is huge news. It means that an accident caused by human error may have happened on the same scale as a nuclear missile destroying New York.


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Long article with much more at the link.

Not discussed is the third possibility that Covid-19 was deliberately, rather than accidently, released.

1 posted on 06/25/2022 5:17:35 AM PDT by FarCenter
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To: FarCenter

2 years and Still Questions


2 posted on 06/25/2022 5:21:54 AM PDT by Big Red Badger (We Are JONAH)
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To: FarCenter

Dr Li-Meng Yan has been insisting all along it was deliberately released. She worked in the Chinese virology system before the outbreak.

She is now in hiding in the US last I heard.


3 posted on 06/25/2022 5:22:13 AM PDT by Phoenix8
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To: FarCenter

China has made sure the West will not investigate because the truth would make China liable for the damages.

Because China owns most politicians in western nations, there will be no investigation.


4 posted on 06/25/2022 5:22:59 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (We are being manipulated by forces that most do not see)
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To: FarCenter

3rd Question,
Yup.


5 posted on 06/25/2022 5:23:06 AM PDT by Big Red Badger (We Are JONAH)
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To: FarCenter

It is clearly a bioweapon and is continuously released. Wife and I now recovering. It is very rough and obviously a synthetic weapon. I never experienced any illness this fast-acting. Amped up our immunity vitamins ABCDK and zinc. Took Z-pack, steroid, cough medicine, nebulizer, and The Drugs Whose Names Shall Not Be Spoken - turned the corner and improving after two weeks now for me, six days for Mrs FE. We are both cancer survivors so no messing about.


6 posted on 06/25/2022 5:24:24 AM PDT by FlyingEagle
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To: FarCenter

Anyway, its not a leak. It is an intentional assault.


7 posted on 06/25/2022 5:30:06 AM PDT by FlyingEagle
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To: FlyingEagle

I think we should send it back by trident.


8 posted on 06/25/2022 5:35:52 AM PDT by Mouton (The enemy of the people is the media )
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To: FarCenter

The answer is hidden in the arrangement of the letters.

PAN DEM IC, is now

DEM PAN IC


9 posted on 06/25/2022 5:37:53 AM PDT by C210N (Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.)
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To: FarCenter
" The virus has not gone away, even if its death toll is much lower. But what has disappeared is any real or urgent interest from the media and the scientific establishment in finding out how it started. "

Or the promotion of covidphobia which would still be engaged in by the MSM if a GOP admin was still in power, with headlines of how vaccination failed etc., but which is not what is overall seen even though case and death rates are about the same or higher as 2021:

Cases-worldometers.infocoronaviruscountryus

Deaths-worldometers.infocoronaviruscountryus

10 posted on 06/25/2022 5:41:42 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Turn to the Lord Jesus as a damned+destitute sinner, trust Him who saves, be baptized + follow Him!)
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To: FarCenter

December 2019: China agrees to Trump trade deal

December 2019: First confirmed case of covid-19


11 posted on 06/25/2022 5:42:43 AM PDT by cockroach_magoo
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To: FarCenter

All I know is I have it and I am sicker than I have been in years.


12 posted on 06/25/2022 5:44:48 AM PDT by Shady (The #JihadJunta: "We are now a nation of Men, Not of Laws. You are not as equal as we are...")
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To: FarCenter
What happened to the lab-leak hypothesis?

Most serious people believe that SARS CoV 2 is a construct.

As far as "the third hypothesis", two points: 1) You can study the virus as much as you want and not arrive at evidence of deliberate release; 2) The simultaneous epidemics in Wuhan and Tehran/Qom in early 2020 may cause the finger to point in the wrong direction.

13 posted on 06/25/2022 5:46:27 AM PDT by Jim Noble (I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains)
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To: Erik Latranyi; Red Badger
China has made sure the West will not investigate because the truth would make China liable for the damages

There are actors other than China who are at risk.

14 posted on 06/25/2022 5:47:42 AM PDT by Jim Noble (I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains)
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To: FarCenter

-——hypothesis——

There in lies a clue. The charge of lab leak is based on hypothesis.

The evidence needed for certainty, for proof, is lacking. Since the Wuhan facility is in China, to me, it is doubtful such evidence will ever be forth coming.

Wuhan is CCP. that is the same CCP that has locked down tens of millions of chinese citizens and produced incalcuable economic distress. The CCP doesn’t dare release the evidence and anyone who leaks is dead


15 posted on 06/25/2022 5:51:57 AM PDT by bert ( (KWE. NP. N.C. +12) Promoting Afro-Heritage diversity will destroy the democrats)
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To: FarCenter

It is quite clear at this point that this was a deliberate release, not a “leak.” If it were an accident the Chinese would not have actively spread the virus all over the world. They sent 100’s of passenger airplanes from Wuhan to destinations all over the world after they announced the Wuhan market lie. No accident.


16 posted on 06/25/2022 5:52:15 AM PDT by Blennos ( )
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To: Jim Noble

Time was when you didn’t go to the doctor unless you were sick. The folly of being concerned about the number who test positive using a faulty test for a su called disease with a 99% survivability is lost on so many boobs.


17 posted on 06/25/2022 5:53:44 AM PDT by KierkegaardMAN (I never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.)
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To: FarCenter

A deliberate release could be by:

- a disaffected employee of a biolab,

- a rogue group in a biolab,

- a rogue non-governmental organization,

- a bioweapons program of a government.

The location of the release says little about who done it.


18 posted on 06/25/2022 5:54:43 AM PDT by FarCenter
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To: FarCenter

The location of the release says little about who done it.

/\

Maybe.

But there is video evidence of a Chinese official bragging that it WAS a bioweapon and a first strike on America.


19 posted on 06/25/2022 6:00:10 AM PDT by cuz1961 (USCGR Veteran )
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To: FarCenter

Not discussed is the third possibility that Covid-19 was deliberately, rather than accidently, released.

You noticed the obvious As well!
Wonder why they didn’t put that in. There is a clearly defined attempt by democrats and the Chinese government to spread the disease by keepin borders open, flying infected people into the US, and calling anyone who disagreed a ‘racist’. The first battle on COVID was the battle to try to prevent spread. The Chinese FLEW people here from Wuhan, and the democrats mocked Trump for trying to stop it. The leftest controlled portions of the federal government were funding illegal bio weapons research (the renamed it gain of function). The US house, controlled by democrats condemned Trump for trying to protect Americans. The Media said that a bat did it, but they don’t serve bats at the food market there and the bats with sars like virus are thousands of miles from Wuhan. The Democrats had pre-prepared lawyers to block state laws and state legislatures from blocking vote harvesting. The evidence, IMHO, is compelling that it wasn’t a leak, but a release for political and economic purposes. That’s the narrative that actually fits the facts.

Yet, it wasn’t in their possibility set.


20 posted on 06/25/2022 6:08:34 AM PDT by Pete Dovgan
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