International Did COVID come from a Lab in China? US Energy Dept asserts it was a lab leak [megathread]

Madmick

Madmick

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Fauci no longer confident COVID-19 emerged naturally
Dr. Anthony Fauci is now calling for further investigation into the origins of COVID-19 in a departure from his dismissal of the Wuhan lab leak hypothesis last year.

President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, who has led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, said he was unsure when asked by Politifact's Katie Sanders about whether he was still confident that COVID-19 emerged naturally.

"No, actually. ... No, I’m not convinced about that. I think that we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we find out to the best of our ability exactly what happened," Fauci said during the May 11 interview. "Certainly, the people who’ve investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could’ve been something else, and we need to find that out. So, you know, that’s the reason why I said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus."
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Also key:
Officials from both the Trump and Biden administrations have said that the Chinese government worked for over a year to thwart an independent investigation into the origins of the virus, which has killed 3.45 million people worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University, and both administrations have cast doubt on the manner in which the study from China and the World Health Organization was conducted in early 2021. Though the WHO-China report said a jump from animals to humans was most likely, Trump officials have pointed to an accidental escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a highly plausible origin for the pandemic.

A State Department fact sheet released in mid-January contended Wuhan lab researchers "conducted experiments involving RaTG13, the bat coronavirus identified by the WIV in January 2020 as its closest sample to SARS-CoV-2 (96.2% similar)" and that the lab "has a published record of conducting 'gain-of-function' research to engineer chimeric viruses." The fact sheet added the lab “has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military."
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Past threads on the topic:
Including a past (but still active) megathread:

An MIT piece showing the established scientific world slowing turning around, or at least acknowledging it's not a preposterous allegation:
Did the coronavirus leak from a lab? These scientists say we shouldn’t rule it out (Mar-2020)
Here was a great piece on the possibility this was a bioweapon China was developing they let get away from them:
The Lab-Leak Hypothesis (Jan-2021)

Could the WHO's credibility erode any further? They've doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on their insistence that it is certain it evolved naturally. They even tried telling us it may not have come from China:
Coronavirus likely came from animal, not a lab, WHO draft report finds (Mar-2021)
WHO official: Virus didn't come from lab, may have not even started in Wuhan (Feb-2021)

This is one of those ongoing stories that weakens arguments against the-- unfortunate reality that we have a-- trust issue in this country with our scientific authorities among many of our less educated, rural citizens. They remember headlines like the following that treated this like settled science nearly 16 months ago, and went so far as to call it a "conspiracy theory". It makes it much harder to win them over when people politicize the scientific response to politically well-grounded concerns:
No, the coronavirus wasn’t made in a lab. A genetic analysis shows it’s from nature: Scientists took conspiracy theories about SARS-CoV-2’s origins seriously, and debunked them (Mar-2020)
The study itself:
Nature: The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2 (Mar-17, 2020)
Other science-specialized media sites covering this study:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/ar...us-was-not-genetically-engineered-study-shows
https://www.genengnews.com/news/cor...t-a-laboratory-construct-genetic-study-shows/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200317175442.htm
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200318/new-coronavirus-wasnt-made-in-a-lab-genomic-study-shows#1

MSM example:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucel...-study-shows-natural-origins/?sh=6ee253e23728

Posts like this one from a year ago appear to age increasingly poorly by the day:
dissectingaorticaneurysm said:
Numerous microbiologists have conducted genomic analysis of COVID-19 and all of the evidence points to a natural origin. Specifically for this:

Existing computer models predicted that the new coronavirus would not bind to ACE2 as well as the SARS virus. However, to their surprise, the researchers found that the spike protein of the new coronavirus actually bound far better than computer predictions, likely because of natural selection on ACE2 that enabled the virus to take advantage of a previously unidentified alternate binding site. Researchers said this provides strong evidence that that new virus was not the product of purposeful manipulation in a lab. In fact, any bioengineer trying to design a coronavirus that threatened human health probably would never have chosen this particular conformation for a spike protein.

The researchers went on to analyze genomic data related to the overall molecular structure, or backbone, of the new coronavirus. Their analysis showed that the backbone of the new coronavirus’s genome most closely resembles that of a bat coronavirus discovered after the COVID-19 pandemic began. However, the region that binds ACE2 resembles a novel virus found in pangolins, a strange-looking animal sometimes called a scaly anteater. This provides additional evidence that the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 almost certainly originated in nature. If the new coronavirus had been manufactured in a lab, scientists most likely would have used the backbones of coronaviruses already known to cause serious diseases in humans.​

The lab theory grows flimsier by the day. This is the domain of tin-foil wrapped quacks.
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Last edited:
Of course it did. China wouldn't even let the WHO team in to help and investigate when it happened. We know it came from there. Just those being influenced are now trying to muddy the waters...
 
Proud American said:
Another right wing conspiracy that was true.

like most of them.

where do you find truth? The populist right! We accept all people, all races, all creeds. You are only judged by your actions and your character
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Almost none of them are true, and this one hasn't yet been established to be true. The preponderance of evidence remains on the side of the assumption of a natural origin (from Wuhan China).

The fact this is your takeaway is a perfect demonstration of the continuing struggle that exists in the States with scientific ignorance that the EU has managed to transcend over the past 50 years.
 
I'm not sure this is a pivot though? Not too many credible sources called it settled science as far as I remember. I can see why the opinion pieces would come out now though that vaccines are rolling out and many bigger fish have already been fried.

Also there really was a lot of conspiratorial ideation going on with the different versions of lab leak hypotheses, that isn't a reason to dismiss the lab origin outright of course but there were a lot of reasons to put CTer and lab leak (also bioweapon, etc.) in the same sentence.

@dissecting whatever his handle's post, outside of the last sentence doesn't appear to age all that milk-like, they appear to be pretty well hedged statements. For example, all of the statements about it not likely being a product of directed engineering could be true, yet it could still have been a natural arising strain that leaked from the lab.
 
Even if it did(it definitely did) come from a lab the implications would be so tremendous I doubt very much this administration would pin it on China. Imagine if Trump was in office and it came to light that it came from China?
 
andnowweknow said:
The right wing conspiracy is that the chi-coms released it on the world with the help of Bill Gates and George Sonos or some other dumb shit like that.

It came from China and with almost 100% we will likely never know the exact origins.
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Alternative theory was to force mail in ballots due to lockdown given the left were more likely to use those as opposed to in person voting : a nasty attempt to get a biden victory. Afterall, there were lots of conspiracies thereafter with 4am drops and dominion.

Who knows.
 
Madmick said:
Almost none of them are true, and this one hasn't yet been established to be true. The preponderance of evidence remains on the side of the assumption of a natural origin (from Wuhan China).

The fact this is your takeaway is a perfect demonstration of the continuing struggle that exists in the States with scientific ignorance that the EU has managed to transcend over the past 50 years.
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I can't believe you seriously replied to that post.
 
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