Pirate's Cove

It really wasn’t all that long ago when the Washington Post was criticizing everyone who had questions on Wuhan Flu’s origins. I wonder what changed (the piece is behind the paywall, but you can try copying this link and paste in your browser, will give you a cached version)

Wuhan’s early covid cases are a mystery. What is China hiding?

The story of how the pandemic got started — and turned into a global catastrophe — remains a black box. It should not be.

The first cases could provide the most important clues about the origins of the virus, yet we know the least about them. They could show whether the outbreak began by a zoonotic spillover, perhaps from animals sold at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, or was an inadvertent research-related accident, such as a leak from a research facility in Wuhan. The early cases could illuminate missteps in public health that allowed the virus to spread. They could point to failures in the early warning and surveillance systems, offering important lessons for the future. And knowing more about the early cases could reveal the extent to which China concealed vital information from the public when the outbreak might still have been brought under control.

It probably wouldn’t show that it was released on purpose, just that it came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is right freaking there. And has been known to have lax standards

The Beijing government has insisted the virus came from somewhere abroad, perhaps imported on frozen food. But the key to unlocking the origins lies within China. It is particularly important to discover how far and wide the virus spread in December 2019. The outbreak probably eluded detection at first, then was detected but not recognized as a new disease by doctors and nurses. After that, it was both detected and recognized, but the vital reporting was suppressed by Chinese authorities, both local and national.

To prevent the next pandemic, and to better understand this one, a serious, sustained and credible investigation is needed.

What is China hiding?

Remember when the Post and so many other leftist outlets lambasted those who questioned the origins, simply taking China’s word for it? Anyhow, it’s a pretty darned long and detailed editorial. Going way down we see

It is critical to gain a better understanding of how such a monumental disaster for mankind came about. A serious investigation must return to China, looking at both the zoonotic and research-related hypotheses. It must be thorough and credible, carried out with broad expertise that includes both scientists and public health experts from within China and beyond. Nothing should be off limits or excluded.

Yeah, that’s what a lot of us stated, we need to know, and we were called conspiracy nutjobs for saying it

Home Truths on Where Covid Came From

Pessimists say that the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus will never be known. The next Congress may have a chance to prove them wrong.

The Democrats have retained control of the Senate, but Republican capture of the House has now been confirmed. Though its margin will be small, the party will hold a majority in the chamber, and GOP-led committees can exercise subpoena power to uncover documents still withheld by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Though much of the relevant information remains concealed in China, the NIH paid for virus-manipulation research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, so it should retain progress reports and other relevant information.

It is beyond absurd that the genesis of the Covid-19 plague has become a partisan issue, with the Left favoring the natural origin explanation and the Right a laboratory source. But with Democrats having chosen to block congressional inquiry into the virus’s beginnings, the task of investigation has fallen to Republicans.

A Republican inquiry might start with the notorious February 1, 2020, teleconference attended by Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, two leading NIH officials, as well as the panel of virologists who had told them the previous evening that the SARS-CoV-2 virus seemed to be engineered, not natural. Within three days of the conference, the virologists had changed their minds and decried their original conclusion as not merely wrong but a conspiracy theory. Why?

You can bet Fauci and Collins will attempt to obfuscate, like they’ve done before, but, Republicans will control these hearings, and neither man will have Democrats to get them off the hook

Both Collins and Fauci are well known for long service and achievement in medical research. But in the twilight of their careers, they seem to have made a serious error of judgment. Having funded the virus enhancement research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, they should have recused themselves from inquiry as to whether the institute was the source of SARS-CoV-2. Instead, they presided over a series of events that led to suppression of the lab leak hypothesis. They excluded the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which was better qualified to investigate, instead delegating continuation of their inquiry to Jeremy Farrar, a senior British health official with known and intimate ties to China’s health bureaucracy. “This is not my area of expertise so I have backed off and am leaving it all to Jeremy,” Fauci wrote in a February 13, 2020, email. In Farrar’s hands, the inquiry died a safe death.

Why was the CDC excluded, when they could have figured this out early? Another long piece, worth the read.

Read: Interesting: Washington Post Editorial Board Is Gently Questioning COVID’s “Someone Ate A Bat” Origins »