The hunt for the origins of COVID-19 has gone dark in China, the victim of political infighting after a series of stalled and thwarted attempts to find the source of the virus that killed millions and paralyzed the world for months.
The Chinese government froze meaningful domestic and international efforts to trace the virus from the first weeks of the outbreak, despite statements supporting open scientific inquiry, an Associated Press investigation found. That pattern continues to this day, with labs closed, collaborations shattered, foreign scientists forced out and Chinese researchers barred from leaving the country.
The investigation drew on thousands of pages of undisclosed emails and documents and dozens of interviews that showed the freeze began far earlier than previously known and involved political and scientific infighting in China as much as international finger-pointing.
once you control truth, you can get away with anything.
Removed by mod
Yeah, whatever the origin was, I’ve gotta assume that it doesn’t leave China looking good.
My only question is whether they are covering up embarrassing incompetence or deliberate malice.
Nah if it was malice you’d see them openly defending the necessity of biological weapons research for the safety of the revolution and shit.
This is the usual Chinese game of “lose more face by trying to save face in the hope that the rest of the world is Chinese and lets you get away with it”.
Why not both? I’m guessing when we eventually see the full picture, its going to be Scooby Doo levels of malice and incompetence.
Shocked! I’m shocked!
I got to admit. I was overly dismissive of the conspiracy theorists.
Well those pushing that theory weren’t basing it off of true suspicion and thorough research that ended when this possible nexus was closed off and from that they deduced that the likely vector of the virus was behind authoritarian informational blockades.
They said, “well china! They probably did it on purpose!” That was the extent of it. And anyone that searched “wuhan infectious disease lab” found one…and that was it. A conspiracy theory is born. You throw enough stones, ones liable to hit something.
I mean it was a biolab studying coronaviruses RIGHT NEXT to ground zero for a coronavirus. Sure some conspiracy nuts took it further, but come on, thats like being found holding a bloody knife right next to a crime scene where someone was stabbed
Well, if it were that simple, then they would be able to say the evidence speaks to that as the most likely origin. But it’s also possible it came from illegal wildlife trade. Both are entirely possible. So it’s more like two people, both with blood on their hands, both having destroyed the knives or stopped them from being found, both entirely plausible killers.
I mean, thats kind if my point, a couple of the theories werent without merit
In hindsight, yeah. But I’m just saying I don’t think that changes the nature of almost all online conspiracy theories. Maybe there are old school conspiracy theorists that pull from actual relevant available data, file FOIA requests and actually study the topic.
But…I’ve never found any. It’s a sea of people throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. And because it’s the internet and has a worldwide reach, a lot of shit tends to stick. Doesn’t mean we should take them any more seriously than writing them off lol
Just because a lot of theories are garbage doesnt mean all of them were though. Again, the lab origin and wet market origin theories were both legit plausible even in the moment.
But my point is, if you’re digging in a huge pool of human excrement and you happen upon a dollar, it doesn’t mean there’s a greater likelihood that the massive mound of shit is any more likely to ever produce another dollar.
I guess what I’m saying is even a broken clock is right twice a day, but you shouldn’t ever trust it to give you the time. I don’t know why I’m using so many metaphors, but these internet conspiracy theories may land in the ballpark every once in a while, but it doesn’t mean there were good intentions or any greater likelihood than pure chance that you’ll ever get another theory close to the truth. Lending credence—or even thinking there’s a chance you should learn that maybe you were too hard on the unhinged people with incredibly dicey morals—to any future conspiracy theory is a bad road to go down.
Yeah, they were kinda possibly putting forward a plausible theory here. But their goal wasn’t to even do that. It was to sow distrust, to be a contrarian and make up a different reality for less than solid moral reasons. If someone goes into every single movie theater and yells out that they think the main character has been dreaming the whole time, eventually they’ll be right. That doesn’t make them great at predicting plots or writing scripts. Never think you should listen to that person or give them the benefit of the doubt more often. See what I’m trying to say?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
BEIJING (AP) — The hunt for the origins of COVID-19 has gone dark in China, the victim of political infighting after a series of stalled and thwarted attempts to find the source of the virus that killed millions and paralyzed the world for months.
The Chinese government froze meaningful domestic and international efforts to trace the virus from the first weeks of the outbreak, despite statements supporting open scientific inquiry, an Associated Press investigation found.
The investigation drew on thousands of pages of undisclosed emails and documents and dozens of interviews that showed the freeze began far earlier than previously known and involved political and scientific infighting in China as much as international finger-pointing.
But perhaps local officials simply feared for their jobs, with memories of firings after the 2003 SARS outbreak still vivid, said Ray Yip, the founding head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outpost in China.
In early February 2020, some of the West’s leading scientists, headed by Dr. Jeremy Farrar, then at Britain’s Wellcome Trust, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, then director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, banded together to assess the origins of the virus in calls, a Slack channel and emails.
Liang is an epidemiologist close to top Chinese officials and China’s Foreign Ministry who is widely seen as pushing the party line, not science-backed policies, according to nine people familiar with the situation who declined to be identified to speak on a sensitive subject.
The original article contains 2,804 words, the summary contains 245 words. Saved 91%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Worst thing about this is that China gets to point fingers and claim racism while all East Asians abroad are lumped in with the CCP collaborators.
It’s as if they really did all what those conspiracy nutjobs are saying…
What chem trails and Trump and it was a weapon intentionally used? I don’t think so.
They know the origin, they likely weren’t doing things properly and would rather not admit fault. That’s not really what conspiracy theorists were saying.
