New CIA Director Touts 'Low Confidence' Assessment About Covid Lab Leak Theory (cnn.com) 156
Slashdot reader DevNull127 writes: "Every US intelligence agency still unanimously maintains that Covid-19 was not developed as a biological weapon," CNN reported today.
But what about the possibility of an accidental leak (rather than Covid-19 originating in wild animal meat from the Wuhan Market)? "The agency has for years said it did not have enough information to determine which origin theory was more likely."
CNN notes there's suddenly been a new announcement "just days" after the CIA's new director took the reins — former lawyer turned Republican House Representative John Ratcliffe. While the market-origin theory remains a possibility according to the CIA, CNN notes that Ratcliffe himself "has long favored the theory that the pandemic originated from research being done in China and vowed in an interview published in Breitbart on Thursday that he would make the issue a Day 1 priority."
"We have low confidence in this judgement," the CIA says in the complete text of its announcement, "and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information that could change CIA's assessment."
After speaking to a U.S. official, CNN added these details about the assessment: It was not made based on new intelligence gathered by the US government — officials have long said such intelligence is unlikely to surface so many years later — and instead was reached after a review of existing information.
"CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible," a CIA spokesperson said in a statement Saturday.
CNN adds that "Many scientists believe the virus occurred naturally in animals and spread to humans in an outbreak at a market in Wuhan, China...."
But what about the possibility of an accidental leak (rather than Covid-19 originating in wild animal meat from the Wuhan Market)? "The agency has for years said it did not have enough information to determine which origin theory was more likely."
CNN notes there's suddenly been a new announcement "just days" after the CIA's new director took the reins — former lawyer turned Republican House Representative John Ratcliffe. While the market-origin theory remains a possibility according to the CIA, CNN notes that Ratcliffe himself "has long favored the theory that the pandemic originated from research being done in China and vowed in an interview published in Breitbart on Thursday that he would make the issue a Day 1 priority."
"We have low confidence in this judgement," the CIA says in the complete text of its announcement, "and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information that could change CIA's assessment."
After speaking to a U.S. official, CNN added these details about the assessment: It was not made based on new intelligence gathered by the US government — officials have long said such intelligence is unlikely to surface so many years later — and instead was reached after a review of existing information.
"CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible," a CIA spokesperson said in a statement Saturday.
CNN adds that "Many scientists believe the virus occurred naturally in animals and spread to humans in an outbreak at a market in Wuhan, China...."
News (Score:3)
Re: News (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Yup, that is how propaganda works - take a small element of truth and add something else to make it seem to follow your wanted narrative
Often the way it works is, take an uncomfortable truth, add a bombastic lie to it that would make you look even worse, but that nobody would believe and that makes the uncomfortable truth look like a lie.
Re:News (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but only the truly insane would make a viral bioweapon anything remotely like this - it is, by its fundamental nature, uncontrollable. A gun that is guaranteed to kill its owner as well as the target if you're dumb enough to pull the trigger, and has to be permanently contained because otherwise it might just go off on its own.
What you would do is research this class of viruses because you know there's a natural reservoir and a significant probability of a future outbreak and you want to be able to produce a vaccine.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, "Foreign Government" would have completed virus design > used design for novel vaccine > vaccinated her own people (if you are cynical, then only the "right" people) > release the virus and give it some time > gather up the remaining world and take as her own.
Read some spy books once in a while for cryin' out loud.
Re: (Score:2)
That would, ironically work on the kinds of people who believe these conspiracies in the first place - while simultaneously believing vaccines are a conspiracy to hurt them, they can't understand that vaccination isn't a perfect protection either.
A viral bioweapon is unlikely to ever have a 100% effective vaccine, and that's before it gets into a potential 8 billion or so hosts within whom it can mutate. And heaven help you if it can cross species, giving it extra reservoirs in which to acquire more mutati
Re: (Score:2)
Not only that, but only the truly insane would make a viral bioweapon anything remotely like this - it is, by its fundamental nature, uncontrollable. A gun that is guaranteed to kill its owner as well as the target if you're dumb enough to pull the trigger, and has to be permanently contained because otherwise it might just go off on its own
I counter this with the plethora of world leaders who are insane or insane adjacent.
when I do conspiracy I like to mull things over like a biological dirty bomb. You have these endemic diseases scientists have been warning us about for decades as jumping to humans and we need to be careful about nature. So you round them up on some underground farms then stuff it with people and do our best to get that dirty transfer upload of natures little box of nukes on over into humans. Then you just need to pump
Re: (Score:2)
Very little of the work in military biolabs involving potential weapons are actual attempts to create finished weapons.
Gain-of-function testing is often undertaken to better understand how to counter such a weapon.
And a prototype doesn't need to be targeted. Engineering is often done in phases; first you try to make a new weapon, then if it works you worry about targeting. Maybe a lot of potential weapons are invented that turn out to be too difficult to target?
I'm not saying any of that is true, what I'm s
Re: News (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
What other purpose can this specific gain-of-function research be used for?
Well, I might imagine it could be used to discover what makes a virus more or less infectious. I modify a virus in way X and it's 20% more infectious--perhaps that gives us clues how to make more effective vaccines. If NIH really was involved (I don't remember what we actually know about that at this point), I'm sure that was the intent.
OTOH, as you write, the entire point might be on how to create effective bioweapons. Maybe creating effective vaccines is a cover story, like mining manganese nodules was a
Re: (Score:2)
> and we know that the NIH resumed funding for gain-of-function research
There appears to be dispute about what gain-of-function actually means. A contractor, EcoHealth, hired by NIH did without permission do work outside of their contract. By some accounts that extra work borderlines on GOF. NIH claims that work was against the rules of their contract: "non-compliance". I'm not a medical contract expert so can't evaluate that claim. (EcoHealth may have done it so they could publish a research paper for t
Re: (Score:3)
That is the unanimous opinion of the US intelligence apparatus. First line of the summary.
Re: (Score:2)
The first line of the summary is a direct quote from CNN. I would not entirely trust them to summarize things accurately. (They're not as blatantly biased as something like the New York Post, but they are hardly a paragon of objective reporting).
I also think that perhaps you've missed my point. If a panel of credible experts says "We're sure that this virus did *not* come from a lab", I will tend to believe them, or at least take their opinion very seriously. But if the same panel of experts declares "W
Re: (Score:2)
Ah yes. Evidence to the contrary of your thesis is fake news. You can look up the reports from all of the agencies if you like. It was posted here on Slashdot a couple years ago. They all agree to (IIRC) fairly high confidence that COVID-19 was not a bioweapon.
There are lots of panels of actual experts who are happy to say the virus did not come from a lab. The evidence it came from the market is both strong and multifaceted. There are lots of scientific publications on it clearly and openly presenting the
Re: (Score:3)
Ah yes. Evidence to the contrary of your thesis is fake news.
Let's keep this civil. You cited a source, and I (rather gently) questioned the reliability and neutrality of that source. That's not the same thing as "denying anything contrary to my thesis".
There are lots of panels of actual experts who are happy to say the virus did not come from a lab. The evidence it came from the market is both strong and multifaceted. There are lots of scientific publications on it clearly and openly presenting the evidence.
Review articles in the medical literature typically describe the origin-of-Covid debate as "unresolved". Here's a non-paywalled review article from 2023 (full-text links are at the bottom of the page): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]
"It's possible it came from a lab but it's very unlikely it's a weapon" is not an illogical statement, you just don't understand it. Weapons, even bioweapons, have particular characteristics that spooks are very familiar with.
Interesting argument, that Covid doesn't seem to have the "particular characteris
Everything is politics now (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what happens when everything becomes politics. Yes, the government was always political, but for the most part, the people who worked there were just that, workers. They stayed on through administrations and continued to do their jobs, because they weren't involved in the politics. Now, Trump is determined to make everything the government touches and everyone within the government into a political operative. And if you refuse to play along, you will be fired and replaced with someone will to do whatever he wants, regardless of legality or ethics. The data says it was likely natural, but being develops in a lab plays better politically so that will be the official position, regardless of the data. Truth is no longer a factor. Being correct is no longer a factor. Political gain is the only factor.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm reminded of "1984" where history is literally re-written to make the government always be in-control and accurate. In this century, billionaires can censor US media and change conversations to make anything Trump dislikes, the cause of all failure and dishonesty. It's not a re-printing-every-newspaper level of propaganda but with online reporting being divided into bubbles and silos, total control of the press is not needed.
Re: (Score:1)
Billionaire censorship predates Trump. Remember when Gab was taken down because its hosting providers decided that they don't want money? When Amazon took down Parler? As we said back then: If you want free speech, build your own Internet.
Re: (Score:2)
Reprinting every newspaper is expensive, and it turns out unnecessary.
You can it seems convince people to not just ignore the facts but to regard them as an attack which cements them every further into their in group.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
This is what happens when everything becomes politics. Yes, the government was always political, but for the most part, the people who worked there were just that, workers. They stayed on through administrations and continued to do their jobs, because they weren't involved in the politics. Now, Trump is determined to make everything the government touches and everyone within the government into a political operative. And if you refuse to play along, you will be fired and replaced with someone will to do whatever he wants, regardless of legality or ethics. The data says it was likely natural, but being develops in a lab plays better politically so that will be the official position, regardless of the data. Truth is no longer a factor. Being correct is no longer a factor. Political gain is the only factor.
Read the NYT story about this. The CIA was coming to believe it was a lab leak while still under Biden.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Everything is politics now (Score:5, Insightful)
And while everyone with some basic knowledge of virology knows this, a lot of people want to blame some humans for CoViD-19, because they need a scapegoat and want someone to suffer. To me. this whole lab leak theory is Creationism in disguise: We want some creator or intelligent designer to blame for the ill that befell us. And that's how I treat everyone wanting the lab leak theory to be true, like H.L.Mencken once said: We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Incubation time for SARS-CoV2 is three to ten days, with 5.8 days being the average, and 5 to 6.7 days the 95% confidence interval. There is nearly a week before the infection from the wild and the first infection between humans.
Incubation time for SARS-CoV2 is three to ten days, with 5.8 days being the average, and 5 to 6.7 days the 95% confidence interval. There is nearly a week before the infection from the wild and the first infection between humans.
Same thing holds though, statistically it’s far more likely to have originated rurally, then brought to the city. No serious theory has been brought forth where it originated despite the market being so small it’s quite plausible to take some guesses if they had full access to the data which was conveniently scrapped right before Covid by the current guy and the Chinese government isn’t exactly world renown for transparency. So holding to your assumption (hint: we have so many strains tha
Re: (Score:2)
Everything always was politics (Score:2)
Basically the world has gotten bad enough and the economy has gotten bad enough that we can't just pretend politics doesn't exist anymore leave a power vacuum. You can't go back to the days when we were all 12-year-olds playing Sega Genesis and drinking sunny d.
Re: (Score:2)
Everything is politics "now". Pull my other finger.
Re: (Score:2)
This CIA assessment was developed under the Biden administration. The only thing that has changed under the Trump administration is that it was declassified and released to the public.
Now add your reaction. What do all those facts say about our current political environment?
We already knew that some US agencies preferred the "lab leak" [bbc.co.uk] theory. What this says is that the US has become slightly more anti-China because they are more willing to reveal their anti-China hand. Not TBH a big deal really although the CIA is important.
Re:Everything is politics now (Score:4, Insightful)
Ratcliffe is a biased trumper that floated this conspiracy theory that was "not made based on new intelligence" 30 seconds after getting confirmed.
Ratcliffe has little experience in national security or national intelligence and is reported to have demonstrated little engagement on the matters as a congressman. Ratcliffe criticized the FBI and the special counsel investigation as biased against Trump.
Ratcliffe had argued that the special counsel investigation put Trump "below the law" because it declined to exonerate him. Later, Ratcliffe claimed on Fox News that the special counsel investigation's report was not written by special counsel Robert Mueller, but by "Hillary Clinton’s de facto legal team".
It's more lying propaganda from a bush era, texas republican trumper. He's a trump lapdog that got rewarded for his unfettered loyalty, his credibility is less than 0.
Re:Everything is politics now (Score:5, Informative)
From traditional media [nbcnews.com]:
The CIAâ(TM)s assessment was not based on new intelligence but on analysts reviewing existing information, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News. The review was ordered in the closing weeks of the Biden administration and completed before President Donald Trumpâ(TM)s inauguration, the source said.
Ratcliffe had no role in creating this assessment.
Re: (Score:2)
That's all just ad hominem argument and name-calling.
Re: Everything is politics now (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You did not cite anything, you just quoted things that do not support your name-calling.
Re: (Score:2)
But you're whining like a little trumper bitch about how I'm calling trump's lapdog, what he actually is.
Re: (Score:2)
Your trump lapdog put out a bunch of
Re: (Score:2)
You seem really worked up about this. At least you have tacitly corrected your earlier false assertion that this is "more lying propaganda from a bush era, texas republican trumper".
I suggest you spend less effort on vacuous name-calling and more effort thinking about why you are so upset about the publication of a Biden-era update of a previously published CIA assessment. Again: This assessment was ordered and completed while Biden was still in office.
Re: (Score:2)
corrected your earlier false assertion
You're still wrong. Imagine that. What don't you understand about the evidence is deficient, inconclusive or contradictory. The CIA "continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible,” the agency wrote in a statement about its new assessment.
Again: This assessment doesn't mean jackshit. It is still more lying propaganda from a bush era, texas republican trumper. I suggest you spend less effort spreading propaganda by your trump lov
Re: (Score:2)
"low confidence"
The intelligence community uses jargon. A lot of it. Confidence levels are part of their jargon.
It doesn't mean what the English words "low confidence" would mean. Instead, it means they don't have verifiable documentation that it is true. It doesn't tell us anything about how strongly the CIA believes it to be true; it tells us about what type of judgement it is. It tells us that it is mostly an analytical judgement, that CIA personnel looked at all the available information and this is what they think it
What happened, USA? (Score:1)
You guys used to be cool back when Fox Mulder was a government renegade investigating his sister Samantha being abducted by aliens.
Now it's just about reinforcing a narrative that comrade Jinping is the antichrist? He may well be but how lame, a once in 100 year pandemic was like 5 years ago, man.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Rates like "once in 100 years" only hold as long as the relevant factors are fixed, and one of those factors is "number of labs doing pandemic research with bad safety measures". The WIV lab has a record of both doing pandemic research and bad safety measures.
Re: (Score:3)
Another "one of those factors" is increasing prevalence of worldwide travel and trade. It is well known that risk of pandemics is increasing, yet they are ignored by you orange god king.
Given that, there isn't any evidence that refutes the "once in 100 years" rate that you imply, yet there's overwhelming evidence of climate change which is denied by the very same people.
The really surprising things is how you continue to be unembarrassed to comment in public.
COVID isn't something that can leak (Score:3)
In order to believe in a lab leak you would have to ignore literally all the science that traces the genome of COVID back to bats and pang
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's easily defeated by mask wearing and hand washing.
False. Masks need a solid and fresh electrostatic filter and need to be fitted to individuals who need to be clean shaven or otherwise made sure that there is zero blow by and the mask is air tight. Medical professionals are professionally fitted for them and they use a noxious substance to test efficacy. Hand washing is almost not important, the oral route is far less infective than the respiratory route. The entire reason covid cannot be contained, even from day 0, is highly infectious airborne spread
Re: (Score:2)
It is immaterial where from where it came. The important bits are what happened when it came. La Presidanta made incredibly stupid claims that were easily debunked. The lesson he learned was not to not make stupid claims but rather to stop his current alleged administration from publishing information that will debunk his future stupid claims.
Still, not a conspiracy (Score:2)
That's a reasonable course of events: There is a disease, shit happened, the disease spread. It's a long way from a conspiracy theory, mild or bat-shit crazy.
"CIA continues to assess ...
This is Occam's razor: There is a disease, it spread, multiple exposures to infected animals is more likely than an out-of-control leak.
Well if you can't trust the American CIA (Score:2, Interesting)
This is blame shifting. The goal is to shift blame away from Trump's disastrous handling of the COVID pandemic and to a Chinese lab.
So we know there was no gain of function because with the current technology we have engineered viruses don't survive. They lose whatever was added to them. That's because the stuff we added isn't natural so it doesn't stick in the population it evolves out in a few generations. If the Chinese had the technology to make a virus that didn't do that they
Re: (Score:2)
Note that that attribution is being made by you. Your criticism of yourself is most welcome here, it's long overdue.
Don't forget the conclusion of the Mueller report, "total exoneration", unless you read it.
Well now again (Score:5, Insightful)
As for the moderation it's kind of funny to watch somebody follow me around slashdot moding my posts down. I've got a troll who posts crazy things in order to bait mods under all my posts. I apparently live rent free in his head. I guess it could be a bot but I find it hard to believe a bot would be that poorly written. And I know I've got somebody who every time they get mod points goes through in mods my last five posts down and that guy is definitely real and absolutely hilarious.
Re: (Score:2)
The CIA was already thinking this, under Biden.
Rather than accept that, you lot just mod down.
It is amusing.
The CIA didn't stop being right wing (Score:2, Troll)
You'd know that if you were American. But it's understandable you'd be unaware of how our political system works and it's finer details. I mean, I'm sure Russia's system is a little more than Vlad barking orders and tossing people out of windows but that's all I see over here.
CIA is not to be trusted (Score:2)
1. The CIA is a weapon.
2. The CIA is never to be trusted.
Doesn't matter who the president is
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone can see you responding to your own comment as if you're having a conversation about how stupid everyone else is.
Re: (Score:2)
It is funny to watch the supposed communists who are supposed to be pushing for a global revolution of all workers being more than a bit racist though.
Re: (Score:2)
So the CIA doesn't really exist? It's just an invention of the
supposed communists who are supposed to be pushing for a global revolution of all workers
?
Do real communists exists? I am simply curious...
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, if China’s
We just put a guy with an iron cross (Score:2)
Fortunately the generals are a bit more sane and can't easily be replaced but I say a bit more sane. They will still do absolutely bad shit crazy shit like assassinate in extremely popular Iranian general if given the chance.
What I'm saying is we cannot count on our institutions to protect us anymore. The Republican party spent the
Re: (Score:2)
See, I think Soleimani’s assassination means the opposite of what you think. I’m pretty sure that was carefully discussed, analyzed and considered for months or years before the US pulled the trigger at a moment that was carefully selected to have the desired effect and send the desire
Misleading story - not what CNN article says (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Zoonotic origin has most evidence ... (Score:5, Informative)
I posted this before, but it is worth repeating ...
The body of evidence so far supports a natural emergence of the virus that caused the pandemic.
There are no data to support the alternate hypotheses (lab leak or whatever).
First ...
Think about it a bit ... we had THREE outbreaks from the beta coronaviruses sub family in less than two decades.
Two of them were pandemics, but with varying scale:
- SARS in 2003, from civet cats
- MERS in 2012, from camels
- SARS-COV-2 in 2019, from raccoon dogs (or other species)
There are 4 other coronaviruses that infect humans with common cold like (about 16% of annual cases).
The most parsimonious explanation that accounts for all the scientifically rigorous evidence is that the jump from bats to a farmed animal (most likely raccoon dog) in southern China. Those infected animals were trucked to Wuhan's market. Either in the farm, or along the route, or in the market, two humans got infected, one with lineage A and another with lineage B. One of these lineages died out, and the other continued to spread around the world, mutating, as viruses do, and still going on ...
But, please don't take my words for any of that though ...
You have 3 virologists, all with Ph.Ds in the field.
Two of them are retired virology professors at respected universities.
One wrote the textbook, literally, on virology (Vincent Racaniello)
TWIV 1155 [youtube.com]: Listen from 00:02:20 to 01:10:00
They discuss two papers, one briefly (they term that a "snippet"), and the other in more depth.
The in depth one (starting at ~ 00:30:00) is one of many that support the natural zoonotic origin, with 2 separate spillover events from animal to humans in the Huanan wet market in Wuhan.
The paper is: Genetic tracing of market wildlife and viruses at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic [cell.com].
Also, a genetic analysis of animals in the Wuhan wet market [phys.org] is zeroing in on a short list of animals that possibly helped spread it to people.
And it is not only the beta coronaviruses: influenza does that all the time.
The current strain of H5N1 jumps to mammals regularly.
For example, dozens of tigers died in Vietnam [apnews.com], and before that seals in Patagonia [apnews.com].
And now dairy cows in the USA have been infected [jhu.edu], and there are human cases too, but it is not clear how they contracted the diseases so far (water foul, some mammal such as pet dogs who ate dead infected birds, ...).
But some say: intelligence agencies have said the lab leak theory cannot be ruled out.
First off, there is no consensus among these intelligence agencies.
Second, it depends on the mindset, and political leaning of the leadership. First it was the FBI head, and now it is the new Trump appointed CIA changed the agencies stance to favor the lab leak theory [theguardian.com].
Finally, and perhaps most importantly: those are intelligence agencies so by definition they don't publish the data backing up their conclusion. We have to take their word for it without any scrutiny.
By contrast, we have the experts overwhelmingly for the natural origin. ...
I'll that that over the intelligence agencies any day
Re: (Score:2)
It's also much more comforting. Oh, no Chinese labs around here, I'm probably safe. Maybe a bit in danger, but the CIA and the military will take care of those sneaky foreigners! Even the market origin gets shrouded in phrases like "wet market" and "exotic species."
When the truth is that some deer hunter butchering his kill might be the source of the next pandemic. Or that pork chop you had for supper last night. Or a kid climbing a tree. Or any of millions of other things that happen every day, everywhere.
Re: (Score:2)
What is the clear evidence for an accidental lab leak?
Got a link?
And if it was so, why do the intelligence agency reports differ on where that alleged accident happened?
See the Intelligence section in my article: Origin Of COVID-19: Natural Spillover, Lab Leak Or Biological Weapon? [baheyeldin.com]
Even VOA is less absurd than MSM (Score:2)
The level intentional twisting of language to mislead the reader in the CNN article is insane. Read CNNs article, then read this.
https://www.voanews.com/a/cia-... [voanews.com]
I feel compelled to point out (Score:3)
The main reason we keep shouting at each other about Covid's origin (with "low confidence" solutions) is because the Chinese consistently blocked outside experts from gathering the information required to do a thorough analysis of the virus' origin.
It almost certainly from an 'exotic animal' farm (Score:2)
Just as influenza in the west is usually transfer from birds via poop or saliva to livestock (via the bird dropping food or pooping into feed or water) which infects the livestock, and then the extreme frequency of interactions of ranchers or farmers with the livestock (during feeding, slaughter, etc.) results in the transfer to humans.
LIkewise a bat likely pooped or dropped food into the feed troughs or water troughs of an 'exotic animal' farm and the similar high rate of interaction with farmers/ranchers
The lone bat theory .. (Score:2)
Destruction of evidence (Score:2)
Based on Chinas refusal to allow inspectors into the Wuhan lab until it was thoroughly cleaned, I side with the lab leak theory.
Re:Even the NYT story on this ... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is becoming the "preferred theory" only in the sense that people with a political agenda prefer it to reality.
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you think the Biden administration had that preference?
You seem to have missed the point of the comment that you responded to: this assessment predates the Trump administration. It is not new; only its release to the public is new.
Re: (Score:1)
It is becoming the "preferred theory" only in the sense that people with a political agenda prefer it to reality.
So ... that would be the Biden administration then? This became the CIA's preferred theory while still under Biden. We just weren't told that then.
Re: (Score:2)
You aren't smart enough to play "Oh, so you must mean" games. There are adults here, and you don't fit in. Run along now.
Re: Even the NYT story on this ... (Score:2)
Re:Even the NYT story on this ... (Score:5, Informative)
The odds of this virus being natural when it started a block away from a research lab that studied the same viruses are trillions to 1.
The first cases were all people who visited or worked at a live market a 40 minute drive away from a virology lab, not "a block away."
Re: (Score:2)
Its a much more powerful propaganda narrative for it to be China's fault because they are yucky, not because they made a mistake in a lab.
We'll never know, but it could be both theories are true. Somebody could have been selling dead lab animals at the wet market to try to make money on the side.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for setting the record straight. A lot of the people yapping about laboratory virus origins have absolutely no commitment to getting the right answer. For example, nobody is talking about how the CIA comes up with these low-confidence assessments, why they bother, and what they do with them.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a 40 minute drive, but less than a 15 minute walk.
Almost everybody is lying, there are at least 5 apparent "camps" with different arguments, and the pundits supporting them all tell an equal number of mistruths. (that being 100%)
People who just want to know what happened get called horrible names right away, because the camps all realize those people won't have any support from a camp.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
CNN, which had historically been a reputable news source, has quit the news business in 2016, being only a spin factory since then.
That you hate side X, doesn't mean that everyone on your side is honest or sane.
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
You don't need to run for the conspiracy theory, though.
This was the original CIA assessment, which the CIA leaked to the media, and nobody had to bribe anybody because their assessment wasn't public and they didn't corroborate anything.
Re:It can't be true (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know which "fact checkers" you're referring to, but we had a bunch of peer-reviewed research that say the same with evidence. Without research that invalidates what is already out there and public, and without a retraction, whatever bullshit a US government agency spews forward is quite irrelevant.
Especially given the big, fat excuse next to it that the administration in question has put next to this happy announcement.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember to apply the principle of Occam's Razor. Except that this razor has 5 blades, an aloe moisturizing pad, a collapsible handle for storage, and an always-on connection to the internet to improve the user's experience. After all, a leak from the wild is just too bizarre for any self respecting conspiracy theorist, just because it's happened that way before is just a fluke to be ignored when doing your own research.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I know the kind you're talking about.
https://coub.com/view/31yj4t [coub.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Gee, a new director of the CIA, another of la Presidenta's potted plants, and suddenly the lab "hypothesis" long blared by la Presidenta is now CIA's "analysis".
From the NYT: There is no new intelligence behind the agency’s shift, officials said. Rather it is based on the same evidence it has been chewing over for months.
and
"Five agencies, including the National Intelligence Council and the Defense Intelligence Agency, assessed that natural exposure most likely caused the epidemic. But they said that
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
So what though? What action can there possibly be over a 'low confidence' theory, whether it is stated or not. I don't even understand what has changed;
Nothing changed. This report is a revisit of old information.
I thought it was always a low confidence theory.
Yes. The CIA called it a "low confidence theory" in 2023, this report repeats that.
Re:It can't be true (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes. The CIA called it a "low confidence theory" in 2023, this report repeats that.
Low confidence but "most probable". That's an important change. Is there any previous story that had the CIA claiming that this was the most probable theory? Previously I've only seen that from other agencies like the FBI.
The worst about this is that there isn't actually a clear definition what "Lab Leak theory" means. Is it a failure of Level 2 biosecurity applied to a gain of function research virus that should have been extremely protected or is it that a researcher got a disease from an animal whilst on a field trip, brought it back, spread it to a friend in the lab canteen who took it to the market and then it spread from there without ever going through the actual biosecurity boundaries at all. Both of those would count within the "lab leak" theory.
We probably have to admit that lots of this is unknowable to us and there is a decent chance that the Chinese authorities also don't have a clue either.
Low confidence [Re:It can't be true] (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. The CIA called it a "low confidence theory" in 2023, this report repeats that.
Low confidence but "most probable". That's an important change.
No, it really isn't. "Low confidence" is the CIA's analysis. It is exactly the same information, with slightly different commentary.
There's still no actual evidence for the lab leak theory, but there also is no proof it didn't occur. There is some evidence for the live market theory, but, again, no actual proof it did happen that way.
So, when there is no conclusive evidence either way, what conclusion should we draw? Bayesian analysis says the likely one will be the one that is most probable based on previous evidence. Previous evidence is that viruses hopping from animal hosts to humans is common, and happens regularly; it is the origin for most pandemics. So far we have seen pandemics originating from viruses leaking from a lab zero times. So the likelihood is that it was the commonplace origin.
But "likelihood" is not proof. And we will probably never get proof.
Re:Low confidence [Re:It can't be true] (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's review your claims.
The spike protein being an exact match to a patented human-transmissible pathogen - False Claim. [mcgill.ca]
The outbreak initially occurring in the same city as the US funded biolab - Wuhan has a population of over 13 million. Your "in the same city" thing is like claiming that something happening in Athens, TX must be related to something in Durant, OK just because they're all part of the DFW Metro (population: 8 million).
The biolab failing certification for pathogen studies - Do you have any actual backup for this? Looks like it can't even be searched.
The workers at said biolab being out sick in weeks prior to the "wetmarket outbreak" - So a research lab with 300 employees, had three people come down with seasonal illness strains... and you're calling that something nefarious? Have you considered that you're a batshit insane conspiracy theorist?
The professional liars managing the illegal biolab attempting to blame everything else while internally confirming the most likely cause - So, Shit You Made Up again huh?
Re: (Score:2)
The pop density, and therefore an inverse of city size, of DFW is less than a quarter of Wuhan. Try again.
Re: (Score:2)
It's two clicks deep on the article that Moryath linked to, so I can see how you'd miss it:
https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
A peer reviewed paper from Nature Medicine giving the scientific basis for believing that the spike protein was a natural occurrence, not engineered.
except:
"While the analyses above suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may bind human ACE2 with high affinity, computational analyses predict that the interaction is not ideal7 and that the RBD sequence is different from those shown in SARS-CoV to be op
Re: (Score:2)
Correct, not evidence.
The first on your list has been well debunked, and the remainder are dubious.
Re: (Score:2)
How dumb do you need to be for this not to be obvious?
What it lacks is any evidence that this occurred.
Saying "it's possible" is not the same as saying "this happened."
Re: (Score:2)
So what though? What action can there possibly be over a 'low confidence' theory, whether it is stated or not.
That's what I wonder when reading stories like this. What exactly would we do different today if we had a definitive answer to the origin of COVID?
Given we have two plausible stories, it seems reasonable to take precautions against both. Be more careful in labs handling potentially pandemic-causing diseases. Be especially careful if you're modifying infectious agents in ways which might make them more infectious. Handle food more hygienically in wet markets. All of these mow seem like pretty prudent moves,
Re: It can't be true (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe make them infectious to something like snakes instead and then do the studying on snakes.
Of course. I don't think snakes in particular are going to be good models for human immune systems. I'm sure there's a species which are: monkeys, pigs, something like that. This is not a new concept: biological research happens on non-human animals first.
That said, if you're trying to pin down how something works in a human, at some point you may need to test against humans. Just because something behaves some way in a pig doesn't mean it behaves the same in a human. But for all sorts of reasons, ethical r
Re: (Score:2)
You're 100% full of crap. Among many others, a team of Canadian researchers put this to bed.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/where-did-covid-19-originate-saskatoon-lab-helps-with-genetic-analysis-that-points-to-animal-market-1.7386847 [www.cbc.ca]
Of course, there's always be tinfoil hat types who will conclude that if it waddles and quacks, it must be an alien.