Pirate's Cove

Well, this is a fine howdoyado, considering CNN had been very much in the camp of “stop with your conspiracy theories about COVID, it came from eating a bat or something in the wet market” for the longest time, unwilling to investigate or even consider the notion that it came from that biological research center, because Orange Man Bad. It’s not like it would be the first time something got out. But, now, a bit of a change, and there is a very interesting revelation

We need to know how Covid-19 emerged so we can stop it happening again

Why does the theory that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, leaked from a laboratory in China endure so persistently?

Above all, it isn’t because public, hard, tested evidence is growing at pace.

The theory instead seems to persist mostly because of several massive coincidences.

Attempting to take a middle ground position, but, getting there! It’s hard to get that hard evidence with the Communist government of China stonewalls and the World Health Organization provides cover. And China Joe shuts down investigations

Firstly, Wuhan, where the disease almost certainly began in China, is home to China’s major biosafety level 4 laboratory, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). It, and two other laboratories in Wuhan, were doing research on coronaviruses, some of it in bats. The WIV sequenced the genetic code of the closest-known ancestor in bats to SARS-CoV-2, a virus called RatG13. It is 96.2% of the way identical to the novel coronavirus that caused the pandemic. One of the WIV’s leading researchers, Shi Zhengli, is called the “Bat Lady.”

Just a coincidence.

Secondly, three of the WIV’s staff fell ill in November 2019, just before the known outbreak started, US intelligence reporting has said. They needed hospitalization, the reporting said. (But we don’t know for what disease. We also don’t have access to any samples taken from them when they were ill, or the results of any SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests after they were ill.) The World Health Organization (WHO) report into this issue, relying on Chinese government-supplied data, presented a different conclusion. It said the staff health monitoring program at the three laboratories in Wuhan showed no antibody test positives, or records of Covid-19-type illnesses, in the weeks prior to December 2019.

Relying on Communist China data.

Finally, there’s a third coincidence. The Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, key to virus prevention and detection, moved its laboratory in Wuhan on December 2, 2019. The WHO report, written in conjunction with Chinese officials, notes this fact and says it could have been disruptive to a laboratory’s operations. It also notes the lab moved to a location near the Huanan Seafood Market, the exotic animal trade center thought to have played a major role in the virus’ early spread. The move happened just six days before the first patient experienced Covid-19 symptoms, according to China’s account. (He is, the WHO report said, an accountant working for a family company, with no known history of attending crowded events, animal “wet market” contact, or exotic trips to the wilderness. These facts suggest he may have got it in the city, perhaps from another person).

Well, that’s interesting. I hadn’t heard this before, had you? What’s the chance that someone messed up during the move, that an accident occurred? What’s the chance that an accident or something occurred, even releasing it intentionally, versus a worldwide pandemic with millions killed starting because someone ate a bat or pangolin or something?

These three pretty huge coincidences foster the lab-leak theory, and mean it has not yet gone away. Western intelligence officials CNN has spoken to say they cannot “disprove” the idea — or prove it. These coincidences are perhaps why it sits in this hinterland — never permanently debunked, never proven. Their solution is like “Occam’s razor” — the idea that the simplest explanation is the most likely.

But none of it is solid or even compelling evidence that a lab leak occurred. That evidence may exist, and be super-classified within the government that possesses it. But as it is not public, we can’t presume it exists to confirm a bias that China is hiding something terrible.

We can’t prove that it was because someone ate something in a wet market. There’s really zero proof on that.

So what about the other main theory: that the disease emerged from animals, and was transmitted to humans in a natural process?

This “spillover idea” is messier, and also hard to definitively prove. The WHO investigators share the conclusion of most specialists in this field: that the disease most likely came from bats, via another species, known as an “intermediary animal,” and then infected humans.

And no actual proof, just supposition. Which sounds more likely: lab or bat?

The Lab Leak theory has a spin-off conspiracy here. It suggests the RatG13 virus could have been turned into SARS-CoV-2 through deliberate human manipulation, called “gain of function” research. Scientists do this by altering viruses in a laboratory, to learn more about how viruses infect and impact humans. It can be dangerous, and was put on pause in the US briefly under the Obama administration. Some scientists say attributing virus changes to “gain of function” research is an easy explanation often misused to explain any change in a virus that could have occurred through natural, complex processes. These scientists discount its role in forming SARS-CoV-2.

What is the chance that the Chinese communist government was doing this? I know CNN likes to take the side of China, much like the NBA and Hollywood, but, come on.

Amid all the blame, counter-accusations, suspicions and cover-ups, one problem remains for us humans as a species. We really need to know how and why this virus came to be, so we can stop it from happening again.

Well, at least CNN is willing to consider the lab theory at this point. They’ll be very upset when we have the data that China released COVID.

Read: CNN: Say, We Need To Investigate If COVID Was Released »