Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

We're back to the virology lab near where the outbreak first occurred.

WSJ News Exclusive | Intelligence on Sick Staff at Wuhan Lab Fuels Debate on Covid-19 Origin

 

Like all of us, I have no idea where this virus and the disease came from.

But this came up months ago on here when there was that New York magazine piece hypothesizing about the possibility it escaped from that lab. ... like if they were doing serial passaging of a virus they pulled from a bat and then whatever it had turned into accidentally got out.

Several people on this thread were trying to shout me down for suggesting the piece was well done.

What we knew was that the outbreak occurred in the backyard of China's only level 4 virology lab, which we already knew was studying the closest known relative to the coronavirus that caused the pandemic. On top of it, several biothecists who were mostly being ignored by people, had long been sounding the alarm on the lab's practice of creating viral chimeras for study purposes.

I just thought that lab bore some level of scrutiny. But almost from the get go, there were people saying that it was "proven" that it hadn't come out of that lab, when what I was seeing was a very cliquey community of scientists in that field, all of whom looked like they were defending their colleagues more than they were actually giving evidence that it couldn't have come from that lab.

The fact that the Chinese haven't been transparent, have tried to hide and cover up info and keep deflecting by throwing out ridiculous theories about it being the U.S. that created the virus, just adds fuel to the fire.

None of that means that the virus did escape from that lab. We still don't know. But that farce of a WHO commission did nothing to answer the question. It actually did the opposite, because it said some things conclusively while offering no evidence.

It would be great if the rest of the world could see what that lab was up to, in an open and transparent way, not for some political "Chiiiiiina" reason, but because if this was an accident originating in that lab, we could use the info to try to prevent future pandemics.